Kursi Ki Peti..
I am sure a lot of us are familiar with this “Yaatriyon se’ nivedan hai ki kursi ki peti bandh le…..” It has been popularized (and immortalized) by Indian Airlines since the 1970’s or maybe earlier. Now there are a couple of things about it that made me write this piece.
Kursi ki peti is a very bad and cumbersome/ inelegant phrase in Hindi. It might have been alright in the 50’s and 60’s to have a nationalist fervour for such phrases (Hindi , I think, still the national language in the Constitution), but times have changed. After all the Railways are called rail even in Hindi and television is called TV or televison. In fact there are hundreds of English words ,commonly used right across the hindi heartland, that never ever had a Hindi equivalent. One example is Lottery. These words have been absorbed in Hindi and people from all walks of life use them without a problem. It does not diminish the stature of Hindi to have absorbed these words. In fact, one of the reasons English has the largest number of words of all languages, is that it has accepted words from languages across the world. So why this fixation with Kursi Ki peti ? I am sure one hundred percent of Indian air travelers would understand “seat belt” better than kursi ki peti !
Unfortunately it has remained. And what is worse is that even though many new airline companies have started operations, they all use, (copying from Indian Airlines I guess) , kursi ki peti !!
The second part is , the Hindi announcements on most flights are very badly done. I have rarely come across properly spoken hindi. The pronunciation is that of someone who has not learnt to speak Hindi correctly. Most of the time it sounds like a foreigner trying to speak hindi…or like Katrina Kaif to use a more glamorous example.
I am sure a lot of us are familiar with this “Yaatriyon se’ nivedan hai ki kursi ki peti bandh le…..” It has been popularized (and immortalized) by Indian Airlines since the 1970’s or maybe earlier. Now there are a couple of things about it that made me write this piece.
Kursi ki peti is a very bad and cumbersome/ inelegant phrase in Hindi. It might have been alright in the 50’s and 60’s to have a nationalist fervour for such phrases (Hindi , I think, still the national language in the Constitution), but times have changed. After all the Railways are called rail even in Hindi and television is called TV or televison. In fact there are hundreds of English words ,commonly used right across the hindi heartland, that never ever had a Hindi equivalent. One example is Lottery. These words have been absorbed in Hindi and people from all walks of life use them without a problem. It does not diminish the stature of Hindi to have absorbed these words. In fact, one of the reasons English has the largest number of words of all languages, is that it has accepted words from languages across the world. So why this fixation with Kursi Ki peti ? I am sure one hundred percent of Indian air travelers would understand “seat belt” better than kursi ki peti !
Unfortunately it has remained. And what is worse is that even though many new airline companies have started operations, they all use, (copying from Indian Airlines I guess) , kursi ki peti !!
The second part is , the Hindi announcements on most flights are very badly done. I have rarely come across properly spoken hindi. The pronunciation is that of someone who has not learnt to speak Hindi correctly. Most of the time it sounds like a foreigner trying to speak hindi…or like Katrina Kaif to use a more glamorous example.
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