Know your English

Of late, I have been gaining confidence regarding my language capabilities, in particular, in the English language. The amount of appreciation from various quarters (secret being the “Get paid for Appreciation” policy which has the following slabs – I think this policy deserves a post by itself, and it would get what it deserves.) has enthused me to venture into the world of lexicography. Let me today discuss some of the words commonly misunderstood by us, Indians.


Note: The list below would not contain any of the phonetic crap, details about which part of speech it is etc. Refer to plentiful of other dictionaries for those.

So here are words for today:

Youth: Now this is one politically loaded word. Don’t get it? Would you consider a 40 year old adult in the prime of his youth? Before you blurt out a big “NO”, let me tell you the 40 year old I am referring to is the Youth Congress leader, the youthful Rahul Gandhi. So I (a lad of 28 summers) may be referred to as an “uncle” by the kids next door, but this guy, whose age is 8 years short of my mother’s, is young. Talk of discrimination!! Now to some frequently asked questions:

Q: What if I am a Gandhi and less than 40 years?


A: Hey, you are a kiddo; go back to your mom’s lap


Q: What if I am a Gandhi aged more greater than 40?


A: Take a picture of yourself today. Once Rahul reaches the age you are today, check out if he is referred to as in “prime of youth”. If he is (which he most probably will be), you can caption the picture “Still Young Mr/Ms Gandhi”


Q: What if I am not a Gandhi?


A: You are Not a Gandhi!!! Who cares whether you are young or not. Buzz of, don’t waste my time. Some nerve these non Gandhis have!!

Conclusion: Meaning of the term "Youth" in India depends on the person you are referrnig to.

News: Anything that a newsmaker does. Example of news:

• Obama bumped into a wall, got a painful bump


• DSP’s dog gone missing


• Mr. Amitab has cold; caught sneezing.

Now don’t ask what makes a person, a newsmaker.

Murder: The act of terminating another human’s life with malafide intentions. However the definition has caveats:

• Caveat 1: If the murder is committed by a cricketer, its termed road rage


• Caveat 2: If the murder is committed by a cop, its an act to protect the sovereignty of the country


• Caveat 3: If the murder is committed by a landlord, its business as usual


• Caveat 4: If the murder is committed by a naxal, its an act of misguided youth that would be pardoned. Further, the said individual would be paid ludicrous amount once he owns up the act.


• Caveat 5: If the murder is committed by a politician …. Hey come on now, what’s new in that!

Terrorism: Defined as a single act that causes multiple murders. Another definition would be – Terrorism is murder that government doesn’t want to bring to book. Of late, this has been getting dyed. Again there are caveats to this definition too.

• Caveat 1: If it is committed by the US, its fight against terror. Can the US ever be wrong?


• Caveat 2: If it is committed by Israel, it’s an act of self defense; even if the threat was a kid waving a twig at an armoured tank. After all, Israel has to extract revenge for 6 million deaths, how can they if they try to be just every time?


• Caveat 3: If it is committed by Kashmiri separatists, it is an expression of self determination.


• Over ruling caveat: Any act done by a coloured/bearded/conservatively dressed individual that displaces even an atom of oxygen in a 50 mile radius of an American is an act of terror. This Caveat supersedes all the caveats explicitly mentioned or implied.

Good: You thought anything that is righteous, just and truthful is good, right? Loser!!!

In today’s dictionaries, good is defined as anything that is aligned to the US interest. 5000 Americans killed – that’s terrorism. A million Afgans killed by US to protect its “interests” – that’s an act of extreme goodness. Buckle up dude, you have a lot to learn.

Bad: This is the only word whose definition hasn’t changed over time. Bad still remains defined as the opposite of good. But with Obama stating things like “Outsourcing is bad” when it has really helped the US companies, lexicographers world over are readying themselves to an imminent change in this definition also.

A peep into Peepli Live

The first thing that hits you as the movie starts is the profusion of gaalis. Agreed, the setting is in the Hindi heartland of rural India; agreed also that the period depicted is a stressful one. Still, having members of both genders addressing each other with references to mother and sister, that takes some time to get used to. And the way a daughter in law addresses her mother in law, the mother her sons, the sons their mother, the villagers each other, well its certainly shock and awe. And it elicits more than a respectable share of wolf whistles and hoot calls. The crust is crispy indeed.


As you start acquiescing to them and the gaalis hit less severely on your psyche, you begin to appreciate the wit laced with sarcasm. While the scene with news reader presenting results of an opinion poll for a trite issue has you nodding your head in appreciation, the frame that captures a chance conversation that is overheard by a wannabe reporter and presented as headline news leaves you in splits. There is no subject that’s a holy cow in this movie, a swipe being taken at politicians, bureaucrats, social institutions, and the holiest of holy cows, the media – local, national and international. We are given a ringside view into the business of news manufacturing, and boy, wouldn’t it have been shocking if it weren’t so funny! A juicy mantle indeed.

As the caustic sarcasm begins to wear thin, you start to look for the core, the soul of the movie. And this is where the movie disappoints. With cynicism at every institution know to man, the movie leaves you wondering where to lay your sheet anchor – family, friends, leaders and even parents and siblings portrayed to be fickle as shifting sands. As Dicaprio puts it in the movie Inception, “Everyone wants a catharsis.” This movie denies this very catharsis to its protagonist; and loses its way in the labyrinth of cynicism.

The movie is a must watch, only as long as you choose not to believe in its message.

Give me some Privacy Laws please

I need to get this out of my system. It’s a big grouse, better let out than kept bottled in.

Last night, I was watching a program on Channel V (I refrain from mentioning the name; in times when number of references indicate popularity, I don’t want the said program to appear more popular than it actually is.) The program was supposed to help you get back at your ex boy/girl friend. I do not intend to gripe about the rising trend of live in, ex boy/girl friend, however annoying; who am I to judge the way a person chooses to live.

What has gotten on my nerves, however, is the commercialization of this particular emotion of “love turned to hate”. Boy/girl dumping the partner is common, it has being going on since ages. And the resulting emotional upheaval, the need to take a swipe at the ex is but natural. But what is unacceptable is a TV channel providing the script, conspiring, and telecasting the embarrassing moments for the nation to watch, all the while justifying why they had taken the side they have taken. If this isn’t voyeurism of the worst kind, I wonder what is. I wonder if the girl/boy would ever be able to enter into a healthy relationship again, old scars refusing to heal and new wounds defacing the psyche. And to imagine that you had to take the help of faceless public for your private payback – I think such people would command the least of my esteem, way below spiders and maybe just above phlegm.

I often wonder what makes these boys and girls turn to national media even in shame. Surely, its not the money; the compensation in most of the reality shows is paltry. Maybe fame, but tell me, with the proliferation of reality shows, both in national and regional media, can anyone remain in the public memory for long? And in pursuit of “sparkler-burst” fame (fame that, like sparkler, lights up but for an instant and then lets darkness in), young impressionable minds are being manipulated to exposing their most private moments in the garish glare.

If there is one thing that’s definite, its my feeling that if at all we have a version of “Truman Show” in real life, it would take place in India. And that would be a sad, albeit not too distant day.

So I have ranted and hopefully I will feel better.

Who is the best?

So Tendulkar is not the best batsman in the world (link). I am not here to defend Tendulkar – his achievements speak better, and you would always have a Nirmal Shekar who can fill up the Sports page in the Hindu rubbishing this report. And anyways, who cares if the sun is not the biggest or the brightest stars, it’s only the absence of the sun that we aam earthlings would notice, a missing Alpha Centauri would hardly raise an aam admi’s eyebrows.


I am here to comment on this study, but from the authors’ point of view. Now, just for a moment, imagine you are the author of this study. You have spent a better part of one or two years doing this (useless?) study. And at the end of it, you realize hardly anyone is going to take notice if you state the obvious, that Tendulkar is a priceless gem of cricket. Just as I titled my last post as “Inception – a letdown” to persuade people to read it, so have the authors. Use the oldest sleight in the book, rubbish a venerated icon, set the tongues wagging. But you know what, their efforts seem to have been in vain – I hardly see any talk about this. Come on guys, lets have some jabber, some buzz around this too; poor authors, they must be squirming.

PS: I don’t mean to say that the study was fudged or anything but as my prof used to say, “Given the right input, the result cannot be wrong if the approach is right”. Wonder where the study goofed up.

Inception – A letdown

Inception, to me, was a huge let down. After having spent a better part of the fortnight looking forward to see the movie, I feel cheated. I had even blogged stating my intention to watch it multiple times to understand the plot! Biggest Letdown: I have been denied the opportunity of multiple viewings. I mean, how can anyone portray such a complex concept in such an appealingly simple fashion? Thank Heavens Nolan isn’t Einstein; we would have been learning relativity in 1st grade otherwise.

Inception was a letdown because even at places where exaggeration is accepted, nay expected, it stuck to the laws of physics. Thus you have a scene where the lift “falls” not because the lift cord was cut but because of the explosion that followed. Small detail, but a noteworthy one….. Inception was a letdown because in an age where the best movie is decided by the technology used, it stuck to the old ways – of telling a story right. Inception was a letdown because it didn’t talk about any new concepts; it was the depiction that left you speechless. Inception was a letdown, only because I was forced to scale up my thought as the movie went by; scale up in spite of all the prior warning.

Hardly ever do you get to see a movie that doesn’t need to set the adrenalin pumping to ring in cash counters. Hardly ever do you get to see a movie that doesn’t need the sagging assets of its lead to support it. Hardly ever do you get to see a movie that doesn’t feed on jingoism, chauvinism or any other such “-isms”. Hardly ever do you get to see a movie where cinematic expression is given predominance over the cast. Hardly ever do you get to see a movie like Inception.