Swearing my mouth off

i actually grew up in a nice family - difficult to believe when you consider how i turned out! A family where swearing was not allowed, where you were supposed to answer with 'Aiga' (a corruption of the hindi word 'aagya' - 'your command')whenever anyone called you. So i grew up not dirtying my mouth with Manipuri swear words. Some of my classmates used to pepper their sentences with words never heard inside our house - even today, i do not know the meaning of some of the swear words. The strongest swear word i used was 'hingchabi' (witch).

Then high school happened. So i graduated to using 'damn' and 'shit'. But never at home.

Then i moved to another city, another life. Hostel, new friends...And since i was/am no angel and home was so far away, swear words came into my life. Fast and furious. To make up for all those lost years. And one day, i gathered enough courage to say the F word out loud. i don't remember whether i felt liberated spitting out that word. Like they say, the next time is always easier - be it murder or swearing. At one stage, i used it pretty liberally - to emphasize my point or just to shock people and myself. Since almost everybody else around me was using it, it felt less obnoxious.

Then work happened. And the F word went hibernating, unable to withstand the niceties of office life. Out came small-time galis. And from K, who used to be my next door cubicle mate, i imbibed the habit of saying 'sala'. 'Sala' became my favourite swear word. When SC and i used to have our everyday fights in the office, it would go like 'tui sala' 'tor khandaan sala'...

Then 'harami' came into the picture and sala and harami made such a nice pair. Of course, i never could bring myself to say harami out loud for the whole project to hear. i only used it with SC and SM in private. And we came up with this beautiful gali - salami (sala + harami). So we used to go like 'Salami' and no-one was any the wiser.

Since moving here, i don't have anyone to swear at. My new colleagues are squeaky clean and i am afraid they would go up in flames if i were to swear at them. So i only get to swear when i talk to SM or SC or when i chat to SN (the poor girl - she has now resorted to swearing - i am the bestest bad apple around). i use the F word now very sparsely. Sometimes when i am angry, really really really fire-spitting angry with him, in my posts when i am really disturbed, sometimes silently in my head when i rant at life...

But till today, i have never been able to swear in Manipuri. The only time i ever said a bad Manipuri swear word was when i was really small and i was used (very willing, i must add) by all my bigger cousins as a parrot to say the things they dare not. i remember being taken to a tailor's by my teen-aged cousin along with her friends and all along the way, they taught me what to say. i was a very eager beaver then and i remember reciting their script complete with swear words at the tailor! i don't remember whether i was punished when words got around about it. But that was the last time i ever sweared in Manipuri. Sala!