Harbhajan and bad words

I agree with what Shashi Tharoor has said in his column in Times of India. He said if Harbhajan has said to Andrew Symonds ‘ma ki’ (mother’s) and not monkey then it is a horrible thing and he should be punished for it. But surprisingly Indian media and whole of North India has kept silent as if it is not an offensive word. The Aussies also have not reacted to it. So I do not rake it up now. But I still hold that it is a horrible bad word and I think most of my south Indian friends will agree with me.

I was thinking about bad words. Monkey or donkey is not a bad word. But if it is used to address a person then you might be inviting trouble. The context, in which a person calls another person a name, is very important. Language is also important. A horrible bad word in a language may be harmless or may even mean good in another language. So you can not easily define a bad word. But everybody agrees that we should not speak any bad word. Please excuse me for using some over here. My mother tongue Malayalam has very little bad word compared to other Indian languages, I guess.

One thing is sure we do not have any equivalent word for M-F, in English, or B-C or M-C in Hindi. We sometimes hire bad word from Tamil and use. Like T-O (Thai O--). The funny part is that even the worst bad word in Malayalam is used with an added softener like Mon or Mol. Mon stands for Makan (son ) Mol = Makal ( daughter ) In fact Mon & Mol are words used to show love and affection. A common bad word in Malyalam is Nayinte mon ( meaning Son of a Dog ). Look at the mon there. Now take the worst bad word Pulayadi mon ( Son of a prostitute ) again there is a mon. So many other bad words are affixed with this addendum.

These words written here may be highly objectionable for some people. For instance some Namboothiri families (Kerala Brahmins) still do not use any bad word. For them even some of the common word like Patti ( bitch), Naaya (dog) Chool (broom) etc is a big taboo and not used at all instead they use its Sanskrit words. Some times for the same thing they use two different words one in the morning and the other in the evening. They don’t try adding the softener Mone. If you translate some of other language bad words into Malayalam it may look funny. For eg. Hindi 'Ullu ka Patha' will be Kooman mon or English Son of gun will be Thokkin Mon. I am sure any Mallu will kiss the person who called them those names. A typical Mallu calls his son lovingly (Pyaar se) with his teeth tight and lips sharpened. Mone .. Monne. Monnhe.

"Mone Dinesha.. " is a funny Malayalam film dialogue which makes every Keralite smile. So that’s it. No bad words ..Mone Dinesha…