Anecdotal Evidence

I am presently at the age where the loco parentis is gradually reversing. That the pace of reversal can be accelerated has been continually impressed upon me. Based on varying emotional situations I have been likened to Shravana and to Emperor Nero - who played the lute and left for the office when the household was stalled because of a plumbing failure. When the latter situations seem to pile up in memory, in a bid to achieve domestic emotional balance - and at the same time quench our thirst for drinking in all of the world's variety- my parents and I go on vacations. I am usually given a carte blanche in the planning except for one killer clause: any place as long as good filter coffee is available . That leads me to an inevitable digression. > When people like something which I don't, I find it difficult to just walk away. I have to say something. Sometimes I am blunt ("I don't watch hockey...you start watching sports other than cricket then one thing leads to ...

"My boy" said the editor biting into his cigar and letting a puff of smoke envelope his person. He rocked a bit on his reclining chair and toyed with his suspendor straps and continued "we need something new here" " First things first" I said in way of an ahem, "your 'my boy'ness is misplaced. You see, you aren't exactly the blow-hot blow-cold, talent managing rag runner. You are like a publishing consultant guy who will give me inputs. That is all" "Grhmmph" he replied to my curtness, as his smog thickened. "And could your dress be any more clichéd ? Next you'll want me describing your whiskers and liquor cabinet, so we are switching to dialogue mode rightaway",I sai.. Editor : Grhmmph.. Me : Well ? Ed : There is so much about you that the literary public should know Me : Maybe, but this is a family blog, not a tabloid Ed : No no.., what I mean is you could say write a travelogue Me : Pah..I can't even br...

DAE: So, it's been a while, how are things... Me: Writer's blog I guess DAE: Very funny. You know that's not what I meant (crooked grin) Me: Oh ok....well nothing much actually. We are mamihlapinatapai 'ing DAE: Oh I see Me: No you don't.We do.Tee hee DAE: Ugggh ! Grow up will you

Quaint stories are indeed pretty But with them you only get so far Just for a moment stop being witty And write a story that's rated R Regular readers of this blog would know that my sentiments towards the Hindi language aren't exactly what one would call 'fond'.Gobind Ballab Pant shakes his head in disgust. And it took some explaining (to myself too) to establish that it was only socio political and nothing purely linguistic.But of late I have been trying to question these things about my 'beliefs'. I try to sift out some which were perhaps not quite true but just forceful self-reiterations (please do not try this at home). And so the pure linguistic question came up and I was sifting through memories to see what went wrong between Hindi and me. I never believed in this 'relative ease of learning' that is widely touted as Hindi's usp. For instance, you have to know the words for the numbers from 1 to 100 in order to know the words for the numbers fr...

I have this intense need to understand words in songs. As none of you knows the real reason, I can dramatize a flashback: My foray into learning singing was cut short when my teacher wouldn't accede to my demand for explaining the lyric: pilachinapalukavunalukakurA. Cut to today. I have been quite taken by Amit Trivedi's latest song : Iktara And to iron out the niggle of not being able to enjoy the song fully I googled up lyric translations done for the benefit of the Hindilliterate rest of us in We, the nation . The word manvA personifying 'mann' at the head of the song was quite interesting. Not sure if that is something Javed Akthar cooked up or it is a prevalent usage - it ties into the beckoning I am familiar with (in a not so previous jenmam I used to respond to PrabhuA). Interesting particularly because it is a personification that used to exist in poems in Tamil. In the very first poem of the thiruvAimozhi, nammAzhwAr's last line reads: துயரறு சுடரடி தொழுது ...

...is not a good thing. Anyway, to twist a Gounderquote: பிச்சைக்காரனுக்கு insecurity பிச்சைக்காரனே

Lavanya (never new you blogged) passed on a Kreative blogger award to me I would thank her being very perceptive but then I read the clauses and found I had got tagged. I duck tags and would on any given day have ducked "Seven things I love". But I decided not to flatter myself as if I was actually some bitter cynic. I didn't quite like the fact that it took some time for me to come up with this: 1) Idyll . A few weeks back, a friend of mine wakes me up from a Sunday-afternoon slumber. We head to the Loyola grounds just like that with the sun beating down on us heavily. Settle on the sidelines to watch a schoolmatch, applauding the occasional wicket and generally making wisecracks. We used to do that nearly ten years ago. A lot has changed since then but I can easily delve and enjoy the illusion that nothing has changed. No need to know or do. Just be. And denying that time moves. 2) Long walks in unfamiliar cities ...actually in familiar cities too. Just one turn to an ...