A lot more Asians should be playing tennis because the language is something we can identify with.
Improbable as it may seem but give me a chance to explain.
There is no better sounding word the ‘fault’ when its prefixed with ‘yours’.
Whether it is a car accident or falling out with a family member – the issue is with the other. ‘Fault, fault fault’ is all you can hear as the other person mimes his innocence – that’s right mimes because you are in true Homer Simpson style not listening to them but to the little voice in your head.
The gift doesn’t end there… ‘double fault’ is a true get out of jail card. What an nuclear assets! Here is an example of this powerful phrase; you can relate two independent events over fifteen years and connect them together.
‘You did this to me in 1998 and now your have done it – surely this was planned’. And you can end it all there. Boom. 'Double Fault'. You are discredited forever.
What about the ‘backhand’…we should be experts at it. We are used to its application. Even in the Punjabi language the threat of a back hand is a threat of violence.
It’s something your uncle might say under his breath as he discovers that not only have you taken his car without his permission you have also been hanging with the son of his arch enemy ‘Fazl’.
Here the immortal words (in the original language) ‘Mayra puttta hath thunoo sida kr they ga’. Translation: ‘with one slap I will set everything straight from here one in’.
There of course is the other type of backhand which the uncles used to in Pakistan and which is not talked about here but we know it goes on.
‘Deuce’: ‘Lovely just not too much’! It’s something which is hardwired into us. As soon as someone steps inside the house - juice must be served whether they like it or not.
‘Love all’: a very sufi/mystical concept which for a short period in Ramadan we prescribe to in earnest.
‘30 love’: My father still calls everyone love. ‘My sons be (yip he says ‘be’ instead of ‘is’) twelve love’. Normally you would be hung out to dry by the political correct brigade but older Asians use it unfettered.
Where there is a clash and seems to me to be quite wrong at so many levels, is this business of shaking hands after a match.
I would prefer never to talk to the cheat who has defeated me and holding the racket whilst shaking hands is unthinkable. It should have rightly been smashed just after the defeat.
This cleverly brings me to ‘racket’. I only intend to allude to the noise variety but I am sure there are some the White side of the fence that think that Asian are involved in many rackets and equally there are those in the Asian side that think democracy is nothing but a racket.
See you on court (no not in that court – I mean a tennis court).