A video clip has gone viral on social media where Mamata Banerjee is heard engaging in a deranged rant in order to prove that she speaks better Hindi than Prime Minister Modi. By the end of the clip, the West Bengal Chief Minister did not succeed in her efforts despite insisting that Narendra Modi speaks from a teleprompter to maintain fluency in Hindi.
Where #MamtaBanerjee sets out to prove that she can speak better Hindi than PM Modi.
— Smita Barooah (@smitabarooah) February 2, 2021
Joy Bishnu Mata 🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/jlurE9Imic
Unfortunately for Mamata Banerjee, some social media users suspect that she used a vile abusive word during her speech. It was suggested that she used the word at around 59 seconds into the video after saying ‘Kem Cho’, a Gujarati phrase. It has become a source for many a laughs on the platform.
We listened to the speech in question carefully and determined that the Trinamool supremo had, in fact, not used the abusive word. Thus, although the speech provides plenty of material for laughter, the abusive word is not among them.
During the section of the speech under concern, Mamata Banerjee boasts that she is even fluent in Gujarati. In order to prove her proficiency in the Prime Minister’s mother tongue, she says, “Kem Cho? Bhal Cho.” ‘Kem cho’ is a common Gujarati greeting that translates to “How are you?” ‘Bhal cho’ was Banerjee’s attempt to demonstrate her fluency in Gujarati.
‘Bhalo’ means good in Bengali. So, the response to ‘How are you’ in Bengla is usually ‘Ami bhalo aachhi’, which translates to “I am good” or “I am doing well”. In Gujarati, the common response is ‘majhama’. What language ‘bhal cho’ falls under is anybody’s guess but quite clearly, it was Mamata Banerjee answering the Gujarati greeting in a twisted mixture of Bangla and Gujarati.
Nevertheless, the speech had multiple hilarious moments. In heavily accented Hindi, the West Bengal Chief Minister boasted about how she could fluently read the script. She even read a couple of lines to prove it. She claimed that the Prime Minister read from a teleprompter that had the words in the Gujarati script.
She did not stop there and went on to claim that she is well versed in Punjabi. She insisted that people talk to her in Punjabi so that she could demonstrate her fluency. She also said that she had traveled far and wide in Punjab during the terrorism years, which she described as ‘godhbodh’. ‘Gadhbadh’ is a Hindi word that roughly translates to disturbance.
Mamata Banerjee said that she had some difficulty distinguishing between different individuals because according to her, all of them looked the same. She also said that she eats ‘Halwa’ from Gurudwaras and ‘Litti’ from Biharis.
Such eccentric speeches are not new to the Bengal Chief Minister. In one speech, she hailed ‘Jai Bishnu Mata’. Vishnu is a male Hindu God and definitely not considered a mother (Mata). The Trinamool Congress is suffering a string of defections, which could perhaps explain her eccentricity in the speech. However, it is still not clear precisely when the speech is from.
