My daughter is two and we moved to Kolkata a year ago. She has picked up a few words in Bangla at pre-school and her speech has smatterings of those. Often, we do not understand what she is saying! A few weeks back she says, “Mumma main Pori Hoon” (Mom, I am a Pori)
I was taken aback. Pori means girl in Marathi, a language I am fluent in. However, she would not have been exposed to it. Over the next few days, she kept on saying the same sentence; sometimes asking me to tell her a Pori Story. I would go and tell her a story of a girl!
This morning she wore a shirt that had a fairy picture on it. She points to it and says, “Mumma dekho. Meri shirt pe Pori hai!” (Look Mom, there is a Pori on my shirt) And that is when it hit me. Pori actually was Pari (fairy) said in a bengali accent! And now it all makes sense…
This is the pari mystery resolved!