Tara, Para... floor, flower pot

A very close friend of mine requested me to help her out with a challenge. What is it I asked? And how can I help? She smiled and said I want to use English the way I use Malayalam.

Now that surely is a challenge! A good one too!

As a person who takes extreme care in presenting her thoughts and one who is blessed with the choicest selection of words, Anjali seemed very humble placing a request to someone like me who actually admired her language skills in Malayalam. Well, to be very honest, I envy the way she stresses the syllables as beautifully as they are printed in the lexicon! I tell her that most often... and now its proclaimed here as well.

As any communication expert would implore, she yelled at me recently "Its my mind that speaks, not I and my mind knows to think only in Malayalam. I want to think in English. How do I do that?"

Oops... any answers? I pitched her into my English Club learning sites and she has picked up quite a lot already... But she prefers to relate her learning experiences to her mother tongue rather than Chinese, Russian and other languages... Ive promised to help from my experience in translating from Malayalam to English and  pacified her saying "Sure your mind can think in English. Its not translation of tara para into floor and flower pot that matters... Its the association of words, their position and the time or tense that matters ... as in any language. And its no rocket science either that can't be learnt."

For my Ajju, as I fondly call Anjali, I would like to share a few simple language learning tips to help her "think English" while she speaks English just as she "thinks Malayalam", when she speaks Malayalam. I know Im jumping into a hot pan of oil with absolute fire burning underneath... In any case, with all my love for her, I would like to begin with the world's most beloved statement.... I love you...

In Malayalam we say it as Njaan ninne snehikkunnu... A technical look at the sentence shows that the subject, object and verb are specifically positioned in the respective languages....

In English, its

• subject (I),
• followed by the verb (love)
• and finally the object (you)

where as in Malayalam it begins with

• subject (Njaan, that's I),
• followed by the object (ninne, that's you) and
• finally the verb (snehikkunnu, that's love)...

That's the secret. The myth. The Da Vinci Code! Catch that? SVO in English and SOV in Malayalam... Build your sentences on this. This is the first step my friend and the easiest way to learn... Just fall in love.. With your language, any language and wait patiently for more learning lessons....

My water tank flew away....

Monsoons have set in and my lawn is absolutely green. The pebbles along the walkway pose a striking contrast to the brick tiles and the green of the grass. Every leaf and blade of grass exude how happy they are to be drenched in the rain.. And I love the rain drops sliding into my balcony from the arching palm leaves... The weaver bird's nest is a spectacle to behold. Its interesting how the rain runs down the fibrous wall of the nest without penetrating and how mirculously it leaves the inners cosy and warm...

And from my friend's tenth floor apartment, there is nothing more divine than the heavenly drops dancing on the grey backwaters of Kochi...That's from the tenth floor, please!

Ground reality??? The last 12 years in Kochi has been a revelation of what exactly not to do during the rains. Most importantly, stay away from the City! And sadly, but true, no amount of pampering civic bodies, cajoling peolple's representatives or threatening the very essence of the political system can bring any change to the roads that invariably transform itself into muddy, filthy rivers during the ugly monsoons in the city. The seasonal epidemic outbursts are another fright to chill the spine... Well these are the dark sides of the beautiful rain that lashes left, right and centre of Kerala... the one element in the natural supplies calendar that singularly charts the GDP of the state!

This year the water works in God's own Country arrived a week after schools opened for the fresh academic year as efficiently forecast by the MET.

Well, I don'tknow if it was Laila or Katrina that came with a bang day before yesterday. Neither did I check the soaked newspaper for details on Sunday... While we were discussing what the huge thud could likely be, my neighbour from the opposite building rang up to disclose the fact that the twirling frenzy had carried with it one of the blue sintex water tanks from my terrace to the terrace next door... Thank God, none of us were out at that time and thank God, it rested on the terrace without wanting to fly any further...

Another monsoon lesson, keep the water tanks full!

Puttu kadala

Saturdays are for puttu and kadala. Ria loves puttu and kadala and specially the ones Ammaamma makes.

Ammamma is her nanny who has been with us from the day Ri came into this world, 10 March 2001. A nice woman, who today knows what each of us like to eat, when we are angry or sad, when we need space and when we prefer her company. Best of all, she makes really nice sambhar, fish curry and stew.

She finds our home a home as she spends most of her wake up time with us. It was she who taught Ria how to pray and my little Ji to wish elders in the Christian way... Eso kodukku .. (folding hands and seek blessings from elders).

She discovered a million ways to feed Ria fish and chicken when she was developing her eating habits as a kid. And she introduced the morning breakfast regime of porridge from home, snacks like idli, puri or chappathy for tiffin break at school, full rice meal with omellete (riiz favourite) when back from school and special breakfast on Saturday. Riiz choice Puttu and kadala and sunday, masala dosa!

The morning whiff from the kitchen says puttu and kadala is ready... Come on let's wake up for another beautiful day in Kerala!

A..E..I..O...U

Im not an authority on emotional intelligence or anything to do about it yet. But I believe when we learn from life, its best shared in the right spirit. Let me see, how best can I put this across from the little that I know?

Yes, let's take it from the basics of language... English for instance....We cannot do without the vowels ....

A, E, I, O, U .... we need one or more of them in every word to form a word.

And in life we just cannot do without Attitude, Emotional Intelligence, Optimism and Understanding. These are the vowels, the a e i o u of  life, if I could put it that way. And all of these in the right measure, makes us near perfect!

And if we remember what our Holy Books tell us, life doesn't happen just once. The very letters that make the word LIFE remind us that Life Is For Ever. I strongly believe that we may make our exit from this world some day or the other, but we live through our children, in others' memories, in what we live for, what we die for and what we care for the most...

Im shaking up myself for a nice bit of change as Im absolutely in love with life.... Frankly with over three decades on this planet, its about time I got the abc's of my life straight. And I definitely know the letters that will come in handy are A E I O U.. Check it out!

Boothnath, Ria and me

I was watching this very sweet Sunday kid's movie with Ria - Boothnath. We were seeing it together for the third time.... Its about a grandpa ghost, Amitabh Bachan, trying to save his home which used to be the centre of happiness till his son walked out, angry at his adamant father. The grandpa ghost tries to scare a little boy who comes to live there with his mother but eventually befriends the little rascal who alone could see Boothnath, the spirit that had been haunting that house for the past decade or so. Well, talking to spirits is not quite acceptable in normal parlance and time would have it that Boothnath had to leave... Now the real son had to do the last rites for Boothnath's salvation... But that son was angry to the core as his father would not forgive him and he could never forgive his father!

Now now, let me get to the end of it all than run the entire movie here...

There is this very deep statement that Sharukh Khan, who enacts the role of the little rascal's dad, says to Boothnath's son who is waiting to sell the bunglow and erase all trace of his now dead father... Kabhi kabhi kuch kaam adhoora reh jaata hai... Sometimes some things remain incomplete, he says leaving it to us to understand what he leaves unsaid and his pleading eyes convey... that all of us would, sooner or later, repent when we have not done what we really could....

It was this profusely loaded statement that brings the son back to the pooja arranged for his father's atma's mukti or salvation by people who was in no way related to them other than the genuine bonding between the little boy and the grandpa ghost. As the music in that part of the movie expressed, alas its all too late! Neither could the son see his now dead dad nor could the father console the now grieving and repenting son...A tearful prayer eventually frees the soul...

Just look at that emotion...anger... Passed down from father to son....A peircing emotion that kept two souls away from each other not just for a few years... but forever!

Each time I look back from this movie, it pricks me hard. I had this emotion playing villain in my life several times. What I silenlty learnt, as the tears ran down my cheek and I saw my Ria sobbing just like me, is that children feel in the absolute same way as we do. Why, we were once children, weren't we? We never liked to be shouted at. Then what right do we have to shout at them, leave alone boss them, demand from them?

Im sure you will agree with me that we all live just once. As a child, a mother, a sister, a brother, a friend, a lover, a winner, a loser, a nobody or just somebody. But we live.... Oops! Am I confusing?