..... when newspapers provide beautifully anachronistic and eccentric usage of the English language. The quality newspapers are written in the English of the 1940’s referring to ‘outrage at the dastardly acts of these bounders’, in articles about the frequently occurring minor frauds and scams. Although the standard of writing is high, there are many factual errors and amusing misprints, such as the man who appeared with a ‘two day growth of bread on his chin’, or the man so incensed about his wife’s continual chatting that he returned home one evening with ‘stout stick in hand and proceeded to eat her with self same stick’. Until reading this, I had no idea that cannibalism was alive and well in India. These errors, or for a further example, a two-wheeler becoming a ‘two willer’, will not be corrected by conventional spell checkers.
Arranged, rather than forced, marriages are frequent and acceptable. Sunday newspapers carry pages of ‘Matrimonials’ - adverts placed by parents, categorised by caste, religion, profession, and educational qualifications, or even ‘green card holders’. These really are advertisements in the true sense of the word, extolling the virtues of their offspring, all of whom are ‘extremely handsome’, ‘beautiful’, ‘fair and graceful’, ‘wheatish slim’, ‘talented and charming’, or at the very least ‘smart in appearance and well qualified’. One assumes that the less favoured find their own partners. A major selling point is a US visa, the exact type and validity of this being specified in the announcement.
The most frequently requested characteristics are : ‘clean habits’, ‘cultured family’, ‘graduated’, ‘proper height’, ‘fair’, whilst education and profession are other criteria. Most ask for ‘bio-data and horoscope’, some even request ‘recent full and close-up photos of professional quality’. As always in India, highly cryptic abbreviations abound along with phrases such as ‘lofty personal traits in spouse are solicited’.