Archive for June, 2009

The ape-man cometh

27 June, 2009 at 11:35 am · Filed under Hyderabad Blues ·Tagged

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(Image courtesy: Clicked by this blogger’s little brat in Hyderabad’s MMTS . Forgive the slightly blurred text — he wouldn’t wait for the train to stop moving.)

So some  fly-by-night outfit that offers to transform apes into ‘cool dudes’. Gah.  I can’t shake off the feeling that it’s an appalling insult to the good apes. I mean, did they ask the apes if they wanted to become men? (And, was  becoming woman even an option?)

So you’re thinking what a ridiculously trite flyer (which it is), but I urge you to look deeper. Last I heard, the evolution of apes into man is OVER, communication skills or no communication skills, so they’re now two distinct  species (debatable, I grant).  Surely they must know that? Which must mean that this is actually some sinister scheme to morph apes into men. Only, it seems, thankfully. Or wait. Since there’s no clue to the sex of the ape, is there some sex change involved,  too?

The mind boggles.

Do cast your eye on the last two lines. No, not on that orphan comma (although it nearly caused this blogger apoplexy) but that word Erragadda. As Hyderabad locaals know very well, saying that someone/something is at/from Erragadda always elicits a knowing smile. For outsiders — well, acute PC-itis prevents my telling you what that means, unfortunately.

On a serious note: There ought to be a law against absurd claims that ‘communication skills’  are some kind of miraculous mantra, meaning merely ‘Spoken English.’  The number of people who buy that is seriously unfunny.

 

Postscript:  Post dedicated to The Quirky One, who would have done greater justice. Verily.

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I will do my job. Only.

21 June, 2009 at 5:42 pm · Filed under Hyderabad Blues ·Tagged

Ratnakar Choudry from Vanasthalipuram, Hyderabad, has this incredible photo to share with The Hindu:

caught snapping

Acknowledging the jaw-dropping integrity of people who refuse to usurp someone else’s work, the paper captions it thus:

 Presenting this year’s ‘not my job’ award to the National Highway Department (painting division).

 

Courtesy (and much gratitude to): The Hindu Metro Plus, Hyderabad, June 20.

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The dust is spat out

6 June, 2009 at 1:03 am · Filed under Angst ·Tagged

OK, I give in. To the  connoisseurs frequenting this blog (Yes, yes, I know flattery will get me nowhere.) who insist that snuffing out a blog is a crime that ill becomes me. 

The dust is spat out, SB! And I return.

So what did  un-blogging help achieve?  Well, among other things, there were soulful  early mornings and late evenings spent gazing into those trees that you see in the image below.  That’s the view from my balcony at home. A view enjoyed over a  companionable morning coffee with the spouse. And a fretful evening one when I generally give myself hell brooding over everything I’ve managed not to get done during the day.  

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 If you look closely you’ll see a patch of lighter green through the branches of those trees . That’s what I’m usually gazing at. Mournfully. 

Let me explain. 

That patch of green is the number one reason we  moved to this flat a year ago. It’s a park across the road in front, which the balcony, the entire flat in fact, overlooks.  When we moved here  the park was still under construction, but I had wonderful visions of robust and regular morning and evening walks. It’s  a year now  and the three gates of the park are still locked, the park still out of bounds. 

A couple of months before the elections there was hectic activity and it looked like it would be ready before voting day. Well, the Congress won this constituency (although I didn’t vote for them, which fact revealed to me the significance of my vote), but, inexplicably, after the elections all work stopped and hasn’t resumed since. The children of the locality simply jump over the wall and romp on the grass. The curse of adulthood prevents me from  doing likewise.  

Yet another instance of a citizen of this great country denied a  basic right. The right to walk. That park seems positively evil now, a force conspiring to keep me from walking. And health.

Now that I’ve recognized and confronted (but not really done anything about!) this self-fulfilling prophesy, the park has come to symbolize something else, too. The book I’m struggling with.  In my bid to make it one of the world’s great ELT masterpieces, I’m  dragging my feet and can’t let it go. While the publisher waits wrathfully.

There will be a great place to walk pretty soon, so I’ll start walking then. My book will be a masterpiece if I give it more time, so I won’t give it in now.

The mind. And heaven. And hell.

In other news, in all the reading that I’ve been wading through over  the summer, three books that I thoroughly enjoyed were David Crystal’s txting. the gr8 db8,  Watts and Trudgill’s  Alternative Histories of English and Sailaja Pingali’s (a colleague)  Dialects of English: Indian English.  All full of great ideas and insights that I will blog about. Soon. I hope.

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