There are few things in life that I pride myself on....one of which is the fact that I can read and write english well...I got more than 90% for english in school...and I even passed the highly suspect but mandatory Regional Institute of English exam when I entered law school... it is another matter that the exam only involved you looking at the pictures of animals and writing the names down in english....(Ofcourse one could always be imaginative and name them fluffy or spotty as well-but then when was such wit appreciated in the contest of an exam)....
So imagine my surprise when for the past 5 days the one thing that has been dominating my time in the firm is lessons on english language and its various nuances..the generous teacher being the newly returned american partner of my firm....."Alice, dont use the parenthesis..just use a bracket" ...paren..what? before I could even figure out that it is a word belonging to the english language he is on to the next language correction...."Always write in active voice. Do you know the meaning of active voice?"...Ahem, no...but does it help that my mind was suddenly active?......"Did they teach you IRAQ in school?" Ah! finally a question I knew the answer to-which school doesnt teach kids about the middle east?..Right? Wrong!!! IRAC (not Q) is a style of writing which is used in America which is slowly creeping into India.....thank god I dont speak that quickly....And ofcourse then there are the comas and the full stops ....a coma here, a full stop there, prevents my document from being dull ...
so there I was..cooped up with my secretary adding a coma here, using a bracket there, removing a parenthesis, putting a full stop in..ohhh Gosh did I miss one parenthesis on page 243?? Ahhhhh ... the attack of the comas, full stops and the parenthesis is here...run for your lives!!
Well all I am grateful for now is that he cannot see my blog....imagine!
P.S. for the uninitiated..parenthesis is our normal bracket...yes (-), the simple down to earth bracket...who would have thot this simple utilitarian tool of the english language would have such a fancy name to it...
Monday, February 20, 2006
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Are you the monster from the phone??
No...this is not me asking a tele marketing executive who is trying to sell me the latest "0% interest credit card" ...... or me asking my boss who calls me at 8 in the morning on a saturday asking me to give him a document in the next 1 minute....
it was christy asking me over the phone when I called his mother on the mobile.....well I dont blame the poor kid...my sisters phone is quite frankly a scary phone....for starters whenever the phone rings its almost as if the entire orchestra has suddenly come to your room...startling you from whatever you are doing.....and that too bad hindi music playing orchestra...and then there is the screen which has a disco theme going for it ...so there are neon, blue and white lights blinking through the conversation....whoever designed the phone must have had a whacky sense of asthetics or what constituted a "peaceful conversation"...
Anyways enough of phone talk....last weekend was family time for me.......My sister, christy and I went to see Sanjay Gandhi National Park ...this was christy's first trip to a national park...and throughout he kept saying "I am going to the Notional park"....now usually the mention of a national park would evoke images of lush green surroundings with quiet pathways crowded by trees......with tiny deers running past you giving you ample opportunity to click one of those priceless (in your opinion) pictures of wild life....and you come away feeling as if the nature is still in good hands.....
ofcourse this national park was different......instead of quiet pathways crowded by trees there were noisy roads crowded by people...and instead of tiny deers running past you there were ferocious monkeys who pratically chased you down the road .... hmm...
Ofcourse the best part was the tiger safari ..... we were all cuddled up in a caged bus and taken to the tiger and lion den....and as soon as we entered we caught sight of a white tiger .....it was quite frankly the most beautiful looking animal I had seen (ofcourse excluding the good looking human animals like John Abraham :))......... Christy was so scared that the tiger would come and bite him that he kept holding on to his mom.....it was very cute I must say....after that it was a long drive without any sight of even a peaceful animal... and just when we were giving up hope we caught sight of two lionesses resting on the side of the road.....they didnt even bate an eyelid with the approaching vehicle... infact I believe one was even yawning ....
it was christy asking me over the phone when I called his mother on the mobile.....well I dont blame the poor kid...my sisters phone is quite frankly a scary phone....for starters whenever the phone rings its almost as if the entire orchestra has suddenly come to your room...startling you from whatever you are doing.....and that too bad hindi music playing orchestra...and then there is the screen which has a disco theme going for it ...so there are neon, blue and white lights blinking through the conversation....whoever designed the phone must have had a whacky sense of asthetics or what constituted a "peaceful conversation"...
Anyways enough of phone talk....last weekend was family time for me.......My sister, christy and I went to see Sanjay Gandhi National Park ...this was christy's first trip to a national park...and throughout he kept saying "I am going to the Notional park"....now usually the mention of a national park would evoke images of lush green surroundings with quiet pathways crowded by trees......with tiny deers running past you giving you ample opportunity to click one of those priceless (in your opinion) pictures of wild life....and you come away feeling as if the nature is still in good hands.....
ofcourse this national park was different......instead of quiet pathways crowded by trees there were noisy roads crowded by people...and instead of tiny deers running past you there were ferocious monkeys who pratically chased you down the road .... hmm...
Ofcourse the best part was the tiger safari ..... we were all cuddled up in a caged bus and taken to the tiger and lion den....and as soon as we entered we caught sight of a white tiger .....it was quite frankly the most beautiful looking animal I had seen (ofcourse excluding the good looking human animals like John Abraham :))......... Christy was so scared that the tiger would come and bite him that he kept holding on to his mom.....it was very cute I must say....after that it was a long drive without any sight of even a peaceful animal... and just when we were giving up hope we caught sight of two lionesses resting on the side of the road.....they didnt even bate an eyelid with the approaching vehicle... infact I believe one was even yawning ....
and then there were the kanheri caves......now these are buddhist caves built by monks some centuries back....it really boggles my mind as to how the monks found their way through the jungles and then patiently carved out these artistic caves out of stone....well no wonder they achieved a high state of nirvana...with such backbreaking work in the middle of the jungle you just had to develop a sense of detachment and believe in something bigger.....
All in all it was a good trip....and on the journey back I dont think Christy, me and my sister were thinking of anything bigger than just reaching home and crashing....
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