"SingLe gerls, singLe gerls
pLease click my profiLe.
Yevrything that I may Lack,
I make up in deniaL.
SingLe gerls, singLe gerls
I am Only 5 foot 2.
But on the Internet I can be
just as TaLL as you"
You have to see this from Boy Mongoose!
Hilarious!
Bang on target on so many counts:
(Disclaimer: Not my views, the video's views about desi guys in US of A :) )
1. There are also loser desi kids - counters to the uber successful second generation go getters
2. Phenomenon of desi guys getting touchy about their heights among firang amazons
3. Desi guys (27+) posting 'touched up' profiles on all possible matchmaking sites
4. Bad rep for supposedly being the worst tippers and tendency to go dutch
5. Tendency to upload the most filmi, unnatural shot as profile picture
PS: The American 'Idle' bit was nice too.
Paula enthusiastically cheering from the get go, Randy giving in after a while and Simon rolling his eyes initially and then joining in the fun. Pretty accurate of how it plays out most of the times!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
My many mini-loves
I am in love.
Not in love-love, but mini-love.
Those who know me know what I mean and have seen many of my mini-loves.
It starts off as intense admiration about what the person does.
And this person can be someone I meet or a character I read about or hear about from common friends or someone whose blog I chance upon or some such completely arbitrary thing. (Since reading about someone leaves me free to fill in the gaps, Howard Roark and Holden Caulfield are enduring loves of my life. Yes, that's how much love is happening around me these days)
Anyway, I then proceed to devour all their work/the thing that drew me to them, read all their information that is floating around in cyberspace (anything from star sign to hair texture to favorite pickle to least liked movie, I am not a picky-personal-information-picker) and mentally picturing immensely intense or incredibly witty conversations with the said person. I play out the conversation part in very elaborate detail in my head.
A romantic mind that refuses to listen to logic unless I get stern with it usually conjures up an airport, a long international flight, me trying to pass time at a stop over, ambling around a bookstall where he miraculously materializes, also ambling, also passing time, also flying to the same destination. Over books eyes meet, smiles escape, conversations start, sparks fly. Back on flight, the stewardess gladly changes his seat to be next to mine after just reading our eyes. I will spare you the conversation details that follow!
All this right now is being imagined with my current mini-love - http://nonsenseofkaushik.blogspot.com/
Now, I think there is no chance that NonsenseOfKaushik will ever read this hidden gem of a blog because Google doesn't correctly index my page, no keywords return my blog as the first few search results and the Page-Rank algorithm pretty much decides that CuriousCat is non-existent.
Since I best romance my men when I haven't yet met them and will never possibly meet them, this mini-love-life seems promising as of now.
I first saw NonsenseOfKaushik in Indian Express, as a column - Dr.K's Cure For Sanity. I had read this column a couple of times before. Reminiscent of MAD columns, whacky answers to seemingly sincere questions. But I particularly liked last week's column and read it fully, saw who the author was and saw his blog listed there. Things were already getting a little out of hand; I was in the throes of a mini-crush.
Next time I logged on I typed his blog from memory, a rarity.
I have an elephantine memory for things, people, events, conversations and such like but a very bad retention of phone numbers, addresses and links.So, when I remembered the link 'by heart', I placed a check against 'Divine sign that this is indeed mini-love'. I started reading the entries and can NonsenseOfKaushik write!
Very witty, very original, plays with words, sounds and ideas at will, humorous, meaningful while masquerading as nonsense and macabre fiction - very enjoyable reads, all of them.
The more I read, the more in mini-love I fell.
Here I finish reading a post and there my heart starts beating 5 beats/min faster.
Here I finish another story and there I am already imagining dinner with comfortable conversation.
Here I finish another poem and there I am talking with his Amma as naturally as a childhood friend of a son would.
He's contributed to published books, does humanities at hallowed engineering colleges and to top it, a little bit of extrapolation revealed that he is not the withdrawn-socially-inept-genius type, but is rather gregarious.
What more could a girl ask for?
A girl can actually live on fresh air and Nonsense(OfKaushik)!
PS: NonsenseOfKaushik, if you do read this, imagine me saying in a sweet but strong voice, "ohnogoddamnholygaiaspiritoftheearth, you read it"?! I kind of mini-love you and I am not attracted to male Drosophilae, neither do I arrange knives and forks on the table while having dinner, I promise to employ pink maids who will dress the way you ask them to, I will make sure I remind you when the microwave is out of order so that you don't kill Geezer, I will listen to all your light-music songs even if you start giggling in between, I can also complete stories your Amma starts about kadubus (Kannada equivalent for Kozhi*), I have short hair and cannot wear flowers lest they remind us of plant's reproductive organs and may I just say how much I enjoyed reading your posts for half a day from my office? I will find a place that specialises in Banana cakes, dinner?!
(To make sense of what is written above, read http://nonsenseofkaushik.blogspot.com/)
It took me almost 2 days to get over NonsenseOfKaushik.
But today afternoon, when I was link-hopping in office, I saw this one blog...............
(Falling in love - Mini or not - always a joy! What happens after the fall is another matter)
Friday, October 24, 2008
I am betting on O - Part II
[Continued from 'I am betting on O - Part I']
The last person in the mix who makes it even more unpredictable is the 12th standard contestant - J. Now no one remembers when the last time was when someone from 11th or 12th standards contested. They are too old to bother about silly elections. They have 12th boards looming and the all important entrances to tackle, who would have the time for these elections is what collective wisdom suggests. But J's different. Never the one too interested in studies, he even had to repeat class 9. Always at the bottom of his class, barely scraping through in the exams. It's an open secret that he is not even taking his entrances and will join his father in their family business when he finishes class 12. But he is a different person on the cricket ground. A vicious fast bowler who has helped the school win the inter-district cricket tourneys each year, for the past 4 years. His 5 wicket hauls are always talked about, primarily because he is constantly talking about them. He never tires talking about how important his last haul was to win the match and never bores describing the way he bowled out the opposing caption the year before that. He cuts classes, smokes in the parking lot and has a different girlfriend each session.
But the thing he likes most is to call himself a 'maverick'. Not many know exactly what that word means, except that it carries a general heroic connotation. Not many question why he keeps calling himself ‘J The Maverick’ all the time because they are either too afraid to ask him directly or think that term vaguely relates to his on-field exploits and let it be. He even has 'Maverick' emblazoned on his bike's petrol tank, in flaming red.
But the real twist in the tale for this year's school elections are the deputy picks O and J have made.
While many predict H to win because she's just so smart and organised and will make the ideal school president, there are more factors stewing in the brew. She is secretly counting on all votes from the Book Worm and its sister clubs. As well as votes from many of the girls voting because, well, if she were a voter herself and someone like her ran, she would be damned if she voted for someone else. She is perfect, isn’t she? She would run a thorough campaign the last 2 weeks and inform every one about her intentions to beef up the first aid kits ceremoniously hung on each class wall. Everyone knows that these first-aid kits are always empty and students use it to measure their heights against it.
While H is the initial favorite, everyone openly talks about O being too young to be the school president. After all he was class monitor for just 2 years, surely that's not enough experience. He wouldn't know how to negotiate more PT time, he wouldn't know how to convince teacher's to postpone unit tests - things the school president does on a daily basis. "He's green behind the ears, too young", they say.
While campaigning H had thought that she would she could use the line "When you have a day for your tests and you want them postponed, who would you rather have as school president?" to show how she was better suited for the job. (It is another case that she personally frowned upon those wanting tests postponed, she was always well prepared, why couldn't they be?)
To counter this, O chose another 12th standard guy - JB as his deputy. Now this was definitely not seen before. A 12th standard guy, who was a close friend of J to boot, had agreed to be O's deputy. How could that be?
"O's a good friend guys, you know he's a smart kid. He practically begged me for a month to be his deputy, it's a personal favor I'm doing. He owes me big time!", he would say to anyone who cared to listen.
With JB on his team, no one could call O 'young and inexperienced' anymore. JB's association made O no more look like a gawky over-eager 8th standard kid.
Now J could have picked anyone he wanted. He could have picked a friend from his class, but that would alienate the young votes. ("They remind me of my pesky older brothers who make me set their beds, I would rather vote for O", they could say) Any one from a lower class would have jumped on the chance to be his deputy. J was 'cool' and association with him made you so too.
But he chose S. The pretty kid from O's class.
Many knew about S because she was a heart breaker. She entertained no one her age and had a string of admirers from classes 9 and upwards. She was decidedly average in studies and passed out somewhere in the bottom half. She fared a little better on the field, but nothing would distinguish her there either. But she was a good dancer, a regular in all the school dances. She recognised the advantages her looks granted her and didn't shy from using them, albeit in mostly harmless ways. But why would J choose S to be his deputy? She was never the class monitor. She was not the star-anything, she didn't care for the election and everyone knew she didn’t like O because he never gave her any bhav. But she had one advantage that no one else had. She was possibly the only person in school who could rival J's twisted 'cool quotient'. When asked (and even when not asked) J proclaimed how choosing S was another example of his being a 'maverick'. Of course, no one else understood why.
The school elections are just about a week away. If the teachers who routinely pick the winner are to be believed, O should be the winner. H doesn't stand a chance between the other two. But we can never rule out the J-S combo.
But I am betting on O!
I am betting on O - Part I
Imagine this:
A typical high school in any Indian city.
Except that this school takes it school president elections a tad more seriously.
All students from standards 5-12 can compete though the election usually draws contestants from classes 9 and 10, and sometimes from class 8. (Entrances, exams and education in general cure the 11 and 12th standard students of any enthusiasm for the elections or much else.)
Each of the students has one vote each, and the teachers have 2 votes apiece. To mix some learning with the process, the social studies teachers have modeled the whole process as a simplistic democracy. They have mandated that the president needs to select his deputy and both of them can campaign for 2 weeks during lunch breaks and other free periods, without disturbing classes.
The school president is expected to serve as a role model to his juniors, help the teacher's with the school day arrangements, encourage people to take part in inter-school competitions and arrange such events in school.
There are no pre requirements to contest, other than that you need to choose a partner who will be the Vice School President if you win.
The 2 weeks of campaigning and subsequent voting is eagerly looked forward to by all the students. It provides a little drama during the yearly mid terms. And traditionally the school usually elects the popular 10th grade contestant. Someone who is good at studies and sports and has a big friends circle. Someone with an easy manner and a winning smile. Someone who can make passionate speeches from the school assembly block proclaiming, "I will make sure none of us have remedial classes during the summer breaks". All students know that would be impossible, but it is nice to hear it aloud nonetheless.
But this year it's different.
This year the elections seem bigger, they are no longer the mid year quasi break for the whole school. And that seems to be because of the students contesting.
We have the class 10th topper contesting = H.
She has been the topper in her class every year and among the teachers that she will get a rank in the 10th boards is a foregone conclusion. But as far as the elections are concerned, this precisely seems to be the problem. You see, she is good at studies but nothing much else. The high priestess of the Book Worm club, the math Olympiad winner, the debate society head. All this leaves her with little time for sports, but she doesn't care. Everyone knows it takes studying, lots of it, to be the class topper. Also, she's not the most popular girl in school. People are either in awe of her (the wide eyed younger girls working furiously to become part of her Book Worm club) or are jealous of her (the smart ones who always seem to contest only for second rank and below) or are dismissive of her (the sporty ones - "All she does is study. Get her to play badminton with me once and I will show her who's on top")
So, it was a little surprising when she threw her name in the ring.
But then the teachers always knew this would be the case.
H, however intelligent or accomplished, was living under her elder brother B's shadow.
An illustrious alumni.
The one who did it all - top the 10th boards and 12th boards, captain the school football team for 5 years and win each year's district level debate competition.
He was the proverbial 'all-rounder' and he did it all effortlessly.
(His batch mates have special respect for him because they say he did all this while simultaneously juggling 2 girlfriends from the neighboring girl's school.)
And he was one of the most popular school presidents.
H doesn't have B's easy charm with people, but I will be good to everyone all the time she vows. She doesn't have B's effortless genius, but I will study twice as hard she promises herself. She has nowhere near as many friends as B had, but they will come with I become the school president she consoles herself.
So, though the students find it a little weird that the school brainiac is contesting the almost-frivolous elections, the teachers want her to win. They know how hard a loss will be for her.
She has chosen her best friend as her deputy. No one other than the ones who share her bench knows her name.
But the twist to this year’s elections is the other two surprising contestants.
One is the precocious 8th grader O, the tall gangly kid from out of town. A topper in his own class like H. But that is where the similarity ends. O loves basketball and beats even 10th standard kids at one-on-one playoffs. (His classmates say one evening he even beat a 12th standard kid. "That's how good he is actually", they whisper)
He has an infectious grin and an unaffected manner that the seniors don't feel like ragging him. ("He 'pals around' with the super-seniors too", his classmates sigh, lamenting about that grave unjustness)
The juniors hero worship him and the seniors like his company. The boys are his friends and girls routinely have crushes on him.
[To be continued...]
A typical high school in any Indian city.
Except that this school takes it school president elections a tad more seriously.
All students from standards 5-12 can compete though the election usually draws contestants from classes 9 and 10, and sometimes from class 8. (Entrances, exams and education in general cure the 11 and 12th standard students of any enthusiasm for the elections or much else.)
Each of the students has one vote each, and the teachers have 2 votes apiece. To mix some learning with the process, the social studies teachers have modeled the whole process as a simplistic democracy. They have mandated that the president needs to select his deputy and both of them can campaign for 2 weeks during lunch breaks and other free periods, without disturbing classes.
The school president is expected to serve as a role model to his juniors, help the teacher's with the school day arrangements, encourage people to take part in inter-school competitions and arrange such events in school.
There are no pre requirements to contest, other than that you need to choose a partner who will be the Vice School President if you win.
The 2 weeks of campaigning and subsequent voting is eagerly looked forward to by all the students. It provides a little drama during the yearly mid terms. And traditionally the school usually elects the popular 10th grade contestant. Someone who is good at studies and sports and has a big friends circle. Someone with an easy manner and a winning smile. Someone who can make passionate speeches from the school assembly block proclaiming, "I will make sure none of us have remedial classes during the summer breaks". All students know that would be impossible, but it is nice to hear it aloud nonetheless.
But this year it's different.
This year the elections seem bigger, they are no longer the mid year quasi break for the whole school. And that seems to be because of the students contesting.
We have the class 10th topper contesting = H.
She has been the topper in her class every year and among the teachers that she will get a rank in the 10th boards is a foregone conclusion. But as far as the elections are concerned, this precisely seems to be the problem. You see, she is good at studies but nothing much else. The high priestess of the Book Worm club, the math Olympiad winner, the debate society head. All this leaves her with little time for sports, but she doesn't care. Everyone knows it takes studying, lots of it, to be the class topper. Also, she's not the most popular girl in school. People are either in awe of her (the wide eyed younger girls working furiously to become part of her Book Worm club) or are jealous of her (the smart ones who always seem to contest only for second rank and below) or are dismissive of her (the sporty ones - "All she does is study. Get her to play badminton with me once and I will show her who's on top")
So, it was a little surprising when she threw her name in the ring.
But then the teachers always knew this would be the case.
H, however intelligent or accomplished, was living under her elder brother B's shadow.
An illustrious alumni.
The one who did it all - top the 10th boards and 12th boards, captain the school football team for 5 years and win each year's district level debate competition.
He was the proverbial 'all-rounder' and he did it all effortlessly.
(His batch mates have special respect for him because they say he did all this while simultaneously juggling 2 girlfriends from the neighboring girl's school.)
And he was one of the most popular school presidents.
H doesn't have B's easy charm with people, but I will be good to everyone all the time she vows. She doesn't have B's effortless genius, but I will study twice as hard she promises herself. She has nowhere near as many friends as B had, but they will come with I become the school president she consoles herself.
So, though the students find it a little weird that the school brainiac is contesting the almost-frivolous elections, the teachers want her to win. They know how hard a loss will be for her.
She has chosen her best friend as her deputy. No one other than the ones who share her bench knows her name.
But the twist to this year’s elections is the other two surprising contestants.
One is the precocious 8th grader O, the tall gangly kid from out of town. A topper in his own class like H. But that is where the similarity ends. O loves basketball and beats even 10th standard kids at one-on-one playoffs. (His classmates say one evening he even beat a 12th standard kid. "That's how good he is actually", they whisper)
He has an infectious grin and an unaffected manner that the seniors don't feel like ragging him. ("He 'pals around' with the super-seniors too", his classmates sigh, lamenting about that grave unjustness)
The juniors hero worship him and the seniors like his company. The boys are his friends and girls routinely have crushes on him.
[To be continued...]
Friday, October 17, 2008
I am losing my tongue
"ಪ್ಲೀಸ್ ಮ, ಪ್ರತಿ ಗಲ್ಲಿಯಲ್ಲೂ ಈ ರೀತಿಯ ಒಂದು ಸ್ಪರ್ಧೆ ಇರುತ್ತೆ, ಇದನ್ನು ಯಾಕೆ ನೋಡಬೇಕು?", ಎಂದು ನಾನು ರಾಗ ಎಳೆದೆ.
"ಇಲ್ಲ, ಸ್ಪರ್ಧೆನಲ್ಲ ನೋದಬೇಕಿರೋದು. ಸ್ಪರ್ಧಿಗಳ ಉತ್ತರಗಳು ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿರುತ್ತವೆ. ಎರಡು ನಿಮಿಷ ನೋಡೋಣ, ತಾಳು", ಎಂದರು ನಮ್ಮಮ್ಮ.
ಎಂದಿನಂದೆ ಚನ್ನೆಲ್ಗಳನ್ನು ಬದಲಾಯಿಸುತ್ತಿರುವಾಗ ಈ-ಟಿವಿ ನಮ್ಮಮ್ಮನ ಗಮನ ಸೆಳೆದಿತ್ತು. ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಮಿಸ್.ಈ-ಟಿವಿ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಬರುತಿತ್ತು!
ಗೊಣಗಿಕೊಂಡು ನಾನು ಕೂಡ ನೋಡಲಾರಂಭಿಸಿದೆ.
ಸ್ಪರ್ಧಿಗಳು ತಮೆಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿದ ವಿಷಯದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಮಾತನಾಡುತಿದ್ದರು.
(ಕೇವಲ ಬಾಹ್ಯ ಸೌಂದರ್ಯ ಮಾತ್ರ ಅಲ್ಲ, ಬುದ್ಧಿಯನ್ನು ಕೂಡ ಅಳೆಯುತ್ತೇವೆ ಎಂಬ ಹೇಳಿಕೆಗೆ ಪೂರಕವಾಗಿರುವ ಸುತ್ತು.
ಇಲ್ಲಿ ನೋಡಿ ಈ ಸುತ್ತು ಎಷ್ಟು ಅವಶ್ಯಕ ಅಂತ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR75L08SBHo)
ಒಬ್ಬರಿಗಿಂತ ಮತ್ತೊಬ್ಬರು ವಿಷಯದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಬೇರೆಲ್ಲ ಮಾತಾಡಿದರು.
ಕನ್ನಡ ಸರಿಯಾಗಿ ಬಾರದ ಓಂದು ಕೊಂಕಣಿ ಹುಡುಗಿಯ ಮಾತುಗಳನ್ನು ಕೇಳಿ ನಾವಿಬ್ಬರೂ ಕಣ್ಣೇರು ಬರುವಷ್ಟು ನಕ್ಕಿದೆವು.
[Ok, I give up :(
I had intended to continue writing in Kannada a little longer than this to let you know what prompted the rant below, but I just give up.
It is so hard to write in Kannada on Blogger.
Autosave kicks in every nanosecond and lasts for 2 minutes, cursor doesn't stay where you set it - it keeps reverting to its original position, Blogger suggested words appear far away from where you are typing and are mostly inaccurate, you have to relogin everytime you try to switch back from the preview mode to compose mode - and yet I have managed to type so much in Kannada.
*Totally immodest pat on the back done*
Blogger - I am grateful that you have a feature to transliterate from English to regional languages. It is uncannily accurate 95% of the times. But please make it less of a test on one's patience. Thank you!
For those of you able to read Kannada - The continuation from above is that laughing at the Konkani girl kicked awake my conscience and it took on it's most biting form reminding me that I have become less fluent in the language, haven't written in it for the past 8 years and maybe could not if I tried now. Basically instant karmic retribution for laughing at the Konkani girl.
For those of you unable to read Kannada - To cut a short story shorter, I laughed at a person talking on TV because she was speaking terrible Kannada and my conscience instantly turned back and punched me where it hurt the most - reminding me in essence that I have no right to laugh at anyone because I was over the years, slowly but surely, losing the grasp on my native tongue.]
Another thing that made it so hard to write is I had to grope around for words, construct sentences in my head before writing them and, it hurts me to admit this, use a translation site to get an equivalent Kannada word.
It always wasn't like this. Kannada is my mother tongue and I was and still am very fluent in it. It is the language I am most comfortable speaking. But slowly I am realising that my Kannada vocabulary has become impotent and I almost always think in English.
The voice in my head speaks in English.
"ಇಲ್ಲ, ಸ್ಪರ್ಧೆನಲ್ಲ ನೋದಬೇಕಿರೋದು. ಸ್ಪರ್ಧಿಗಳ ಉತ್ತರಗಳು ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿರುತ್ತವೆ. ಎರಡು ನಿಮಿಷ ನೋಡೋಣ, ತಾಳು", ಎಂದರು ನಮ್ಮಮ್ಮ.
ಎಂದಿನಂದೆ ಚನ್ನೆಲ್ಗಳನ್ನು ಬದಲಾಯಿಸುತ್ತಿರುವಾಗ ಈ-ಟಿವಿ ನಮ್ಮಮ್ಮನ ಗಮನ ಸೆಳೆದಿತ್ತು. ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಮಿಸ್.ಈ-ಟಿವಿ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಬರುತಿತ್ತು!
ಗೊಣಗಿಕೊಂಡು ನಾನು ಕೂಡ ನೋಡಲಾರಂಭಿಸಿದೆ.
ಸ್ಪರ್ಧಿಗಳು ತಮೆಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿದ ವಿಷಯದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಮಾತನಾಡುತಿದ್ದರು.
(ಕೇವಲ ಬಾಹ್ಯ ಸೌಂದರ್ಯ ಮಾತ್ರ ಅಲ್ಲ, ಬುದ್ಧಿಯನ್ನು ಕೂಡ ಅಳೆಯುತ್ತೇವೆ ಎಂಬ ಹೇಳಿಕೆಗೆ ಪೂರಕವಾಗಿರುವ ಸುತ್ತು.
ಇಲ್ಲಿ ನೋಡಿ ಈ ಸುತ್ತು ಎಷ್ಟು ಅವಶ್ಯಕ ಅಂತ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR75L08SBHo)
ಒಬ್ಬರಿಗಿಂತ ಮತ್ತೊಬ್ಬರು ವಿಷಯದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಬೇರೆಲ್ಲ ಮಾತಾಡಿದರು.
ಕನ್ನಡ ಸರಿಯಾಗಿ ಬಾರದ ಓಂದು ಕೊಂಕಣಿ ಹುಡುಗಿಯ ಮಾತುಗಳನ್ನು ಕೇಳಿ ನಾವಿಬ್ಬರೂ ಕಣ್ಣೇರು ಬರುವಷ್ಟು ನಕ್ಕಿದೆವು.
[Ok, I give up :(
I had intended to continue writing in Kannada a little longer than this to let you know what prompted the rant below, but I just give up.
It is so hard to write in Kannada on Blogger.
Autosave kicks in every nanosecond and lasts for 2 minutes, cursor doesn't stay where you set it - it keeps reverting to its original position, Blogger suggested words appear far away from where you are typing and are mostly inaccurate, you have to relogin everytime you try to switch back from the preview mode to compose mode - and yet I have managed to type so much in Kannada.
*Totally immodest pat on the back done*
Blogger - I am grateful that you have a feature to transliterate from English to regional languages. It is uncannily accurate 95% of the times. But please make it less of a test on one's patience. Thank you!
For those of you able to read Kannada - The continuation from above is that laughing at the Konkani girl kicked awake my conscience and it took on it's most biting form reminding me that I have become less fluent in the language, haven't written in it for the past 8 years and maybe could not if I tried now. Basically instant karmic retribution for laughing at the Konkani girl.
For those of you unable to read Kannada - To cut a short story shorter, I laughed at a person talking on TV because she was speaking terrible Kannada and my conscience instantly turned back and punched me where it hurt the most - reminding me in essence that I have no right to laugh at anyone because I was over the years, slowly but surely, losing the grasp on my native tongue.]
Another thing that made it so hard to write is I had to grope around for words, construct sentences in my head before writing them and, it hurts me to admit this, use a translation site to get an equivalent Kannada word.
It always wasn't like this. Kannada is my mother tongue and I was and still am very fluent in it. It is the language I am most comfortable speaking. But slowly I am realising that my Kannada vocabulary has become impotent and I almost always think in English.
The voice in my head speaks in English.
Now, I don't mind this as long as I still retain my native tongue. But it seems to be slipping away and that scares me. I seem to pause to search for words and switch to English when the whole process becomes messy. And the frequency with which this happens these days scares me.
"You have a way with words, you have a voice, don't lose it. It's hard to come by but very easy to lose." This was what my +2 Kannada teacher had told me on my last day of school.
When study in the same school for 12 years and are in a relatively small town like Mysore your teachers are also your father's patients, your best friend's father, your next lane neighbors and sometimes family friends. 8 years after you come out of school they still ask about you when they meet your parents and 8 years after you come out of school, their words still ring in your ears. I feel Saraswati Miss would not be happy about my impotent vocabulary and inability to effortlessly write a paragraph today.
Does this happen to all of us? This slow seeping away of a language? This slow rotting away of one's first tongue?
College crowds are so heterogeneous that the only language having any currency is English. This is magnified at the work place. And to this add the fact that it is so much more intuitive to talk about technology in English.
Amidst all this, how do you still retain a working native tongue? Sure, we can all still talk in our mother tongues. But are we as fluent as we were? Are we able to write as we once used to?
According to me, the acid test of retaining your language is if you are able to pass it on to your child.
Now if I were to marry someone who speaks Kannada, it is almost certain my child would be able to speak Kannada. But that wouldn't require any effort from my side.
If I were to marry someone whose mother tongue is not Kannada, it would be an interesting proposition.
We both would end up talking in English.
And schools these days 'encourage' their students to converse in English even outside classrooms. (It's another matter that their 'encouragement' means imposing fines if someone is caught talking in any language other than English in corridors/playgrounds. And in some extreme cases calling the parents over for a counseling session if the child repeatedly errs. Don't scoff, I have seen these happen.)
In such a case a child will mostly grow up with mastery over only one language - English.
(And oh, there is always the possibility that I might marry a non-Indian. I don't think I will even teach my kids how to speak then. I will be busy staring at their black hair-brown skin-green eyes or other such exotic combinations!)
Isn't being a polyglot without even trying one of the advantages of being an Indian?
Don't we all seamlessly shift between our mother tongues, Hindi and English?
Will our next generation be equally adept?
Maybe not.
With English being the de-facto global language and language being a non-issue when people decide to marry, Gen Z (pronouncing it as zee) will all speak English like assembly-line Chuckys/Barbies.
(But being impossibly far sighted, I am stocking up on ‘Learn Mandarin in 10,000 days’ books before they run out. I’d be damned if I allowed the current US economy to short circuit my unborn child’s future!)
Maybe in my unborn-God-knows-when/if-will-be-born child’s times, Spelling Bee winners will have to spell words three ways.
"Your word for this round is Psychology."
"Can I have the definition please?"
"Science that deals with mental processes and behaviour"
"Can you use it in a sentence please?"
"Older generations were unaware of the psychological side effects of excessive gaming, like Digiblasting - tendency to try to blast people with an extended index finger thinking you are pressing the mouse."
"Thank You.
Classic spelling - Psychology.
Street Version - Sycology.
SMS lingo - sikologi."
Monday, October 13, 2008
If I could have and should have, would I have?
I am reading this book about parallel lives (parallel consciousnesses for the snobs!), thought patterns, there just being One life in the universe and we all being part of the One who split at choice crossroads and such deep stuff!
I really like reading about such things because it gives a nice excuse to speculate on the 'What could have been?'s.
Now we know how vicious going down this line can be.
Thinking about what-might-have-been-had-you-only can ruin an otherwise perfect day.
It can leave you depressed/dejected, but not if you are like me. I always convince myself that my now is the awesomest place to be and I have turned out much better than I would have had I taken a different fork at one of those 'choice crossroads'.
(Who cares that I the work I do seems more meaningless each passing day, marriage is rapidly claiming dear friends leaving me with no one to have 3 hour Gtalk chats with and singledom seems to have upgraded my membership to the club from Trial to Permanent?)
Yes, self preservation basically, I know!
Going back, I have not had too many choice crossroads actually.
Here are my guesses at how my currently non-existent life would be had I chosen differently in the past:
1. Not run the question over in my head three million times before the teacher moved on - when asking a question in class
Though I was a good student all my school life, I was never the best in terms of class participation.
If I had a doubt, I would somehow convince myself that I could find the answer somewhere.
If I knew the answer to the question asked, I would somehow convince myself that the teacher will anyway pick someone to answer, why volunteer?
If I had a particularly intelligent observation, I would word it so many times in my head that the 'optimum commenting window' would pass.
So, I never was the doubt-asking, hand-waving, overly eager student.
And later on when I got rather good at justifying things I did, I dismissed others as being too "show off-y/wannabe/attention seeking"
They should rather aspire to be like me - the perfect example of not trying too hard!
How would I be different if I had asked all those questions?
Maybe question-asking would be my second nature; maybe I would start chanting "Why? What? Where? When? How?" in my dreams.
Yes, the 4 Ws and an H - the journalism cornerstone.
I would have been a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist now, rather than a chronically bored techie. I would write world altering human-interest articles, UN would commission my year long trips around South America to write about the place and people, newspapers would clamour to carry my oh-so-elusive columns, I would be the one penning Expert Opinions on some topic....
If only I didn't think twice about asking that question in Std 2.
2. Had won the first prize for the class drama 'The Confession' in Class 9
We used to have Intramurals in school, which were these yearly competitions in all sorts of areas - sports, dramatics, singing, dancing, debates etc.
Drama was a group event which led to lots of creative juices flowing in all and sundry.
We would scout first for the material, then fashion a play out of it, then through highly complex class politics mingled with diplomacy decide who would act in what roles, decide on the costumes which was part that was most fun, practice many times and finally stage the play.
We started off with fairy tales like Snow White, Cinderella when young, say around class 5-6.
In Class 9 we had Anton Chekhov’s play 'The Confession' as part of our syllabus. We ambitiously decided to stage this play for the Intramurals.
I was always interested in Dramatics and while everyone wielded all batons in our rather clique-less class, I ended up directing the play (as much as group dynamics cum democratic choice making would allow at least!) We staged a pretty successful play that year, but I think we got the second prize.
(There were 2 sections - A and B and hence 2 contenders for class level activities!)
Had we snagged the first place over 9 A, I would have undoubtedly seen that as a sign that Drama is my life's calling, promptly enrolled in NSD, graduated with flying colours, been the country's foremost experimental theater director, dabbled in Kannada and English Drama, staged critically acclaimed plays even in close by Ranga Shankara in Bangalore, worn my hair short, carried a Jhola and worn only Khadi/Fab India clothes.....
If only those blasted 9 A guys had done something inferior!
3. Had chosen to do medicine after Std 12.
My father is a doctor and maybe because of that whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, the stock reply was to be a doctor.
When I did grow up, I discovered that I liked Biology and more specifically Anatomy and all things human. (I didn't care for Botany.)
Even more specifically, I discovered I loved Neurology and slowly, being a Neurosurgeon seemed to be my life's calling.
I would endlessly fantasize about performing complex 15 hour brain surgeries, being a world renowned surgeon who gets invited to elite medical conferences to present papers on cutting edge cranial surgery techniques, remotely help surgeons all over to carry out the 'The Meera Method for Medulla Oblongata incision'......
If only I had stuck to becoming a doctor!
4. If only I had asked That Guy out in college
My love life was as pathetic in college as it is now.
But there was this one guy, who was witty, funny and interesting - from a distance that is, because I barely knew him though he was a classmate. He was my one enduring crush in college and true to form, I ensured nothing absolutely happened.
If I had done something maybe…err its hard to speculate!
Unlike my other fantasies, this one's hard to guess.
We might still be together or we might not, we might be in looove or we might not.
Should love be this complicated even in my own fantasy-land? Humph!
I am stopping at number 4. 5 would make my 'coulda, woulda, shoulda' (as a Carrie Bradshaw would say) list have one too many!
By no means is this list complete, but if nothing else I have realised its never too late to convert a could have - should have - would have to a have.
I really like reading about such things because it gives a nice excuse to speculate on the 'What could have been?'s.
Now we know how vicious going down this line can be.
Thinking about what-might-have-been-had-you-only can ruin an otherwise perfect day.
It can leave you depressed/dejected, but not if you are like me. I always convince myself that my now is the awesomest place to be and I have turned out much better than I would have had I taken a different fork at one of those 'choice crossroads'.
(Who cares that I the work I do seems more meaningless each passing day, marriage is rapidly claiming dear friends leaving me with no one to have 3 hour Gtalk chats with and singledom seems to have upgraded my membership to the club from Trial to Permanent?)
Yes, self preservation basically, I know!
Going back, I have not had too many choice crossroads actually.
Here are my guesses at how my currently non-existent life would be had I chosen differently in the past:
1. Not run the question over in my head three million times before the teacher moved on - when asking a question in class
Though I was a good student all my school life, I was never the best in terms of class participation.
If I had a doubt, I would somehow convince myself that I could find the answer somewhere.
If I knew the answer to the question asked, I would somehow convince myself that the teacher will anyway pick someone to answer, why volunteer?
If I had a particularly intelligent observation, I would word it so many times in my head that the 'optimum commenting window' would pass.
So, I never was the doubt-asking, hand-waving, overly eager student.
And later on when I got rather good at justifying things I did, I dismissed others as being too "show off-y/wannabe/attention seeking"
They should rather aspire to be like me - the perfect example of not trying too hard!
How would I be different if I had asked all those questions?
Maybe question-asking would be my second nature; maybe I would start chanting "Why? What? Where? When? How?" in my dreams.
Yes, the 4 Ws and an H - the journalism cornerstone.
I would have been a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist now, rather than a chronically bored techie. I would write world altering human-interest articles, UN would commission my year long trips around South America to write about the place and people, newspapers would clamour to carry my oh-so-elusive columns, I would be the one penning Expert Opinions on some topic....
If only I didn't think twice about asking that question in Std 2.
2. Had won the first prize for the class drama 'The Confession' in Class 9
We used to have Intramurals in school, which were these yearly competitions in all sorts of areas - sports, dramatics, singing, dancing, debates etc.
Drama was a group event which led to lots of creative juices flowing in all and sundry.
We would scout first for the material, then fashion a play out of it, then through highly complex class politics mingled with diplomacy decide who would act in what roles, decide on the costumes which was part that was most fun, practice many times and finally stage the play.
We started off with fairy tales like Snow White, Cinderella when young, say around class 5-6.
In Class 9 we had Anton Chekhov’s play 'The Confession' as part of our syllabus. We ambitiously decided to stage this play for the Intramurals.
I was always interested in Dramatics and while everyone wielded all batons in our rather clique-less class, I ended up directing the play (as much as group dynamics cum democratic choice making would allow at least!) We staged a pretty successful play that year, but I think we got the second prize.
(There were 2 sections - A and B and hence 2 contenders for class level activities!)
Had we snagged the first place over 9 A, I would have undoubtedly seen that as a sign that Drama is my life's calling, promptly enrolled in NSD, graduated with flying colours, been the country's foremost experimental theater director, dabbled in Kannada and English Drama, staged critically acclaimed plays even in close by Ranga Shankara in Bangalore, worn my hair short, carried a Jhola and worn only Khadi/Fab India clothes.....
If only those blasted 9 A guys had done something inferior!
3. Had chosen to do medicine after Std 12.
My father is a doctor and maybe because of that whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, the stock reply was to be a doctor.
When I did grow up, I discovered that I liked Biology and more specifically Anatomy and all things human. (I didn't care for Botany.)
Even more specifically, I discovered I loved Neurology and slowly, being a Neurosurgeon seemed to be my life's calling.
I would endlessly fantasize about performing complex 15 hour brain surgeries, being a world renowned surgeon who gets invited to elite medical conferences to present papers on cutting edge cranial surgery techniques, remotely help surgeons all over to carry out the 'The Meera Method for Medulla Oblongata incision'......
If only I had stuck to becoming a doctor!
4. If only I had asked That Guy out in college
My love life was as pathetic in college as it is now.
But there was this one guy, who was witty, funny and interesting - from a distance that is, because I barely knew him though he was a classmate. He was my one enduring crush in college and true to form, I ensured nothing absolutely happened.
If I had done something maybe…err its hard to speculate!
Unlike my other fantasies, this one's hard to guess.
We might still be together or we might not, we might be in looove or we might not.
Should love be this complicated even in my own fantasy-land? Humph!
I am stopping at number 4. 5 would make my 'coulda, woulda, shoulda' (as a Carrie Bradshaw would say) list have one too many!
By no means is this list complete, but if nothing else I have realised its never too late to convert a could have - should have - would have to a have.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
About Art - Some questions
I do not love you….
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this: where
I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest
is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
-Pablo Neruda (An excerpt)
There is no rhyme; there are no high falutin metaphors.
It’s almost as if someone is talking to you, and telling you that this is the only way he knew to love – straightforwardly, without complexities or pride.
I like Neruda’s poems because they are so direct–like the way he loved his women – straightforward and un-complex.
Doesn’t the image of Neruda almost jump out at you when you read this poem?
A young Neruda, heartbroken, on a sea shore, looking at the stars and saying this poem out loud. Missing his lover, her hand on his chest, her eyes.
This is almost always the impression I have when I read his poems.
Most are about a love lost, about longing.
What I imagine will mostly be inaccurate, but that is the image he inspires in me.
Of a lover writing about love, of a person who lost his beloved writing about longing.
It’s authentic, genuine.
This brings me to another of my favorite poems:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,
I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I like this one all the more because of the last line.
And in this case too in my mind I see Elizabeth Barrett Browning so passionately in love (either romantic or divine) with someone that death is not the end, maybe just another beginning.
The point I am trying to make is that all poems I love create a very vivid image in my mind of the poet himself/herself being in that situation and reciting the poem. This is more often than not far from the truth and I recognize that, but for the duration when I read the poem, it feels that the poet is living the poem.
Which lead me to the questions:
Can you write only about the things you feel first hand?
Do you always have to feel it to write it effectively?
Can you only write about love, longing or loss only when you have been through these emotions yourself?
Can you feed off of someone else’s emotions, can you write when the emotions are second handed?
What about imagination, extrapolation?
Can you extrapolate emotions too?
Can you speculate about how you would have felt, how you would have dealt, without actually feeling it and dealing with it?
I get these doubts because I came to understand poetry about love and loss only when I loved and lost. There was a connect with the poem, prose even, only when I had been through the emotions myself. Lot of friends had described how it is to be in love, how it is to have your love unrequited, but it made sense only when I went though it.
(Don’t read too much into this now! All my mini-loves are unrequited; don’t ask me to name names!)
So, forget for a moment about writing – or more generally creating any other work of art – even for art appreciation, is it equally necessary to have experienced the principal emotion first hand? Does the work of art hold more meaning to you then?
I realise I am out of my depth here to answer these questions, but I will try nevertheless.
All fiction they say is at least to some extent autobiographical.
You cannot help but let in some elements of yourself into the work. It is easy to write about things you know, emotions you have gone through. And though we tend to imagine our loves being peerless, our tragedies unique and our miseries unparalleled, the truth is we are all intersecting circles with a great deal of shared experiences. Along with the comfort collective joy or misery gives, it also forms the basis for the connection between the auteur and his audience.
If it's a thought that shapes a sculpture, there is the same or a congruent thought in someone else that makes him see the reason behind the symmetry, if it is an ideal that shapes your sensitivity as a film maker, you will have someone else swearing by the same ideals who understands the motive behind the characters you etch, if its an emotion that gushes forth as a poem, you will find a kindred soul who will hear the music you weaved into the poem.
So maybe it’s these overlaps between people and experiences that make art and its appreciation at once universal and deeply personal.
But what about the times when you have to write about things alien to you?
Surely you cannot always write only about first hand experiences. The world is a big place and you cannot drink in every experience.
It is then we resort to generalizations.
How can I describe an orphan's childhood accurately when I grew up smothered by parental love?
How can I describe a paraplegic's helplessness when mobility is a non-issue personally?
How can I recount a bitter divorce after a long marriage without having even wed?
Sure, I can say that the orphan felt lonely and incomplete, the paraplegic felt angry and defeated and the divorce was gut-wrenching.
How much ever I elaborate would it ever be the same as say how an actual orphan might chronicle his days?
I don't know.
While I can speculate to an extent in each of these cases, I feel there will still be something lacking.
Maybe its talent or maybe it’s the practice of repeatedly flinging yourself into other's bodies and peering into their minds that makes you good at it.
Maybe then there will be an element of truth in what we say about others.
And by extension more truth in what we say about ourselves.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this: where
I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest
is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
-Pablo Neruda (An excerpt)
There is no rhyme; there are no high falutin metaphors.
It’s almost as if someone is talking to you, and telling you that this is the only way he knew to love – straightforwardly, without complexities or pride.
I like Neruda’s poems because they are so direct–like the way he loved his women – straightforward and un-complex.
Doesn’t the image of Neruda almost jump out at you when you read this poem?
A young Neruda, heartbroken, on a sea shore, looking at the stars and saying this poem out loud. Missing his lover, her hand on his chest, her eyes.
This is almost always the impression I have when I read his poems.
Most are about a love lost, about longing.
What I imagine will mostly be inaccurate, but that is the image he inspires in me.
Of a lover writing about love, of a person who lost his beloved writing about longing.
It’s authentic, genuine.
This brings me to another of my favorite poems:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,
I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I like this one all the more because of the last line.
And in this case too in my mind I see Elizabeth Barrett Browning so passionately in love (either romantic or divine) with someone that death is not the end, maybe just another beginning.
The point I am trying to make is that all poems I love create a very vivid image in my mind of the poet himself/herself being in that situation and reciting the poem. This is more often than not far from the truth and I recognize that, but for the duration when I read the poem, it feels that the poet is living the poem.
Which lead me to the questions:
Can you write only about the things you feel first hand?
Do you always have to feel it to write it effectively?
Can you only write about love, longing or loss only when you have been through these emotions yourself?
Can you feed off of someone else’s emotions, can you write when the emotions are second handed?
What about imagination, extrapolation?
Can you extrapolate emotions too?
Can you speculate about how you would have felt, how you would have dealt, without actually feeling it and dealing with it?
I get these doubts because I came to understand poetry about love and loss only when I loved and lost. There was a connect with the poem, prose even, only when I had been through the emotions myself. Lot of friends had described how it is to be in love, how it is to have your love unrequited, but it made sense only when I went though it.
(Don’t read too much into this now! All my mini-loves are unrequited; don’t ask me to name names!)
So, forget for a moment about writing – or more generally creating any other work of art – even for art appreciation, is it equally necessary to have experienced the principal emotion first hand? Does the work of art hold more meaning to you then?
I realise I am out of my depth here to answer these questions, but I will try nevertheless.
All fiction they say is at least to some extent autobiographical.
You cannot help but let in some elements of yourself into the work. It is easy to write about things you know, emotions you have gone through. And though we tend to imagine our loves being peerless, our tragedies unique and our miseries unparalleled, the truth is we are all intersecting circles with a great deal of shared experiences. Along with the comfort collective joy or misery gives, it also forms the basis for the connection between the auteur and his audience.
If it's a thought that shapes a sculpture, there is the same or a congruent thought in someone else that makes him see the reason behind the symmetry, if it is an ideal that shapes your sensitivity as a film maker, you will have someone else swearing by the same ideals who understands the motive behind the characters you etch, if its an emotion that gushes forth as a poem, you will find a kindred soul who will hear the music you weaved into the poem.
So maybe it’s these overlaps between people and experiences that make art and its appreciation at once universal and deeply personal.
But what about the times when you have to write about things alien to you?
Surely you cannot always write only about first hand experiences. The world is a big place and you cannot drink in every experience.
It is then we resort to generalizations.
How can I describe an orphan's childhood accurately when I grew up smothered by parental love?
How can I describe a paraplegic's helplessness when mobility is a non-issue personally?
How can I recount a bitter divorce after a long marriage without having even wed?
Sure, I can say that the orphan felt lonely and incomplete, the paraplegic felt angry and defeated and the divorce was gut-wrenching.
How much ever I elaborate would it ever be the same as say how an actual orphan might chronicle his days?
I don't know.
While I can speculate to an extent in each of these cases, I feel there will still be something lacking.
Maybe its talent or maybe it’s the practice of repeatedly flinging yourself into other's bodies and peering into their minds that makes you good at it.
Maybe then there will be an element of truth in what we say about others.
And by extension more truth in what we say about ourselves.
Will you make friendship with me, babes?
StudMaccha_123: Hey u, ya dnt no wht u r mssng. Make friendship with moi babes, i will make ur life. i rox. reply.
DesiArnold_hothunk: will you please accept my friend request? i really want to be your friend, plz plz plz.
I of course had to be flattered that the StudMaccha himself (who cares if he is 123rd in the list of StudMacchas) had expressed interest in being my friend. Or for that matter the very polite Desi Arnold , who was thoughtful enough to clarify that he indeed is a hot hunk - for those who might not know Arnold, maybe - wants to be my friend.
I think all of us on Orkut/Facebook/any of the million other social networking sites get these messages regularly.
While they boost my ego like nothing else, I end up having a laugh and deleting them eventually.
I know the only reason I get these messages is because my profile shows me as 'single, 25'. But even in real life I am a single female around 25, why don't the StudMacchas and Desi Arnolds come talk to me?
Oh, they can see me in real life and more importantly I can see them! That's why.
(And I don't have any photos or details for "5 turn ons, turn offs?" type questions on these sites! Yes, I recognise the generation gap here and realise that I belong to Gen X - are we onto Gen Z now? After that will we start with Gen AA? - which thought there was some fun in personal interaction and going out to dinners with real people, not online profiles.)
Why does anonymity make people do things they wouldn't dream of doing otherwise?
Why is it so lucrative to hide behind an online persona and profess your love to someone, approach someone and say you want to be their friend, sound cool by doing whatever you think sounds cool?
Maybe it’s the absence of consequences.
You are whatever you want to be online, you are what you project.
You can be this tall handsome lawyer who loves reading Nietzsche when you really are a portly, not so tall 17 year old kid who hates college and whose existential questions usually revolve around, "Why, o why, do I have new pimples every day?"
Here I have to confess that I am not a very big fan of these networking sites.
I see their utility in getting together people who have lost contact over the years or are geographically separated or bring together people having the same taste.
They are convenient too - you can wish an acquaintance on their birthday without actually calling them up, query ex-colleagues with whom you don't have too much to talk about etc.
They are nice, I feel, as long as your lives don't revolve around them.
But other than that, don't we already have enough ways to keep in touch with people we routinely interact with?
Is anyone more a SMS or a phone call away these days?
Why does the world have to know your half hourly schedules via one line messages on Twitter?
Didn't we always know how to reach our best friends before the Internet happened?
But I mostly put down my misgivings saying maybe I don't either have 20 non-overlapping circles of friends or a life that warrants bi-hourly status updates.
Maybe it's just me.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Irrelevant, repetitive or nonsensical?
Blogger has blocked my blog :(
A friend informed me yesterday that my blog was under scrutiny.
I quickly racked my brain for possible reasons.
- Objectionable language - Not really.
I swear very little very rarely in real life and never when I write.
- Objectionable material - Hardly.
I have barely written around 5 posts, all mostly personal.
What could possibly incite Blogger's wrath? The liberal Blogger's wrath, that too.
Had the moral police descended on some piece I had written and had a incredibly heated debate broken over some of my post, when I was away for a few days?
Not a chance.
I have a loyal readership of 4 friends, all of whom I bully to read what I post and beg to comment! And none of the 4 is a self inducted member of the moral police.
What else could it be?
- IP rights violation?
But I have not embedded anything or quoted anyone and I would never do that without citing the source.
No.
I couldn't think of any more reasons.
Since I can't login to Blogger from office, I had to wait till I got home to find out.
And this was Blogger's official reason for blocking me:
"Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site".
So, either Google's fuzzy algorithms deemed my blog's content as spam and got it wrong or I actually write in an irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical way.
You tell me :(
PS: My blog is now un-blocked after a ‘human’ review by Blogger!
PPS: May be it’s the length of my posts. I shall try brevity sometime, maybe.
A friend informed me yesterday that my blog was under scrutiny.
I quickly racked my brain for possible reasons.
- Objectionable language - Not really.
I swear very little very rarely in real life and never when I write.
- Objectionable material - Hardly.
I have barely written around 5 posts, all mostly personal.
What could possibly incite Blogger's wrath? The liberal Blogger's wrath, that too.
Had the moral police descended on some piece I had written and had a incredibly heated debate broken over some of my post, when I was away for a few days?
Not a chance.
I have a loyal readership of 4 friends, all of whom I bully to read what I post and beg to comment! And none of the 4 is a self inducted member of the moral police.
What else could it be?
- IP rights violation?
But I have not embedded anything or quoted anyone and I would never do that without citing the source.
No.
I couldn't think of any more reasons.
Since I can't login to Blogger from office, I had to wait till I got home to find out.
And this was Blogger's official reason for blocking me:
"Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site".
So, either Google's fuzzy algorithms deemed my blog's content as spam and got it wrong or I actually write in an irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical way.
You tell me :(
PS: My blog is now un-blocked after a ‘human’ review by Blogger!
PPS: May be it’s the length of my posts. I shall try brevity sometime, maybe.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
The Draught
When you have younger siblings, you naturally grow up to be story tellers.
Not story tellers with talent or imagination particularly, but you know how to spin a yarn.
"I lived below our green bed for 1 year. Amma got very angry with me because I wasn't finishing up my lunch like a good girl. Open your mouth...there" Push in spoon full of curd rice.
"She one day sent me to live under the bed, without the family."
"Really Akka? Amma did that?"
"Of course, you don't know anything because you were not born then. Second bite...open mouth bigger" Push in another spoonful.
"She would push water and little food in the red plastic plate you play with everyday. I had to eat under the bed. Open bigger, I can't get the spoon in...."
"What about school Akka?"
"Er….school was not there then because all mothers had pushed their kids under their beds. You want that to happen, do you, do you now? Finish this curd rice quickly then. Amma is coming"
I have spent countless afternoons like this when my mother delegated the job of feeding my brother to me!
Sometimes it would be how I was locked up in class after school, other times how I was lost in the Dasara exhibition, else how I flew away with the crows on the coconut tree to the sea!
My brother wonders sometimes how he turned out normal because for a long time I made him believe that I was imprisoned inside a whale’s stomach and had to tear my way out to come meet him when he was born.
Below is a simple fable-like story, a kind I never told my brother.
Once upon a time there was a small village on the banks of a river.
Let’s call the village Happypur.
All the villagers in Happypur were happy.
They were a peace loving, hard working group of people.
They toiled by day in their fields which gave them 10 times the crops any land would give.
And for amusement they had devised a unique way to spend their evenings.
There was a big box near the village well at the center of the village.
This was where all the Happypurians gathered during the evenings.
In this box the villagers would put any happy conversation topic that came to their mind.
The village's wise Sarpanch would give the box a mighty shake each evening and some happy kid would pick that day's topic.
The people would spend a leisurely hour after dinner talking about the happy topic.
This was enough entertainment for the simple-at-heart, easily contented Happypurians.
But one monsoon the rains didn't come, the river dried up and crops died.
Cattle died, children cried, women sighed.
But Happypur was still happy.
The wise Sarpanch had wisely stored last year's excess grains and the village used that now.
They still continued to talk and laugh each night and the draught was not a nightmare.
One day the wise Sarpanch gave the idea-box a mighty shake and asked the little girl nearest to him to pick a topic.
The girl put her hand in and flapped it left and right, but could catch no topic.
She tried again and now flapped her hand up and down, but still no topic.
The wise Sarpanch knew what had happened and soon the villagers also knew.
For the first time in Happypur's history the villagers did not speak post-dinner.
This continued for a few days.
And with this the excess grain dwindled, the rain still refused to pour and the land still refused to grow.
Happypur was happy no more.
And it was then that a young woman gave birth to her young daughter.
Draught or not, the young woman was happy and put in a happy topic into the big box.
That night after the wise Sarpanch gave the idea-box a mighty shake a young boy picked out a topic.
Happypur spoke post-dinner after many months.
They laughed together, some wept too.
But just talking again made Happypur happy again.
Next day the clouds began to open up, the river filled up, the brown lands drank up.
All was well again and the wise Sarpanch that evening said,
"The draught was in our hearts. When we are happy, nature conspires."
And the young mother nodded her head and said,
"It takes but one to turn a draught around. When we are happy, even a draught goes background"
Not story tellers with talent or imagination particularly, but you know how to spin a yarn.
"I lived below our green bed for 1 year. Amma got very angry with me because I wasn't finishing up my lunch like a good girl. Open your mouth...there" Push in spoon full of curd rice.
"She one day sent me to live under the bed, without the family."
"Really Akka? Amma did that?"
"Of course, you don't know anything because you were not born then. Second bite...open mouth bigger" Push in another spoonful.
"She would push water and little food in the red plastic plate you play with everyday. I had to eat under the bed. Open bigger, I can't get the spoon in...."
"What about school Akka?"
"Er….school was not there then because all mothers had pushed their kids under their beds. You want that to happen, do you, do you now? Finish this curd rice quickly then. Amma is coming"
I have spent countless afternoons like this when my mother delegated the job of feeding my brother to me!
Sometimes it would be how I was locked up in class after school, other times how I was lost in the Dasara exhibition, else how I flew away with the crows on the coconut tree to the sea!
My brother wonders sometimes how he turned out normal because for a long time I made him believe that I was imprisoned inside a whale’s stomach and had to tear my way out to come meet him when he was born.
Below is a simple fable-like story, a kind I never told my brother.
Once upon a time there was a small village on the banks of a river.
Let’s call the village Happypur.
All the villagers in Happypur were happy.
They were a peace loving, hard working group of people.
They toiled by day in their fields which gave them 10 times the crops any land would give.
And for amusement they had devised a unique way to spend their evenings.
There was a big box near the village well at the center of the village.
This was where all the Happypurians gathered during the evenings.
In this box the villagers would put any happy conversation topic that came to their mind.
The village's wise Sarpanch would give the box a mighty shake each evening and some happy kid would pick that day's topic.
The people would spend a leisurely hour after dinner talking about the happy topic.
This was enough entertainment for the simple-at-heart, easily contented Happypurians.
But one monsoon the rains didn't come, the river dried up and crops died.
Cattle died, children cried, women sighed.
But Happypur was still happy.
The wise Sarpanch had wisely stored last year's excess grains and the village used that now.
They still continued to talk and laugh each night and the draught was not a nightmare.
One day the wise Sarpanch gave the idea-box a mighty shake and asked the little girl nearest to him to pick a topic.
The girl put her hand in and flapped it left and right, but could catch no topic.
She tried again and now flapped her hand up and down, but still no topic.
The wise Sarpanch knew what had happened and soon the villagers also knew.
For the first time in Happypur's history the villagers did not speak post-dinner.
This continued for a few days.
And with this the excess grain dwindled, the rain still refused to pour and the land still refused to grow.
Happypur was happy no more.
And it was then that a young woman gave birth to her young daughter.
Draught or not, the young woman was happy and put in a happy topic into the big box.
That night after the wise Sarpanch gave the idea-box a mighty shake a young boy picked out a topic.
Happypur spoke post-dinner after many months.
They laughed together, some wept too.
But just talking again made Happypur happy again.
Next day the clouds began to open up, the river filled up, the brown lands drank up.
All was well again and the wise Sarpanch that evening said,
"The draught was in our hearts. When we are happy, nature conspires."
And the young mother nodded her head and said,
"It takes but one to turn a draught around. When we are happy, even a draught goes background"
Thursday, October 2, 2008
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
My mother says that she knew I would grow up to be a movie buff when I was 3.
During that summer all my aunts and cousins had come down to Mysore, like most summers.
It was an eclectic bunch of 4 pucca Indian kids, 2 Indian kids growing up in America who liked most things Indian and were curious about the yearly 'Indian Experience' and 2 Indian kids growing up in America who were too young to bother about any experience and were grumpy all day long because the toilets didn't have paper here, there were huge mosquitoes that gave them red red rashes here and you could sometimes catch cockroaches in the bathrooms here - though the boy in this couple was supremely excited with this one item.
I was the youngest in the group and eternally left out because none of the other 8 ranging from 6-15 had the patience for a 3 year old. So, while they entertained themselves and didn't need much parental supervision, I was always cast off with no one to play with and bundled along with the adults. (2 years later when I had my brother, I promptly ditched him to be with the 'cooler' older cousins.)
On one such hot afternoon when my mother and all the aunts were bored, the youngest aunt realised that the latest
My mother had no such option and was forced to take me with her.
She made sure that I was not hungry and had peed and had 3 sips of water and was in my most comfortable dress - all she could possibly think to do to prevent me from suddenly start bawling in the theater. They all decided that if that situation did arise, my mother would have to pay the price for having a 3 year old and walk back home with me, missing the rest of the movie.
They all set off to the theater, got the tickets and took their seats. Till then I was impeccably behaved. But they all knew that once the lights go out, kids usually get scared and since the movie doesn't make any sense to them they start getting fidgety and in 5 minutes full blown crying starts.
Ads and the news started (they used to show a short News segment before the movie in those days!) and I still was behaving. My mother checked to see if I had slept off in the short span and I hadn't. Once the credits started rolling and the theater got completely dark, my mother was almost at the edge of her seat, ready to pick me and go out any time now. But I was still quite and occupied with the things moving on screen. Of course, I didn't understand what Kalpana (yesteryear Kannada actress) was talking or doing. My mother gave me 5 more minutes; after all how much longer can a 3 year old's concentration last?
But then, legend has it, that this particular 3 year old didn't utter one Aah or Ooh during the entire 3 hours, didn't get thirsty or hungry or pee-y. I did sleep through most of the movie, but during the waking parts, I was completely glued to the big screen, looking at it, even asking my mother questions about the movie. (This definitely is my mother's exaggeration! She says I danced when Kalpana danced, got sad when she cried and was inconsolable when she died. I of course refuse to believe that. But every parent should be forgiven when they launch into a little bit of hyperbole when it comes to their child. Usually parents over-hype their kid's academic or sports conquests. But my mother, due to lack of such achievements to talk about, always tells any one who listens about how I completely followed the plot and even understood the subtle sub texts of a Puttanna Kanagal movie when barely 3!)
After the movie, while going out there was much talk about how unnatural this occurrence was and how kids always start crying right after the theater goes dark.
Then my mother, with a little huff cocked her head and with unmaskable pride in her voice said, "Who knows, maybe this one will grow up to be a genuine movie lover, and maybe even do something related to movies."
And the 3 aunts could only nod in approval, because just then I had displayed prodigy-level talents in movie appreciation!
(You can make out the extent to which my family was movie crazy. If typical South Indian housewives are excited about the thought that their daughters might be in the movies (no no, not as actors, directors/writers/technicians anything else would do!), it had to be a film loving family.)
So, maybe it was my genes or the house I grew up in or the confluence of both, I at least fulfilled one of my childhood promises, I did grow up to be a movie buff.
Needless to say, I don't remember a thing about the urban legend-like event my mother and aunts recount to this day. My earliest movie experiences are the weekly ones I saw on Doordarshan and the cassettes we rented. We used to rent almost half the video library and a VCP when my father and his sisters (the 3 aunts above) got together during summers. I remember watching movies late into nights since the movie watching would start only after all kids went to bed.
And my 'parallel cinema' education was taken up by Doordarshan.
Every Sunday night DD showed an award winning regional movie. (Did you know that the order of telecasting these movies was alphabetically determined by their languages?!)
I would always stay up to see that, sitting on the sofa closest to the TV and trying my best to read the sub titles as fast as I could. Sometimes my father helped me by asking me to just watch the images while he read out the subtitles. And the joy when it was a Kannada or Hindi movie that was telecast during that slot, I didn't have to read the subtitles!
(I have to credit my initial Hindi knowledge to years and years of watching everything that was telecast on Doordarshan. We did study Hindi as a 3rd language in school from 6th standard, but by then I was completely fluent in the language and had to learn only the script.)
So, it is natural that I sometimes get existential doubts like why is it that I actually like movies so much? What kind do I like best and why?
The second is easier to tackle.
I am not a movie snob.
By that I mean, on an average I like more movies than I dislike.
I am mostly generous in my reviews and even in the bad ones seek elements that are nice.
I like most genres, Drama being my favorite, Mindless Action being the least favored.
I like when movies have a human element to them.
So, I enjoy an action movie when it at least bothers to have even a half baked back-story to it, the nicely made ones are always a delight to watch.
(I try arguing this point in relation to porn with my guy friends, about how I would think they require at least a semblance of a story to plug in the porn - maybe the reason we have erotica in addition to hardcore porn - but of course they see this argument as being utterly ridiculous.)
In the same token, I like science fiction with a dash of humanity.
Movies where we debate the direction of AI and have machines developing 'human' traits melt my heart!
I think you get where I am going - anything with a little something that I can relate to emotionally. And I think movies generally get made that way.
I can't think of any particular genre I would not pick up outright.
It's harder to pinpoint why I like movies.
The usual argument for this is that you can lose yourself in a different world for 3 hours. Its an alternate existence, you vicariously live your dreams, you can root for the underdog and he usually wins, you see evil readily defeated, you see love requited - you see your joys reflected and for your unfulfilled fantasies you find a vicarious fulfillment.
If you need an escape when your own life gets too much to handle, even if its only for a few hours, the dark movie hall where someone else’s story plays out and all you have to do is react seems like the perfect place to head to.
In the darker, more pathos filled movies - you maybe happy you are not the one going though it, sometimes there is a slightly sick feeling of even contentment that your life is better than those shown on screen (
And when during our routine lives corruption is rife, the ‘system’ never works, everyone tries to mooch off of you and life, irrespective of who you are and what you do, sometimes hits you so hard that you fall down defeated at sundown, it is unadulterated pleasure to see an Amitabh single handedly take on the system or a Russell Crowe stand up to the Emperor or an Iqbal get into the Indian team.
It’s where we go to get our daily dose of ‘Life’s all right, after all’ from.
And then there are those who see a movie for just what it is - a movie - a diversion, an interesting excursion, nothing more, nothing less.
I don't try too hard to relate to movies or characters, but they are not pointless diversions either.
I am mostly happy with my life and hence they are not escapist fare for me.
But yes, sometimes I am slightly happy that my fictional husband has not yet cheated on me and my fictional in-laws are not trying to burn me after pouring kerosene on me and my fictional kids don’t hate my guts – all that seems to be happening to that hapless character up there!
I think the basic reason I love movies is the one that pretty much defines me most of the times - Curiosity!
You see, the CuriousCat is curious to see how different people react to situations, what prompted them to do so, extrapolate by placing yourself in the same position, analysing your reactions versus the character’s, seeing what makes different people tick, seeing different samples of what the heart can feel.
It’s like taking a thin cross section of life that is not your own, mounting it on a slide, and peering in to look at it more closely through the microscope’s eyepiece.
During this process somewhere along the line I fell in love with movies - of all kinds, languages and genres.
And thankfully, unlike my other rather tragic attempts (some would call them non-attempts) at love, this love story was requited!
The movies speak to me in a language that’s our little secret and I seem to understand them. I get them.
I come out of a good movie feeling warm inside, mind busy trying to rationalize. And in a weird way, it feels that they get me too.
And wouldn't we all women be satisfied if our lovers just truly got us?!
Well then, I seem to have found the perfect lover!
PS: Read the poem –
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