7. Language

The other day, I received an sms 'ttyl'.  I asked my daughter what it meant.  She said it meant 'talk to you later' and told me to reply as 'ttysdl'- talk to you some day later.  I also happened to come across the language i.e. abbreviations used by my children to communicate among themselves.  I recollected my own early young days.  

Mumtaz and I, both of us joined work before we completed our graduation-i.e. by age 20, on the same day.  Mumtaz used to commute from Mulund to VT (now CST) [Central Railway] and walk over Azad Maidan to reach our office at Churchgate. I used to travel between Borivali and Churchgate (Western Railway).  We were new recruits, young and we had lots to speak about our colleagues.  We too needed a code language.  I knew 'P' language and Mumtaz knew 'NT' language.  

In 'P' language, one needs to add P after every syllable of a word.  For example - Geeta would be Gee/pee/ta/paa  while in 'NT' language, the word needs to be broken in two halves - N to be added to end of first half of the word and T to be added to beginning of second half of the word.  For example - Geeta would be Gee/in/te/ta.

Both of us became so fluent with both the languages that we could speak either in English or even in Hindi or interchange midway -English and Hindi.  

We had to speak more and time we got was less. So Mumtaz started using Dadar Interchange ( change trains from Central Railway to Western Railway).  We did not have cell phones those days, so we used to decide train timings and meet exactly in those trains, stand on the foot board of the trains and chat to our hearts' content.  

Later on, Mumtaz shifted to Andheri (Western Suburb). So it became even more convenient for us to meet and speak. Little did we know that co-travellers, colleagues, people from trains in opposite tracks etc. were keeping track of us.   On one such evening, when we continued to stand at the footboard of a fast train talking loudly in our code language, a middle aged woman got furiously irritated.  She shouted at us to stop talking and within minutes she had other supporters in the compartment.  Much to our surprise, when Mumtaz got down at Andheri, a male colleague  from adjacent compartment also commented on our talk.  

We soon realised that we were getting famous for our language in office too. Slowly we reduced and later on we stopped completely as we didnt meet regularly.

This year 14th  of July, put a full stop to all our communication.  Mumtaz left for her heavenly abode and I pray for her soul to rest in peace.