Sunday, April 15, 2007

"S/Lang-crobatics"

So, while sitting around, minding my own business (i.e. a program displaying open comics, other windows containing pdf's waiting to be read), I was hit with the latest jewel in urban information awareness.
"Go visit buyselloldbooks.com - I saw it written on the back of an auto-rickshaw."
Some browsing later, I realized there wasn't much to be found in the steaming piles of database generated hippopotamus excreta, apart from Stephen King, Erle Stanley Gardner, Carolyn Keene, R. L. Stine, Sidney Sheldon. That, of course, was until I came across a jewel: "Pavitra Papi (Punjabi)."

Hmm... Apart from this sounding like "OOF! I stepped out of the bus terminal, and there was this guy selling brightly coloured/covered booklets of porn stories :-( ", it took me more than a couple of seconds to clear the confusion this book's title caused.

"Then, it hit me."

Juggle three languages, their pure, vernacular and slang, and you'll realize 'papi' - which in hindi/punjabi connotes 'sinner' implies something very different, as per the wisdom dispensed at urbandictionary...

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