Just Noticed

Hmmm…. When being idle is your current status, ‘hmmm’ is the most ideal expression.

In chatting, hmmm has a versatile role. It could come in handy if you’re waiting for someone to say
something, or are pondering on some thought or even trying to cut short a boring conversation. Most
often, people try to hmmm, just to keep the other person on hold. It’s like telling him, I’m actually done
talking to you but I don’t want to let you go right now. Hmmm, coming with a winking smiley has an
intonation of course. Its like, I know what you’re up to!

Funny how expressions can communicate so much that sometimes even words cannot! When I was a
teenager, my cousins and friends would get suspicious at every little Ahem I gave. It could well have
been a prelude to a cough, but they’d look at me with quizzing eyes, as if their secret was discovered. I
obviously took my share of their undue advantage. Sometimes even when they hadn’t any undercover
gossip, they’d be looking here and there to find someone else who could be my potential target. What a
‘tonsillitic’ power!

I’ve also often heard people using ‘so’. A sentence ending and then followed by a ‘so’, is somehow
similar to the Indian way of putting ‘like’ in between phrases. “I like, completely disagree with you” is
very Indian in a way. It stands by you when you’re trying to give an opinion. Similarly many people try to
accentuate the un-uttered meaning of their sentences with a ‘so’ – “She was not really committed to it.
Besides, she had personal problems and health issues to add to it. So….” Even if you bump into such a
conversation from nowhere, you can figure that the person in question has been dispensed off
something. I have a feeling that people who use ‘so’ that way, gain an edge to their explanation. That
emboldens them to justify.

Urban Indians, especially during informal conversations take a pleasure in putting ‘ya’ anywhere and
everywhere. You could begin a sentence, as in, “Look ya, I know what you’re talking about but I don’t
buy it” or end it with ya, “I am too tired to go to her party, ya!” Ideally, it is a substitute for the Hindi
‘yaar’ meaning ‘friend’ but it has been adapted into ‘ya’ perhaps to give it a cosmopolitan feeling. I tried
using it with a chat friend back in college days. He was from New Zealand and had no clue of our lingo.
Figures, why he sent a ‘?’ when I told him “I got dc ya!” (I had got disconnected from the internet).

Close to ‘ya’, there’s ‘dude’. Yes it is imported, just like ‘man!’ and is a figurative ostentation of your
upper class upbringing. It carelessly implies that you go to a high-end college, hang out with those who
prefer drinking coffee (instead of tea) with sugar cubes, throw critiques about Hollywood flicks, sleep in
branded drawstrings, smoke a cigarette unmindful of a family sitting next to you (because they are
obviously not minding their business, barging into your hangout) and love to live your Indianness with a
touch of the western. No offence meant… dudes!

To a great extent, our conversations and communications today rely on these expressions rather than
proper words. Go blame us, but its true that we can communicate much better if we use them, rather
than actually propelling a proper sentence on a friend. I know that if I console a heartbroken friend, with
a healthy vocabulary of words, he’ll sink deep into his hole, trying to avert my unintended sermon. Full
sentences come in handy only after your friend has had enough of crying and is ready to turn the tide
over. That is when you say, “Enough is enough” or “You have to come out of this”. In a way, full
sentences are like parents. You avoid them because they don’t really seem too cool, but you come back
to them when you need support.

Interestingly, the effect of language is an aging process. It’s very Salman Khan; gets better with age. You
try to speak less and so, unnecessary expressions do not slip from your mature tongue. You start using
dictionary in your mobile whenever you SMS and generally prefer to call. Your labour in your speech has
to be impressive to a younger audience, so you cut the peripherals and stick to the normal words and
phrases. But if you are intrinsically young at heart, you also keep the lingo in your language closet, to hit
and run as you please.

Duh! I sound too far. I guess I need a break ya!