What did Harbhajan say to Symonds? Well I guess no one will ever know apart from a handful…
But people who do not feel like hitting the sack right away (like me) , wanna share their opinion on any thing that catches their eye (like me again… ) or simply have too much of free time and a flair for controversies (shucks… I missed out on this one… ), have every right to ponder & come up with theories…
So with out much ado… Je vous présente pour votre plus grand plaisir (which in simple english means… I present this for your grand pleasure):
Until this controversy came up, I never in my wildest dream had imagined that calling any one a MONKEY could be treated as a racial slur.
Ok, I am not THE most learned person in India, but I do have a good enough knowledge. I am an engineering graduate (from a decent university too) , have watched a lot of movies, have read about other cultures, watched SOUTH PARK the entire series… and I have always believed that if there is any racially discriminating slur, it would have already been used in SOUTH PARK, but I never have seen the word MONKEY used in SOUTHPARK in a racially discriminating way… so in my little world, monkey was never a word which would be a racial slur.
So, I guess most of the Aussies must be thinking that Bhajji was an ignorant assO to have said something like that, so here I take a chance to deviate from the topic to explain to people who do not understand Indian culture to have a sneak peek at it… For the ease of the reader, I am demarcating this section by enclosing it in ********… so readers familiar with the Indian culture might want to skip till they see ****** for the second time after this line.
****** What Monkey means in Indian context & how it is used *******
Monkeys are a nuisance, from where I have lived, they always steal food, create a lot of racket and chase & terrorize people. Of course the people who have faced this or have lived in a monkey infested place will agree with me, rest might not.
Monkeys also mean naughty… like, if a kid is behaving restlessly jumping hither & tither… elders (mostly Auntyjis) go up to the kid and pull on their cheeks (they call it showing love, kids call it punishment of the worst kind), while they are doing that, they generally say… “Alle alle, dekho to ek chota sa pyara sa bandar kitni shaitani kar raha hai” which translates to: “Sooo cute, look how s/he is behaving like a cute little monkey, naughty boy/girl“
Another thing a die hard Indian might remember upon hearing the word MONKEY would be the mysterious monkey man of Delhi .
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Coming back to the theory, Bhajji surely did not look in the mood to share a joke with Symonds, nor is Symonds a baby face that he would call him cute names, nor is Symonds four feet tall…
One part of my brain (I guess the left one) feels that Bhajji was trying to call him to stop making faces like a baboon but, being weak in english, he ended up using the super-class of baboon (Sorry could not help it, m in IT industry for heaven’s sake).
Other part of my brain which is definitely Indian, feels that Bhajji was reminding Symonds about his mother… by saying… “teri maa ki… ” which is greatly used in India to express disgust to a person or a thing (akin to f*ck off or j*rk off). Unfortunately some words in that phrase make it sound like it is referring to MONKEY… which it clearly is NOT.
Hence, I deduce, in any case, HARBHAJAN SINGH IS NOT A RACIST…
those who disagree… “teri m** ki…“
Generally, that “cute little monkey” is how we perceive the use of the word too.
However, when used to someone who in Western society who is either of African descent, or black, the perception may be very, very different. It’s used to intimate that the person is less than human… and that was the way Andrew Symonds took it (as his parents are from the West Indies). Harbhajan was aware of this, given the incidents culminating in the now-infamous Mumbai game.