Skip to content

There, he go again!

Exasperation is expressed differently in different languages, but the ufff! of large parts of South Asia is only a relative of the 000ff of the Anglophone West. There are some South Asians I know, in particular a lady in Delhi who works in Defence Colony and lives close to Karol Bagh, who refuses to see the distinction between the two.

I find it rather strange that the said lady and others who think like her do not see the semantic uniqueness of the South Asian ufff! in comparison to the occidental ooof! Let us start with the vocal technicalities. Ooof! starts with a longish and un-aspirated 'ooo', ending in a short and weak 'f' sound. Ufff!, as the Romanised spelling itself indicates, is short and gruff on the 'u' sound, and goes in for a long, aspirated and meaningful 'fff', with the upper front row of teeth connecting with the lower lips, the air being released from in between.

It is a fact that when Madhuri Dixit is exasperated with Salman Khan in HAHK (Hum Aapke Hain Kaun), she ufffs – never once does she ooof. When Saira Banu tried to take back her dupatta from Rajendra Kumar in HKGM (Himalaya Ki Gond Mey), she ufffed. But, when Clint Eastwood takes a punch in the tummy in Dirty Harry, does he ufff? No, he ooofs, and as we all know, he does not even know the meaning of dupatta.

Rolling of the eyes is not a South Asian phenomenon, as we all know, but rather an implant in the upper classes and among the upwardly mobile brought in through the medium of Western film and television. And yet, the rolling of eyes is a perfect complement to certain kinds of ufffs! You cannot, however, imagine rolling your eyes with ooof!, thus indicating the latter's lack of versatility.