dear kv,

i was at an indian restaurant yesterday with some telugu friends of ours. the waiter was from himachal pradesh and kept talking to us in hindi. the telugu couple responded to him in hindi. i told him what i wanted in english and he responded in hindi. after a couple of futile attempts at hinting that i spikki no hindi, i thought of you and decided to speak my mind. i told him "i have been speaking to you in english and you keep responding to me in hindi. i am asking you for appams, dosai with chutney and paruppu vadai. should you not consider the possibility that maybe i am a bloody madrasi who does not speak hindi?" (ok,i was a bit more polite). he said sorry and spoke to me in english after that.

i hope you are proud of me.

love,
bw

bw wrote:dear kv,

i was at an indian restaurant yesterday with some telugu friends of ours. the waiter was from himachal pradesh and kept talking to us in hindi. the telugu couple responded to him in hindi. i told him what i wanted in english and he responded in hindi. after a couple of futile attempts at hinting that i spikki no hindi, i thought of you and decided to speak my mind. i told him "i have been speaking to you in english and you keep responding to me in hindi. i am asking you for appams, dosai with chutney and paruppu vadai. should you not consider the possibility that maybe i am a bloody madrasi who does not speak hindi?" (ok,i was a bit more polite). he said sorry and spoke to me in english after that.

i hope you are proud of me.

love,
bw

>>> I certainly am*

(*he said while contemplating how to phrase the order in Urdu for the take-out from the local kebab joint)

P.S. Appam and dosai ?- Wouldn't that be somewhat superfluous?

you (kris) may be confusing Appams and appams.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:you (kris) may be confusing Appams and appams.

>>Oh? Wait.. is one sweet made during certain religious festivals? I haven't seen that in restaurant menus, as best as I can recall. I am confused now.

Three iyers have become americanized and are now confused with Appam. dosai and idiyappam.

I am ashamed...and I am converting to hindianism.

Kris wrote:

bw wrote:dear kv,

i was at an indian restaurant yesterday with some telugu friends of ours. the waiter was from himachal pradesh and kept talking to us in hindi. the telugu couple responded to him in hindi. i told him what i wanted in english and he responded in hindi. after a couple of futile attempts at hinting that i spikki no hindi, i thought of you and decided to speak my mind. i told him "i have been speaking to you in english and you keep responding to me in hindi. i am asking you for appams, dosai with chutney and paruppu vadai. should you not consider the possibility that maybe i am a bloody madrasi who does not speak hindi?" (ok,i was a bit more polite). he said sorry and spoke to me in english after that.

i hope you are proud of me.

love,
bw

>>> I certainly am*

(*he said while contemplating how to phrase the order in Urdu for the take-out from the local kebab joint)

P.S. Appam and dosai ?- Wouldn't that be somewhat superfluous?

i was ordering for more than one person and Appam with ishtu is a favourite. it was an indian brunch buffet with all the usual goop but i like to order outside of that. the telugu woman eats only at selected indian buffet places or at a certain pizza place - thai, chinese, italian etc are all rejected. since she is a dominatrix and the rest of us are flexible, we go whereever she wants to. i save the indian buffet ritual for once-every-quarter lunch outing we do with them. otherwise, we never eat indian food outside home.

Kris wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:you (kris) may be confusing Appams and appams.

>>Oh? Wait.. is one sweet made during certain religious festivals? I haven't seen that in restaurant menus, as best as I can recall. I am confused now.

grr, not neyyappams but aaaaappam.

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:Three iyers have become americanized and are now confused with Appam. dosai and idiyappam.

I am ashamed...and I am converting to hindianism.

>>>I am completely confused now. Idiyappam looks like dosai, and sometimes referred to as appam?* Appam is sweet?

* I don't remember eating idiyappam at home. That could account for some of the confusion.

Kris wrote:

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:Three iyers have become americanized and are now confused with Appam. dosai and idiyappam.

I am ashamed...and I am converting to hindianism.

>>>I am completely confused now. Idiyappam looks like dosai, and sometimes referred to as appam?* Appam is sweet?

* I don't remember eating idiyappam at home. That could account for some of the confusion.

idiyappam is string hoppers and not sweet - aka sevai that my mother use to make fresh with a tripod press.
appam is neyappam - made with rice, banana and jaggery and fried in a ton of ghee. some tamilians make adhirasam, a sorry cousin of this.
aaappam is the boat like thing made with rice flour, coconut milk and toddy in an appachetty. a good cousin of dosai.

ps: what i ordered was aaappam. capital letters be damned.

Kris wrote:

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:Three iyers have become americanized and are now confused with Appam. dosai and idiyappam.

I am ashamed...and I am converting to hindianism.

>>>I am completely confused now. Idiyappam looks like dosai, and sometimes referred to as appam?* Appam is sweet?

* I don't remember eating idiyappam at home. That could account for some of the confusion.

appam is such a typical Iyer item. Didn't the sastrigal demand appam during your marriage ceremony to tie them over your eyes?

BTW, this is supposedly a nazrani delicacy - Syrian catholic - that casteist Christian community from Keral.

[quote="bw"]dear kv,

i was at an indian restaurant yesterday with some telugu friends of ours. the waiter was from himachal pradesh and kept talking to us in hindi. [b]the [color=#cc0000]telugu[/color] couple responded to him in [color=#ff0000]hind[/color][/b][color=#ff0000]i[/color]. i told him what i wanted in english and he responded in hindi. after a couple of futile attempts at hinting that i spikki no hindi, i thought of you and decided to speak my mind. i told him "i have been speaking to you in english and you keep responding to me in hindi. i am asking you for appams, dosai with chutney and paruppu vadai. should you not consider the possibility that maybe i am a bloody madrasi who does not speak hindi?" (ok,i was a bit more polite). he said sorry and spoke to me in english after that.

i hope you are proud of me.

love,
bw[/quote]

you should blame the telugu couple you were with. by speaking to the waiter in hindi, they apparently wanted to ingratiate themselves to him, hoping that he would consider them worthy of a social relationship with him, in spite of their being telugu.

swapna wrote:

bw wrote:dear kv,

i was at an indian restaurant yesterday with some telugu friends of ours. the waiter was from himachal pradesh and kept talking to us in hindi. the telugu couple responded to him in hindi. i told him what i wanted in english and he responded in hindi. after a couple of futile attempts at hinting that i spikki no hindi, i thought of you and decided to speak my mind. i told him "i have been speaking to you in english and you keep responding to me in hindi. i am asking you for appams, dosai with chutney and paruppu vadai. should you not consider the possibility that maybe i am a bloody madrasi who does not speak hindi?" (ok,i was a bit more polite). he said sorry and spoke to me in english after that.

i hope you are proud of me.

love,
bw

you should blame the telugu couple you were with. by speaking to the waiter in hindi, they apparently wanted to ingratiate themselves to him, hoping that he would consider them worthy of a social relationship with him, in spite of their being telugu.

you are missing the point. *i* stood up to him and put him in his place instead of being a silent spectator. i did understand whatever he was telling me in hindi but instead of just letting it go, i made a point by rebelling.

would i have done that without kv egging us on for years? i don't think so. ok, you and max get some credit too but the single-minded devotion of kv needs acknowledgement, i feel.

bw wrote:

Kris wrote:

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:Three iyers have become americanized and are now confused with Appam. dosai and idiyappam.

I am ashamed...and I am converting to hindianism.

>>>I am completely confused now. Idiyappam looks like dosai, and sometimes referred to as appam?* Appam is sweet?

* I don't remember eating idiyappam at home. That could account for some of the confusion.

idiyappam is string hoppers and not sweet - aka sevai that my mother use to make fresh with a tripod press.
appam is neyappam - made with rice, banana and jaggery and fried in a ton of ghee. some tamilians make adhirasam, a sorry cousin of this.
aaappam is the boat like thing made with rice flour, coconut milk and toddy in an appachetty. a good cousin of dosai.

ps: what i ordered was aaappam. capital letters be damned.

>>>Okay. That is the one I guessed. Just got confused with the names. My mother used to make sevai and adhirsam. I ate so much of it once maybe when  I was 9 or 10, I got sick.

bw wrote:

swapna wrote:

bw wrote:dear kv,

i was at an indian restaurant yesterday with some telugu friends of ours. the waiter was from himachal pradesh and kept talking to us in hindi. the telugu couple responded to him in hindi. i told him what i wanted in english and he responded in hindi. after a couple of futile attempts at hinting that i spikki no hindi, i thought of you and decided to speak my mind. i told him "i have been speaking to you in english and you keep responding to me in hindi. i am asking you for appams, dosai with chutney and paruppu vadai. should you not consider the possibility that maybe i am a bloody madrasi who does not speak hindi?" (ok,i was a bit more polite). he said sorry and spoke to me in english after that.

i hope you are proud of me.

love,
bw

you should blame the telugu couple you were with. by speaking to the waiter in hindi, they apparently wanted to ingratiate themselves to him, hoping that he would consider them worthy of a social relationship with him, in spite of their being telugu.

you are missing the point. *i* stood up to him and put him in his place instead of being a silent spectator. i did understand whatever he was telling me in hindi but instead of just letting it go, i made a point by rebelling.

would i have done that without kv egging us on for years? i don't think so. ok, you and max get some credit too but the single-minded devotion of kv needs acknowledgement, i feel.

you "stood up" to the wrong person.

please tell me what dishes the telugus ordered.

didn't you recently write skeptically and mockingly about "SI-NI fights" here as if you are above it all? have you had a change of heart now? are you no more the "open-minded" person you portrayed yourself to be? 

In my opinion, southern indians should hit back hard at northindians because they have, over many decades, made huge, concerted efforts to trample on our freedoms, and not because of the inconvenience of ordering in hindi at a restaurant. half-hearted resistance such as yours is futile. 

I have, on many occasions, written about the underlying political and cultural reasons for the northindians' uncivil behaviour; I shall not repeat them here.

yes, kayal deserves a great deal of credit for her consistent, determined stance. on the other hand, after our relocation here, max retired to the pavilion in order to please charvakan because the latter seemed to be in control of this forum, and was ambivalent about northindian incivility. 

to win charvakan's favour, max even made peace with the cleveland steamer, and gratuitously agreed with them at regular intervals. it was an interesting sight to see. in other words, max has deserved no credit in the last two years.

I am glad that you've finally seen a glimmer of the light, but i remain skeptical because the underlying cause of it was food, and not a recognition of the importance of freedom in one's life.

Maha Kavi Bharati Yar?? (Who is Subramanya Bharati?)
December 12th, 2009 · 9 Comments

Tamil Nadu is celebrating the birth day of our Super Star Rajnikanth on 12th December. People were reminded about this “auspicious birth day ” for the last one week. Neither TV channels nor FM stations can neglect such an auspicious day. All the media were busy planning special programs and none of them missed to celebrate this day. It is unfortunate that Bharati was born on 11th December!!! No one remembered his birth day including those who say “Uyir Tamilukku, Udal Mannukku”. You may wonder why I am so concerned about such unknown person.

Subramanya Bharati was a patriotic poet of India born on 11th December 1882 in Ettayapuram of Tamil Nadu. He was fluent in many languages including Telugu, Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit, Kutchi, French and English and frequently translated works from other languages into Tamil. He fought for the freedom of India along with other Indian leaders.

The politicians of Tamil Nadu have forgotten or not finding any use of Bharati, a great Tamil poet and Indian freedom fighter, worth to celebrate the birth day! For the last seven years, I have not seen a single program on Bharati’s birthday celebration worth remembering in Tamil Nadu.

In contrast, the north Indians from Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh (may be many more states) had been celebrating the birth day of Subramanya Bharati regularly. I was an office bearer of Tamil Sangam at Rourkela and Ranchi in 1980s and 1990s. We were reminded and supported by those Odia and Hindi speaking governments about Bharati’s birthday and they liberally gave financial support to celebrate this great Tamil Mahakavi and freedom fighter’s birth day. We arranged drama, concert, dance etc based on Subramanya Bharati’s songs and biography. Such program was well attended by top executives of government organizations, district collector, DIG, other local politicians and of course the members of the Tamil Sangam (association). Tamil politicians might have eliminated Hindi language from Tamil Nadu school curriculum but the North Indians still love and celebrate Subramanya Bharati’s birthday. Bharati is remembered as a student of BHU (Benaras Hindu University), as a patriot and a great poet of Tamil, a classical Indian language!!!

Vande Mataram,

Jai Hind.

http://sakthidaran.learningprofessor.info/blog/?p=1353

swapna wrote:

bw wrote:

swapna wrote:

bw wrote:dear kv,

i was at an indian restaurant yesterday with some telugu friends of ours. the waiter was from himachal pradesh and kept talking to us in hindi. the telugu couple responded to him in hindi. i told him what i wanted in english and he responded in hindi. after a couple of futile attempts at hinting that i spikki no hindi, i thought of you and decided to speak my mind. i told him "i have been speaking to you in english and you keep responding to me in hindi. i am asking you for appams, dosai with chutney and paruppu vadai. should you not consider the possibility that maybe i am a bloody madrasi who does not speak hindi?" (ok,i was a bit more polite). he said sorry and spoke to me in english after that.

i hope you are proud of me.

love,
bw

you should blame the telugu couple you were with. by speaking to the waiter in hindi, they apparently wanted to ingratiate themselves to him, hoping that he would consider them worthy of a social relationship with him, in spite of their being telugu.

you are missing the point. *i* stood up to him and put him in his place instead of being a silent spectator. i did understand whatever he was telling me in hindi but instead of just letting it go, i made a point by rebelling.

would i have done that without kv egging us on for years? i don't think so. ok, you and max get some credit too but the single-minded devotion of kv needs acknowledgement, i feel.

you "stood up" to the wrong person.

please tell me what dishes the telugus ordered.

didn't you recently write skeptically and mockingly about "SI-NI fights" here as if you are above it all? have you had a change of heart now? are you no more the "open-minded" person you portrayed yourself to be? 

In my opinion, southern indians should hit back hard at northindians because they have, over many decades, made huge, concerted efforts to trample on our freedoms, and not because of the inconvenience of ordering in hindi at a restaurant. half-hearted resistance such as yours is futile. 

I have, on many occasions, written about the underlying political and cultural reasons for the northindians' uncivil behaviour; I shall not repeat them here.

yes, kayal deserves a great deal of credit for her consistent, determined stance. on the other hand, after our relocation here, max retired to the pavilion in order to please charvakan because the latter seemed to be in control of this forum, and was ambivalent about northindian incivility. 

to win charvakan's favour, max even made peace with the cleveland steamer, and gratuitously agreed with them at regular intervals. it was an interesting sight to see. in other words, max has deserved no credit in the last two years.

I am glad that you've finally seen a glimmer of the light, but i remain skeptical because the underlying cause of it was food, and not a recognition of the importance of freedom in one's life.

alright, bad max, you get no credit and that's that. charvaka, yes, but what does one gain by being nice to the other character?

the telugu couple binged on the buffet. let me see, the buffet had a chaat corner - they had pani puri, and various other such items the names of which i know not. (papdi chaat?, vada smthing etc). since they are vegetarians who don't eat even mushrooms, they skipped all the meat items and had the kadhai paneer, punjabi kadhi, peas masala, greasy red/white coloured rice, paruppu vadai and spinach pakoras with garlic naan and luchi(?) paratha. they also had small masala dosais.

the husband and wife ordered mango lassi for their free drink and their 16 year old daughter ordered a ginger ale. they spoke at length in hindi with the waiter since they know him well from their many trips to this restaurant. he got married two months ago and hence my friend had a lot of questions for him - all in hindi of course. he shared the wedding photos on his iphone with her. in her defence, she has lived all over india since her dad was in the army and that explains her fluency in hindi. i don't know his history.

they also ordered 'masala chai' at the end of the meal and ate the horrible rock like besan burfi and the cloyingly sweet gulab jamun,. i skipped dessert and had a raspberry cheesecake gelato at another place with my kids. i ordered salted buttermilk (chaas?) for my drink and well, i had the tea, sans masala.

oh, i did tell the person at the consulate too that i don't speak hindi when she kept instructing me in hindi. last year, i also told the ranger at mt.rainier national park that they should include other indian languages and not just hindi. i did inform KV of that as well. i think sadhguru is impacting me in strange ways.

rashmun, what has bharathiyar got to do with this thread?

Why english in an indian restaurant, that too while ordering dosais, paruppu vadais, and other south indian (nay..tamilian!) items? English is a phoren language, no? Well, the next step would be to insist on speaking in tamil and only in tamil. I am glad kv's, max's and vee's hours and hours of effort over the last decade+ has changed at least one .All their hard work and precious time didn't go in vain. Congrats to them.  

PS1: Next time you need to take on your ingratiating, low self respect telugu friends, i guess. That will make the trio even more proud. If the lowly telugus don't listen to you, maybe you should sever your ties with them. No use continuing your friendship with the ingratiating, low self-esteemed telugus.

PS2: Who is Charvakan? Is that the admin? Did he convert to a tamilian? Has his ingratiation shift from north indians to tamilians?  Is that a superior ingratiation? I need answers, so the poor ingratiating telugu me with low low self respect   could follow and feel good about myself.

BW. I am proud of you.

I would have been prouder if after he continued to speak in Hindi even after a few attempts by you to speak in English, if you told the manager that you want a server who speaks English.

Kayalvizhi wrote:BW. I am proud of you.

I would have been prouder if after he continued to speak in Hindi even after a few attempts by you to speak in English, if you told the manager that you want a server who speaks English.

>>>What if the manager didn't speak English?

>>>What if the manager didn't speak English?

Walk out of the restaurant.

Kinnera wrote:English is a phoren language, no?

not to me, it isn't. it's less foreign than hindi (btw there is no such word as phoren) and much less foreign certainly than punjabi or gujarati.

Kinnera wrote:Why english in an indian restaurant, that too while ordering dosais, paruppu vadais, and other south indian (nay..tamilian!) items?

i am surprised you even have to ask that question.  what do you suggest a person do, who knows no indian language besides her own native language which happens to be something other than hindi, and when she knows that the wait staff do not know her language? i think it is a reasonable expectation, that if one is outside india, in an indian restaurant, that the wait staff know whatever the local language is, since they will be serving the local clientele.  in the US i expect the wait staff to speak a bit of english.

>> BW - mt.rainier national park that they should include other indian languages and not just hindi.


Thanks, BW. I bet Ranier has Bengali. Because it has a country. "Dialect is a language without an army" - old Yiddish proverb.


The Las Vegas hotel Planet Hollywood has a few columns with words from lots of languages including Tamil, etc.

>> Kinnera - am glad kv's, max's and vee's hours and hours of effort over the last decade+ has changed at least one 


All that is needed is one. I am posting in lots of forums to develop the next commander in tamilnadu

i get hindi spoken to me ALL the time in indian restaurants in the US when people who look more obviously american get addressed in english. since i can understand hindi, i reply back in tamil. after that first exchange the wait staff shift to english.

Kayalvizhi wrote:>> BW - mt.rainier national park that they should include other indian languages and not just hindi.


Thanks, BW. I bet Ranier has Bengali. Because it has a country. "Dialect is a language without an army" - old Yiddish proverb.


The Las Vegas hotel Planet Hollywood has a few columns with words from lots of languages including Tamil, etc.

>> Kinnera - am glad kv's, max's and vee's hours and hours of effort over the last decade+ has changed at least one 


All that is needed is one. I am posting in lots of forums to develop the next commander in tamilnadu

why develop? you already have an allcaps kattabomman on SUCH that can lead an army of children to blow themselves up over language wars, why dont you take him/her? also nominate the geriatric, the adult diapered virile1 as chief advisor and you have yourself the reborn eelam resistance right here in northamerica. would be a good start to make the keynote announcement at this meeting:

http://terroristfronts.wordpress.com/2014/07/14/the-ltte-revives-its-us-network/

swapna wrote:

bw wrote:

swapna wrote:

bw wrote:dear kv,

i was at an indian restaurant yesterday with some telugu friends of ours. the waiter was from himachal pradesh and kept talking to us in hindi. the telugu couple responded to him in hindi. i told him what i wanted in english and he responded in hindi. after a couple of futile attempts at hinting that i spikki no hindi, i thought of you and decided to speak my mind. i told him "i have been speaking to you in english and you keep responding to me in hindi. i am asking you for appams, dosai with chutney and paruppu vadai. should you not consider the possibility that maybe i am a bloody madrasi who does not speak hindi?" (ok,i was a bit more polite). he said sorry and spoke to me in english after that.

i hope you are proud of me.

love,
bw

you should blame the telugu couple you were with. by speaking to the waiter in hindi, they apparently wanted to ingratiate themselves to him, hoping that he would consider them worthy of a social relationship with him, in spite of their being telugu.

you are missing the point. *i* stood up to him and put him in his place instead of being a silent spectator. i did understand whatever he was telling me in hindi but instead of just letting it go, i made a point by rebelling.

would i have done that without kv egging us on for years? i don't think so. ok, you and max get some credit too but the single-minded devotion of kv needs acknowledgement, i feel.

you "stood up" to the wrong person.

please tell me what dishes the telugus ordered.

didn't you recently write skeptically and mockingly about "SI-NI fights" here as if you are above it all? have you had a change of heart now? are you no more the "open-minded" person you portrayed yourself to be? 

In my opinion, southern indians should hit back hard at northindians because they have, over many decades, made huge, concerted efforts to trample on our freedoms, and not because of the inconvenience of ordering in hindi at a restaurant. half-hearted resistance such as yours is futile. 

I have, on many occasions, written about the underlying political and cultural reasons for the northindians' uncivil behaviour; I shall not repeat them here.

yes, kayal deserves a great deal of credit for her consistent, determined stance. on the other hand, after our relocation here, max retired to the pavilion in order to please charvakan because the latter seemed to be in control of this forum, and was ambivalent about northindian incivility. 

to win charvakan's favour, max even made peace with the cleveland steamer, and gratuitously agreed with them at regular intervals. it was an interesting sight to see. in other words, max has deserved no credit in the last two years.

I am glad that you've finally seen a glimmer of the light, but i remain skeptical because the underlying cause of it was food, and not a recognition of the importance of freedom in one's life.

hahahaha,excuse me, hahahahahahaha.
Everyone knows why you will not repeat them here. Coming from the biggest ingratiator, the above post is such a joke.

Kayalvizhi wrote:BW. I am proud of you.

I would have been prouder if after he continued to speak in Hindi even after a few attempts by you to speak in English, if you told the manager that you want a server who speaks English.

thank you, kv. oh! i will make sure i do that the next time.