Here are the usual observations of English language mistakes made in India/Bangalore. I am no expert here and used to make many of these mistakes. I have tried change most of them.
1. Sentences seem to always start with a "You know". Eg. " You know - I was walking outside .." And sometimes sentences end with a "you know" as well. Somehow, something doesn't fit right when you listen to it.
2. Sentences always have a lot of "know/No"s in it. Eg. "That is a really nice car - know/No? " - which in plain English translates to " Isn't that a really nice car?". I get thoroughly confused with the "know/no" word being used in the place of proper question word (who, where, when, why, what, how etc) I call it a "know / No" - because.. sometimes its the short of "you know" and sometimes its the word "no" - Because most Indian languages use the "no" word to indicate a question. If you know Tamil - a lot of people say " Nalla irukku - illa? " So the "know/no" is a literal translation problem.
3. Get the "V" and "W" mixed up all the time. Its "WeggieTaybles" and "Wegetarian". And, its "Vife", "Vater","Vhen", "Vhat" and "Vhere"
4. The letter "a" is pronounced like a "y". Yair (for air).
5. This one kills me - Iron - pronounced as I-Run. Classic Bangalore.
6. Dubbell Road - Any road that has a median! (yeah its rare to find a double road)
7. Take a right/left at Dead end - Dead end in Bangalore means a T - junction :-)
8. The words "Only" and "also" being overused and with no relevance to the sentence. Eg: "You came from the store only?". "You are coming to the store also". Also is used in the place of "too" most of the time. The word "Only" doesn't makes sense in the sentences. I am yet to figure the logic behind the use of the word. And the word "only" is pronounced as "Wonlee".
9. The sing song tone of course. Questions are always a super sing-songed sentences with no question word. You have to hear this to understand it. "You going to the store?".
10. Storm is pronounced as "StRom" - this is a super common mistake.
Will add more to this list soon.
Friday, September 18, 2009
House to Home
Its been a very long time since I have found time slots than 10 mins to do anything. Other than the 8 hrs of much needed sleep ( which I do not intend to use that to write my blog - I am far from being that blogaddict yet) , I barely get time to even read the newspaper.
Anyways, the past 2 months have been focused on getting our apartment remodeled to suit our lifestyle, taste and comforts. We have learn a lot about working on making a house our home. Apartment living is sort of new to us. We have taken a little time to come to terms with not having an eternal dump ground called the garage :-). So we are sort of super organized and have a strict policy of "if it doesn't fit in a proper place, it goes out of the house". The downsizing and planning during packing up at Denver has paid off. We are almost there with the house becoming a home.. and we have finally dry bathrooms and shower stalls.
Our experience in Bangalore in terms of finding stuff for the home - like washbasins, kitchens, bathroom stuff, tiles etc.. was overall decent. The choices are wide. But, the only catch is, if you do not know the right places or the right people, you can either miss the choices or get ripped off. For example, if you want some good light fixtures, you can go the local stores and find decent stuff, or you can go to a street in the middle of the city and they have tons of stores. But, you have to bargain and spend half a day to get what you want. The customization of stuff is also very good in India. They can pretty much put together anything you want in any style, shape, color and even price range. If you are clear about your budget, its easy to find the choices. Of also, you can show a catalog of pottery barn - the local carpenter can make you a great looking replica :-)
Home remodeling was a fun and frustrating experience. After a few weeks into it and when it came to the last details, cleaning up and finishing - thats when the frustration starts. What we are used to as "good quality" and "good finish" in the US, is way off from the understanding of the guys who do the job. There is nothing called "standards" here. It took us a bit of time to realize that, its not really bad quality of the job, its the guys who do the work. They have no clue as to what we mean by quality and finish. They have never seen, lived, built anything of high quality. A lot of little things here in India are handmade and lack the tools machinery we are used to in the US. Even if you hire the so-called Interior designers - the guys who actually drives the nail or paints the wall - is someone not to familiar with high-end quality.
This difference in the financial and lifestyle slabs between us and the guy who works, is so apparent when you see him work on the finishing of a product. Its sometimes funny - the guys cannot even comprehend why we would choose to do certain things the way we do. The pace at which we expect things to get done is also a whole different issue. They just don't understand why we would want our home ready in a month. They just don't get our paranoia with time and completion of work. Seriously, they really think we are in some kind of rush in life for no reason. This is partly because, their lives seem to be so hopeless and monotonous. They don't expect any changes or improvements. They barely have any goals in their lives. They live one-day at a time and get drunk on sundays. So, never schedule anything with any handyman for a monday morning.. they never turn up. And worse, they will be happy to give you a super lame reason for not showing up. Best way to deal with this, always - I mean it.. always expect things to get delayed. Always!
A few rules when you try to get a home setup in India/Bangalore
1. Find a good driver/friend who knows the streets of Bangalore
2. Find a contractor to do your remodeling through someone you know and has some leverage on the person.
3. Never ever expect things to fall in your schedule. Give enough room for delays.
4. Set you expectations quite high with the contractor and expect to get atleast 75% or less in reality.
5. Take your time to research products, talk to neighbors. There are several small problems that only a person who has lived in Bangalore long enough can explain.
6. Don't adopt "anything can be done" policy .. no somethings are simply not possible - even if they show it in a catalog. Classic example - Asian paints' new texture line of paints. They hv a cool catalog, a crew that claims to know how to do it. But, trust me, set your expectations low or get your hands dirty and do it yourself.
7. Do-it-yourself is NOT easy. there is no home depot - or even if you find a small time home store, you will never find someone to explain how it works. Concrete walls are a pain in the butt.
8. Direct every single detail. Never ever ignore explaining the obvious - remember - nothing is obvious to these people. you simply have to explain - and as frustrating as it can be - be ready to hear the explanations at the stores. For eg - we wasted 10 mins listening to a guy in an electronic store explaining how a universal remote works... we realised what he was trying to explaing only in the 10th minute...sales people are extremely nervous, confusing and lack any sense of rational thinking.
People here either assume you know what you want - like taking the order for your lunch without handing you a menu! Or the other extreme of people assuming you know nothing (inspite of you flauting your foreign clothes and accent) they will try to explain how to push the power button on your remote and how magically the TV turns on and shows awesomely pixelated soccer games! HDtv - Please - hurry to India!
Anyways, the past 2 months have been focused on getting our apartment remodeled to suit our lifestyle, taste and comforts. We have learn a lot about working on making a house our home. Apartment living is sort of new to us. We have taken a little time to come to terms with not having an eternal dump ground called the garage :-). So we are sort of super organized and have a strict policy of "if it doesn't fit in a proper place, it goes out of the house". The downsizing and planning during packing up at Denver has paid off. We are almost there with the house becoming a home.. and we have finally dry bathrooms and shower stalls.
Our experience in Bangalore in terms of finding stuff for the home - like washbasins, kitchens, bathroom stuff, tiles etc.. was overall decent. The choices are wide. But, the only catch is, if you do not know the right places or the right people, you can either miss the choices or get ripped off. For example, if you want some good light fixtures, you can go the local stores and find decent stuff, or you can go to a street in the middle of the city and they have tons of stores. But, you have to bargain and spend half a day to get what you want. The customization of stuff is also very good in India. They can pretty much put together anything you want in any style, shape, color and even price range. If you are clear about your budget, its easy to find the choices. Of also, you can show a catalog of pottery barn - the local carpenter can make you a great looking replica :-)
Home remodeling was a fun and frustrating experience. After a few weeks into it and when it came to the last details, cleaning up and finishing - thats when the frustration starts. What we are used to as "good quality" and "good finish" in the US, is way off from the understanding of the guys who do the job. There is nothing called "standards" here. It took us a bit of time to realize that, its not really bad quality of the job, its the guys who do the work. They have no clue as to what we mean by quality and finish. They have never seen, lived, built anything of high quality. A lot of little things here in India are handmade and lack the tools machinery we are used to in the US. Even if you hire the so-called Interior designers - the guys who actually drives the nail or paints the wall - is someone not to familiar with high-end quality.
This difference in the financial and lifestyle slabs between us and the guy who works, is so apparent when you see him work on the finishing of a product. Its sometimes funny - the guys cannot even comprehend why we would choose to do certain things the way we do. The pace at which we expect things to get done is also a whole different issue. They just don't understand why we would want our home ready in a month. They just don't get our paranoia with time and completion of work. Seriously, they really think we are in some kind of rush in life for no reason. This is partly because, their lives seem to be so hopeless and monotonous. They don't expect any changes or improvements. They barely have any goals in their lives. They live one-day at a time and get drunk on sundays. So, never schedule anything with any handyman for a monday morning.. they never turn up. And worse, they will be happy to give you a super lame reason for not showing up. Best way to deal with this, always - I mean it.. always expect things to get delayed. Always!
A few rules when you try to get a home setup in India/Bangalore
1. Find a good driver/friend who knows the streets of Bangalore
2. Find a contractor to do your remodeling through someone you know and has some leverage on the person.
3. Never ever expect things to fall in your schedule. Give enough room for delays.
4. Set you expectations quite high with the contractor and expect to get atleast 75% or less in reality.
5. Take your time to research products, talk to neighbors. There are several small problems that only a person who has lived in Bangalore long enough can explain.
6. Don't adopt "anything can be done" policy .. no somethings are simply not possible - even if they show it in a catalog. Classic example - Asian paints' new texture line of paints. They hv a cool catalog, a crew that claims to know how to do it. But, trust me, set your expectations low or get your hands dirty and do it yourself.
7. Do-it-yourself is NOT easy. there is no home depot - or even if you find a small time home store, you will never find someone to explain how it works. Concrete walls are a pain in the butt.
8. Direct every single detail. Never ever ignore explaining the obvious - remember - nothing is obvious to these people. you simply have to explain - and as frustrating as it can be - be ready to hear the explanations at the stores. For eg - we wasted 10 mins listening to a guy in an electronic store explaining how a universal remote works... we realised what he was trying to explaing only in the 10th minute...sales people are extremely nervous, confusing and lack any sense of rational thinking.
People here either assume you know what you want - like taking the order for your lunch without handing you a menu! Or the other extreme of people assuming you know nothing (inspite of you flauting your foreign clothes and accent) they will try to explain how to push the power button on your remote and how magically the TV turns on and shows awesomely pixelated soccer games! HDtv - Please - hurry to India!
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