Lingerie: The Universal Language

The Indian general election results have finally been declared, and I am happy with the result. I will blog about the Indian elections soon. But for now, I thought I would write a short blog on universal words that are understood the world over.

Over the last century or two, many Indian words such as “bazaar” and “guru” have made it into the English dictionary. These words are widely used in English, and well understood. I recently found another such “universal” word.

Let me elaborate.

Vancouver is probably one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, with a predominance of South-east Asians – Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipinos, Thais and Vietnamese. Of course, there is a fair sprinkling of Indians as well, though they tend to congregate in greater numbers in Toronto, on the other side of the country. Parts of Toronto, I am told, resemble Chandigarh in the Punjab.

Indians (as everyone knows) are everywhere. The worldwide Indian diaspora numbers about twenty-five million, of which about two million are in the United States. Indians sometimes tend to be resented by locals in the countries they migrate to, because they can be clannish and do not always assimilate into the local population and culture.

As a student in the U.S., I knew a fellow Indian who worked in Africa for some years – in the Congo, I think. He was in the Congo at the height of the brutal civil war there. He was (if I remember correctly) a salesman of stainless steel buckets. He was an interesting character. Once during his travels, fierce fighting broke out in the region of the Congo he was in. It was nearing sunset and he was stuck in a lawless border town in the Congo, where life was cheap. He was afraid for his life, until in the setting African sun, he saw a hotel that had a board outside that read “Shree Ganesha Hotel”. Relieved, he walked through the doors of the Shree Ganesha Hotel, and was provided food and shelter by the friendly Gujarati who owned the place. As an Indian, there is one thing for certain (apart from death and taxes) - even in a lawless, remote town in an African country wracked by a bloody civil war, you will find a Shree Ganesha Hotel!

Now let me get back to the subject of my blog. While travelling in public transport in Vancouver, one sometimes feels like one is in a city somewhere in South-east Asia – Shanghai or Hanoi, maybe. One hears a multitude of languages being spoken, with Chinese being the predominant one.

While travelling on the train here I enjoy listening to people speaking in different languages and I often try and decipher as many words as I possible. It is a good way to while away the time. Yesterday, there were a couple of Chinese women sitting across from me in the train, talking away in Chinese. I do not know Chinese, and I did not understand a word they were saying. Until, of course, I heard the words “Victoria’s Secret”. At the mention of these two words, my ears perked up. It was obvious that the two women were out shopping for lingerie.

“Victoria’s Secret” and “lingerie’ are universal words and part of the vocabulary of all the languages in this world. You do not need to be a linguistic expert to understand what they mean. They mean the same thing in every language spoken on the planet. Lingerie is a universal word that spreads peace, harmony and understanding among the various races and ethnic groups of this world! All you need is love – or is that lingerie?