Agreefy

I recently saw a business operation with this name. I have no idea what ‘Agreefy’ does, but it got me reminiscing of my early days in Chennai. #nostalgia

My father got transferred to Madras when I was in standard 1. And my mother home schooled me with notes sent every weekend by my classmate’s dad and tutored me for ‘entrance exam’ to join standard 2 in St.John’s, Mandaveli. #chennai #madras #madrasdays

Kerala in the 80’s was not #english literate. I was a student of an English medium school in Thrissur, but could not utter a word of it. And anyone speaking English was called ‘sayipp’ or ‘madama’ based on their gender. So, we all spoke in #malayalam and the nuns had no problem with it.

But St.John’s is a ‘propah’ English medium school. All my classmates, though only 6 years old, were fluent in English! Some even spoke English at home! And the teachers were very strict. Any word in Tamil, entailed a beating with the wooden scale.

I knew no English. And worse, absolutely no Tamil. (What I thought we spoke at home as Tamil was not at all that!!). And as you all know, I love to talk.

I was given a grace period of one month to ‘catch up’ by the school.

Over the course of this one month, I went on a “-fying” spree.

“Teacher, he pichifying (പിച്ചി)  me.”

“She thondyfying (തോണ്ടി) me.”

“They are cheendifying (ചീണ്ടി) me.”

I made a whole new vocabulary. 

എൻറെ കണ്ടുപിടിത്തങ്ങൾ. 🤣🤣

#confidence 

Now I feel ‘agreefy’ owes me one. They just might have ‘copy-fied’ me!

#newenglishwords #anuradha #anuradharish96 #anuradhaharish #fridaymusings #oldtales