confusions of a wandering mind - III

superlatively speaking..... in this era of quantum computing.....

what could "extra virgin " possibly mean...?

speeking of inglish...

technical english... three long long semesters of it in undergrad...the whole purpose of doing it yet to dawn on me three years later... 

learning phonetics... sheer misery.....learning phonetic symbols... sheer sheer misery....write down words the way they are pronounced .. not in english... no... but using symbols specially made for that purpose alone...it is apparently not enough that after 22 years which also had  some time in  convent schools  thrown in ,I am able to write english words gramatically correct and pronounce them phonetically correct 95 % of the times... no... for the sake of survival and deciphering the dictionary ..I should be able to write the words down so that they sound right when seen...

what s easier....??

this....?

PURE.....pjںә Britainic-ally speaking...pjںәr  American-ally speaking....bringing tears of joy to  Miss D'Souza 's eyes( anglo indian english teacher/prof. )

or this....?

PURE...pee-or -(face the consequences)..general public-ally phonetic symbolically challenged (retarded is not a kind word) speaking....

better still... for people with a vivid sense of imagination ...conjure up a scene with one person telling another "piyo yaar...." in FF mode....so everytime one is forming sentences ,there is a frame sequence running in the head...neat aahn?.....bringing tears ..of frustration this time.. to Miss D'Souza 's eyes...

the latter two obviously ..no..??

pjںә  looks like/sounds like  and will continue to look like/sound like pee jay mho eh ...

can't associate color with numbers ..wish i could but am unable to...

tend to give a human like quality to letters of tha alphabet sometimes...in all probability this stemmed from being on the listener's side of long conversations almost always.....

an illustration

                  "n" man "ñ" man

                               

the ones in the head seem more human like... mexican almost...definitely..

think it's this association with letters.. an attachment to the characters associated with them.. that makes me wonder how people can switch accents so easily.. setting foot on american soil kills the "rr's" apparently....the blink and u miss transition so absurd that its almost fascinating....

people change.... fast...so fake that they sound real accents adopted...faster...whatever becomes whad-ev-aah ,Buddah becomes Boodaah and wauhter (fonetically righting.. ) becomes waughdah  in no time..

its still Indianised Queen's english for me... not that I didn't try... I did... made an honest effort.... just that each try created an image of "rr" man being smothered in a cheeseburger/drowning in chocolate malt....

too much of an emotional burden to carry around ..

and so I wait...

all for letter love....

vaazhkai.....

on being jay.....

warhol and i don't have similar train of thoughts....currently..

lets see... it s 10:15 PM CST ,richardson ,texas ..excellent weather...sunday night....full moon night.. the quintessential romantic movie/green signal for werewolf metamorphosis moon lookalike ... u know the partly obscured by clouds,now u cover me ,now u dont thing...def worthy of a look ,a click and a poem.. alas.. i haven't been able to convince myself to get a camera yet (things like these fail to make sense when one does'nt have a functional orkut or facebook account) and i could'nt write a poem to save my ass ....so there ..that leaves just the look part ...full justice done .. its pretty much the only thing i can see everytime i look up...

i like terraces...i like just sittin there all by myself.. friends/family sometimes.. I have'nt come across houses with terraces here....they have sloping roofs...snow factor... it looks real nice ..yes, i admit.. all the nice houses with slanting mallu environ kind of roofs with non mallu environ kind of snow collecting and glistening in the sunlight and moon light..in winter...real nice....but....its got to snow first... good snow... heavy snow .. not the now i fall ,now i melt kind of snow...but the i fall ,u shovel kind ...i dont see the need to have sloping roofs in a place where the snow package for the whole year is one inch one fine night in the middle of March for three hours and the sun beats down hard enough to contribute to mosquito family planning after rains and for people like me ( read as people with no cars) to appreciate how fish would feel like if alive on the road to karuvaadufication...and that's five sentences without no punctuation marks .. currently wondering if one would be out of breath if they were to be read as such..

current seating ..: apartment.. third floor...patio (note :no terrace)..borderline melancholic about having lost a chance to make nila chor out of maggi ,texas toast and cherries ( yup.. dinner)....face bathed in the unearthly glow of the radiation from the laptop....metallica/lynyrd skynyrd ...

a year since i came here... almost a year since i last blogged...life feels kind of empty sometimes... as though a sense of purpose has been lost... and sitting here ... with the surreal ( unearthly ,surreal..same thing)look on my face.. i think i know why....

traffic signals...

.. never noticed them back home...most of my scooter rounds have been on highways or through galis....bless them...

and pedestrian crossings ??....ha..

used to/still have this sudden spirit of adventure rising up in me at times.... a sudden urge....to take risks...for the heck of it...a feeling of restlessness....for all my laziness i really don't know how that happens...

anyway... easiest way out to curb it ... crossing roads... peak hours.. lots of traffic ( not in a jam)... green signal...stepping down from the curbside .. all the time wondering what is the probability of getting hit ..what happens if u get hit.... how much can that car slow down in a distance of fifty feet ...how would it feel to exchange places with the driver at exactly that moment....what happens if the vehicle approaching u doesn't slow down....and to top it all.. its not boring.. the situation is different each and every time u do it.....

risk ...

lazy person's way of pumping unwanted adrenaline... analogous to gettin the same high on sniffing industrial glue as on snorting cocaine..??.. i dont know yet... maybe...

exhilarating...its almost like crossing roads had a higher meaning... appreciating life in my own simple way...

can't do that here... green... amber... red... flashing amber...flashing red... sea of galilee...walk.. blink walk.. stop.. why.. cmon now.. caged animal... specimen on display... things going through my mind and in front of my eyes when waiting patiently to cross the road...

probability of being hit .. one... probability of being hit and being fined for jay crossing..one.... probability of transmogrifyin into the deer at night which almost looks as though its waiting to be hit.. one....

monotonous.. cause u know what to expect...the only unpredictable(not exciting ..no) thing during the painful process of waitin is the reaction of people driving past ...something along the lines of "look...!.a biped....she is using her legs to transport herself and actually waiting at the crossing... how rare is that..?????"

ennui.....makes me talk......

beep record beep..

i have left more messages over the phone in the last one month than i did in the last twenty years back home...

pick up a phone.. dial a number...the phone rings...hope soars cause it s not engaged...continues to ring a couple of times more..hope stays in place..(maybe someone is on the way to the instrument..)..then a click...hope hits the ceiling..a voice..."i am sorry that i am unable to take your call..please leave your name number and a message so that i can return the call as soon as possible.."..beep...

damn...

try to think up of the best way to summarise the reason for calling up..before which another voice says.."I am sorry ..ur message could not be recorded this time..please try again."...beep...

damn..

the learning phase involved patiently listenin to the recorded voice ..waitin for the beep....trying to think up a polite message to leave before the second beep...after a while my creative juices ran out and i could think up of no more original replies..so nowadays ..conversation with the machine primarily involves banging down the receiver before the formless voice prior to the first beep finishes the first word and noting the time the whole call took....

why have answering machines or voice mailboxes...???why do u need to record the caller s voice..?? why cant the urgency be determined on account of the number of missed calls ..??

unless of course the person likes to sit by and listen to the recorded messages he receives and keep playing them back every now and then as a hobby...i dont see the point of havin an answerin machine in the first place...

or why dont people atleast show some originality when they record a message for the caller to listen to...?? give some insight into their personality of sorts...instead of the time tested message all the time..!.hell...i know u are not at home/busy...thats why i am listening to a recorded voice instead..it is the most obvious conclusion a human with an average IQ would reach to......

I guess I have a problem with almost anything and everything.. but then I seem to be having no issues with considering my point of view of being the right one...so that ... pretty much takes care of everything else by itself....

finer arts..

one generally ends up being in total awe of people who are effortlessly able to do things that person cant.. try as he/she might...
me..I jus fall short of placing the no-sayers and the bargainers on a pedestral and worshipping them..
a statement by anita nair in one of her books..somethin in the lines of... u realise u are an adult when u are able to say no without that twinge of guilt accompanying it..on my part i realised why people still give me that exasperated when will u grow up look for no apparent fault of mine...
wats so difficult with uttering a n-0 to a stranger ... i dunno.. feeling like a total jerk.. the feeling could be for a fleeting second or longer as the situation demands... automatically accompanies the utterance of no..
console myself sayin that for all u know it could be a mahatma like quality...
kinda hoping that this piece of convo sees the light of the day..
somebody:could u .......?
me:nope.....
or
s:will u .....?
me:nope...
..and that I emerge out of it feeling ekdum happy....
guess it s a direct cause and effect relationship that defines why I am such a loser at bargaining..
i generally presume that its my moral responsibility to pay the amount asked for..
outings .. I generally accompany person/people who is/are a goddess/goddesses at bargaining(G.A.B)...it helps...
dialogue ensuing between the whatever seller and the G.A.B..(with me as the spectator)..

w.s:150 only madam .. export quality...
G.A.B:(looking him straight in the eye..):50..
me:(sputtering soundlessly..)wat..?
w.s:90 madam.. no profit for me otherwise madam...
G.A.B:50...(and starts walkin .. I am still standin...)
w.s:allright 50.. take it....
me:omg..!wat..??

replace G.A.B with me and the bargain session invariably starts with the rub-neck-tug-earlobe warmup..a sincere effort to get the magic words out...and closing price quote of 100...
have people takin classes for unheard things nowadays and makin loads of money...any idea bout a how to bargain or a how to say no class goin on...?
after all .. they are arts too..and finer ones at that..

......

lame attempt at verse this,
more of a doggerel it is,
alas! found no better way to state the fact,
that concealing the truth about being a moron,
just needs well strung words from a lexicon.

L'esprit de l'escalier ..

translates to..:stairway wit..

yes..I know who a polyglot is..

no.. I am not one... my colloquial vocabulary is limited to english,hindi,tamil, bonjour and merci..

yes.. the title did rise as a series of sounds in my throat and died before reaching the lips..

no..I obviously didnt know what it meant till I looked up the translation..

and no..it doesnt include showcasing of sarcasm while climbing stairs..

in layman terms..jus means being dumbed down in a particular situation and thinking up of smartass retorts once it s too late..

thought I was the only one who went through this thought process..thought somethin was wired wrong in my head alone.. and went about mighty glad bout the whole thing..

lets face it..I am not a genius.. not even close to it..I wont be the seventh person to understand einstein s theory of relativity nor can I conjure up a Springfield though I would like to believe otherwise..

eccentric..?maybe.. its a relative term anyway..

barring a few exceptions of course.. basic human nature.. ?to prove the point of being totally different from others.. why else would i still get to watch constantly revamped episodes of The Guinness World Records from god knows when till now...

I am but human... talents if any still prefer to remain latent in my case however..

I took to thinking about what I think and whether the others did that too..(come to think of it .. it is difficult in its own way..)

naa that s not possible.. I am different...! pretty convinced with myself too till L'esprit de l'escalier came along and proved that there is more to French than jus the kiss and Moulin Rouge...

present line of thought...while walkin down the road or travellin whats that urge sometimes to observe or talk to a particular stranger...?do others have it too..?

and by the way..do others revel in self deprecating humor as much as I do..?