"divasOm"
As is well-known, the Indian railways insists on imposing Hindi at all levels, all over India. Display of place names, time tables and all other info is mandatory in Hindi along with English and the local language - even in areas where Hindi is unknown. Whether the largest fonts and most prominent position should be reserved for Hindi or for the local language is often passionately (and sometimes violently) debated.
Ottapalam is a small railway station in Kerala - the local language is Malayalam and Hindi is very much a peripheral phenomenon. As per the rule, there are time tables in Hindi as well as Malayalam and English. These tables have columns for train names, timings and frequency (whether the train runs everyday or on certain specific days of the week). All three languages are treated equally, fontsize-wise and otherwise.
In the 'frequency column' on the Hindi time table, it is written - for trains running everyday - in confident Devanagari (hindi) script - 'divasOm'. For non-Mallus, this 'divasOm' is a colloquial corruption of the Malayalam phrase 'divasavum' (=daily) and has nothing whatever to do with the actual Hindi word 'roz' for 'daily'!
Update (June 2009):
The other day, I saw on a big multi-lingual road direction board in Bangalore, written in Devnagari script: "Kempegauda Bus Nildana" - an exact transliteration of the Kannada phrase meaning "Kempegauda Bus Station". Of course, 'nildana' would make no sense whatever in Hindi.
Ottapalam is a small railway station in Kerala - the local language is Malayalam and Hindi is very much a peripheral phenomenon. As per the rule, there are time tables in Hindi as well as Malayalam and English. These tables have columns for train names, timings and frequency (whether the train runs everyday or on certain specific days of the week). All three languages are treated equally, fontsize-wise and otherwise.
In the 'frequency column' on the Hindi time table, it is written - for trains running everyday - in confident Devanagari (hindi) script - 'divasOm'. For non-Mallus, this 'divasOm' is a colloquial corruption of the Malayalam phrase 'divasavum' (=daily) and has nothing whatever to do with the actual Hindi word 'roz' for 'daily'!
Update (June 2009):
The other day, I saw on a big multi-lingual road direction board in Bangalore, written in Devnagari script: "Kempegauda Bus Nildana" - an exact transliteration of the Kannada phrase meaning "Kempegauda Bus Station". Of course, 'nildana' would make no sense whatever in Hindi.
posted by R.Nandakumar @ 7:30 AM
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