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!