Thursday, February 26, 2009

which language do you think in?

my answer: i dont know.

when people ask me how many languages i know; i say "three; tamil, hindi and english".
tamil is my mother tongue, my native language. i speak tamil with my parents and my brother, my grandmother and some other relatives. but from tamil nadu standards, my tamil is, to put mildly, RUBBISH. my vocabulary is severely limited, my tamil is accented (now what accent it is, no one knows), and i dont understand typical tamil words. in fact, i never ever understand tamil songs in the first go...its almost like im listening to english songs. i cant write tamil and my tamil reading skills are a notch above those of an illiterate.

my hindi on the other hand, is quite decent, for someone who's only studied hindi till the 4th. in fact, my hindi's better than many of those, who have stayed in india all their lives. i give the credit to my love for hindi movies. my hindi's not accented (at least thats what people tell me). but my hindi reading speed is slowwww...and lets not even get started about my hindi writing.

english is perhaps the language i am best at. i can speak it well (the blabbering, fumbling and sheer incoherence can be attributed to nervousness, social phobia and anxiety), i write it well (ya ok im immodest; but it IS a talent i have), and i understand it well too!

{oh and i know a tad bit of french too. i learnt it for 5 yrs. i spoke passable french for a year. now, my knowledge of francais is limited to words i read on the back of bottles and packages}.

so i know all these languages. yeah. but i dont know what language i think in. the minute i start to think about what language i think in, i get conscious and i stop thinking about what i was thinking in the first place, and start thinking about what language i think in.

its definitely not tamil. unless im thinking about a conversation with my parents or brother. its definitely a lot of english, because its a language i feel comfortable with. it could be hindi too...but not so much. maybe 75% english and 25% hindi. or maybe 80% english, 15% hindi and 5% tamil.

i should seriously figure out which language i think in. im getting restless now.

Monday, February 23, 2009

M-u-s-i-c...and me :)

it's not like i dont like english music. over the years, putting in much effort, i have grown to like many english songs. i like the occasional "hotel california". i can develop a taste for "carnival of rust". i can fall in love with a "what if". i can be inspired by "i hope you dance". i can groove with the beats of "superstar" (after a million hearings, courtesy my roommate). i can be mesmerized by "when you say nothing at all". i can like the occasional jack johnson, and goo goo dolls (thanx to the twin's influence).

but at heart, i am so totally, unconditionally "bollywood".

i relate so much better to bollywood music. with bollywood, i dont need lyrics or multiple hearings to make sense of the song at one go. its more 'me'. i need the item numbers to pep me up when on a walk or during a journey. i need the old songs of kishore and rafi when im in a melancholic/contemplative mood. i feel like listening to lata's "satyam shivam sundaram","yeh galiyaan", "ek raadha ek meera", "aapki nazaron ne samjha" or any other old song of hers, when i feel like listening to pure unadulterated music. on one of the worst days of my life, i listened to "tu jo nahin" from woh lamhe, continuously for hours altogether. i turn to bollywood when im in a bad mood, when im in a good mood, when im blank, when im working, when im euphoric, and when im tragedy struck.

with movies its still different. i love movies in all the languages which i understand (although i am still tilted or rather leaning, towards bollywood). but with music, all my loyalties are always towards bollywood. always.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

MRIDANG 09

what. an. experience.

it had everything: fun, tension, conflicts, fashion, arguments, difference of opinions, egos, laughter fits, financial crunches, messy hands, frantic phone calls, gifts, chocolates, flowers, colours...everything.

in one sentence, i would say that it was one of the BEST times of my life. not just the hostel night itself, but the whole run up to it: the rehearsals, the shopping for prizes, breaking our heads over budgeting all the prizes, the auto rides, the random jokes which only a select few would understand and find funny, the goof ups, the confusions.

There was the shopping in a myriad of places; ARCHIES (whether its the priyas one or the one in satya niketan, both feel like home now), NESTLE (nothing short of a trip to chocolate heaven- where/when else in my life would i have been given 4000 bucks and told to shop for chocolates?! even if they werent for me!), the local phool wala (i have never argued over gende ke phool and rose petals in my life!). i did rangoli, picked up bricks, helped with the backdrop, ran around all over the place, watched the same dances and heard the same songs over and over again.

I was honoured multiple times (!)- i signed certificates, lit the lamp, gave out presents to chief guests...something which i had never ever done in my life. and if i ever do it again, it sure cant be as much as fun as it has been now.

last year, i won a prize for being the best dancer. it was a pleasant surprise, coz i hadnt danced with the intention of winning anything. this year, there were no such surprises, it was all about backstage work, the work that no one really sees. but there was a strange kind of fulfillment this year, this hostel night, was MY hostel night. mridang 08 was fun for the dances, the songs and the people...mridang 09 was fun for the sense of ownership i had over it. from start to finish, i was there throughout.

as creyzeee would say, "it was the besht!"



(one of the reasons why hostel nite was special- THIS is the collage which me and two of my dearies made and won FIRST prize, out of 13 teams...many of these teams actively dislike us for our nonsensical behaviour. and this victory, was a :P for them!)

Thursday, February 12, 2009

random old post

Was going through my old blog, and found this post. This incident happened about two years ago, May 07, right around the time when I had gone to Bahrain after my final undergrad exams.

There's some strange, almost divine connection between the Raghunathan family and nights without electricity...we have a way of managing through nights with NO power. No matter which part of the world we are, its something which just finds us...

at around 6 pm yesterday, when Mrs. R and Ms. R (yours truly :D) returned from their evening walk, they see the entrance of their beloved Biljeek building clouded in darkness, implying a power cut, IMPLYING that the main gates won't open...so Mrs. R, worried about the younger Mr.R inside, calls up the house..

Mrs. R: "There's no power, how do we get in? What are u doing alone in the darkness?"
the younger Mr.R: "There is electricity. Wait i'm coming to the main door."

Soon enough, the doors are pushed open by the younger Mr.R and when the three walk into the house, they see just the lobby bulbs burning wayyyyyyyyy too brightly...apparently, none of the bulbs were working and there was a lot of fluctuation happening. Not really bothered too much about the situation, Mrs. R and Ms. R proceed to take their post exercise showers (separately of course)...and in a matter of a few minutes, both the bathrooms have NO light...so amidst a lot of shouting and voltage fluctuations, both the ladies, shower quickly and come out...sure enough, its just the main lobby light which was shining wayyyyyyyy too brightly. Mrs. R then decides to call Bahauddin, the Bangladeshi caretaker of the building.

Mrs. R: "Bahauddin, jaldi aao, bahut electricity fluctuation ho raha hai"

While this conversation was taking place, Ms. R hears a loud noise, which sounds like a tire bursting, and also like the sound the washing machine makes when its done washing the clothes.

Ms. R : I heard something strange...maybe its from outside?"
the younger Mr. R: "THERE'S SMOKE IN THE TV ROOM!!! THE TV'S BURNING!"

Mrs. R (still on the phone with Bahauddin): "BAHAUDDIN, HAMARA TV BURST HO GAYA...JALDI AAO!" (undoubtedly one of my favourite moments of the evening)

Coming back to the smoke in the tv room, sure enough, there's a whole cloud of smoke coming from the back of television and Ms. R and the younger Mr.R quickly turn of all the switches in the house and open the windows in the TV room...Mrs. R meanwhile calls Mr. R and tells him to come home quickly, owing to the crisis situation. Meanwhile only one light is on at the house, which too fluctuates constantly.

So, Mr. R comes and true to his reputation as problem solver, goes out and finds out what the scene is like...he comes back with the news that every house in the building has had some mishap of the TV bursting variety. Later it is discovered that the whole electrical wiring of the building is totally burnt, so the small electricians go after inspecting and promise to send the other more experienced ones soon. It seems as if the night will be long. In the meantime, the one lone light which was bringing some brightness to the house, also goes off...so the house runs on one candle, and two cellphones.
By 9 30 it is decided that both the Mr.R's will go to the embassy to sleep in Mr. R's spacious office room, as the younger Mr. R has to get up at 5 the next morning to go to school. Meanwhile, Mrs. R and Ms. R lie down on the kitchen floor (the only place, apart from the bathrooms of the house, which is NOT carpeted), pillows in tow. The men leave, only to be back in a few minutes saying that apparently the electricians will come soon.

With a brief interruption caused by the ringing of Mr. R's cellphone at 11 pm, Ms. R sleeps off peacefully in the kitchen floor (thus adding further evidence to the theory that she can sleep ANYWHERE) and is woken at 12 30 by the bright tubelight of the kitchen and Mr. R saying that there's a generator at work and we can all sleep peacefully now.

Waking up at 6 30 am the next morning, Ms. R finds out that everything which was plugged in, has been damaged; microwave, refrigerator, two air conditioners, laptop charger, one cell phone charger, cordless phone and of course, the burnt TV. The whole day then proceeds with a bunch of electricians walking in and out of the house, taking fridge, microwave with them and other people coming to inspect the air conditioners...

of course, the funniest joke of the day involved a punjabi electrician and Mr. R.
punjabi electrician, walking into Biljeek building and looking at Mr. R says "Good night sirji."
Mr. R (pausing for a fraction of a second, wondering WHY on earth the electrician was saying good night when he's just come in, then realizing that it was his way of wishing...akin to good morning, good evening) replies back "Good night ji, kaise ho?"...it was one of those, you had to be there moments.

oh what a night....