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!

ARTISTIC DISILLUSION……………Recently, certain members of Indian society called upon a boycott on all Godrej products. Reason being; the owners of the said company had hosted author Salman Rushdie at their guest house. This caused a divide in staunch followers of both religion and brand paraphernalia; but this column is not about that.
Rushdie dwells in London also the present place of residence to one of our most well known and commercially successful contemporary artist.Mr.Hussain who needs no introduction, is cooling heels in London. He lives in exile because through his art, he has upset the feelings of certain individuals by what they thought was as unacceptable form of representation.
Getting back to art, four years ago, Mr.Hussain had visited Surat. The occasion was the grand opening of one of the most beautiful art galleries in India .Also; the only gallery in Surat that displays art [since the other two are rented out to bored rich housewives who display their fancy wares for a quick buck in copied versions of original paintings]. After addressing a packed audience that sat in awe, Hussain promptly painted a scene from his childhood that depicted a child, his bicycle and his mother .It is displayed here along with many of his other works. The said gallery is within the Bela mills compound and is owned by Garden. Originally an English factory, this mill still retains its old world charisma. A heritage in itself, with its octagonal brick chimneys, majestic wooden beams and roofs that seem sky high. The private collection of paintings and sculptures within is a wish list for every art lover. Works by S.H.Raza, Tyeb Mehta, K.H.Ara, N.S.Bendre to name a few, proudly share space on the huge walls. Many a painting sought after by the National Gallery of Modern Art lies locked here. This exclusive and invaluable gallery which was presented to the Surtis as a culture gift was shut down to public viewing after it was gate crashed and vandalized on 29-1-2004 by certain members of our ‘aam janta’.Objecting to a couple of paintings portrayed which they thought were offensive to their religious sentiments, they destroyed eight priceless ones in the bargain.
Coming back to art-’Tapti’ as the collection is named, is home to over 150 works of several superb masters, one of whom is Bhupen Khakhar, who studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Vadodra. Lately, the same Faculty was attacked by people whose national sentiments were hurt by the artistic expressions on some college students ‘canvas.
Anyway; getting back to what we are talking about, lets know more about Bhupen Khakhar -brilliant, by far one of India’s greatest painters. Mr. Misunderstood, he was known as the ‘enfant terrible’ in the Indian Art circuit and nobody other than his
Colleagues understood the method in his madness. He began painting at the age of 28 and surprised critics with his bold impressions.Brave enough in his times to announce to an oppressive world that he was a homosexual. This accountant turned artist’s masterpieces were dubbed as ‘gay’ and proscribed by starchy officials and art critics who found his audacity unacceptable. Though the Indian media was then intolerant towards the spectacular works of this Master, he received International acclaim thus putting Vadodra on the art world map. Posthumously; his paintings are a rage and constantly in demand. An extensive collection of his fine works lies locked and secure in Surat staring out at other contemporary paintings, behind what I suspect are heavy Godrej locks. The only International sit down portrait ever painted by this genius, was created on request for the British High Commission. It is called ‘The Moor’ and is that of author Salman Rushdie.
Err…………..I suppose that brings us back full circle to where we started off from.