Before the arrival of President Obama in London, The Daily Mail published an article under the title "Codename"smart alec": the British police label Obama with the word"slightly insulting"Punjabi"for visit to U.K."Scotland Yard, explains its computers randomly selected a code for Obama name""chalaque" for his visit to the country. But the newspaper quoted a leader of the Sikh community stating that the name is often used to "denigrate" someone. Yahoo News then picked up the story, featuring on its homepage under the title: "Obama Code named smart alec in Britain."
As someone who grew up hearing chalak used to describe a person who is a notch below evil, I laugh. The West may try to assert cultural prowess on the economic front, on its military and diplomatic, but codename of the Obama is yet another example of intercultural communication in lost in translation.
I checked with the best person that I could find on the shades of the regularity of South Asian culture: my mother, Sajida Nomani, a native speaker of Urdu schooling in the highly maniérée culture, called adab in Arabic, Lucknow (India)., a kind of Charleston, s.c., in South Asia. She is a grandmother with a sophisticated ear. Chalak, as it is usually written phonetically, is not just a Punjabi Word, but also found in Urdu, Hindi and Bengali. Verbally, Hindi and Urdu are very similar, and the Punjabi and Bengali are related to Hindi and Urdu.
No doubt about it, she said. "It is an insult." Practice my mother dusted off the coast of our edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English-Urdu, published in Lahore, Pakistan, by the society of book Oriental Ganpat road and turned to page 156 [PDF], where she read the definition of chalak. It read: "adj. clever;" knowing; clever. Sly. "My father, Zafar Nomani, me then faxed a copy of the dictionary pages, including the 156.
Believe me, when they mean "clever" and "knowledge", which is not as a compliment. The word is a pejorative term for those aged more than about 7. For a young person, this may mean clever, as, "what a ruse boy." Think that somewhere between Eddie Haskell of Leave It to Beaver and the Uriah Heep in Dickens David Copperfield character. Or Tom Sawyer TWAIN Huckleberry Finn.
But for a grown man, above all, it is a curb. Think about Arnold Schwarzenegger, to keep his wife, Maria Shriver, the secret of a baby born to his cleaning lady: a true chalak. Or Bernie Madoff, for foundations and million seniors scam: a precise chalak. Osama bin Laden to hide in the city of military garrison of Abbottabad Pakistan kilometres of national capital? Definitely, 100% chalak, although most of its supporters would step insult even Ben Laden by calling a chalak. On the contrary, they would say Seal were real chalak to keep operation Geronimo a Pakistani secret. During this time, if he knew the word, comedian Jon Stewart would say that Pakistan has been a real chalak to pretend he did not know bin Laden was in Abbottabad.
As you can see, chalak is in the eye of the accuser, er, beholder. But Chief Chalak is not a compliment.
If someone tries to con someone, we will say, Oh, "he has really tried a chalak." Or if someone tries to get out of trouble, other say, Oh, "he is a true chalak." Or if an ethnic group wants to put an end to another ethnic group, they say, "Oh, they are real chalak." On Yahoo, a Bengali speaker explains that chalak is used to refer to a scammer: "we would say 'buddhiman' for a knowledgeable person and"chalak"for anyone trying to outsmart the other (s).".
For a few references of real pop culture on chalak, you must go no further than Bugs Bunny. Blogger Muhammad Ahmed displayed a Bugs Bunny cartoon, dubbed in Punjabi and has called, Chalak Khargosh, chalak rabbit, for the poor, or poorly understood little Bugs.
A company based in Houston, the Group Chalak, with executives rooted ethnically in Asia to the South, the question properly on its Web site, "" why Chalak? "" I know no more than an amateur "aunt", as older women are called in South Asia, clucked their tongues to the use of the word in a company name.
"The word CHALAK is Hindi…, said the Web site." She talks about a meaning, which means "overflow", if the word is pronounced "chu - luk." "The other meaning is"wise or intelligent"If pronounced chaa-laak," that it claims."." But, on the explanation of its site Web, society cannot hide the real meaning of chalak: "Chalak group is a dynamic enterprise organization led by several young and energetic entrepreneurs." Those guys WISE started their business in 1998 with an overflow of energy and enthusiasm. "A caption on a photograph of the five directors of readings of the society,"the chalak Group wise guys"and a picture of the founder has his tongue paste, just somewhat indelicately. Nice guy wise move, leaving his chalak flag fly.
Now Scotland Yard could borrow a page from the Chalak group and claim that this meant no insult is thinking but Obama as "wise or smart". It would be classic chalak.
ASRA q. Nomani is the author of Standing Alone: An American Woman struggle for the soul of Islam. She is co-director of the project Pearl, an investigation into the murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. His activism for the rights of women in its W.V. Mosque is a PBS documentary, the mosque in Morgantown. She has recently published a monograph, milestones for a spiritual Jihad: towards an Islam of Grace. ASRA@asranomani.com
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