when I open a Word document full of my made-up words and Indianisms, a high-browed Spellcheck runs red and green lines everywhere. Do this, do that. Here take some synonyms. And some suggestions. Want to turn 'hamare' into 'hammered'? And 'jalebi' into 'jailbird', 'kathe' into 'Kathy' (wonder what one has to do to get one's name in Gates' english), 'kannada' into 'Canada', and 'Tamizh' into 'Amish'? Fragment, it tells me in bold.
I love that I can smile sorrily at the naiiiiiiive code-dependant grammarian sitting in my computer, and Ignore All. Oooh I sock 'em soooo hard. Best BEST feature of the entire damn thingie.
Monday, January 31, 2005
Monday, January 24, 2005
free to dismount
I keep expecting someone to stick a worn hand in front of my face, wiggling an index finger. I keep expecting to hear "2 rupees madam". Each time I drag my bike out of the parking lot, I brace myself for the unavoidable, almost enjoyable fight with the token-man.
"Two rupees-a?!" I would say, and keep my eyebrow up and my mouth open in the "aa" shape — a tried and tested expression of incredulity.
"Aanh, ok ok," the parking attendant would say. "One rupee, 50 paisa," he’d demand, looking urgently in the direction of some other motorist trying to slink away without paying the parking fee.
Or there’d be a little word-tussle about how he never gave me the token/ticket.
Some people would give him Rs.2, but insist that he took their bike out of the stand. After all, the Corporation was paying him. He had to earn that extra 50 p. But I don’t think any of the parking guys really cared what the bikers thought. Moving a featherweight Scooty wasn’t much of a deal anyway.
Each day, it was the same. We might smile at each other today, and look through each other tomorrow. But everyday, without fail, we’d repeat the same ticket-and-paisa charade, as if yesterday didn’t happen at all. And no one really wanted that extra 50 paisa either. It was the only way we would ever talk, probably. We’d exchange big fat lies about one being poorer than the other, I’d grumble about how the world was out to swindle me, and he’d hiss about how I could drink coffee for Rs,25 but not pay him half a rupee. We both knew where we stood, but we’d haggle anyway.
Fun, it was... Not the kind of fun you look forward to or anything, but a routine that never changed. A momentary jolly.
Here in Chennai, I can park anywhere but in the middle of a flyover, and no one asks me anything. Coins and change have lost significance suddenly. When the chemist (I think I insulted him by referring to him as ‘medical shop guy’ to a friend) gave me 3 one rupee coins as change, I could sense grief welling in my heart. What for is their existence? Sniff.
But the little area outside Khadi Bhandar near my office has a parking attendee. She wears a cap, from under which half-dried mallipoo pops out. She blows on her whistle proudly, gesturing to cars and bikes to park behind the yellow line. "They all know to buy cars, but see if even one idiot knows to park properly," she curses under her breath to no one in particular.
Maybe I’ll park my bike there one day. I’d like to know if she thinks I’m a good parker.
Till then, the chilrai (change) can come of use for a pile-them-up game when boredom strikes, groundnuts, platform tickets, tea at a chai shop, or a khaara biscuit.
"Two rupees-a?!" I would say, and keep my eyebrow up and my mouth open in the "aa" shape — a tried and tested expression of incredulity.
"Aanh, ok ok," the parking attendant would say. "One rupee, 50 paisa," he’d demand, looking urgently in the direction of some other motorist trying to slink away without paying the parking fee.
Or there’d be a little word-tussle about how he never gave me the token/ticket.
Some people would give him Rs.2, but insist that he took their bike out of the stand. After all, the Corporation was paying him. He had to earn that extra 50 p. But I don’t think any of the parking guys really cared what the bikers thought. Moving a featherweight Scooty wasn’t much of a deal anyway.
Each day, it was the same. We might smile at each other today, and look through each other tomorrow. But everyday, without fail, we’d repeat the same ticket-and-paisa charade, as if yesterday didn’t happen at all. And no one really wanted that extra 50 paisa either. It was the only way we would ever talk, probably. We’d exchange big fat lies about one being poorer than the other, I’d grumble about how the world was out to swindle me, and he’d hiss about how I could drink coffee for Rs,25 but not pay him half a rupee. We both knew where we stood, but we’d haggle anyway.
Fun, it was... Not the kind of fun you look forward to or anything, but a routine that never changed. A momentary jolly.
Here in Chennai, I can park anywhere but in the middle of a flyover, and no one asks me anything. Coins and change have lost significance suddenly. When the chemist (I think I insulted him by referring to him as ‘medical shop guy’ to a friend) gave me 3 one rupee coins as change, I could sense grief welling in my heart. What for is their existence? Sniff.
But the little area outside Khadi Bhandar near my office has a parking attendee. She wears a cap, from under which half-dried mallipoo pops out. She blows on her whistle proudly, gesturing to cars and bikes to park behind the yellow line. "They all know to buy cars, but see if even one idiot knows to park properly," she curses under her breath to no one in particular.
Maybe I’ll park my bike there one day. I’d like to know if she thinks I’m a good parker.
Till then, the chilrai (change) can come of use for a pile-them-up game when boredom strikes, groundnuts, platform tickets, tea at a chai shop, or a khaara biscuit.
Saturday, January 08, 2005
making statements
I read this on a photoblog... Looks like things aren't too different even in Canada... :)
"There are too many signs, too many directions, too many internet tests to find out how smart we are or what sort of dog we resemble. There are too many books of self instruction and too many movies where the hero and heroine are of comic book proportion and the good guy always wins. There are too many pages of direction for a tax return and too many music CDs to choose from and too many channels on television. There are too many soldiers and too many politicians and too many children without food.
We're in this frantic make-work mode - so we make and make and make. Everything is disposable - otherwise what would all the workers do? We have professions springing up left right and center just to deal with all the other professions. And, you know, workers have all those worker babies and so we need more ... work. It's a cycle, like everything else. I'm no physics genius, I can assure you, but even I understand the notion of critical mass.
What if everyone kept their car, for instance, for twenty years on average - instead of two years. Can you imagine the world-wide global impact of that? Massive job loss, pockets of intense poverty springing up in the world's economic giants, inability to fund the population growth.
I hardly know what to do - whether to laugh or cry - when I think about it - when I see the spray painted stop signs and the kids in flocks on street corners with black lipstick and pierced ... everythings. God bless 'em - maybe when the youth of the world is pissed off enough, things will change."
I haven't pierced a thing yet (apart from my ears, but at 8 months, that was hardly my choice). Nor am I pissed off. I'm amused. So I think I'll pierce other people. So ha.
"There are too many signs, too many directions, too many internet tests to find out how smart we are or what sort of dog we resemble. There are too many books of self instruction and too many movies where the hero and heroine are of comic book proportion and the good guy always wins. There are too many pages of direction for a tax return and too many music CDs to choose from and too many channels on television. There are too many soldiers and too many politicians and too many children without food.
We're in this frantic make-work mode - so we make and make and make. Everything is disposable - otherwise what would all the workers do? We have professions springing up left right and center just to deal with all the other professions. And, you know, workers have all those worker babies and so we need more ... work. It's a cycle, like everything else. I'm no physics genius, I can assure you, but even I understand the notion of critical mass.
What if everyone kept their car, for instance, for twenty years on average - instead of two years. Can you imagine the world-wide global impact of that? Massive job loss, pockets of intense poverty springing up in the world's economic giants, inability to fund the population growth.
I hardly know what to do - whether to laugh or cry - when I think about it - when I see the spray painted stop signs and the kids in flocks on street corners with black lipstick and pierced ... everythings. God bless 'em - maybe when the youth of the world is pissed off enough, things will change."
I haven't pierced a thing yet (apart from my ears, but at 8 months, that was hardly my choice). Nor am I pissed off. I'm amused. So I think I'll pierce other people. So ha.
ka-ching!
Automan (irritated): You want to go to bank first, and them home?!
Me (Very carefully): Umm.. Yes.
Automan: ATM? Or State bank? If it is public bank, you will be there long enough for me to go have bath, get married and have kids. And then I can give them bath also. ATM means go inside, chak, zzzhup, chadak, chinnnng! Over.
Me: No, no… ATM only. Fast-fast I'll come back.
Automan: Good. I like the youth of today. Umm… can I also withdraw money from my ICICI ATM on the way?
Me (Very carefully): Umm.. Yes.
Automan: ATM? Or State bank? If it is public bank, you will be there long enough for me to go have bath, get married and have kids. And then I can give them bath also. ATM means go inside, chak, zzzhup, chadak, chinnnng! Over.
Me: No, no… ATM only. Fast-fast I'll come back.
Automan: Good. I like the youth of today. Umm… can I also withdraw money from my ICICI ATM on the way?
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
groundhog
Subways are for wimps, I say. The brave cross the road, and the braver cross the road where there is no zebra crossing.
Something there is that doesn’t love a subway (Not the sandwich place. Anyway, that Subway gives waaay too many choices. Give me a place that has says ‘Dosa, pav bhaji and meals only’ anyday).
After a year of using subways, I’m still unsure. So many directions to follow, and if you go wrong, then so much to undo. So many mixed smells, dark corners, rumbling noises.
Ah, to walk right across a busy main road, raising a ‘halt’ palm at a speeding motorist who wasn’t sneaky enough to zip past before your Moses palm rose… Little kids holding on to mummy’s index finger, shuffling their feet that uncontrollably trip each other, and trying to get in as much hop-skip-jump as possible before they reach the other end of the road. Of course, all this is cute only if you’re a pedestrian, and not the fuming I’m-getting-late-for-work person on a vehicle.
Plus, the more, the fierier. On a weekday, say at 6:00 p.m., there will be a big bunch of to-cross-or-not-to-cross people on either side of the road. We’ll all huddle together, some heads looking left, some right, and others gaping straight ahead at the monstrous billboard with the half-nude woman promoting liquor as soda. As vehicles whiz past in an unending flow, we’ll lose our collective patience and simply troop across the road. There’s always comfort in a criminal crowd.
Here in Chennai, I am asked to always take the subway. To go underground and find myself in a maze of yellow tiled corridors manned by one beggar each. To lose all sense of direction and surface, somehow, on the same side of the road. Quickly, I mask my stupidity with sense of purpose and pretend that I suddenly thirst for tea in that potti kadai there. Payasam-sweet masala tea downed, I head for the subway again. By now, the limbless beggar recognises me and grotesquely wiggles his right-hand stump. I scurry away, and miraculously get on the right side of the road.
Surveying the yawning space behind me, I’m sure I could’ve just crossed the damn road with fewer episodes. But I wouldn’t be able to see that lady who scrubs the tiles in the subway yell in the most filthy tamil ever, at an old marwadi spitting pan juice on the just-cleaned wall.
Nor would I see old posters of Noam Chomsky’s visit to Chennai in 2001, still peeling off the walls — some people might have been in awe of him for his work; some others just thought he’d look a lot better with a moustache and promptly drew one with a sketch pen on the poster.
I quite like knowing that there are people and cars and scooters rushing about above me, and that the ceiling will not cave in even if a BUS stood on it. It’s fun to wonder whether I’m walking below a flower seller or a guy selling posters of Kajol and MGR.
The best part, though, is the surfacing — from a completely bizarre, closed, brick-cement-tiles-and-paint surrounding, to the chaotic buzz of colour and people.
Something there is that doesn’t love a subway (Not the sandwich place. Anyway, that Subway gives waaay too many choices. Give me a place that has says ‘Dosa, pav bhaji and meals only’ anyday).
After a year of using subways, I’m still unsure. So many directions to follow, and if you go wrong, then so much to undo. So many mixed smells, dark corners, rumbling noises.
Ah, to walk right across a busy main road, raising a ‘halt’ palm at a speeding motorist who wasn’t sneaky enough to zip past before your Moses palm rose… Little kids holding on to mummy’s index finger, shuffling their feet that uncontrollably trip each other, and trying to get in as much hop-skip-jump as possible before they reach the other end of the road. Of course, all this is cute only if you’re a pedestrian, and not the fuming I’m-getting-late-for-work person on a vehicle.
Plus, the more, the fierier. On a weekday, say at 6:00 p.m., there will be a big bunch of to-cross-or-not-to-cross people on either side of the road. We’ll all huddle together, some heads looking left, some right, and others gaping straight ahead at the monstrous billboard with the half-nude woman promoting liquor as soda. As vehicles whiz past in an unending flow, we’ll lose our collective patience and simply troop across the road. There’s always comfort in a criminal crowd.
Here in Chennai, I am asked to always take the subway. To go underground and find myself in a maze of yellow tiled corridors manned by one beggar each. To lose all sense of direction and surface, somehow, on the same side of the road. Quickly, I mask my stupidity with sense of purpose and pretend that I suddenly thirst for tea in that potti kadai there. Payasam-sweet masala tea downed, I head for the subway again. By now, the limbless beggar recognises me and grotesquely wiggles his right-hand stump. I scurry away, and miraculously get on the right side of the road.
Surveying the yawning space behind me, I’m sure I could’ve just crossed the damn road with fewer episodes. But I wouldn’t be able to see that lady who scrubs the tiles in the subway yell in the most filthy tamil ever, at an old marwadi spitting pan juice on the just-cleaned wall.
Nor would I see old posters of Noam Chomsky’s visit to Chennai in 2001, still peeling off the walls — some people might have been in awe of him for his work; some others just thought he’d look a lot better with a moustache and promptly drew one with a sketch pen on the poster.
I quite like knowing that there are people and cars and scooters rushing about above me, and that the ceiling will not cave in even if a BUS stood on it. It’s fun to wonder whether I’m walking below a flower seller or a guy selling posters of Kajol and MGR.
The best part, though, is the surfacing — from a completely bizarre, closed, brick-cement-tiles-and-paint surrounding, to the chaotic buzz of colour and people.
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