The years that were

It was sometime in the mid eighties. We lived in a rented house which had 5 rooms in a line like the 5 bogies of a train. The first, facing the main road, was given to a person to be used as a cement godown. We lived in 4 rooms. Ours was the first house in street coming from the main road.

The street on one side had the compound wall of a huge building which hosted the State Bank of India. On the other side of the street were houses of all sizes and shapes. My house had a cement slab. Further into the street, were houses with slant roofs covered with palm leaves. The street had two more narrow lanes giving access to more homes. Only one of the buildings in the entire was two storied. The street ended at a point where it opened into vast fields. These fields still remain in the heart of the City.

There were about 20 household that this street had a access to. Most of them had a kid or two. So by the evening, the street was filled with children screaming, running or playing on the street. In the middle of street was Municipal tap where all the women got together to fill their pots in the evening. Next to the that tap was a thick bush with colorful flowers. We made a hideout among the bushes. It is like a miniature jungle. Mostly the boys territory.

One of my favorite toys is a cycle tyre. yes.. the life-size, slim Altas or Hero rubber tyre. It was a race, keeping the tyre rolling (like it does when fit to a bicycle) with a stick and running behind the tyre. After the dawn, is the time for "ice spies"(what we used to call it). Games went on till about 8pm, which is dinner time. I would slip into a dream world by the time it is 9pm. So my mother had just an hr before she fed me and get my homework done.

There was hut at centre of the street. This was an empty hut and was used by a lecturer to take tuitions for college going students. After 7:30 it was another place used for hiding during our hide and seek games. One evening there was huge vehicle that came to the street. The noise it made was frightening. I could hear it from distance. The sound wasn't from its engine. The Vehicle had another exhaust which was emitting dense smoke. The smell was unmistakable. The smoke had poisonous gases. Someone out there is planning to invade our world. I quickly rush into the hut and close the door.

The sound of smoke emitting monster is getting bigger. It is moving very slowly. As if it is looking for victims. My mom is safe in my house. My little brother is safe with her. My sister has gone for tuitions. And my father hasn’t come back from office. If only I can hide myself from this monster, I can see them again. The sound becomes bigger as if the monster was near the hut and is trying to peep into the hut for me. The smoke is leaking from the slits of the door. The odor is pungent. I just hope other friends are mine have found similar hideout.

Then the monster moves further. I guess it was convinced that there is no one in the hut. Or perhaps it has found some other. But the smoke it has left will remain for a while. I waited patiently till I was sure that the monster has left the street. I made a double check that the smoke has also subsided. Then I open the door and rush to my mother to narrate the story of my survival.

I was 5 years old then. A few year later when I came to know the truth about the monster, I could only pity those student who probably were cursing the municipal corporation for its failure to control the mosquito population. Thanks to me, who unknowingly saved the day for a zillion mosquitoes secretly hiding along with me in the hut.

Confessions of a linguistic convert

Introduction: I am a born Telugu, studied in a place where Hindi is most prominently spoken, married to a lady whose linguistic roots come from Punjab, currently working in a Marathi speaking place, working on software written by the French and working for an English(American) company.

Ohh.... As complicated as it may sound, I must say it is not a rare sight, people like me. Born in India more than half a billion have to face more than one language sometime or the other during their lifetime. And you walk into Switzerland, one is confused between 3 languages. Or so I was told. Then what prompts me to write this?

It has been over 8 years since I left the state I was born in, in search of a career which had taken me to different corner of the country. And the journey is so far so good. No complaints. And in the journey I found my soul mate or she found me (a long story). Since the time I stepped into the campus of IITKanpur, and to this day, Hindi has been the primary language of conversation. From the time I would try hard to make a sentence to this day where my sentences come in a flow except for the Gender recognition, I have come a long way. The fact that I speak Hindi or think in Hindi or for that matter at times have dreams in which I am conversing in Hindi show how well I have adapted to it. Okay no more blowing my trumpet.

Few days back I saw a Telugu movie made in mid 90's. Those who know the Telugu cinema industry even a wee bit, would know K Vishwanath. The man is well known for his choice of stories which rotate around various forms of art. Also the scripts come with beautiful and artful language. The kind the current generation has only seen in textbooks. The dialogues in his cinema flow like poetry. The one that I saw happens to be of a very talented young classical singer whose career and life meet an unfortunate fate with jealousy showing its worst colours in the face of his guru.

In a certain sequence the kid requests the Guru to be, to accept him as his disciple. He compares the Guru to lord Shiva and asks him to bless him in well worded lyrics describing the guru and his appearance as Lord Shiva. The words reminded me of my school days when I thoroughly enjoyed learning the grammar of Telugu. I performed far better in Telugu than in Hindi or English as I enjoyed the language just I did Mathematics. The movie made me fall in love with the language again.

I do not mean to say that there is no beauty in other languages. Just that flow of memories made me wonder for once if I ever came across such grace in any other language. Well the answer is simple. I never took any opportunity to explore any other language as I explored Telugu. Perhaps I will never get the time to in future as well. But when I come to a phase in my life where I have all the leisure in the world, this would be one thing I would want to do. Enjoy the literature!! And by that time I may have come across a dozen languages. But something tells me that nothing would be taste as sweet as ones mother tongue, Telugu in my case.

Why

This is my first blog.. Will rather keep it simple.
The first blog that I ever saw was some 2-3 years ago. When I asked people what is a blog, I was told it is some sort of online dairy. The replies made me wonder why would any body want to maintain chronicles of his/her innermost thoughts (remember they mentioned dairy). and show display it to the whole world. With time came many answers to my question. Some that I heard from others and some I realized when reading the blogs. Blogs ranged from sexual escapades to copying a part of news from some wierd site that one goes thru in the morning after coming out of toilet with a newspaper.

I refrained from creating a blogspot for my self all this while as I do enough of thought during the 5-10 minutes I spend it the loo in the morning. No point straining more in front of the PC. I felt that it is almost a waste of time adding to loads of stuff already piled up in the Internet. Just putting neither my deepest thoughts or the most accessible content in the web in my blog sounded worthwhile.

Why am I writing a blog now? why did I create a blogspot for myself? The answer is Experiment. I am experimenting on myself wondering how expressive I am. By that I mean, I wanted to know what I would like to share in internet? how well do I express it? Will my words make any sense? What is that in creating a blogspot that makes people create blog. What is that makes people read blogs. A simple experiment.

Let us see how this goes. Let us see you how you like my blog.