So it's been 3 weeks I'm in Kolkata now, 2 actually if you don't count a week of training in Bangalore. During the first 2 weeks in Kolkata I basically spent 100% of my time looking for a Hive (the house / apartment we will live and work in), which has proven not to be an easy task (see explanation why below). Last week however I was in Bangalore to meet and get trained by the founders of Pollinate, together with my buddy Tao, the other city co-founder (picture below at the cricket game), it was really exciting! They're an awesome group of people and I'm really proud to be working with them, helping them achieve our goals.
Now I don't really have a theme for this post, so I thought I'd just share some random thoughts and pictures. Enjoy!
1. Real Estate Agents
They are oh so special people. I have come to believe that when real estate agents are borne anywhere in the world, 3 fairies give them 3 gifts, but they all come with a ow hard is it to understand: "min 4 bathrooms"?). catch . The first fairy gives them the gift to multiply themselves (as you can see from the picture. Bear in mind that one of them was taking said picture), but it comes with the obligation to say "Hello" about 100 times on the phone before saying anything else. The second fairy gives them the gift to take 1 month rent as commission for their hard work, but it comes with the obligation to arrive late and without the keys at every single visit. And by the third fairy they have been given the love of taking photos with westerners, but it comes with the obligation of consistently showing their clients things that do not match their criteria (Seriously, h |
2. Hindlish
- First and foremost, the accent. As you can see on the picture above, adding an "e" at the end of a word helps a lot for people to understand you. "Right" becomes "Righte" and "Left" becomes "Lefte", which sometimes translates into the spelling of the word.
- "Maximum" is used in Hindlish as "a lot". For example, "this house has maximum bedrooms", or "India has maximum people" (oh yes it does). On the other hand, "less" is used as "little" (don't ask me why it's not minimum).
- "Each and everything" is used quite a lot, especially by Real Estate agents, to describe a house that has a lot of amenities for instance.
- "Only" is used after pretty much every amount (even in contracts!), e.g. "the rent of this house is 1 lakh only" (oh yeah, that's just to make it more confusing, 1 lakh = 100.000 and 1 crore = 10 million), or at the end of random sentences. For example: "Here take a left only", "Are you on Facebook only?", or "We are going there only". I still have to figure that one out.
- Throw in a couple of head wobbles, a handful of "matlab"s ("I mean" in Hindi), at least one "Accha" (good/awesome/oh.../really?/well!) and one "Thik hai" (OK) per sentence, and you got yourself a Hindlish speaker!