<img style="float: left;" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2022/apr/Rahul-op_e.jpg" alt="Rahul Da Cunha" width="200" height="69" />Lobo Lobo was on the cusp of perturbed and pissed off.
&ldquo;Hello Lobo Lobo,&rdquo; I said to my cable TV technician cum ex-captain of the 1980 victorious Glaxo football team.
&ldquo;Dikuna men&hellip; kaisa hai tum, man. Hum extremely gussa lagtha hai!&rdquo;
&ldquo;Uhm Lobo Lobo, why you talking like Keshto Mukerjee in a 1970s Hindi movie?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Toom kya bolne ko mangtha hai, man?&rdquo;
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m trying to understand the words flowing from your mouth,&rdquo;
&ldquo;Yeh iss sirf nation ka bhasha hai&hellip;&rdquo;
&ldquo;Okay, Lobo Lobo, here&rsquo;s the deal, can we now converse in the language I&rsquo;m speaking in, because I am unable to follow your gibberish!&rdquo;
&ldquo;Phew okay men Dikuna, tanks&hellip; so can you esplain to me what dis, &lsquo;one nation one language&rsquo; ting is?&rdquo;
&ldquo;They&rsquo;re suggesting that the whole of India converses in one dialect&mdash;Hindi.&rdquo;
&ldquo;But why dere trying to unite us wid &lsquo;indi, when speshully &lsquo;ere in Mumbai, dere are &lsquo;undreds of different languages, and bhashas and sub-bhashas, like Bambaiya Hindi and Hinglish. Arrey tell to me&hellip; who here in Mumbai speeks in correct &lsquo;indi&hellip; de average Delhi fallow will have &nbsp;&lsquo;eart failure when he &lsquo;ears words like &lsquo;mereko&rsquo; and &lsquo;kai ko&rsquo; and &lsquo;kit-pit&rsquo; and &lsquo;tension mat lo&rsquo;!&rdquo;&nbsp;
&ldquo;No doubt, Lobo Lobo.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Dikuna men, our 1980s Glaxos football team, every week, we meet and take one two pegs! If you hear us speek, you won&rsquo;t follow oni... everyone toking toking in dere own language&mdash; Taqdeer Aslam, our &nbsp;goalkeeper, as tall as Qutb Minar. He&rsquo;s now a biryani caterer in Bhendi Bazaar, he speaks in solid hi-fi Urdu&hellip;every sentence sounds like one &lsquo;shayari&rsquo; written by dat Rakhee&rsquo;s husband&hellip; wassisname?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Gulzaarsaab.&rdquo;
&ldquo;For every sentence he utters, you have to reach for de Urdu- to English dikshunary. Den dere our two Souties&hellip;&rdquo;
&ldquo;Lobo Lobo it&rsquo;s not politically correct to say, Southies!&rdquo;
&ldquo;Arrey Dikuna, Thampi and Bala, we call dem &lsquo;our two &lsquo;andu-gundus&rsquo;&hellip; dey don&rsquo;t take it personally so your fader what goes? Thampi&hellip; we called him &lsquo;Pele from Periyar&rsquo;, when he speaks English it sounds like Malayalam and his Hindi sounds like something African! And den our udder Soutie brudder, Balasubraniam, Bala for short&hellip;&nbsp; &lsquo;e says, &ldquo;in our Chennai we&nbsp;speak, one language wonly, it is Tamil, simbly.&rdquo;
Lobo Lobo paused for breath.
&ldquo;Den dere&rsquo;s Banerjee, &lsquo;ow he would dribble dat football, aahhh class&hellip; bossie, he speaks Bangali&hellip; only Bangla&hellip; wot I am meaning to say, his English, his &lsquo;indi, his Marathi, all sound&nbsp;like Bengali.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I think you may be getting a trifle perturbed about this language issue&hellip; it&rsquo;s all about votes.&rdquo;
Lobo Lobo wasn&rsquo;t listening.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Arrey our midfielder, Harideb Gogoi, is worried dat dey are making Assamese cumpulserry till Standard X, all dese years in Assam, &lsquo;indi has been optional.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Yeah they want to discontinue English as the link language.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Arre Dikuna men wot if dey make our link language &lsquo;indi&hellip;&rsquo; ow I&rsquo;ll spik to my teammates&mdash;wot I&rsquo;ll say to Taqdeer, wot he&rsquo;ll say to Banerjee&hellip; ow our Bong will speak to dat mad Parsi, Jeejeeboy... as it is all dey used say to each udder is, &lsquo;hey you bloody rascal, pass the ruddy ball!&rsquo; and Bong would reply, &lsquo;Vloody phool Bawa, eet eees raight in frent of eu, cannot see or bhot?&rsquo;&rdquo;
Lobo Lobo paused as he smiled at the memory of his closest friends. Suddenly, he had a Eureka moment.
&ldquo;I have an idea, Dikuna men, de oni way we can now communicate, is &lsquo;ow we would on de footer field, 40 years ago.&rdquo;
&ldquo;And how is that, my friend?&rdquo;
&lsquo;&rdquo;It is also de way I will aks&nbsp;my Myrtle to communicate wid me, so I don&rsquo;t &lsquo;ave to hear her full day &lsquo;kitpit&rsquo;!&rdquo;
&ldquo;And what is that means of communication, Lobo Lobo?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Sign language, Dikuna men, sign language, I will tell her, no words, Myrtle, just use your hands and fingers,&rdquo; he concluded, a smirk crossing his face.
Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com
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`They’re suggesting that the whole of India converses in one dialect—Hindi`

Lobo Lobo and ‘one nation one language’

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Lobo Lobo and ‘one nation one language’

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