“Where are you putting up?” asked this petite acquaintance from Delhi. Putting up what? I almost asked. Ah! she meant to ask where was I staying. Dinner table courtesy restricted me from poking fun at her inadvertent faux pas. Starters arrived but the lady refused to stop. After I told where I was “putting” up, she attacked, “So how is the job ‘opPORtunities’ in Mumbai?” I thought of mentioning that if she wasn’t pretty, my old English professor would have used this ‘opportunity’ to skin her alive.
You know …what’s with these Delhi-ites? They are fashionable, I mean they are great when it comes to dressing up well to shop at M-block but their urge to butcher the Queen’s language is much more than their lust for butter chicken. But hang on, there was more murder that evening.
To be fair, she was a well-educated, confident, young woman, an expert in retail banking but had scant respect for pronunciation. “So what do you ‘hair’ in Mumbai? (Read - ’here’) . If she said that in Tamil, she’d be jailed for unparliamentary language. (Tamil abuses and their English skills can be saved for another blog). So, I said, I am splitting hairs over my job ‘here’ in Mumbai.
At main course, it was homicide. “I have to return back to Dhelli imme-jiately. I am taking today evening flight.” The city, my love, is called Delhi with a hard D. Don’t even get me started on “immediately” – that word has been a victim of national torture.
After all this, I was in no mood for dessert. And as we tipped the waiter, came her piece de resistance, “Give me your ‘cuntact.”
My case rests.
