Author and senior journalist with the ‘India Today’ group, Binoo John has written a witty, well-researched and readable book on that strange beast called ‘Indian English’: a scruffy crossbreed fleabitten with errors, disreputable but endowed nevertheless with a  verve, vigour and vitality that ensure its continued survival amongst the surging, common populace thronging the streets.

John traces the origins of this hybrid sub-genre of English back to the 18th Century, when Indians began to pen letters to the editor and place advertisements in newspapers in English. He goes on to examine the influence exerted on the people of the subcontinent by towering figures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru. Several aspiring writers jumped onto the bandwagon and attempted to write biographies of such public figures in order, presumably, to make their mark on the scene as Indo-Anglian writers. John includes various other sources that spawned varieties of Indianised English such as Bollywood.

John also examines the complex and intriguing relationship between Queen’s English and social status as perceived in India. He comments on these ramifications; and also covers the contemporary scenario with its emphasis on English as a global language and a passport to success.

The author has taken pains to garner a collection of howlers and passages of incorrect grammar, idiom and usage which, for all that they are frequently unreadable, often produce comic results. To mention only one example, there is the historic Hamilton Bridge in Chennai, which underwent a transmogrification from being mispronounced as ‘Ambatan Bridge’ to its English equivalent of ‘Barber Bridge’.

Similarly, to most non-English-speaking filmgoers in Bangalore, who still flock to ‘action films’ in English, Arnold Schwarzenegger is popularly known as Arnold Shivajinagar. But that still does not make it right, does it? And, if he ever gets to hear of it, would Mr Schwarzenegger be amused? That is precisely the rationale for correctitude and standards, however in the breach thereof they might be ignored by majorities.

Not just a rose...
There are, however, certain points on which I disagree with John. In quoting the phrase, ‘under the rose’ from the first Indian editorial which appeared in the ‘Bombay Samachar’ on 1 July 1822, John remarks that the editor probably meant ‘under the nose’. On the contrary, the Latin phrase ‘sub rosa’ from Roman times meant that the rose was a symbol for secrecy. A rose was carved on many a mediaeval European door, ensuring confidentiality; and waiters at English taverns would wear a rose behind the ear to assure customers that their conversations would not be reported….

Also, not everyone who speaks and writes correct English attended a ‘missionary’ school, as the author asserts on page106. Furthermore, on page 69, John writes:  “….national languages are pit against each other….”  My venerable Chambers Twentieth Century dictionary of 1979 assures me that the past participle of ‘pit’ is, indeed, ‘pitted’. And this is not just by way of an adjectival past participle, as in “His face was pitted with pockmarks.” The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of 2003 endorses this by supplying another example:  “It was a bitter civil war, that pitted neighbour against neighbour.” This is but one of many other language choices in the book with which I disagree.

As for the spelling, the editors at Penguin give us ‘speciality’ in preference to the American ‘specialty’. And yet, on page 106, we find ‘labeling’ instead of ‘labelling’. 

Are we to conclude, then, that within the portmanteau of Indian English may be crammed together, higgledy-piggledy, various forms of idiosyncrasy and eclecticism?

Christine Krishnasami
 
Entry from Backside Only
Binoo K. John
Penguin Books India, 2007, pp. 214
Rs. 95