Akhil Tandulwadikar’s Blog

In an apparent effort to keep a check on racist Indian fans, Cricket Australia (CA), is taking the help of Indian cricketers. The Indian players will provide CA with a list of ‘racist slurs’.

“We wanted to know what terms or expressions in their language would be considered offensive or racist“

That’s Bryan Young, CA’s ‘anti-racism’ officer. Mr Young, I have a couple of doubts:

1) India has more than 20 official languages and the spectators could speak any one of them. I am also sure that Indian cricketers do not speak all of them. Then how, in this holy world, are the aussie undercover police going to catch hold and discard the racist spectators?

2) Could you please differentiate between racist and offensive language? I mean, one could be offensive but not racist. And since you are supposed to be an ‘anti-racism’ officer, what are you doing making notes of ‘offensive’ words?

Anyway, without venturing much into the hilarity of the situation, here are my set of racist words / phrases that could be used by racist Indians in the crowd. And for clarity’s sake, I will only mention the Hindi ones:

Saala aussie (Bloody aussie)

Bandar! (Monkey)

Safed Jhandi (white flag / man)

Hmmm any other? I can’t think of any more. Of course, there’s a load of words that are not necessarily racist but insulting. And I think Mr Bhajji, Mr Sehwag and Mr Yuvi would be able to fill you up on that. As an added bonus, you keep the same list when Pakistan plays in Australia, ‘coz the language is the same!

Here’s wishing you all the best with your anti-racist and anti-offensive language endeavour.

 Author: Daniel Kehlmann
Translated from German by: Carol Brown Janeway

I bought this Novel, along with 5 other books, on Saturday at Crosswords, Banjara Hills. I picked it up on impulse, read the blurb and decided to go for it. Have read a few pages and it looks good. The author is a young 31-year old Daniel Kehlmann, which means the language will not the usual heavy-toned one which you’d associate with older writers. The bnook revolves around the journey of two brilliant German Mathematicians of the 18th century who decide to measure the world after they meet at Berlin. Their meeting coincides with the fall of Napoleon.

The reviews I have read after buying it have been very good. Here’s what Guardian had to say about it:

The novel marks a change in Germany’s post-war literary landscape. For decades German fiction has enjoyed the reputation of being serious, worthy and a bit dull. It has, for the most part, been preoccupied with the country’s grim past.
[...]
What distinguishes Measuring the World from previous German novels is its delightful authorial irony, whether describing the failed seduction of Humboldt by a 15-year-old servant girl - the book suggests that Humboldt is probably gay - or his adventures up the Orinoco river. At one point an alien spaceship makes an appearance, leaving the reader wondering whether anything in the story is actually true.

This is my first German Novel, or book for that matter, and I am quite excited about it. Hope to finish it, unlike The Discovery of India and Freedom at Midnight, which I have left midway.