When I was just a young lad in college (when was it, last year or something, right?), we'd often go down to the sports field to watch sundry football matches. Inter-collegiate matches, inter-something else matches, all of them. A vital cog in the motley crew that made up our little clump of football watchers was a fellow a year senior to me whose name I've forgotten, but whose face, loping gait and shaggy locks I remember clearly.
Why was he vital? Because after several such matches, we realized that it was him, and his performances from the sidelines, that we had gathered to appreciate. Not the football, but this short fellow with a loud voice.
We heard that voice every time some player from some team he favoured would approach the opposing goal and get ready to score. Yes, every single time that happened, a loud, high imploring shriek would float out over the field, and it came from my shaggy friend, and this is what he would shriek:
"Put-eet! Put-eet! PUUUUT-EEEEEET!"
Meaning, "put it (the ball) in the goal!" But his formulation was infinitely more poetic. No, I don't know if it aided in goal-scoring.
You can see why we soon stopped paying attention to the football altogether. Instead, we'd watch and listen to this dude. And as you can imagine, this cry became a metaphor for all kinds of other things, some of which I cannot repeat in polite company. Wandering around campus, you'd hear people talking in hushed tones of how they "put-eet" in the latest exam, for one example that flies in polite company.
Anyway, I need to inform you that there is a Bombay, specifically Bandra, sort-of-equivalent. So if you've always wanted to know about "putru men bugger", besides much else, I suggest you race on over to my old pal Clemde's place on the web, Bandra Buggers.
October 20, 2007
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1 comment:
Fascinating. I don't know where or when, but I am sure I have heard that slang before.
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