Taming Hindi

One of the positive impacts Bollywood has had on me are the free rides it provided me in my quest of learning Hindi. Mithun Chakraborty, Poonam Dhillon and Kimi Katkar along with Naseeruddin Shah, Smita Patil and Girish Karnad spoke to me in Hindi through movies on the Doordarshan and through numerous video cassettes hired from the local video store. My ceaseless (and annoying - as I now realize) questions of “Ima, kei haino?” (“Mother, what is he/she saying?”) posed to my mother have acted as the earliest way of understanding Hindi for me, long before I ever opened a Hindi dictionary. As I progressed, I started asking meanings of specific words rather than all-encompassing “What is he saying?” questions. 

Amusingly, songs hardly contributed to my vocabulary, even though I was subjected to numerous Hindi songs – my mother used to hum Lata songs all the time, our audio cassette collection consisted of an eclectic mix of albums ranging from Dance Dance, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak to Silsila, Akhir Kyon. I hummed the songs along without understanding the lyrics which were, unsurprisingly, often wrong.

Hindi grammar lessons came from my grandfather. A schoolteacher by profession, he had attended a training programme in Hindi once (I never asked him when, but I am putting it around the 50’s- “after the war”, as he mentioned). Through him, I learned subtler grammatical details of Hindi, most notably the lack of the neuter gender. Pushtak is male, kitaab is female, he taught. And each of the following: aeroplane, bus, ship, car – is either masculine or feminine. In addition, verbs too reflected masculinity/femininity (karta hai vs karti hai). This was a most confusing aspect of Hindi to me and remains so till this day.

My grandfather had a peculiar pronunciation which I deduced was the result of having learnt Manipuri, then English, then Bengali and finally some Hindi, usually through people who knew them as second languages. For instance, “main” (I) was pronounced “mei” with a much more prominent ‘n’ sound; “baarah” (twelve) was pronounced more as “baaraha”.

It was a revelation when one of my Hindi teachers explained that the ‘d’ sound in ‘darr’ (fear) and in ‘do’ (two) are two different phonemes. This was as late as my 7^th class and she was our first Hindi-speaking Hindi teacher. Our teacher made us learn how to pronounce the murdhanya sounds – ट , ठ, ड, ढ , ण, ष. In Manipuri, the murdhanya sound is completely absent. There is only one d sound and only a single s sound (as opposed to the talavya, murdhanya and dantya s sounds in Hindi). Even s and sh don’t make a difference in Manipuri (you will find many pronouncing sheep as ‘seep’).  Similarly, v and f do not exist in Manipuri and in many cases (especially older speakers), it will be pronounced as b (as in Bineet) , bh (bheri for very),  ph (phair for fair) etc.

Learning a new phoneme may be considerably harder as age advances. For example, the Manipuri language uses words beginning with ‘ng’ as in ‘ngaa’ (fish).  The ‘ng’ sound is as found in words like ‘thing’, ‘sing’ but only in the beginning of the word. It is near impossible for someone to learn how to pronounce a word like ‘ngaa’ once one crosses, say, twenty years of age if he did not learn it earlier. Also, for someone not used to tonal languages, it will be difficult to imagine how tones differentiate meaning of words in Manipuri. For example, ‘kaaba’ can mean different things (climb or burnt) depending on the tone of the first syllable. Similar are the cases when Manipuris have difficulty learning sounds like the murdhanya d, get confused between different sa’s and even pronouncing v, f etc. Needless to say, for someone who learns first a vernacular language with a very different subset of phonemes, it is a paradigm shift when he later learns English and/or Hindi.

To confuse things further, Manipuri as written in the Bengali script makes some irrational uses of letters primarily to make use of the extra ones in the alphabet. Shan (cow) uses murdanya sa and murdanya na (mudeino as pronounced in Manipuri). When I asked teachers about this particular spelling, the answer was tradition. Words derived from Hindi retain their original spelling, e.g. thelagari. The Bengali script was useful for reading Sanskrit or Bengali but it was unsuitable for Manipuri. This has been cleared to some extent with the recent popularisation of the original Manipuri script.

My Hindi was subjected to much closer scrutiny as late as after my secondary school when I started mingling with predominantly Hindi speaking people. Features of Hindi which were exotic to me like the difference between r and d were now elements of humour to my friends, sometimes even tease, say, when I mispronounced r for d or vice versa. The confusion between masculinity and feminity of verbs too was brought to the fore. While I managed to speak right for most of the time, slips of tongue occurred. I would say slips of tongue because there were very few cases where I was really unaware – when I didn't know what I was supposed to say.

I have crossed many bridges and many passes but haven’t conquered Hindi yet. It has been an intriguing journey; I may rest but I shall not retire from my quest. Mainly because, to me, Hindi is a phunny language!

Echo

A monk asked Hogen, "I, Echo, ask you, Master. What is Buddha?"
Hogen said, "You are Echo."

Link

Being honest

How is it important to be honest? How different is it to be honest with one’s self and to be honest with others? How much is others’ perception worth while determining someone’s honesty? Isn’t it possible for someone to be completely honest with himself and yet dishonest in the eyes of others? If someone chooses a place where he can be all alone with himself, a place where no one else can touch, does that make him a hypocrite because to others, he is not what he is? If he chooses to hide a part of himself from others, does that make him a hypocrite? Is it wrong to feel vulnerable when someone lets himself known to another? Is it wrong for someone to try to protect himself from that vulnerability?

If u put in two different individuals together, wouldn’t it be a miracle if they just happen to agree on everything? Is it prudent to imagine a world where everyone just stuck to his honest opinions? Does every compromise make one more hypocritical, as u r accepting something who u r not, something u r not wont to do? Is it possible, then, to live without any compromise and stay completely honest? Can we say, I will stick to my own notions, and the world may go its own way?

But then, how will this work in the grand scheme of things? How will the world work if everyone stuck to his opinion and remained honest, without any compromise? Does agreeing with someone else’s opinion, different from yours, make you dishonest? How different is it from respecting someone else’s opinion?

If someone claims to despise a certain kind of behavior, but tries to justify it when he himself behaves that way, does he become a hypocrite? If he is able to justify it, does it cleanse him of his hypocrisy? Is the act of justification itself an act of hypocrisy?

Which one is more honest - shooting from the mouth, or taking time to think, and then speaking? How important is it to show one’s emotions? If someone tries to curb his anger, is he cheating? Should he just let it go?

If u decide not to do a certain thing which u want to, but ought not to do, does that make u a hypocrite? Isn’t that running away from who u r, what u want? Are we what we r, or what we want to be? If I don’t know who I am, can someone accuse me of being not being the real me?

Movi(e)ng thoughts...

I wish I could frame myself in a movie – a movie that captures every moment of my life, every day. There are times when u believe u’ll get a better picture of a situation if u were in someone else’s shoes. Looking from a third (or second?) person’s perspective at me doing something will certainly give me more insight into the state of affairs. This solves a certain dilemma – when u need someone’s help and u are not sure who to talk to. U r not able to solve it urself and u don’t trust anyone enough to talk about it. What better way than to do it in ur own leisure, as if u were watching a movie, literally!

Perhaps a background score in tune with what I’m supposed to feel would be convenient. At least u won’t feel that crippling helplessness when u are (sometimes) not aware of how u r supposed to feel. That small cue could potentially save u from many an discomfited situation.

Speaking of background score, I had this thought. Usually, movies treat the background score to accentuate the mood of the movie. Why not do something opposite? I would love to see how viewers react. Will it go unnoticed? What effect will it have on the movie as a whole? Will it reduce the effect of the movie and ‘average’ out the mood of the movie? Or will it make the movie crappier than ever?!!

Anger management

Of late, I’ve started finding faults in people more often that not. I get irritated at things that I would have normally dismissed as silly or unworthy of my attention/thought. In short, I’m getting pained. It’s not so much about people paining me as me getting pained. I see the virian virtue of empathy slowly trickling away from my blood. But I ask, is it for my good or bad?? And how do I even get an answer to this?

I hate to get angry. It makes me lose control over my emotions, or rather, an expression of my emotions. Often I’ve wriggled out of the misery convincing myself, and trying to convince others that I’m not angry, but just irritated. But how thin is the line that separates irritation from anger?? True, I do not break glasses or throw things at people or shout at people at the top of my voice. In the few times that I’ve been really convinced of my anger, I’ve expressed it in my own ways. Often in funny ways, as witnesses claim.

It’s an art to hide a range of emotions behind a blank expression; I am but a dilettante. And anger robs one of the canvas to dabble in this art. Some argue that masking one’s expression is a dishonest pursuit, a travesty of emotions. That they have a right to know what others think and feel. But then don’t we need to look at both sides of the coin?? There is, perhaps, a third side??

I know I’m a hypocrite at heart. But, does owning it cleanse me of the sin of hypocrisy?? Also, does a false claim of hypocrisy make one a hypocrite?? I make no attempt to answer.

I greet people I loathe with an equally fervent smile as I would someone I consider close to me. It is so well-knitted into my demeanor, only a VERY few would actually notice the difference. But I admit the difference, however infinitely subtle.

Now, someone having a sudden surge of curiosity may ask, “Why all this badinage?” I have my reasons, vague and contrived as they may seem.

Let me elucidate, with a tactful use of bullets, of which I have become a fan of late.

• S borrowed my all-out the night before. He wanted it for 5 minutes, or so he claimed. Now, when someone borrows something u really need and assures u he will return it in 5 minutes, u expect him to return the something in 5 minutes. He returned it the next night, through an intermediary. My night, however, was spent in the envious company of mosquitoes, covering myself in a blanket in this dreadful Chennai heat in a desperate attempt to thwart off their ruthless attack. The greatest human civilizations were built on the sound foundations of empathy, a concern for fellow beings. When that is not forthcoming, u start wondering where our own civilization is headed to!!
• I had to submit a letter to prof. S. Which I did. He refused to take it on the irrefutable grounds that the sheet was folded, at three places, if I might add. Hence, I had to get it typed by the guy in the office. The guy was supposed to come in another 10 minutes, and I waited. As 10 became 20, I decided to take my chances and asked S if I could use the comp to type it out myself. “Can you type?” he asked. “Well, I can try.” Much to his surprise I typed it out at a fairly decent speed and finished in a few minutes. Took a print-out, deleted the .doc file. “Fine,” he accepted. I heaved a sigh or relief, a huge one at that. As I started walking out of the building, Ma’am S called me back. Prof. S, scrupulous that he is, had noticed a profound fault in my letter. The letter should have been dated the day before. Couldn’t I just strike out the date and write the correct one. I’ve even got a pen with black ink. Better type it out. Hmmm..
  

Right now

Four years have passed since I entered this institute, and I hardly noticed how things have changed. As I look back and immerse myself in introspection, it seems like the I that was then and the I that is now are different, in ways that I'm aware and in ways that I'm not. Maybe a good way to judge this is to ask someone who knew me well before and haven't been in touch with me for the past 4 yrs.

With many people passing out and entering an entirely new chapter in their own lives, several existentialism dilemmas and issues have started to brew within and without us. With current debates going on the so-called excellence phenomenon on one side and cases of suicides and disillusionment of students with the system, these questions have never been more significant. Seemingly simple questions like ‘what now?’, ‘what have we achieved?’, ‘is it worth it?’ etc. that are digging up the philosophers in many of us. Not really surprising, if u think of it.

Everyone wants to different, in one way or the other. And everyone has a secret fear of getting subjugated to the annals of mediocrity and mundane existence. Two easy pointers would be the answers to the questions -

• Will we be really able to do what we like?
  
• Will we like what we end up doing?
  

I see many minds getting weary in the middle, thanks to the tug-of-war between an inherent desire to excel and distinguish oneself from others on one side and the external pressure of conformity on the other.

Paradoxically, it is hazaar tougher to get involved in something that u like to do. Not many people get so lucky. The maxim ‘Do not what u like, like what u do’ is a blatantly misleading statement; it’s subjecting a person to a life of superficial happiness and deep regret. That’s not what we want to end up doing. And the justified fear is in ending up doing so.

Another dilemma is the search for things that endear to u, that u can be passionate about. This leads to an iteration of experimentations and analyses in the capacity of each person. Experiments can go awry and analyses can be erroneous and there should be allowances for these. When the allowances are not coming, frustrations emerge. As I see it, parents and guides should be more accommodating at this stage than any other. The role of peers also can’t be undermined. Everyone wants to be accepted and yet, be different from others leading to ego clashes and the like. When u live with people from so many different backgrounds and with different personalities, u r bound to learn and adapt and condition urself.

I’ve been fortunate enough to get close to a Punjabi, a tam, a bong and a gult in the course of these years and of late, a sindhi and a bihari – all with strikingly different personalities and behaviour.. U know there are people u can count on, whom u can trust, and for whom u are willing to go out of ur way to accommodate them. It’s a pleasure to know these people. I’ve fostered numerous acquaintances, but these are a few prized ones. Unfortunately, half of them are going this time. And we are all going different ways, as far as I can see it It’s a feeling of weirdness, above loss, that’s encompassing me now. Hopefully, it will pass.

Getting acclimatized to hostel life was an entirely new experience; and I’m expecting that getting out of it will be another quantum jump. Mine was rather gradual as I had spent one more year in hostel in Delhi, but for most of the students here, it was a start. And as most of us were dumped in a single hostel, we were made to sort things out for ourselves first hand, with little help from seniors. What an experience it was! By the way, the affinity to the girls’ hostel did nothing much than serve as an occasional eye-candy. ( who can forget the way the two of us hogged the limelight when the soodest senior girls’ gang took us out for a movie treat!!)

Our first year saw another thing – us getting impressed by the so called gods in the institute. They were seniors to us and starting the second year, we began a long draught process of emulating the gods. The process continues till this day.

Whatever be the case, I’ve seen most of the people around me growing, maturing. Some disillusionment is evidently there, but overall, we are more prepared to face difficulties than we were four years ago. And much less susceptible to external stresses.

As for me, the funda is simple – make an endeavor to find out what endears to u. Stick to it and screw everyone and everything else. Altruism is one luxury we can’t afford, especially when u have to pay with ur life and happiness.

Many of my friends have entered and are entering a new procellous phase in their lives. My best wishes are with them. I have one more year to go, and I’m waiting, albeit a little less enthusiastically than I seem to on the onset.

Life’s like that.

Lord of War

Guns. One of the three g’s that have fascinated men over the ages - the other two being girls and games. It might be the image it conjures, or could be the way it gets stuck up in your throat and releases itself nasally when you pronounce the word.

I remember reading a thriller, the name and the author of which pass my memory right now, in which a politician was assassinated using a rubber bullet. The intricate detail to which the gun was made and the planning was done captivated me. It remains one of the best thrillers I have ever enjoyed. More relevantly, it made me fall in love with guns.

They keep recurring in my dreams. And I can’t give an apposite reason why.

I have heard gun-fire, real gun-fire; gun-fire that goes rattatatatat, with seemingly long pauses and short rats and tats in between. The incident took place half a kilometer away from my house, when an Assam Rifles convoy ‘retaliated’ to the explosion of a bomb. Those who had planted the bomb had run away. In the end, 18 civilians got killed by the one-sided gun-fire. No A.R. personnel received so much as a scratch.

For the first time, I didn’t find guns fun anymore.

Now, a pertinent question, why am I saying all these? There are two reasons-
1.I’m terribly bored to do anything else right now.
2.I just saw this movie, ‘Lord of War’.

The first needs no explanation.

As for the second, the movie (8.3/10) shows the plight of gun-runners and reveals an astonishing, though not really unknown, fact – the real culprits are those who make guns, and those who sell them. It shows a cynical and funny Nicholas Cage in his true elements. But in the same breath, shows the massacre of kids and women and gun-wielding teenagers. That’s not funny. Neither is the fact that the biggest gun-runners are the 5 so-called superpowers who are also the members of the U.N security council, who continue doing it with no repentance and reluctance.

As the protagonist says in the movie, “There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11? ”

I don’t like guns anymore.

Waking Life

A metallic cold seeped through my skin as the muzzle pressed close to my chest, almost touching my ribs. That instant, fear gave me a strength – an infinite strength – that was adequate to displace the gun and make my escape. I ran for my life.

Passages, alleys, boulevards blurred past me as I ran, ran and ran. Perhaps, I would have run more had I not hit a dead end. The edge of a cliff, to be more precise. There was no way I could run back. I just could not do that. I had to decide, fast. Then it hit me – I could jump.

I jumped. I floated down like a feather, the winds carrying me tenderly in its arms. I experienced a holy moment – one that seemed to last for eternity. I was placed gently on the laps of a pool of water. Then, the moment came to an abrupt end as it dawned on me that I knew not how to swim.

But I just knew what to do. I decided to wake up.

*****

“And as one realized that one is a dream figure in someone else’s dream, that is self-realization.”
-Federico García Lorca

Lucid dreams are dreams where you are aware of the fact that you are dreaming. The movie “Waking life” (8.3/10) explains the phenomenon of lucid dreams pretty intelligibly. This guy gets trapped in a dream where he dreams and awakens in the dream itself, going on in an endless loop. It’s a case of false awakening, where one dreams of being awakened.

You can test if you are having a lucid dream by a few simple methods. Read some text, look away, and read it again, or look at your watch, and remember the time, look away and look back. In most dreams, the text or the time would have changed. Also, light switched don’t generally work and reflections on mirrors are blurred or distorted.

Lucid dreaming can be induced too. The knowing and thinking about it itself is a precursor to lucid dreaming. A concerted effort to experience it will certainly result in one, though the ability to control the dream may vary from individual to individual.

More often than not, I’m aware of the fact that I am dreaming while still dreaming. It seems to give me a chance to do stuff which I cannot do normally, in my real life. For instance, I can swim in my dreams, or take some steps in thin air which I am otherwise not capable of doing. And sometimes, when you are in trouble in a dream, or on the verge of having a nightmare, you can ask yourself if u are in a dream and snap out of it. I haven’t really explored the possibilities, but plan to whenever I have such dreams. One problem I have, though, is my inability to recall my dreams.

One aspect of this is having a déjà vu in dreams. A sequence of events which u know has happened before in a previous dream, but never in ur real life. There are even some people u have never met in real life, but keep bumping to in ur dreams. This is freaky.

Dreaming is something I have always loved to indulge in, perhaps concurrent with my desire to sleep. Maybe, it is time to take it a bit seriously. This line from the movie ‘Waking Life’ sums up my feelings fairly accurately.

"They say dreaming is dead, no one does it anymore. It’s not dead. It’s just that it’s being forgotten. I am trying to change all that. By dreaming everyday."

A dream

i was hugging her
i slept

i dreamt
i was carrying her
she was a child

i woke up
i was hugging her

Cogito ergo dolero

"It seemed that thinking about almost anything led to a dilemma, and where you had a dilemma you had this little pucker between the eyebrows."
- Kate Grenville, "The Idea of Perfection"

When faced with an inevitable predicament, there’s no need to brood over it. You stop thinking about it, you stop worrying about it. Why bother when you know there’s no way out? If u keep thinking, u might even see a false glimmer of hope. It’s more painful that way. And most of the conceivable solutions are bogged with problems themselves. So, it is better to think of ways to pump urself up, rather than cry over split milk.

Another thing, it’s indeed annoying when people try to meddle in your matters and try to show sympathy and stuff, when the truth is they hardly care. Even if they care, what’s the big deal? You will at most get a look of awe, surprise, disbelief, empathy, or perhaps, delight. What difference does it gonna make?

Life goes on, mate.

What's in a name?

The little B finally got christened after days of extensive search on the web. It had to start with a 'chi' as indicated in his kuthi (kundali). Some 15 probables were selected including Chiara, Chimera, Chin-Hwang, Chi, Chini etc. Not to mention the Chinese Chins, Chings and their numerous derivatives. Interestingly, the winner turned out to be one from outside the probables list. It's a Persian name meaning brave, powerful, sublime, intelligent, and perhaps more. An alternate meaning being turban. Here's my first hi to a newly christened Chirah!! A close contender was Chiragh(meaning a lamp) but bigB decided to do away with it as it could be "blown away by a gust of wind"!!
I was inspired to find a meaning for my own name. It turned out to be very meaningful indeed, with meanings ranging from an elitist homosexual to lesbians, marijuana to plain stupid. Urbandictionray.com did come up with some amusing meanings!! It's always been a pain for me to answer people when they ask the meaning of my name. I can make it sound pretty entertaining now. Though I wonder if i can do away with my oft-repeated old "My father got impressed by a WWII Russian pilot named Bobo Bubuska. Ergo, blah blah blah.." story.