Saturday, October 13, 2007

The 'Angrezi' Culture!

For the 'swadesi' me, it has been rather difficult from the very beginning to assimilate the 'angrezi' culture of B-Schools. A die-hard supporter of desi-bhashaa-swadesi-vyavahaar; there are thousands of irritating things out here which have constantly harassed my mental peace.

One of them is that most ubiquitous of the several phrases used by those 'Yo-dudes' (for the 'uneducated': if you are having difficulty picturing them, just imagine a bunch of gays chatting in shorts and 'I'm Pagal' Tees and 3-inch heeled sandals called 'kittos') - "rock".



Rock is everywhere. The 'about me' section of someone's orkut profile would say 'I rock!' The dinner suddenly becomes eatable one day and the 'Mess Committee rocks!' They haven't seen a sea-beach in their entire lifetime, and the first exclamation would be 'The place rocks!' The most 'jhamtee' guy in the class solves the problems for the next day's submissions and everybody copies it, 'He rocks!' The only good teacher of the last term becomes 'That prof rocked!' Why do you always have to "rock"? Why can't you 'jazz' or 'hip-hop' or 'heavy metal' or 'country blue'? Or rather, can't you simply 'aalaap'? He 'aalaaps', he 'thumrees', he 'qawwalis'… might even go like he 'bhajan-kirtans'!!

Now don't argue with me for the word meaning of 'rock'. The dictionary is clear about it. Current usage isn't what the word is meant to be. I'd selectively quote a few of the dictionary meanings-


rock: \ˈräk\

–noun

1. a large mass of stone forming a hill, cliff, promontory, or the like.
… … …
2. offensive term: an offensive term for the testicles ( slang )
… … …

–transitive verb
1. to move back and forth in or as if in a cradle
… … …

–intransitive verb
3. to sing, dance to, or play rock music
… … …

–Idioms
1. between a rock and a hard place, between undesirable alternatives.
2. get one's rocks off, Slang: Vulgar. to have an orgasm.
3. on the rocks,
a. Informal. in or into a state of disaster or ruin: Their marriage is on the rocks.
b. Informal. without funds; destitute; bankrupt.
c. (of a beverage, esp. liquor or a cocktail) with, or containing, ice cubes: Scotch on the rocks; a vodka martini on the rocks.

–Related forms
rockless, adjective
rocklike, adjective


So, whenever I hear someone saying 'he rocks', I usually tend to think about the second meaning of the word as a noun, mentioned in my list - poor guy, whatever might've happened to his 'rocks'! To sum this post up, all I want to convey is, can't we use the word in its more interesting forms, rather than the gay-usage? Look at the second and the third idioms in the above list. There are pretty 'rocking' usages of the word, can't people just 'get their rocks off' once and for all and stop this particularly irritating usage of making anybody rock?




3 comments:

dkprasad said...

You ROCK!!
I guess "Dude" is also one of the oft repeated, out-of-place words!!

Anarchy said...

you don't qawwali... you don't alaap.. you don't raag..

KV rocks :P

now guess wat does this make u??

azz***

Reena said...

U ROCK!!!
U ROCK!!!
U ROCK!!!
U ROCK!!!
U ROCK!!!
U ROCK!!!
U ROCK!!!