If there’s one community that has claimed their brand of spoken English, it’s the East Indians. It’s a bizarre mix of Indian English, some Marathi and Bambaiya Hindi, says Natasha Almeida, co-founder of East Indian spice and recipe curation platform, @jevayla_ye. “Have you ever heard us speaking full sentences? We happily chuck words and add preferred suffixes with varying intonations to actuate different meanings. So, it’s never turning/switching off the fan. It’s always, ‘Put it out, ya’,” she relates. Like author Ivan Arthur mentions in his foreword to A Village Dies, bugger can be an inclusive noun in the East Indian lexicon. From man, a lazy good-for-nothing to a villain, “dutty buggar” can mean anything. 

Natasha Almeida