Lost in Translation

Translations are a dicey business. You never know what can happen when something is taken literally without using the 'little grey cells' inside all those millions of heads. Over the past few days I've noticed a few examples but one stands out unequivocally. A few days ago, I had finally decided to eat at my college cafeteria, albeit only for breakfast. The humble idli was my choice and just as I was about to take my plate away to enjoy my first experience of cafeteria food, the server asks me, "Saar, do you want gunpowder?" My mind went blank as I just stared at his face for a few minutes. For those of you who do not know, I study in an institution where even the mere mention of war elicits a visit to the closest Father for a 'serious talk'. And since when have explosives been a side-dish for breakfast, except for Wiley .E. Coyote?? But I was in an adventurous mood that day so I just nodded expecting a load of black powder to be dumped on my plate and maybe even a complementary gun to boot. What I didn't expect was a coarse, brown pile of powder with enough oil to stop your heart just being slopped on to my plate. It was then I realise that 'gunpowder' was actually chutney powder. Now, who's brilliant idea was it to go call something so simple a weapon of mass destruction? It isn't even that spicy, for God's sake!! Then there's jaggery. Alright, I admit this story could just be me being the absent-minded boy I am, but it does illustrate how translation can deny people of really nice things. When I was 6, I had just found out about jaggery and wasn't too familiar with English. So I went and asked my grandmom what jaggery was in English. My grandmom was slightly confused how to explain how jaggery and molasses are related, so she just told me something in Tamil that translated to 'brown sugar'. Now, I blame the next part on TV. During this time, my family and I watched this serial where this little boy was drugged using 'brown sugar', the drug. Unfortunately, to my infantile mind, I understood this as jaggery and since then feared the sticky sweet till I was 16,  when I finally realised that jaggery and brown sugar just aren't the same. I had wasted 10 years, a whole decade of my life running away from jaggery, all because of my grandmom's inability to explain its meaning. (P.S. I don't blame her at all) Of course this is coming from the kid who wrote 'My father in a wood-cutter' when asked to make a sentence with the word 'wood-cutter'. I still argue that that was a brilliant sentence and really does make sense, despite what my parents say. But that was a long time ago. All I'll end in saying is, be careful what you translate, you don't want your hands to go pluck mangoes!! (I'll leave you to figure out where I got that from. If you're a Malayali, directly translate it into Malayalam. If you're not.......get someone to do it for you! ;)

Çiao!

Bio Lab Diaries

The Bio Lab and I share a very intimate relationship; so intimate in fact that I keep getting thrown out after 10 mins inside it every single time. The teacher fears my entry and the Lab assistants keep the door open for me. Lets start with my 10th standard. The scene is my final Bio practical exam. By some evil idea of God's or Fate's, my practical exams always tend to before lunch. I had an experiment where I had to check how the absorption of water differed in raisins in different liquids. I was really hungry so I quickly finished the experiment and ate the raisins. The teacher comes around saying that she needs to check my results and I tell her I've eaten the raisins. She looks at me like I'm some freak of nature and I break into frantic persuations. I convince her to give me my marks but she warns me not to this in an exam ever again.
Circa 2010. In my 12th standard Bio Lab. We had a Botany class and had to identify the different infloresences (the type of flower from which) of many fruits. I enter the Lab and there before me are an array of different fruits, all cut in half!! I freaked out and went straight to the teacher and asked her if I could eat some of the specimens. This being one of the first few classes, she didn't know me too well and thought I was joking and said fine. An hour later, as the class is leaving she screams that the fruits have been eaten. I, being a very honest (ahem ahem!!) boy, said I ate them. She comes up to me and with fire from her nostrils asks me how and why I did it. To this question I gave her a simple answer,"Ma'am, I asked you if I could and you said it was fine." The teacher was dumbfounded. She just stared at me and asked me if I was real. I just said it was what I did and walked off. Another day, we had to make thin sections of the given plant stem and show it to her. Once again being before lunch, I ate the stem given and found to my delight, it tasted like beans. I went through 3 or 4 pieces before she became curious and asked me how come I wasn't getting it. I said that I had already finished my work and was eating the rest of the specimen. She once again stared at me with a half- angry, half-extremely amused expression. I just told her that I was hungry. She pleaded with me not to actually do this in the exam. Now, I've always had a problem following orders. So the exam didn't go too well for me. I showed up as usual to the lab and found that I had an apple for my infloresence question. The invigilator was very attentive so I couldn't actually eat the slice in fron to of her, but I couldn't resist! I took a bite and she must have heard the crunch. She pounced on me and yelled at me for eating the specimen, asking how the rest of the people would identify it. She warned me she would give me a zero iof I did it again. So I diligenbtly finished my work and waited until everyone was done. Before I left, I asked her,"Maám, now that the exam is over, can I eat the rest of the apple?". The look she gave me said it all so I quitely left the place.
Í am now an Arts student so no more labs. But I still wish I could go back to my old lab one more time. The fruits are calling me....   ;)

Çiao!!

The Quests of Life

I maintain to this day that a day will come when I will forsake studies, the world and all in it for my never ending quests. I am a man of science and I need reasons for everything that happens or anything that performs the deadly crime of even existing. But I admit a few of my quests have absolutely no end. For instance, my quest to try and find out why playing with shadows causes me to stay awake at night (they don't but I can't say what they actually do to me. It's very embarrassing). There was a time when I was 6 and  tried to find out why I could never build a Lego wall higher than 12 blocks without it falling. Being a smart little boy, I tried adding a better base but it never worked!! The obsession held me till about 3 months ago when I finally did it and built the wall using the very same bricks that I used when I was 6, albeit with the help of a little superglue. Another time, I tried to make a pop up card for my friend but kept failing at keeping it closed. So I spent 5 years working and working and working, until finally I perfected the art of pop-up cards. Unfortunately, no one appreciates them these days so I'm relegated to try and teach my 11 year old cousin how they are a really sweet way of saying things (of course, there's also the fact that they cost nothing but that problem still has 8 or 9 years to strike him!). My current quest is to find the perfect finger snap. Being a lonely child and having almost nothing to do for most of the day, I stumbled upon the ancient art of Finger Snapping and have dedicated my life to finding the substance that enables the perfect snap. For those who wish to know,  the perfect snap must be quick, must not cause a lot of effort to be spent and must set up the fingers for the next snap simultaneously within a matter of milliseconds. So far I've tried rice flour (too grainy and causes wastage of effort), dust (causes fingers to be smooth and reduces the sound) and a few drops of water(hmm....still working out the kinks but has potential). A few more years of effort and I will find it, hence making mankind's life more or less the same as it was before. But till then, I live in hope!

Ciao!!

     

The Joys of Gibberish

People say I'm very weird; and they are absolutely right. To me being weird is being different, unique and sometimes......very annoyingly so. Sure, I ruffle a few feathers on the way; sure, I make people believe I'm loose in the head. But all this fails to make any difference in my day-to-day dealings with the people around me. One of the few things that people don't really notice, however, is the way I tend not to curse.....or more specifically, curse in the usual swear words. A long time ago, a relative of mine (can't really remember which one, seeing as I have millions of them) told me I shouldn't curse and that it's a bad habit. Any normal person would have not cared and continued, a respectful person would have listened and tried not to. But then, I'm not the avearge person. So what do I do.......I decide to invent my own language just so that I can continue swearing!! This was about 8 years ago. Back then I loved it since it made me feel that I was the only one who could do it and during that time, I made a promise to myself that I would never forget it (Please don't even begin to try and fathom why or how this happened. If I can't explain it....You can't either!!!!). Thus began the origins of something that would make sure I would never be called normal ever again. In an age when people used terms like "Dang it" or "Fish", I went so far as to label both these swear words as "Heftyn" and "China". Now, I can't bear to even spell the common swear words anymore!! Plus, the words in my language keep changing every year or so, so I have a so called "dynamic vocabulary". I admit, it isn't actually insulting to say, "China you!" to anyone. They would most likely just start laughing and call you a nutter. But the good part would be that they would walk away, thus ending what could have become a very nasty fight. And when has making people smile ever been a bad thing? So I'll end the post here so that people can continue calling me weird and I can keep cursing them in my own special little language.

Çiao!!

A New Life

Here I am now, a month into my professional college. After all I've heard about the free atmosphere of college and the supposed fun that people have there......I have to admit, what I've heard is most definitely true!! The most fascinating thing is how people have stopped actually teaching us and now begin to talk to us like we're equals. It's a little disconcerting to be having an interactive class for 50 mins and being formally taught only for 10 mins but I'm not complaining! The best part is the friends I've found. Again, I've faced problems here....mainly concerning the rate at which I've made them. It took me 2 years to make my closest friends in 11th and 12th. In a month's time, I've made so close friends here that the number greatly dwarfs the one from college!! It's very strange how I've done this but I have absolutely no regrets. Jornalism, the subject of critique.......how great it sounds! So far, I'm not exactly feeling the love. That may be the fault of The Couple but as a certain III JPEng student told us, "Don't lose interest no matter how boring they make it!!" (Everyone from I JPEng who reads this had better know who this was. If not, ask Anju.) As for Brit Lit, on one end we have a teacher who first tells us not to believe what the author says and when we try discussing the contrary, she just shouts us down and tells us to believe what she says......which is going back to square one! On the other end, we have one of the coolest teachers alive teaching us poetry!!! I mean, how many teachers do you know who like Metallica and have watched most of the newly released movies before us??! Psychology is just one of those things both dreams and nightmares are made of. Father Varghese, the living proof that there is God....very much likely! With a small bit of hair on the front that looks like its been stuck with gum, he strides into class, asks us to observe 30 seconds of prayer and begins lecturing us. I have a feeling most of the guys just keep staring at the assistant who apparently is a teacher, though I have my doubts if she can actually teach or not. Then we have her......Ammu Lukose, just one letter away from reinvigourating energy. Unfortunately, due that one missing letter, she saps all your energy instead! But the subject as a whole is really interesting. My mom's yelling at me to get off the comp now so I won't be able to comment on the 6 canteens in the place. But then there are newslatters to find that out in. To all those currently working on theirs, I wish you all good luck!

Çiao!

P.S. I dedicate this to all my friends in class! You guys rock!!! Love you all!

Going Out

I hardly ever go out. It's not by force that I don't, it's just that I have ths notion that if I have to go out somewhere, I have to trouble someone to come with me; and I hate causing other people discomfort. Also there's the fact that I have to spend money (I admit this makes me look like a cheap-o but I'm not, seriously. I just don't like spending my parent's hard earned money). But then, there's another side to the story, something that I just won't admit but have to sometime. I like being alone, but crave friendship, a paradox I haven't been able to neither understand nor resolve. Everytime I go out anywhere, I feel like I'm doing something wrong and want to just rush back in. But once I'm among friends, the feeling disappears. When it's time to leave, I feel this sense of loss and get depressed for about 3 hrs before I get back to normal. I question why I feel this way, but no answers yet. Why does leaving people affect me worse than others? Is it something wrong with me? Or is it normal? I just don't know. All I do know is, everytime I leave the house, I know whats in store for me; and hence I fear going out.

Spin a Tale: A Tale for the Ages

The sun was shining on the lands of Dormon. A peaceful vibe permeated the air as the landscape looked serene. Lambast The Mighty strode onto the scene with a evil looking flail in his hand. "A good place to start an empire.", he said. "This will do very nicely!! Conrad, let us go forth and pillage as we have in countless other places." Conrad walked past, grubling as he always did. Suddenly, as they were hatching their devious plan, a shadow darkened the land and when Lambast looked up, he saw a sight that made his blood grow cold.