It's amazing the kind of English one sees in the streets. ``Froot Stal'' boasted one place selling ``froot chooce''. Perhaps I would need one on a ``two-wheller'', which was being sold next to a place that dealt with the ``serviec and repair'' of watches. Another sign said ``Do not stick posters here. Stickers will be prosecuted.'' And if you think I have trouble expressing myself, why not advise me to go to the ``National Institute for Stuttering Management and Behaviour Technology''?
Then there was the guy who, when asked to fill out his particulars on a form, wrote in the entry for ``Born'': Yes. And if you enjoyed that, consider this complaint by a passenger who missed his train: ``While me fall down in hurry to ride the going train I was saw the dam guard shouting the whistle and moving the flag (which country it was I didn't know) but he keep standing on the platefarum not try enter to the compartment. Was he go by aeroplan to next stashun?''
On the other hand, making use of other people's poor English is newer. A semi-literate (but rich) businessman wanted to make a donation to a local co-educational school. On hearing this, the head of a local boys' school wrote him the following letter. ``Do you know that in the co-ed school the boys and girls share the same curriculum? Moreover they matriculate together. And worse, they spend most of their time in seminars.'' And worse, the letter worked.
And of course Indlish can be quite useful in finding fake foreign goods. You know, the ones marked Made as England. Which reminds me of a story I once read, about some people who bought a pen in a store. ``Very good pen!'' bubbled the shopkeeper, ``Made in England!'' At which the shoppers showed him the (somehow honest) legend ``Made in India'' on the side of the pen. ``Oh yes,'' he said, quite unfazed. ``We make it here too.''
Wives of two MLAs were busy comparing notes about their spouses. ``Mine can talk hours on any subject!'' exclaimed one. ``That's nothing,'' said the other. ``Mine does not even need a subject to talk about.''
A minister once described Feroze Gandhi as the Prime Minister's lap-dog. Later he was involved in a financial scandal. Which was when Feroze confronted him. ``Mr X, I hear yuo have been describing me as a lap-dog. You no doubt consider yourself a pillar of the state. Today I will do to you what a dog usually does to a pillar.''
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