P IS FOR PROFANITY……..SURTIS ‘SWEAR’ BY IT!
Towns all over our country are known for their distinct dialect and manner of speaking; the nawaabi andaaz of Lucknow’s tehzeeb, the sugar coated chatter of Calcutta, the respectful regal tone of Jaipur, in Gujarat itself there are a number of accents in which Ahmedabadi, Kathiyawadi etc. Gujarati is spoken. When it comes to our town though, the otherwise sweet sounding language takes an about turn.’shu che?’ becomes’ hu che?’ and ‘tamay aavo’ becomes ‘tu chal ni’.Other than being casual about the way they speak, Surtis are also most definitely well known for their profanity. I mean, I have yet to hear a social, business or casual conversation in town which does not include more than one #~*$#! Expletive word in every delivered dialogue!
The ‘it’ slang word does not exist in Surat because every slang word is part of a normal Surti conversation. While one wonders what mothers, sisters, fathers, brother-in laws and their body parts have got to do with conversations that neither involve them nor revolve around them; the average Surti would loose half his talk time in case he was forced to frame a sentence without profusely swearing!
Surat has a number of communities and sub castes of Gujaratis that dwell here. We have the Patels, Ghachis, Golas, Khatris, Vanias etc. Although they all speak differently, they are bound together by their profanity. No one raises a surprised brow at the most inaudible word spoken publicly.
Since it has always been a business community, education has never been that important to the average Surti. Family business has beckoned many a young soul to discontinue studies midway, irrespective of caste and creed. Grammar in Tapi town therefore is also one of the poorest in the state and pronunciations too go for ahem! A six!
In case the otherwise efficient Surti lala was asked to make a business deal come through without using his slang words, it would be a catch 22 situation for him! Every Surti sentence is incomplete until it is peppered with slang.
Surtis do not mean to swear at their friends and associates, in fact they use these with people they converse with on a day to day basis as terms of endearments!Surtis swear when they are in a good mood, smilingly and do so angrily when they are in a bad mood. So that means, if a Surti does not swear when in conversation, you do not feature in his close group of normal people and he is trying really hard to keep the talk straight!
Minding his ‘P’s and ‘Q’s would be torture for a Surti and he would rather answer in ‘yes’ or’ no’ than converse in situations that call for the same. Watching cricket, flying kites, eating out, chatting on the mobile, shopping, driving, in short every normal activity that a Surti does has to have a reaction that begins and ends with exclamatory remarks.
One thing is for certain, if there was ever a competition for original, innovative, maximum and widely used profanity world wide, Surtis would win hands down, no competition there sir, not even from the infamous down under-Australia.Surtis casually speak words that would make any human from out of town go drastically red in the face.

The other ‘P’word that Surtis are well known for is Promiscuous, but this is a newspaper with family readership and I most definitely am not getting into that explicit conversation, lest I get showered with spicy Surti slang of the profane kind!