Tuesday, December 13, 2005

For my makapao friends ...

[I'm afraid my non-Indian readers will simply not get this. Sorry y'all! But this is just too hilarious to pass up! And right on as well!]

You know you are a Catholic.... when?

You and your girlfriend are "friendly".

You've never had a grandmother, you've always had a Nana. The same goes for
Dada.

You jive to hip-hop.

Bastard is baashturd. And baashturd is always preceeded by bleddie.

And if the DJ doesn't play the "masala" he's a bleddie baashturd and u feel
like jhaaping, clipping or tanning him.

The first thing you ask another Catholic is "which parish?" (Oh so true! I never knew what to say -- since I'm not really a mac. You know, a bleddie convert, men.)

Mazgaon is mazgon, Mahim is mayhim, borivali is brivli, bandra is banruh.
And you are a Mayhim boy or a Banruh girl.

Every sentence you say ends with "men". And most sentences you say begin
with "cheh men".

Women are "chicks" and men are "buggers". (Not at all the same connotation as in the UK!)

It's okay if you skipped your best friend's birthday, but Sunday 9 o'clock
mass, have to go men, to meet da chicks and da buggers.

You utter 9 F**ks per 3 words (oh how true this is! "Bleddie mac punctuation" I used to call it.)

You know at least one person in Vasai, Borivali I.C. colony and Orlem, each.

The old people in the family call you "puta" of sonna¨ or my girl¡¨

Portugal is your favourite European country.

You know 13 Savio's and 7 Seans. (Shawns).

You've been living in Bombay all your life, but you're actually from Goa or
Mangalore.

You never say Mumbai.

You'll skip the world cup final but not the Christmas dance.

You love going to the local "fete" to watch the parish king and queen
contest.

Irritating person = swine.

When you disagree you say "balls".

You can't play cricket to save your life, but you rock at football (i.e. soccer).

You don't like Remo too much, but if a non-Catholic doesn't like him, you'll
kick his a** for it.

Your Hindi is a little better than Michael Jackson's (ROFLOL!)

You claim you can't speak Konkani, but in reality, you can use it to win the
Nobel Prize for literature. (Hmm, this only applies to true Makapaos, i.e. Goans.)

Christmas is not happy, it's merry.

Suits are black, dark blue and grey. Only.

On a Saturday night, you want to go out for a "cupple-a-beers" men.

Sunday is chicken curry day.

Your freezer is filled with last years Sorpotel, which if u heat and eat
with pao no, it's damn tashty men. (Sorpotel is always damn tashty!)

You prefer chicken patties to chicken lollypops. (I disagree! All the macs I know love chicken lollypops!)

When you order pav bhaji, you eat more pav than bhaji.

If you're Goan you hate Mangies (Mangaloreans) and vice-versa. Both Goans and Mangies hate East-Indians a little.

East Indians are people who've always been living in west India, and have
nothing to do with the west indies.

Your bar has an okay amount of booze. 365 days of the year. And you always
"have some wine also men" for the women who don't drink.

You didn't watch Sholay but you've seen "The Passion of the Christ". In a
theatre. Twice. You think Mel Gibson is such a nice man. (I really can't comment on the last, since "The Passion" came out long after I left the reaches of Catholic Bombay! But not having watched Sholay? Oh yeah!)

12 comments:

assiniboine said...

Not insider knowledge at all! Indeed, the "man" in every sentence was part of the dinner table conversation last night -- c/o a Gujarati Muslim fellow dinner guest; and as for the disavowal of any knowledge of Konkani, that seems to go with the territory of stoutly maintaining that one is no Indian at all but a purebred Portuguese, even if one looks like one could credibly model for a Mughal miniature!

St. Elizabeth of Cayce said...

You're right--way over my head. But then, I'm 76% Southern.

assiniboine said...

["...looks like and could credibly..." that is]

Fr. Gaurav Shroff said...

Hehe --- had to share this email that just came in from one Mac friend. The same one I'm visiting in China.

Hey men, G!!!

What made you send such a F****** email, especially at a time when you are on your F****** way to BOMBAY men.

You could end up getting such a BLEDDIE TANNING men.

Anyway don’t forget to meet all your Macapao friends from BANRUH and also DAT one S who went to POONA.

PS: Hey BUGGERS when he come there just CLIP him for me, cause when he is here in China I will JHAAP him.

BLEDDIE AMERICAN GUJIU.

assiniboine said...

(He of course didn't realise it was only Goan Christians that put "man" in every sentence; all Christians look the same, presumably)

assiniboine said...

(He was, though, fascinated -- as was I -- with your explanation as to why they are called "bread eaters." My assumption had been that it might be something to do with the sacrament of holy communion. Wrong, as you helpfully put me straight.)

Now the next question is: why do you suppose that trendy young urban Pakistanis talk that way? I was stuck in the front seat of an extremely flash car being driven around Karachi and a song was blaring out of the CD player that I hadn't heard since 1967 (I was a very precocious tot). I asked WHERE he had found a CD with THAT on it. "Oh hey man, we are right up to date with the cool trends you know." Ummm...OK.

Anonymous said...

Holy Flipping Cow Snot! When do y'all go to bed?

Flipping three o'clock in the morning?

Sincerely,

Dogwood

Fr. Gaurav Shroff said...

Assiniboine: "Makapao" seems to be a corruption of "bread-butter" (Maska-pao in both Marathi and Konkani). Why that is so, who knows. Maybe it was because they ate bread as opposed to chapattis?

Also, the Catholic (sorry, it should properly be "cat-lick") mot is "men" not "man." The latter can be found in a variety of Indian English users, used in a variety of ways (and no, for the rest of y'all, not at all like the stereotypical Jamaican, man!). I've heard "men" only with English-speaking Catholics (in my experience, they're all Bombayites, whether Goans, Mangaloreans, East Indians or what have you).

Dogwood: assiniboine lives in Australia. At 3:00 a.m. EST (which is what the blog is set to record) it was 6:00 p.m. in Brisbane. :-)

assiniboine said...

Ah. I thought it had been you who had explained that it was because they are wery Vesternised isn't it [lateral head waggle]. :) Obviously someone else.

Anonymous said...

My apologies to assiniboine (and anyone else)for my momentary lack of reason and confusion.

I constantly see late night postings by Gashwin and know he functions on Eastern Standard Time.

Due to the international aspect of the web, postings should be around the Greenwich Time to one’s location. Not the time location of the blog. This is something we should refer to the Blogger/BlogSpot.

Again, please accept my apologies.

Sincerely,

Dogwood

Fr. Gaurav Shroff said...

Dogwood -- chill out, not a biggie. As to what time the blog shows, that's up to me. I chose EST because that's where I live. Who knows, while I'm overseas, I might change the time stamp settings.

Besides, when someone posts something really ought to be immaterial. :-D

assiniboine said...

Well, I was introduced to an ethnic Goan Christian last night (albeit via several generations in Mangalore) and I identified myself as a makapao (sort of) myself. He was, needless to say, vastly tickled. So I took advantage of the opportunity to get his take on the derivation of the sobriquet. He stoutly maintains that Goans are bakers and bakers are Goans and that's all there is to it. Could be, could be....