2020 is giving us a whole bunch of reasons
to use the word ”aiyo”.
Whether it's frustration
(”Aiyo, when will this lockdown end?!”),
sorrow
(“Aiyo, I’m out of rum, da!”),
or sympathy
(“Aiyo, she left you “on read”?”)...
it’s all conveyed with those two syllables
“ai” and “yo”.
And while it is, by far,
one of the coolest words to ever be invented in India,
pretty much everyone around the world
has their own version of it:
(“haye rabba”,
“oy vey”).
So, what’s the story behind “aiyo”?
Well.. to our surprise,
it involves Classical Tamil Literature,
a bet between the Gods,
and a whole lot of bad acting…
So, recently, “aiyo” joined the big leagues…
That’s right,
I’m talking about the Oxford English Dictionary.
Here the word falls under the imitative category,
meaning its very sound suggests its definition
(like an onomatopoeia).
And since yelling out, “aiyo!”
can sound like a cry,
its definition is laid out as an expression
of “distress, regret or grief”.
Okay, so…
while it’s awesome that the OED took on “aiyo”,
there’s definitely a lot more to the word!
If we go back to early medieval Tamil Nadu,
we find that the poet-saints, the Alvars,
actually used the word to express awe and ecstasy
at the sight of Lord Vishnu’s form.
Let’s just say they were…
head over heels for the Lord -
they’d fawn over his lotus eyes,
his dark, inky skin
and that smoldering smile…
“Aiyo,” they’d sing,
“my mind has away from me been whisked,
by the coral lips
of the wondrous lord of exquisite charm!”
Now, somewhere along the way,
the definition of the word allegedly lost
its connection to the divine
and became attached to the Lord of Death, Yamarāja…
Yamarāja was, for all intents and purposes,
a happily married grim reaper.
While most believe his wife’s name was simply
“Missus Yama”,
some suggest it was “Ayyo”!
If your paati ever smacked you across the head
for saying “aiyo”, this is probably why...
You’re essentially summoning destruction
into your home!
There’s even a story behind this and it goes like this:
Once upon a time…
there was a really depressed dude
who wanted to commit suicide.
Little did he know,
Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvathi
watched him from above.
The two agreed that if he uttered the word “appa”,
Shiva would save him
and if he uttered the word “Amma”,
Parvathi would save him.
But when our hero fell to the ground,
he yelled out ”ayyo” instead!
So the two gods stuck to their agreement and like…
totally just walked away.
Seriously, they never saved him and he died!
Why? Because he called on the family of Death!
Didn’t his paati warn him?
All that aside,
there are far more egregious sins
than uttering the name of Mrs. Yama in vain..
And for that, let’s cut to modern-day India
where this keeps happening:
(Sigh…)
Let’s be honest, here.
As beloved as “aiyo” may be,
it’s been coded into Bollywood
as a way of stereotyping South Indians.
Take for example the following stars:
(𝘏𝘦𝘮𝘢,
𝘙𝘦𝘬𝘩𝘢,
𝘑𝘢𝘺𝘢 𝘢𝘶𝘳...
𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘪 𝘸𝘩𝘰?
𝘚𝘶𝘨𝘰𝘪!
Well, they all got their big break
in film industries of the South
for any characters below the Vindhyas,
we somehow get this:
So, while it’s awesome
that “aiyo” has made its way from South India,
to Bollywood, and all over the world,
what’s great about it is
that it isn’t stereotypical of any one place or people…
The word’s ubiquity is a testament
to the human need to express those moments
we simply have no better word for.
Stay home, stay safe
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