Consonants, hard and soft

By some unsolved postal mystery, I am delivered my subscribed-for issues of Madras Musings with consistent irregularity, so I do not know what and in which issue reader Indukanth Ragade has said “placing (reader Raman) in a tight spot” (MM, October 1st). So I cannot respond to reader Ragade’s letter directly. However, reader Raman’s own points – though just a ‘halfalogue’ for me – suffice to show up as a highly commentable (sic) smattering of knowledge he acknowledges to have imbibed from his worthy teachers of a bygone generation and from the seminal works of the legendary Sethu Pillai and Suryanarayana Sastri.

The Tamil word for ’top’ (toy) is correctly to be pronounced pambaram, while written in Tamil script with one and the same letter for p and b. There is no capricious “pa-ba interchange” in pronunciation. It is a well-defined rule that the single character is pronounced (i) ‘pa’ when at the start of a word and when coming elsewhere re-duplicated as ‘ppa’; and (ii) ‘ba’ following a vowel or an ‘m’ sound. (Similar rules for the other consonants are all school-level learning.)

There is no “pamparam meaning spinning, rotating”. The Sanskrit bhramara for the ‘top’ as well as for the insect ‘bee’, with its root verb bhram = to spin, rotate, whirr, has entered the South Indian languages parallely – leading to the words bhramanam, bhrama etc. – cf the idioms ‘head or mind going into a whirl’, chittappiramai in Tamil and cognate words in the other languages.

Saying bambaram for pambaram is, to repeat – not due to any “pa-ba interchange” but is a UNI-DIRECTIONAL degradation of hard consonant sounds into soft ones – saying ga, ba, dha, where it OUGHT to be ka, pa, tha. It is a typical case of the bane of degenerate pronunciation growing unchecked by uncorrecting teachers, and ignoring ignorant parents, producing the ilk of mispronouncers who utter bathma, boojai, golu, gaurava (for the cousins of the Pandavas), gadodgajan, dhavam, dhyaham, vidhyaasam, adhyaavasiyam, vyaagyaanam, dhulasi and so on.

Sorry, I have left out the burgeoning TV-promoted tribes’ interchange of the two ls and the three Ns!

To talk about “absorptions” of words from Tamil into Telugu, Kannada etc. is a queer view of the relationship between the South Indian languages. The word cheppu is no case of ABSORPTION from Tamil into Telugu, like the absorption of, from Tamil into Sanskrit, neera, muktaa, mukhila, etc. or the absorption into Sanskrit, of khalina (= saddle) from Greek. Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam – obviously identical in basic internal linguistic structure as grown out of a single tree – have naturally been possessing widely common vocabulary, with specialities in the manner of regional dialectic variations. Cheppu is not just classical Tamil but is extant very much now in literary usage. What is true of cheppu is true of hundreds of words found common in slightly variant forms in the family of these four languages.

Finally, the identification of the Sanskrit ksha as only the last letter of words migrating to Tamil is ununderstandable. We have Lakshmi, aksharam, pakshapatham, aakshepana etc. The ksh in these words is either written with a centuries-old special letter inducted into the Tamil alphabet or Tamilised as tch – e.g. Latchumi, atcharam, patchapatam, aatchepanai.

On the flip side, ksh is pronounced kh by the Bengalis and in the Hindi belt also. Tagore’s Hungry Stones is Khudit Pashan [kshudhita = hungry]. Sanskrit Rakshaa leads to Hindi rakhna, raakhi etc. In Tamil too we have ilakkuvan, ilakkumi, raakkadhan, pakkavaadham.

I sign off, after all this, heartily joining reader Raman in his hard-hitting statement on the current state of knowledge and competence of present-day Tamil teachers!

Nahupoliyan,
Chennai 600 085

Editor’s Note: This correspondence is now closed.

Water strategy

In the article ‘Seoul shows the way’ (MM, November 1st), it is stated they have taken “efforts to get recycled water to provide continuous flow.” The comment that “there are some aspects of unlearning that those in authority in Chennai will have to do if the city’s rivers are to benefit from a similar process” is appropriate.

It is suggested to the authorities to consider the treatment of waste water to a sufficient degree and let it flow into these rivers. Modules for total treatment of sewage have been developed in the West for individual houses as well as housing complexes. If such modules are installed and the effluent channelled through the rainwater harvesting systems or surface drains, that will also ensure groundwater flow or surface flow to the rivers – and lead to the decentralisation of water supply and sewerage.

In short, the strategy should be the reducing the domestic water supply demand. This strategy should attack both the pollution and water supply at one stroke. I am of the opinion that it is not possible to supply potable grade water from the present water supply mines as it gets mixed with sewage from the sewerage network. Metrowater and Public Health authorities advise boiling of water for drinking and cooking. In almost all developing countries only mineral water is used for drinking. It is more or less so in our State too. (Here, however, it is mostly only packaged water.) So it is enough, if non-potable grade water is supplied through the water supply system.

The domestic non-solid waste is conveyed miles away to a distant place for treatment and the partially treated effluent is drained to the sea. En route it pollutes the water supply mains. Similarly, water supply is also to be decentralised. Both sanitation and water supply should be managed in an integrated way. The following approach is suggested to meet our water requirements:

1. Individual houses could install total sewage treatment modules and connect the effluent to the rainwater harvesting system. If affordable, the non-potable grade water supplied by the State may be treated by RO system for potable purposes.
2. Individual houses in thickly populated areas to be grouped together and sewage to be collected in a place within the area and treated using advanced space-saving technology to potable grade and the effluent used for recharging groundwater.

3. All-purpose community sanitation blocks to be built. These blocks will have facilities for washing clothes, bathing etc. and the effluent treated to non-potable grade and used in the complex and the surplus, if any, treated to potable grade and used to recharge groundwater.

4. Business establishments and multistorey flats should have their own sewage treatment facilities within their campuses and the effluent treated and recycled for non-potable uses and the surplus, if any, treated to potable grade to be used for recharge of groundwater.

5. For water supply, wells or borewells to be sunk at selected places in the above area and the water after RO treatment to potable grade may be supplied to the residents of the locality at subsidised cost.

6. Business establishments and multistorey flat complexes to make their own arrangements for water supply, maybe by borewell with RO plant.

7. Fertiliser manufacturers should lift the sludge for further processing and distribution to the farmers.

S.N. Mahalingam
Superintending Engineer
Tamil Nadu PWD (Retd)
64-A, Kalamegam Street Extn.
SBI Colony II Street Kamarajapuram
Chennai – 600 073

Worst beach?

Elliot’s beach must be one of the worst maintained beaches in the world.

When I went around the beach for nearly sixty minutes one recent Sunday morning, I counted 73 stray dog on the pavement and on the beach sands sharing the space with visitors. I do not blame the stray dogs, which are attracted to the beach due to the eatables strewn all over the place. What surprised me was the fact that the visitors to the beach, both young and old, appeared to be as comfortable in the company of stray dogs around them as the stray dogs were running among the people.

I counted 61 petty shops of all kinds of sizes and shapes on the beach sands, marring the natural beauty. At one end of the beach, I counted seventeen fish stalls, another eyesore. I saw a number of people spitting on the sand and the pavement. The pavement was also host to the excreta of animals, burnt beedies and cigarettes. I did not see anyone cleaning the area.

The conditions at the Elliot’s Beach are not what they should be. But both the Corporation and the users of the beach are to be blamed.

No one seems to have a sense of pride in Elliot’s Beach. And that is sad.

N.S. Venkataraman
M 60/1, 4th Cross Street
Besant Nagar, Chennai 600 090

Remembered date

In Madras Musings recently there was a piece on the Madras GPO with mention being made that parts of the building had been damaged in the fire of 2003.

The fire took place on the evening of October 23, 2000 as I distinctly remember. If you wonder how I can be so precise, it was because it was the day of 50th wedding anniversary of my parents. I had organised a little celebration with family members and friends that evening. As the evening wore on my parents wondered why a couple of the serving staff of the GPO had not shown up.

I knew of the fire accident since I’d had a call from them informing me of what had happened. We did not, share the news with my parents, at least not then... they had both worked in the Madras GPO (as my mother would say with great pride) from the late 1940s. They joined before Independence and worked there until retirement in the 1980s. The building was like home to them, for their life of togetherness started there and most of it was spent there.

Shantha Gabriel
Chennai 600 002