Mind your Language

I was first introduced to “bad words” when I was in my 5th standard. It started off, like many others, on what can be called the lower end of the spectrum of choice words. The KP’s, KK’s and KP’s became a part of my vocabulary. Using these inanities was considered cool. You would be called a prude if you did not or in a few cases, will not (ab)use them. The more words you can use in a sentence the cooler you were.

“Antha KK oru KP da.”

Antha KP Sla rod ethanam da.”

Our vocabulary was limited to just a bunch of words. Two K’s, a couple of P’s, a pair of S’s, a M and the more creative you got with their combinations, the cooler you were. We used to come up with really random combinations, which make no sense at all today. Of course, I had no idea what they meant then. I just used them because it was cool. I was not yet introduced to any of the O’s yet (the tamil equivalent of the four letter word). That came in later.

It was a full year of these and by the year end I was considered an expert. I had come up with a bunch of combinations the most famous of which was the SK. The year got over and it was summer vacations. I ended up at my native place like every year and all my cousins made it there as well. I am one of those people who were right in the median range when it came to age groups. I was never old enough to be with the older guys, but they had to put up with me because no way was I going to be with younger ones. So I was the demarcation line when it came to the older kids. Everybody younger than me was left out in all the fun stuff we did.

So, I had always looked up to the older guys. They were the cool ones and I had always tried to emulate them. I came in this time with an air of some one who has grown up. I considered myself an equal now, because I thought I knew all these cool “bad words”. The first few days were frustrating, because I realized none of them used any of these words. This led to a belief that this was because they were all prudes. I thought it was a good chance for me to upstage them and show them how cool I was. I decided to slip it in during a normal conversation.

We were playing cards. There were around a dozen or so of us, an equal mix of guys and girls. Since there were too many of us I was playing with another cousin. This guy was closest in age to me and we were pretty close. He played a really stupid hand and I ended up saying:

“KP mathiri velayadra.”

What followed was a deathly silence. The entire room had come to a stand still.

“Enna sonna?”

I realized everybody was looking, no make that staring, at me, with their jaws hanging a little lower than their hips. I was supposed to be this really geeky, really boring, really soft-spoken kid. I gave them a condescending look (like the one thalaivar would give before uttering his punch dialogues) and said:

“KP mathiri velayadra.”

The second I said that he punched me. I was dumb-founded. It was not because he had punched me, but it was because I did not expect him to do that. I expected awe; I expected them to bow down to me. But instead I got a punch, in my stomach. I got up a little unsteadily. People around me moved away. Things around me was happening in slow-mo. I turned to him and mouthed another set of expletives. He hit me again and we got into a fight. And it was a fight right out of the movies. He would throw me something like a karate chop and I would stop it with my hand. He would then try to kick me and I would block it with my hands again. (If you have seen any of the thalaivar movies, you know what I am talking about.) We moved from the living room through the portico to the gate. I remember every punch, every hit precisely the way it happened. I remember two of my cousin sister’s talking:

1: “Some one stop H(the cousin who was beating me up)! Pavam signedout.
2: “Leave them alone. He deserves it. you hear what all he was saying before?”

If I gave you the impression earlier that it was an equal fight, it was just to make it more filmi. I was and still am a weakling. I got beaten up pretty bad that day. I only fought back with my repertoire of “bad words”. Every hit I took, I replied with one or two of my choicest. At the end of it I was ostracized. Nobody would talk to me. Nobody would play with me. I had the younger cousins, but word had spread to them as well. They looked at me with fear and ran away from me. A few days’ later things simmered down and I was slowly inducted back into the group.

The day school reopened, I was introduced to the O word. One of my best friends came up to me and asked if I wanted to hear a joke. I said of course. It went something like this …

A: knock! knock!
Me: yaar adhu?
A: yaaru mukiyam illa, en vandhuruken than mukiyam.
Me: en vandhirukae?
A: Unna O!

He said that and burst out laughing. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I laughed as well. It took me another couple of years to figure out what all these words meant and I evolved into a master swearer. Then came the english words and the coolness quotient shifted to them. And then when we started learning French, like every good student of any language we learnt the words that mattered the most first.

And once I entered college my tamil “bad words” usage trickled down to almost non-existent.

But even now, those words carry some kind of an exotic charm for me. When I hear some of my friends casually throw in a couple of juicy tam words, it still sounds very very cool.