Tuesday, February 10, 2009

found in translation

So, here I am, reading The Namesake (at the leisurely pace I prefer) while sipping on a flute of mango juice as the Galaxy channel tinkles unobtrusively in the background. I'm enjoying this book, shorter than the tome previous, about a subject close to my heart, written in a style I enjoy most. But I'm not done, so I won't begin my review.

Reading books where the culture of the characters overlap (even slightly) with my own seems always to be an illuminating experience. Inevitably, I will make a connection to a long-misconstrued idea or rediscover a piece of geography that I had thought to be relegated to my imagination. Mostly, however, I dig up long-lost words: little gems that have been buried in my memories or cast aside as worthless Anglo-Indian costumery. Mistry certified my mother's favourite phrase (baap-re-baap) as the genuine deal; Ondaatje gave me back the hills of Asaam.

When I was growing up, I quickly learned to be less confident about my English skills. It was obvious that there was no such thing as having "soe" ... that those annoying little white dots were actually called canker sores. That "daal" was considered some sort of lentil soup and not just gravy for the rice. That calling complete strangers "Aunty" and "Uncle" in deference to their age may not always be seen as the respectful thing to do. To this day, I still feel most comfortable reading out loud in a British accent. Over the years, I have learned to use some words/phrases only at home (e.g., "acha", "thikasay", "toilet table") because, really, who would understand those outside my parents' slightly curried walls?

One such word that has fallen by the wayside from disuse is what I've always understood as "almirer" - it's a proper dressing table, that holds jewelry and makeup and hairbrushes, the central piece of furniture in a woman's toilette (associated with a toilet table at home; a vanity everywhere else). But it's more than just a vanity - it's a showcase of all the trinkets and rewards of achieving the milestones in life (graduation, marriage, children, etc). I haven't used that word in over twenty years, forever linking it with the dark wood, high-mirrored, lacquered table at which my mother prepared herself for an evening out, upon which I stood while she applied powder and lipstick, from which I would launch myself in flying leaps onto the four-poster bed beside it. I have since thought that I made up that word, that somehow I had mixed up the words "all" and "admirer " and "mirror" in my juvenile mind to explain that almost magical piece of furniture.

Today, Lahiri gave me back a piece of my own tongue: "her grandmother would unlock her almari, showing her which jewels would be hers when the day came" (p. 213). Almari! Not an almirer, but an almari! Oh, that's a real word, with real connotations and real history! I almost choked on my mango juice. Thank you, Ms. Lahiri.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Found the Galaxy channel - huh? Great stuff for background noise.

DK

Malecasta said...

I LOVE the Gakaxy channels... though i do find they repeat a lot. I'm not going to complain too much about free commercial-less music, but still - it's like I know every track on the Ambient channel, and i really shouldn'.