8

Ek Do Teen…!!


While zapping TV channels lazily, I paused at one of the Hindi news channels. It said Tendulkar got out at “Atavan” runs. I wondered, “Oh My God.. just 19???” Seconds later, in between the news clips, I saw the little master raise his bat at the crowd! “Huh… these days, at multiples of 5, do they do this??” I asked myself. Then on my fingers I started counting, “Ek-do-teen-char-panch… gyarah-barah-terah… hmm.. ah.. chodah-pandrah!!” That’s it! Confidently my number train goes only till 13; Thanks to Maduri Dixit for dancing to the song in ‘Tezaab’.

This 'Atavan' thinge kept distubing me; I couldn’t get my mind off the number table. For some reason I was sure 18 is ‘Atarah’. So logically, ‘Atavan’ should come after ‘Atarah’. Right? Yeah.. I was pretty sure of my conclusion. But.. if so, why did Tendulkar raise his bat?

So, I decided to investigate on google.

I cannot believe – I was wrong! Tendulkar smashed 58 runs!! No wonder he was so excited! I cannot agree with the person who found out these weird (100%) names for numbers. 18 is ‘Atarah’ while 19 is ‘Unnees’. How could, even in the strangest of his dreams he give names like these?? Similarly, 58 is ‘Atavan’ while 59 is ‘Unsad’. "Bizarre, isn’t??!!" Why are people fond of making simple things so complicated?

This was something I disliked the most (from my school days) even in Hindi exams – translate numbers to and fro. ie, 25 to ‘pachees’ and ‘pachees’ to 25!!! Once while distributing answer sheets, our ‘Hindi miss’ just couldn’t help rolling her eyes at my paper. She said, “I think this problem runs in your family. For your brother, 99 is ‘Nau-nau’!!!”. However, I stand by my intelligent & ingenious brother. ‘Nau-nau’ definitely sounds easier and better than ‘Ninyanve’.

"Do you think otherwise???"

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

a self proclaimed hindi dud salutes you

zero-state said...

Hey.. same is true for marathi and even I always get that wrong! happy to know few more in my boat! [:D]

Pink Mango Tree said...

I believe, there are many.. sailing in the same boat! :)

anoop said...

I hate hindi numbers too... I just switch off my mind when i hear some number in hindi and pretend that I dint hear at all :)

thanks for dropping by a comment on my blog.

Ananya said...

nau nau...that was so funny...i was reading this blog in office and i had 2 run out to LOL

Dr Roshan Radhakrishnan said...

totally agree... till I joined Pune, my Hindi numbers were solely based on Tezaab.. not a single number beyond that

Vidya said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Vidya said...

same feelings here Shalini....
till very recent times, i used to get confused with pachees(25) and pachaaas(50).... i used to think that it was just diferent people pronounciating the same word differently..lol....
And i used to think pandrah is 12...thanks to pandrandu in malayalam!!! lol

nau nau was truly a great innovation!!!!

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