I am a cusser
I can totally empathise with Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird when she asks her family to pass the damn ham at the dining table. Even Pappu Cant Dance Saala makes sense to me. When my sons started learning cuss words – I did not freak out, I just told them that cuss words were a part of language and expression, they just had to learn where to use the word for total and effective impact.
My personal foray into the land of profane vocabulary started at the age of eight when I called my brother a ch#$%ya since he was being a pesky brat. My mother had a meltdown. I got spanked and then was hauled in front of my father – who explained to me that cursing shows lack of breeding and it also shows that the cusser does not have a good vocabulary. I did not get it. I’m like that heh. It seemed to me that there was one hell of a lot of vocabulary in cuss words just waiting to be used. But getting my backside paddled did breed discretion into me and cuss words got taken to the playground out of parental earshot.
I never ever heard my father use any cussword in his entire life – but we had servants with juicy vocabulary which was far more interesting than the refined language used at home. And then there were those boys in the playground – with all their interesting words!!!! Bhajji’s “Teri Maa Ki” sounds so natural. My father got transferred all over the country and us kids got a Bharat Darshan sponsored by our government. Every language spoken had its own charm and its own rustic cuss words – we siblings picked up so many of them and it became a game to see if we could slip one unawares in front of the parents. If we succeeded, we earned mucho brownie points in the eye of the other! If caught, we just faced the music and soldiered on. Once (when I was an adult and mother of two kids) I was hopping mad at some one and said “Uski To” in front of my mother who promptly added “Bhagwan bhala kare” probably sensing a chance to save my soul from divine retribution. In my totally fucking out of control tame adolescence I think I made her angry many times and then she could come out with profanities that would absolutely dazzle me. Oh wow! I remember thinking after one tirade from her, I never knew she had it in her.
My particular favorites are varied, depending upon the occaision, and I reject that cursing is a sign of inferior intellect. I mean, anyone who can weave together such lowbrow expressions into something solid, descriptive, and artistic? Well that’s just amazing. Suppose someone overtakes me on a busy highway from the wrong side, the satisfaction it gives my soul to brandish a finger and say “Saala bhe#$@d”, well that is Better Than Booze. Slipping a “fuck” in, under the radar? Come on, people, that is the stuff of legend!
Someone once told me that I was a pain to deal with. I smiled, put on my very upper crust convent educated accent and drawled “That’s a shame, you’re a pleasure. Fuckuverymuch and have a wonderful day!” I swear upon all that’s holy, communication does not GET any better than that. Does it?
