Hindi

Having grown up in Bombay, I am, as they say, almost a native speaker of Hindi (I can see those who know me personally going yeah right!, and that incident at Haji Ali... - lets not get into that shall we). The only glitch is the version I speak, much to the horror of the true native speakers, is "Bambaiya Hindi". Frankly, I don't think there is anything wrong with it. It is hindi for the most part, with a little (generous?) sprinkling of English, Marathi, Konkani, and sometimes even Gujarati words, with sentence construction that would put even Bush to shame. My Hindi teacher, however, had no appreciation for this sort, and gave me lot of grief and very small scores. So much so that I almost gave up speaking the language, until absolutely necessary.

Recently, however, I have found myself speaking in the language quite a bit. It pretty much offers me the freedom of saying whatever I like (things that I've to say are almost inevitably offensive to half the world), with only my intended listener comprehending. It is only after one has come to a foreign land that one understands how great a code the native language makes. There is however a problem with this. Our love affair with English manifests itself in the predilection for using English verbs and nouns. Thats the reason I have dedicated the past few years to perfecting the fine art of speaking Hindi as a code and in the process contributed a great deal of words to the Hindi vocabulary.

So for the newbies of the art, so you don't have to reinvent the wheel, here is a glossary of some tricky words. My hindi teacher will weep if he sees this.

Goldman Sachs: Sona Aadmi
Soc Gen (Societe Generale):  Samaaj Saamanya
Merrill Lynch: Saand (remember the logo)
barclays: cheel (the logo again)
lehman brothers: Bhai log

Bear stearns: Bhaalu

Royal Bank of Canada: Canada ki shaahi bank

chinese: saste byapaari
French - Pyaaz bechne waale/ mendhak
Spanish - Bail ke hatyaare
Japanese: whale ke shikaari
Italian - Sonia ke deshwaasi
Britain: Raani ka desh
Russian: Bandook bechne waale
Goa: Feni ka pradesh

Jasmine (she was one of my best sales): Chameli
buy side: khareedne wali baju
sell side: bechne waali baju
Head hunter: Dimag ke shikaari (my personal favorite)

There are few more which I dont recollect right. Shall put them up when I recollect.