Thursday, November 16, 2006

The Indian Cow - MUST read!

One of my students gave me a copy of the following essay which was (allegedly) written by a candidate for Indian Intelligence Services. It may or may not be authentic, but I have seen essays of the same...ahem..."quality" so to say from Pakistani CSS (Civil Service Sector) candidates.


This is a true essay written by a candidate at a recent UPSC (ISAS) examination. The candidate has written an essay on

THE INDIAN COW

He is the cow. Cow is a success ful animal. Also he is a four footed, and because he is female, he gives milk, but will do so only when he got childs. He is same like god, sacred to Hindus and useful to man. But he has four legs togather. Two are forward and two are afterwards. His whole body can be utilized for use. More so the milk and so forth. Milks come from four taps attached to his basement. Horses don't have such attachments what can it do? Various ghees, buters, creams, curds, why and condensed milks and so forth. Also he is useful to cobbler, waterman and mankind generally. His motions is slow only because he is of lazy species. Also his other motions (cow dung) (gober) is much useful to trees, plants as well as for making flat cakes like pizzas, in hand and drying in the sun. cow is the only animal that extricates his feeding after eating. Then afterwards she chews with his teeth that are situated inside of the mouth. He has got tails also, situated in the backyard, but not like similar animals. It has hairs on the other end of the other side. This is done to frighten away the flies which alight on his cohesive body here upon he gives a hit with it. The palms of his feet are soft on to the touch. His eyes and nose are like other relatives. This is the cow ______



We are informed that the candidate passed the exam and now is an IAS somewhere in Bihar

----Note from Heather -----

Now I am sure that is as much a lesson about bad English as it is a jab at the Indians, and the same essay written by a "Pakistani" is likely circulating in India. Nevertheless, many of the mistakes made in this essay are common ones that are made by my students.

See what I have to deal with everyday! A lot of time I have to prevent myself from cracking up and keep a straight face while correcting the students...not because any mistake is funny, but particulary mixing the gender (pronouns don't have gender in Urdu) and using sayings like "at the backside" to mean "in the back."

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