Saturday, January 14, 2012

Don't Inshallah me please!

We can not seem to decide which word we detest more -- fautgee (death) or Inshallah (God willing).

We’ve been bombed by both these words time and again and we’ve concluded  that people who litter their conversations with these words -- irrespective of age, sex, colour, class, creed -- should be treated with sufficient suspect.

We’ve written about Inshallah before and that it does not always mean that things will get done asap. More often than not, the term is thrown to buy time, defer or indefinitely postpone things that can be taken care of in the here and now. Alternatively, the term can be employed beautifully to shirk responsibility or make an empty promise.

Fautgee, too, hardly ever means what it is supposed to. It does, however, seem to be the number 1 excuse for those unable to resist the urge to take off to their gaons without notice. Our help is currently away to her village because of a cousin’s newborn’s fautgee.

It is difficult to contest fautgees, but we have learnt to challenge Inshallahs that our thrown our way.

Inshallah I will come tomorrow and finish the work,” said the carpenter. “Why not today?” I asked. “There has been a fautgee,” he answered. When I protested, he added, "Inshallah zindagee rahee to zaroor aaongaa!" We would have given him up for the dead had we not spotted him chit-chatting on our street some days later.

Our vet has taken us for a ride several times with his Inshallah-guaranteed and sometimes free-of-cost treatments for our rescues. We nearly had a heart attack when he presented a bill of several thousand rupees some months ago. While one of the kittens was returned to us in a worse state and with no conclusive diagnosis, the other had passed away.

We are still hoping that the Inshallah of our landlord, who was to get things fixed in our house months ago, materialises one day. Our youngish landlord’s disappearance has not been because of any fautgees, but he has been busy checking in and out of the hospital for the past three years or so – or at least since we’ve known him. The only time the doctors declare him fit is when it is time for him to collect the annual rent.

Now waiting for the pizza boy to deliver on someone’s dangerously deep-throated (and I’m sure said with a jerk of the head) Inshallah

15 comments:

  1. Haha, good one. In US, no one can contest 'not feeling great. prefer to get some rest' excuse for a day off, even if you want to. But obviously we shouldn't abuse Inshallah's and 'feeling terrible' because when the game's up, you won't be able to get a free pass even for a genuine reason.

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  2. This reminds me of a long pending blog i have to write about the usage of Inshallah in and around Mecca and Madina.
    Will post the link here once i finish it. Inshallah.

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  3. Haha.. Reminds me that in South India (Chennai and Bangalore to be more precise) the word "Guarantee" seems to be the counterpart of Pakistan's "Inshallah"... If you hear someone in Bangalore say- "Guarantee bartini" (I will come guaranteed)... rest assured, you can be sure not to see or hear of the person for a long time..!!

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  4. Oh and in South India (Bangalore to be precise), the counterpart of the "Fautgee" excuse appears to be "Maduwe" i.e. Weddings! People will take off for weddings of people who probably don't even exist..

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  5. Inshallah things will be better... hahaha...
    i also get alot of them nd sumtyms really wanna kill d person who says that to delay work...

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  6. btw.. did the pizza arrive ???????

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  7. Lolz... loved the way your carpenter teamed them up.

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  8. Lovely blog by two lovely people. Why hv u stopped blogging now?

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