What is a traffic island known as in Madras that is Chennai? It is a Roundtana – a term that occurs even in . You just need to scour the archives and an immense number of links turn up, with the Anna Salai and the Anna Nagar Roundtanas being the favourites. The word originates interestingly enough, at the Anna Salai Roundtana but long before it became Anna Salai or had a Roundtana there. 

Early in the 19th Century, police stations, known as thana in Hindi and Urdu were erected at many places in Madras. This may have been a Tamil/Telugu city but the language of administration still followed Mughal era terms. A round police station existed at the intersection of Mount Road and Wallajah Roads and this came to be known as the ‘Round Thana’.

In the years that followed, the police station moved, and a fountain came up there, followed by a car park, then an underground urinal, and finally the Anna statue. But the place has remained Round Thana or Roundtana, which became Tamil Nadu’s word for a roundabout. 

Shipping gave us Emden, meaning a bully or a devious adversary. This is from the German cruiser SMS Emden that bombed Madras in 1914, giving us the dubious honour or distinction of being the only city in the colonies to be bombed by the enemy during WWI. We were scared and scarred, and remembered it. 

The German cruiser SMS Emden that bombed Madras in 1914, giving the city the dubious honour or distinction of being the only city in the colonies to be bombed by the enemy during WWI.

Archives

Road rage has given us choice phrases. ‘L-Board’ is considered the worst of all insults, for it questions your ability behind a wheel. Close on its heels is the seemingly solicitous but deeply sardonic ‘Vootle Sollikinu Vanthiya’ (Did you wish farewell to those at home?), meaning you have set out to throw yourself in front of a vehicle.

‘Dharma Adi’ is when every passer-by hits the perpetrator of some misdemeanour, even if they were not personally affected. In the English press, this is known as lynching.

Savu Grakki has been explained in the story on the jhutka. Horses gave us another phrase – Tankuvar Arundudum – meaning you lose control of a situation. Tankuvaru in Telugu is the small bit of leather that ties the saddle to the horse. To drive in a rash but seemingly effortless manner is to do it ‘assaulta’. Speed itself has morphed into ‘feed’. And when you manage to pass through a tiny opening, it is a ‘cycle gap’. And what happens when there is narrow space in which you park your vehicle? You do it ‘sugura’. 

Road rage has given us choice phrases. ‘L-Board’ is considered the worst of all insults, for it questions your ability behind a wheel. To drive in a rash but seemingly effortless manner is to do it ‘assaulta’. Speed itself has morphed into ‘feed’. And when you manage to pass through a tiny opening, it is a ‘cycle gap’. 

M. Srinath

What better description for right hand and left hand than ‘sothukkai’ (eating hand) and ‘peechankai’ (er…hand for the rear)? Which other part of India has such pithy wording? And what about ‘odi’, as in sharp turn?

Trains are referred to as ‘rayil vandi’, as in rail vehicle, with compartments becoming ‘rayil petti’, the box on rails.

Shipping on the other hand, being an ancient mode of transport in the Coromandel coast, had plenty of words in Tamil. And for flights we took a word from Sanskrit – ‘vimanam’.

The term conductor, meaning the ticket seller on buses, is I think pan-Indian, though there is a classic Tamil word used – ‘seerunar’, at least on signs painted inside State-run buses.

Did you know the horn, the favourite part of the vehicle for most drivers is ‘olippan’? ‘Horan’ is what is used though. Somewhere along the way, ‘bus’ itself became Tamil. Yes, the purists still would like it to be ‘perunthu’ for bus and ‘seerunthu’ for car, but who on the streets understand? Even bus stop signs say ‘bus niruththam’ only. We are like that only.