Spoken or colloquial language differs from written (literary) language. Soumya examines the many subtle nuances of Bangla, Hindi, and English languages, tongue-in-cheek. An exclusive for Different Truths.

As a Bengali, I have been often teased by Hindi speakers saying, “Jol khaben?”

Yes, we do eat water as well as food and even cigarettes – solid, liquid, or gas, as long as it’s through the mouth. And we eat a great deal of other things that Sukumar Roy has described so excellently in his immortal comic poem, Khai Khai.

But he left out two… ei khele ja… an exclamation of annoyance, and… public malta khache … if an idea sells.

Even Hindi speakers only eat and drink… and don’t smoke, including cigarettes, … dhumrapan karna.

By the way, even in literary Bangla, it’s dhumrapan.

Only the English have three different words, eat, drink and smoke.

Someone asked me recently, do you eat or drink soup?

We eat soup, despite it being liquid, probably because it’s eaten with a spoon and not drunk directly from the bowl unlike tea or beer. Or you have soup to avoid the problem.

But if something is ingested through the nose, it’s snorted like snuff, or more potent stuff. In Bangla, it’s called tana (drag)… nossi tana… for snuff.

But for stronger stuff, it’s again khawa… pata khawa.

But even smoking is tana… cigarette tana.  Come to think of it, so is drinking, if it’s the spirit that cheers… maal tana.

So, we don’t eat everything… there you see!

Picture design by Anumita, Different Truths

Soumya Mukherjee

Soumya Mukherjee is an alumnus of St Stephens College and Delhi School of Economics. He earns his daily bread by working for a PSU Insurance company, and lectures for peanuts. His other passions, family, friends, films, travel, food, trekking, wildlife, music, theater, and occasionally, writing. He has been published in many national newspapers of repute. He has published his first novel, Memories, a novella, hopefully, the first of his many books. He blogs as well.