Misspelt Musings

The renaming of Port Blair to Sri Vijaya Puram in September 2024 was not an anti-colonial move; it was merely another instance of the government’s constant imposition of Sanskrit and Hindi. It just changed an English name to a Sanskrit one, in spite of the fact that neither English nor Sanskrit have ever been spoken natively by the indigenous peoples of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The indigenous languages of Andaman and Nicobar include the Nicobarese languages, Ongan languages, Great Andamanese languages, etc. If Port Blair had to be renamed, it could have been given a name from one of these languages. Worse, the people of Andaman and Nicobar (both indigenous and non-indigenous) didn’t even have a say in this matter; the decision was entirely taken by mainlanders. In the same way, the decision to destroy the Great Nicobar Island for pure economic benefit is being taken entirely by mainlanders, and the Shompen and Nicobarese, who have been living there for thousands of years, have no say in this matter.

Nepali, Chinese and Japanese are all spoken in cultures where politeness matters a lot, and something similar happened in them that shows this, but in the opposite ways. The Nepali word हजुर (hajur) (from Hindustani हुज़ूर /حضور (huzūr), “sir,” originally from Arabic via Persian) means different things in different contexts. It retains the original meaning, although it can mean both “sir” and “ma'am.” Moreover, it is also a polite way to say “yes” or “you.” The Japanese word 僕 (boku), meaning “servant,” is used informally by males (mostly boys) as a first-person pronoun (“I”). In Chinese too, 僕 (pú, the simplified form being 仆) means “servant” (僕人 / 仆人, púrén), and can be a polite or literary way for males to refer to themselves. So, in Nepali, a word for “sir/ma'am” also means “you,” and in Chinese and Japanese, a word for “servant” also means “I.”

One of those things about Hindi I find confusing is the word शेर (śēr). In Marathi, सिंह (siw̃hã) is a lion, and वाघ (vāgh) is a tiger. Hindi similarly has बाघ (bāgh), which means “tiger” as well. But apparently शेर can mean both lion and tiger in Hindi? When I read or hear शेर, I immediately think of lions, and I’m taken aback when I realise they’re talking about tigers.

If you say Aurangabad and some sanghi obnoxiously tells you it’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, you can tell them it’s actually Khadki (the original name of Aurangabad)

Will sanghis please do us a favour and use their brains for once? While the Parliament is indeed full of misogynists on both sides, the women’s reservation bill was rejected by the opposition because it was linked with the delimitation bill, which could have severely reduced the political power of the southern states. This is of course advantageous for the BJP, whose voterbase is mostly concentrated in the north. They claim to stand for Indian unity, and yet seek to weaken those who do not come from northern India. And do you really think the BJP, the party that regularly releases rapists from prison, stands for women’s rights? Au contraire, the women’s reservation bill could have been passed if the BJP hadn’t unnecessarily linked it with the undemocratic delimitation bill to their benefit; they did so because they did not want their male members to lose seats due to the 33% reservation for women in the existing seats. And now the BJP, misrepresenting everything as always, masquerades as a saviour of women’s rights. The party that allied with the likes of Prajwal Revanna in the 2024 election, the party that happily backs sexist godmen with rape allegations, the party whose members constantly pass sexist comments, the party that has not done ANYTHING for the women of Manipur, which has been burning for years, the party that constantly oppresses Muslim, Dalit, tribal and many other women, has the AUDACITY to claim to stand for women’s rights. But they are not fooling anyone for long. People are seeing through their lies.

Western tankies support autocrats like Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un because it’s easier to believe there are powerful alternatives to Western imperialism than the fact that most of the world is ruled by oppressive leaders

Sometimes I wanna describe a phenomenon in a language I know and I’m like I don’t know enough linguistics for this

In Marathi, both दिवस (divas) and दिन (din) mean “day,” but दिवस is the everyday word, and दिन is mostly used for public holidays like Independence Day. This is pretty much the opposite in Hindi and Nepali, in which दिन is the everyday word, and दिवस (divas/diwas) is used for public holidays. I suppose it’s the same case in Bengali for দিন (din) and দিবস (dibôs) and in many other Indo-Aryan languages. In Konkani, Gujarati and Sinhala, both purposes seem to be fulfilled by दीस/ದೀಸ್ (dīs), દિવસ (divas) and දිනය (dinaya), respectively.

The outrage about the UGC Bill 2026 is oh so satisfying. The casteists masquerading as the saviours of Hinduism have proved they don’t give a damn about the so-called Hindu unity unless their caste privilege is protected. What truly matters to them is flaunting their caste and abusing people from others. They’ve long accused anyone opposed to a government bill of being “anti-national,” and now, they’re the ones who have to clarify that anti-BJP does not equal anti-India. Even those who support rape-accused BJP politicians are angry, which again proves how much their caste identity matters to them. They’ve even reduced their god Modi to his caste. Even if false cases exist, those overtly concerned about them always have something to be afraid of. I hope all this severely impacts Yogi’s performance in the 2027 UP election, because I absolutely do not want him as a potential successor of Modi.

Postpositions are one of my favourite elements in languages and I love learning about them sm

Saying “white girl” instead of “girl” does not make you sound less misogynistic btw

It’s so much easier to eat many East and Southeast Asian dishes once you learn to use chopsticks