University Grants Commission, New Delhi Recognized Journal No. 41311 ISSN: Print: 2347-5021 www.research-chronicler.com ISSN: Online: 2347-503X

Indianized English: A Study of Anita Rau Badami’s ‘Tamarind Mem’ Dr. Mrs. Jayashri Ajay Aphale Savitribai Phule Mahila Mahavidyalaya, Satara, (M.S.) India

Abstract The present paper attempts to evaluate the language of Anita Rau Badami’s ‘Tamarind Mem’ based on Braj Kacharu’s Theory of Indianization. Indian English is considered as the standard variety of British English and it becomes the inevitable truth that is no longer a foreign language but very much the language of Indian people. The study asserts Anita Rau Badami’s view that Indian Expressions can be easily administered in English Language. It gives a pleasant feel of Indianness to the readers, without breaking its beauty and meaning. India is known for cultural as well as linguistic diversity, which results in disintegrated national identity of English language and experimentation on it. Badami’s ‘Tamarind Mem’ is full of several strategies to realize, the Indian Ethos. She utilized several Indian idioms, images, rituals, abusive terms; terms to indianize her novel. Key Words: Indianization, Culture, Linguistic-diversity, Experimentation, Multilingualism

Indian English fiction becomes the most process of nativization at lexical, popular during the last some decades of phonological and syntactic levels due to the twentieth century due to its specific features influence of different mother tongues and and theme such as: multiculturalism, culture. This acculturation of English in diasporic elements, subaltern features, India is termed by Braj Kachru as feminism, marginalization, Indianization, of ‘Indianization of English. ’Kachru explains English and experimentation on it and so some lexical, collocation deviations and on. The use of English language in the post- syntactic processes. After the 1980’s Indian colonial period has undergone a significant English Novel had its luxuriant growth change because of the writers’ flying mainly in the hands of Salman Rushdie, imagination and their world-wide Vikram Sheth, Amitav Ghosh, Kiran Desai, experiences. Indian writing in English Anita Rau Badami, Arundhati Roy and a crossed many milestones and has come to few others. be finally accepted as a major literature of Anita Rau Badami (b.1961) born in the the world English is a glocal language in town of Rourkela in the eastern state of India as it satisfies both the global and local Orissa in India. She had a nomadic needs. English in India has acquired experience of shifting from place to place as ‘functional nativeness’ as a medium of her father worked as an engineer in the communication across distinct linguistic and Indian Railways. After graduating from the cultural groups. Indian writers in English University of Madras, she studied had to face some challenges. It is difficult to journalism and after her marriage she find English equivalents for various terms shifted to Canada and settled their in 1991. used in the Indian languages and context. Her first novel ‘Tamarind Mem’ was Undoubtedly English has undergone a published in 1996 and then published as

Volume VII Issue III: March 2019 (40) Author: Dr. Mrs. Jayashri Ajay Aphale University Grants Commission, New Delhi Recognized Journal No. 41311 ISSN: Print: 2347-5021 www.research-chronicler.com ISSN: Online: 2347-503X Tamarind Woman in United States. This while unfolding her story. Badami’s novel novel fetched her great fame. Among the offers her readers a successful negotiation Indo-Canadian writers Badami has earned with the conscious exploration of the unique place in the vibrant field with her indigenous thought patterns, idioms, socio- focus on psychological insights and cultural terms and experiences and concerns of her women protagonist. Badami techniques of foreignization, which is the explores an updated analysis of the migrated feature of globalized language. The novel Indian in India and abroad. Her deals with a South-Indian Brahmin writing revolves round as how families immediately after independence of India. undergo socio-cultural, psychological The British left the India but the colonial transplantation, when they move from one hangover has set in and Indians are still culture to another. Tamarind Mem is a attracted towards Mems and Sahibs and the skillfully written family saga that analyses colonial hierarchies. The novel projects complex relationship of Indian family. female characters all seem locked into Tamarind Mem is the story of two women, interiors, circumscribed by rules and Saroja, the mother and her daughter, expectations. Badami successfully used Kamini. The first part of the novel titled many popular Indian idioms and phrases, “Kamini” gives us the accountof her birth Indian terms of abuse, expletive and swear- and childhood in several places and the words, distorted Indian and English words death of her father “Dadda”. The second and sentences, Indian Imagery, rituals, food part “Saroja” is Kamini’s mother’s terms, clothing terms, Kinship and honorific flashback at her own childhood, youth, terms etc. from the vernacular which makes marriage to Dadda, their residence in the novel interesting and indianized. several places, the births of the two Badami uses code mixing strategy at large daughters Kamini and Rupa, and souring of to indianize her English. The itself is her relation with ‘Dadda’. She narrates her the best example of it. Tamarind is English story to the co-passengers in rail, she comes word associated with Mem, a short form of across during her journey. Both the parts are Memsahib, a Hindi word used for . narrated in the first person and deal with the Badami’s Indianness lies in her use of personal impressions of the mother and English language in the Indian context with daughter about the kind of life they had to other Indian languages, which suits to her live in India. The title ‘Tamarind Mem’ characters. In the following extract from itself indicated the Indianness, as the term novel one can get the idea of her skill of Mem indicated it. The Tamarind is believed using language: by Indians as an inauspicious tree which is “Yesterday a Padre, father Joseph, inhabited by malicious spirits and any from that boy’s school across the contact with it is said to sour relations. road, was smashed like a fly against Saroja, has a sharp, biting tongue and the side of number 21 bus,” said the doesn’t spare anybody, which earns her the driver, “Total chutney, the poor inevitable epithet ‘Tamarind Mem’. man”. (19) The most outstanding feature of this novel Total chutney is a notable example of code is self-conscious stylistic and indianized mixing, where in Total is an from terms and devices employed by Badami,

Volume VII Issue III: March 2019 (41) Author: Dr. Mrs. Jayashri Ajay Aphale University Grants Commission, New Delhi Recognized Journal No. 41311 ISSN: Print: 2347-5021 www.research-chronicler.com ISSN: Online: 2347-503X English, mixed with chutney a noun used (1982) treats the discourse markers as an for Indian food, a kind of strong relish. This integrator or sentence fillers, used inevitably hybridized term colourfully indicates the in speaking. For example, extent of damage to the priest’s body after “What did I tell you? Hanh?” the accident. It shows the usual Indian way of taking about accidents. In this discourse Saroja crossed the Kamini and emphasizes her opinion by adding Linda Ayah’s (a maid servant of Saroja) discourse marker ‘hanh’ as a question tag. gossip with the other working women is Grammatically and semantically ‘hanh’ has another example of indianized English: neither a concrete place nor a meaning, but ‘It is her Miyaan, he wants a son’ (92). it suits here to Saroja’s nature, indicating Here ‘Miyaan’, a word from Hindi which the negativity. There are so many discourse points out here the Muslim practice of markers such as: Baap re baap (46), Tchuk- referring to the husband as Miyaan is used tchuk (18), un-unh (37), etc. used by as it is. Badami subtly indicates the Indian Badami in her characters conversation. ethos of male dominance through this code- ‘Word-formation’ is another significant mixing. The characters in the novel are of creative process used by Badami to two types: Middle class Indians, servants, indianize her English. She uses drivers, mechanics and Ayahs. Badami compounding, coinage and reduplication at skillfully suggests their narrow way of large in this novel. thinking, which appears to be illogical and Reduplication, in Indian English provides superstitious. Linda Aya is in trouble emphasis indicating continuation of a because of naughty and mischievous acts of process. Reduplications are linguistic Kamini and Roopa. To threaten them Linda doubling, called as echo-formations, which talks of several superstitious concepts from also stress cultural norms, values, ideals and Indian culture such as, bhoots (55), attitude. Indians, especially North- Indians Rakshas, Shaitan, dayain (55), Shani Devil are big on ‘echowords’ tagged onto a noun. girl (57), Kali-kaluti (57), Badmaash (81), Indian English words that lend a playful Chudail (213) etc. These are notable rhythm to the spoken vernacular are used by examples which are holding Indian cultural Badami to enliven everyday conversation as scripts. She mixed codes from various in the following extract: sectors of Indian society such as: religion, culture, profession, rituals and so on. For “Liar – Liar lipstick”, I chanted example use of several religious terms immediately. Pooja (43), juttu (70), sanyasi (101), “You were sitting behind the building Amruth-dhara (120), apsaras(136), doing khusur-phusur with the other Trishanku (143), swarg (143), sharma ayahs (29) (156), Kula-gothra (165), purajari (176), Linda Ayah complains against the little sadhu (199), etc. is quite remarkable in daughters to Kamini that they are naughty establishing the Indian ethos in novel. and disobedient. The little girl immediately Use of Indian discourse markers in novel is tries to protest by exposing the Ayah who is another notable feature of seen doing ‘Khusurphusur’ (29) with the Badami’sindianized English. Gumperz other ayahs and neglecting them. This

Volume VII Issue III: March 2019 (42) Author: Dr. Mrs. Jayashri Ajay Aphale University Grants Commission, New Delhi Recognized Journal No. 41311 ISSN: Print: 2347-5021 www.research-chronicler.com ISSN: Online: 2347-503X reduplication is purely Indian as the term Tamarind Mem could be analysed along comes from Hindi. In Hindi khusur-phusur these lines: means chitchatting in vain or gossiping with “Uh-huh, what mischief are you up someone. There are several Indian to, monkey-child?” she asked (4) reduplications applied by Badami in her ‘Tamarind Mem’. The most remarkable ‘Monkey child’ is a collocation used to examples are: hello-vello (14), revolution- emphasize the naughtiness of children. shevolution (69), cutlet-mutlet (72), Badami collocates monkey with child to shampoo-tampoo (76), beggars-weggars point out the same naughtiness in Kamini as (102), train-shain (140), packing-shaking a monkey, which happens generally in (195),college-vollege (111), drama-shama Indian communication. Badami’s (111), etc. are quite interesting and collocations are thus very rare and meaningful when will be read in their imaginative. There are other examples of context. such collocations in which Badami uses English words but her purpose is to point Badami’s novel is a provocative novel, out the Indian way of thinking, such as: about the ties of love and resentment that nosy-parker girl (26), a sneaky-pie-face bind mothers and daughters, masters and (25), rubbish pile-place (37), whispery- servants. The story is about the Indian fabric (46) closed-tin mind (55), air-headed family life, and hence the progress of sister (261). These appear very odd but Indianization of English language has strike as and apt while reading. naturally resulted in the use of Indian collocations. According to Braj Kachru In Tamarind Mem we have numerous collocations and compounds may have one funny and odd hyphenated compounds, or more of the following characteristics which reveal Badami’s linguistic (1982:109): competence and creative genius. This can be considered as neologisms/ coinages. 1. They deviate grammatically from Here is one such example creating humour. British English compounding. Whenever Kamini suffers from dysentery 2. They are loan shifts from Indian Saroja gives her medicine called Amruth- language. dhara that Kamini hates taking protest 3. They are collocationally Indian. against it bluntly: 4. They have contextual units assigned in Indian culture which are absent in … my mouth filled with the ugly taste British Culture. of shit syrup. (120) Badami’s collocations and compounding are Shit-syrup is a coinage created for the anti- noticeable and suit the context syntactically dysentery medicine which Kamini’s mother and semantically as she Indianizes English Saroja forces her to drink in her childhood. to suit Indian Cultural contexts and Indian She hates its taste and smell as children characters. Indian sensibility has been usually do and so Roopa, Kamini’s sister, caught here brilliantly, in a typical Indian names it as Shit Syrup. and sometime; the words and The term ‘hybridization’ has acquired a expressions are in English, but the special meaning in the context of post- organization is Indian. An example from colonial writers of fiction. These writers

Volume VII Issue III: March 2019 (43) Author: Dr. Mrs. Jayashri Ajay Aphale University Grants Commission, New Delhi Recognized Journal No. 41311 ISSN: Print: 2347-5021 www.research-chronicler.com ISSN: Online: 2347-503X experimented with English, mixing the to produce and reproduce children. Today, regional Indian languages. Language has having the influence of Western culture and been an important tool of resistance, so education, we find some changes in such these writers create the new instrument of type of orthodoxy in urban area, but still we ‘hybrid language’. Hybrid language is used find that women are treated as inferior to for expressing writers’ disparate cultural men in Indian society. ’Woman is a shadow backgrounds and helps them assert their of her husband’ has a hidden meaning that cultural identity. This linguistic hybridity women have no identity; they are mere was initially considered a negative aspect of shadows of men. the Indian Writers Orientation but since the Saroja wants to oppose her parents but is publication of Homi Bhabha’s (1994) work not successful. Her grandfather has kept an on Culture and related concepts of post- illicit sexual relation with a woman and hurt colonialism, the term ‘hybridity’ has his wife Putti. She expresses her anger for acquired a positive, creative relationship. male chauvinistic tradition and her dislike Anita Rau Badami achieves considerable for the meekness of the other women in the success in utilizing the technique of family when she remarks: hybridization as her linguistic apparatus. A “They are like Cows. All they do is to few notable examples of such hybridized have children and gossip” (171) terms used in the novel are: “Paanjuice” (8), “raddhiman” (35), “Jamoon fruit” Here Badami uses ironically an Indian (56), “doctorwallahs” (66), “Bauni-rate” tradition of worshipping cows. Cows are (87), “Thief-goonda-Rascals” (141), worshipped in India as holy creatures, very “Bilad-Pressure” (92), “Choona-box” mild, productive and useful. The Metaphor (162), “neem-juice” (94), “Besharam- of the cow has an implied meaning, and hedge” (22), and many more. suggests here irony of a woman’s life in India. Some Indian words are pluralized by adding‘s’ as an inflectional from In Indian culture Honorific terms are English. It is also considered as a part of socially determined on the different basis hybridized linguistic creativity. In such as age, higher social status, profession Tamarind Mem there are several examples etc. These are used with of such types by Badami like; kata marans such as Mr. /Shri, Mrs/Smt. or with suffix (68), cholis (82), pakoras, samosas and ‘ji’. tikkas (99), aloo-parathas (115), saris (121), In “Tamarind Mem” (1996), there are memsahibs (145), etc. several Honorific terms which are in the As Kachru observes Indian English has indianized English. Some English specific feature of Indian idiomatization, it Honorifics are also to emphasize the can be easily seen in the above speech acts. colonial influence of the ‘British Raj For The utterances are addressed to Saroja by example, Linda Ayah addresses Saroja as her mother and reflect the older generation ‘Memsahib’ or ‘Mem’ (201).‘Ji’ is “Hindi” concept of how in a family, a woman Honorific suffix, Badami uses it in her needed to be married and have children. The novel with several address terms in which primary function of marriage is considered honorific suffix is attached to Kinship terms for indicating politeness:

Volume VII Issue III: March 2019 (44) Author: Dr. Mrs. Jayashri Ajay Aphale University Grants Commission, New Delhi Recognized Journal No. 41311 ISSN: Print: 2347-5021 www.research-chronicler.com ISSN: Online: 2347-503X Baba+ji = Babaji (66) are used to focus their preciousness and their importance in Indian traditional Aunty+ji = Auntiji (195) ceremonies. Chooridar (pants that are Behen+ji = Behenji (235) baggy from the waist to the knee and ending Bibi+ji = Bibiji (258) in churis, 77), lehenga (decorative ankle- length skirt, Urdu term, 8), salwar- kameez Bhabhi+ji = Bhabhiji (208) (combination of tunic and pants, 91), The honorific ‘ji’ accompanies even verbs, dupatta (long scarf like item, 91), etc. are , adverbs and negativizers. also used in the original form. These are all English Honorifics are also used by Badami type of clothing used by women of various to depict the influence of English language religions from India. Badami has used on Indian life. men’s wear terms also such as: Pyjamas Badami uses endearment terms in her novel (from Farsi, to Urdu and Hindi, sleepwear such as; My Kanmani (47), My Jesu child (), used by men, 237), baniyan (an inner, My Bitiya (114), Baby, Missy (47), Naughty sleeveless vest-Hindi term, 237), kurtas (a Badmash girl (81), Baby Chikkamma (146), thigh length tunic Hindi, 237) etc. etc. These underline the elders’ love for Badami’s use of these words, in their children and the Indian habit of using vernacular form seems justifiable and metaphoric language, especially for desirable when read in their context and children. Some terms in the list make moreover it shows her skill of using English meaningful use of code-switching and language for Indian characters and readers. hybridization, which throws light on In Tamarind Mem Badami has achieved a linguistic experimentation. language which is remarkably simple, clear Badami has also used clothing terms, and transparent, through which a profound without giving them any equivalent from understanding of life is communicated. English. One example is a Sari (length of Badami’s language is a unique kind of cloth worn wrapped around the body in Indianized English. Her numerous specific ways by Indian women). Badami experiments with the English language have specifies the significance of ‘Sari’ through made Tamarind Mem quite interesting and various events and narratives in her novel. readable to anyone. Silk Saris (13), Zari Saris (121), such terms References: 1. Badami, Anita Rau. Tamarind Mem. London: Penguin, 1996. Reprint.2002. 2. Bandopadhyay, Sumana. Indianization of English. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 2010. Print. 3. Bansal R. K. and Harrison J. B. Spoken English for India, a Manual of Speech and Phonetics. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1972. Print. 4. Bansal, Ramkrishna. Intelligibility of Indian English, Hyderabad: CIEFL Press, 1969. Print. 5. Flinch, G. Linguistic Terms and Concepts. London: Macmillan Press, 2000. Print. 6. Kachru, Braj. B. The Indianization of English: The English Languagein India. Delhi: , 1983. Print. 7. Sailaja, Pingali, Indian English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009. Print.

Volume VII Issue III: March 2019 (45) Author: Dr. Mrs. Jayashri Ajay Aphale