There is a pedantic English schoolteacher lurking somewhere inside me.
It rears its ugly head every time I get yet another a WhatsApp forward filled with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. I blame it on too many years of indoctrination via Wren & Martin that hardbound red grammar book we all had at school. I don’t really remember the intricacies of split infinitives and dependent clauses anymore but grammatical errors still jump out at me. Spelling mistakes rankle. Syntax problems stick out like sore thumbs.
And then along comes
JK1: So beautiful, so elegant. Just looking like a wow!”
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata.
That’s Jasmeen Kaur who sells Indian outfits like salwar kameez from her little boutique in Delhi and makes peppy reels to plug her products in sizes like Small Medium, Large, XL, XXL, XXXL, XXXXL and XXXXXL!
JK2: Sizes isme hain S, M, L, XL, 3XL, 4XL and 5XL
Kaur isn’t famous. She’s just one more small business owner trying to enthusiastically plug her outfits to her instagram audience. But that phrase so beautiful, so elegant, just looking like a wow just went viral.
The chief minister of Assam shared a picture of snow-capped Himalayas with the phrase. Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone lip synched to it while her husband actor Ranveer Singh added his own spin
RSINGH
Composer Yashraj Mukhate even made a music video with it.
SONG
Jasmeen Kaur wasn’t trying go viral. This was not a phrase coined by some copywriter. This was just Jasmeen Kaur being Jasmeen Kaur trying to sell her salwar kameez pant suits to her Instagram audience. And it clicked probably because she wasn’t trying hard to be funny.
At first I rolled my eyes and I suspected that many of the people jumping on the bandwagon from Padukone to Nick Jonas were doing the same. I had a feeling we were not laughing with Kaur as much as laughing at her.
But what was wonderful was Kaur was unfazed. She was having the time of her life. “I have been doing Insta lives for three years now, and suddenly I went viral,” she told the media. I have become a little too wow now she says.s
JK INTERVIEW
It’s a lesson for all of us who make fun of those whose English is a little shaky. Instagram is filled with memes and reels of people mangling English much to the amusement of the Wren & Martin-erians. But people like Kaur embrace the language with a chutzpah that most of us lack, bending it to her will.
Salman Rushdie famously said “English is an Indian literary language.” Like an expert showman he took the Queen’s English and recolonised it, peppering it with Indian words, playing with syntax, turning phrases on their heads. Writer Arundhati Roy took it to another level in the Booker winning God of Small Things with her “Whatisit? Whathappened” and a “Furrywhirring and a Sariflapping.”
I realise now that a Jasmeen Kaur is doing the same just with less deliberate intention. She is making her English sound like India. And I need to get over my grammatical prissiness and go with the flow. That’s not to say grammar isn’t important but communication is also just as important and a Jasmeen Kaur passes that test with flying colours as she peddles her manysplendored caftans of many colours.
JK3: COLOUR SPIEL
She is definitely having the last laugh as even the BBC, the holy grail of the grammar police, interviews her. She also got an endorsement for some instant noodle which obviously is just like a wow
If there is a cautionary tale here for Jasmeen Kaur it has nothing to do with her iffy grammar. It’s the fact that public attention on the internet is fickle. “Just like a wow” will run its course, the celebrity brigade will move on and Kaur will be hard-pressed to find a new catchphrase to trump the old one. There have been other internet sensations who were all over the net before suddenly vanishing one day. A singer found on a platform somewhere. A small eatery owner whose poignant life story moved many, both have largely vanished from the news cycle now.
Let’s hope Kaur makes the most of her wow moment.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW