Shakespearean Globe Theatre, still alive, and performing!

Those who have seen the movie “Shakespeare in Love” would remember that the audience were shown standing and watching the plays. The Globe Theatre was at that time built by a consortium of actors, including Shakespeare, in 1599, and performed his plays. Building technology wasn’t very advanced in those days and the thatched roof caught fire and the theatre perished.

The present reconstructed Globe Theatre in London is a faithful duplicate of the open-air playhouse designed in 1599, where Shakespeare worked and for which he wrote his greatest plays. The theatre season starts in May and ends in September with productions of the works of Shakespeare, his contemporaries and modern authors.

And for trivia lovers, yes, there still is standing space in the center of the auditorium. And the fees? Pound 5!
Tags: Shakespeare in Love, The Globe Theatre, London, United Kingdoms, Theatre Season

Dear Dictionary, what is "Preventative"?

Terribly vexing can be the vagaries of American English. Yesterday I chanced on “preventative maintenance” on a website. “Preventative”? Could it be “preventive”? Then I stumbled on “orientated.” What is this obsession with “tating” about the Yankees? Or is it a case of the dyslexic taking over linguistic propriety?

Dictionary.com does give the same meaning for “Preventative” as “Preventive” while at the same time warning that the word is a variant of “Preventive.” My next stop Rhymezone.com and “Onelook.com” didn’t accept the word but gave me the idea for the following variants. I must warn it is not language purists, though.

How about abbreviateted, abductated, activatated?

Tags: American English, Yankees, USA, Rhymezone, Onelook, Dictionary

More Discussion on my Poem “Communally Hated” on Caferati

My poem “Communally Hated” has received a very interesting mix of feedback from Caferati members. Here’s another rejoinder, a clarification, rather, from me.

First of all let me confess that the idea for this poem was in the back of my conscience for a long time, and it just came to me one day and I wrote it down. As such, this is a first draft and a work in progress.

Please bear in mind that this is the voice of a distraught son-of-the-soil lamenting the fact that foreign migrants have taken over his land, his job, and are threatening his very existence. This happens in places as diverse as Bombay and Timbuktu as migration of people — for better life, and more pay — is like liquid finding its own level in scientific-speak. In short, minus the jargon, it is a phenomenon the world has to deal with and live with.

Also, this is the most virulent of all hatreds. It is also the hatred the indigenous people have for the conquerors, the marauders, and the pillagers. It has happened in the past when India was repeatedly attacked and conquered by invaders from Central Asia, it is happening in Iraq, it happened in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and many, many years ago it happened in the USA, and Anglo-Saxon England.

Now, a knee-jerk reaction to this hatred is, violence towards the migrant. We see instances of this every day. Some time back migrants who came for interviews to Bombay were blocked at the railway station and asked to go back. This is a stray instance, but an instance nonetheless.

Migration is a phenomena faced everywhere around the world. An increasing number of people from villages are migrating to cities for jobs and this is a process that cannot be stemmed. Around a quarter of the world population live in cities and this figure is steadily creeping up, putting governance of cities under severe pressure.

My poem is a depiction of, what shall I say, the adrenaline-squirting rush of hatred that goes through the mind of an indigenous person when s/he sees her/his land being occupied by strangers.
Tags: Communal Hatred, Central Asia, Iraq, Bosnia-Herzegovina, USA, Anglo-Saxon, England, Bombay, Migration, Poem

More on Street Harassment, Sex-Ratios, This Time!

This is an extension of the blogathon on “street harassment,” in which I gave some gyan (wisdom) not long ago. More gyan or zen came my way, so I am sharing.

Most women in India are disconcerted, no, offended that men look at them, sometimes even stare at them at times when they least want their attention. Are we some “endangered species?” they ask chagrined by the eyes ogling them at bus stops, train stations and other public places. But a look at this map which shows sex ratios throughout India will show that in the vast hills and plains of the north and north-east, the female ratio is very low, around nine-hundred females for every thousand males. Female infanticide is no longer the topic of hush-hush discussion in closed rooms; it is a reality.

Still wonder why men stare? I am told that men in the states of Punjab and Harayana go to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to buy their women, as they don’t have hopes of getting anyone in their own state. Yes, they pay money and buy women. Talk of genetic engineering and other, deeper, gyan, which I wouldn’t go into here.

Still wonder why men stare? Because they can’t get any women, no, can’t even get near those beauteous creatures. Therefore the clichéd stereotyped image of the repressed and rakish Indian male, with their wolf whistles and sexist comments.

What now? If things won’t improve then there is serious threat of increasing atrocities committed against women. Something needs to be done, but what?
Tags: India, Street Harassment, North India, Female Infanticide, Indian Women, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh

Some Gyan (Zen) forThis Weekend!

According to my friend, the famous adman Gangadharan (we were in primary school together), "zen" is actually "gyan" which was actually corrupted to "chan" by the Chinese and since the Japanese can't pronounce "ch" velly well, they transcreated it into "zen." So as one who poses as a "zenwriter" besides being "Johnwriter" here's a few gyan for this weekend to you all beautiful people, well, er, um, am working today (Sunday), so count me out.

Considering that all age-old wisdom or "gyan" originated from India and traveled past the Himalayas into China and then to Japan, I guess the Japanese have the Indians to thank for their present prosperity. Oh, well, Indians ideate the best "gyan" and then pass them on to others to implement. Wasn't the "zero" our creation? Well, then everything should come to naught and we must, rather unluckily, be content with "shoonya" or "zero."

Just yesterday I saw a beautiful power point presentation about how we should keep our egos out of our professional lives. The gist is we bring a lot of emotion into our professional lives and everything becomes a tangle of feelings, hurts, innuendoes, miscommunications, unintended slights, and feelings of victimization. In short, we do react with the heart, that is, we are emotional rather than cerebral.

So that's "zen" for today from your "zenwriter." "Don't be emotional in your work, rather be cerebral."

Tags: Gyan, Zen, Zenwriter, India, China, Japan, emotional, cerebral, Zero, Shoonya

Garbage Collection New Bombay "Ishtyle"

Recovering from a mild attack of the fevers. That’s why I didn’t post yesterday. Um, what to say, today is bleak as bleak can be. The rains are finally here. I like the rains in the countryside that is in Kerala. But the rain in Bombay is depressing.
The road to the place where I work is depressingly slushy. This place is called Turbhe Naka. It is central hiring place for laborers in New Bombay where I live. Several puddles of water accumulate. Someone remarked that this road is as it has been for the last twenty years. Yet nothing has been done. Flies breed, garbage lies uncleared, people – the sort who don’t look as if they have slept for days – walk about in a trance. There are poultry shops, hotels, barbershops, and grocery stores all in a nightmarish accumulation of dirt and filth.
One of the reasons for the filth is garbage clearance. When New Bombay started as the twin city of Bombay they had mechanical garbage clearance with garbage compaction and all those gizmos. Then suddenly they decided to employ what is know as “ghata gadis” or “bell trucks” to collect garbage. The idea is for a truck to come to doorsteps and collect garbage by ringing a bell mounted on the truck. The garbage bins have been dispensed with since uniformed workers collect the garbage directly from homes.
The problem is people had got used to the old system of garbage collection and refuse to follow the new – and immensely outdated – system. They dump the garbage where the old garbage bins used to be, though there isn’t a bin there anymore. Most areas of New Bombay have this problem and I see mounds of garbage everywhere.
And what was the reason for changing over to an antiquated and arcane system of collecting garbage from every doorstep? Because, according to unconfirmed sources, the man who runs the garbage collection trucks happens to be the father-in-law of a politician who wields considerable power in New Bombay.
Tags: New Bombay, Garbage Collection, Turbhe, Trucks, India

NASA Trying to Muzzle Opposition?

Close on this blog post about this article that the White House has decided to cancel or delay most of the forthcoming NASA earth science missions that were supposed to study Global Warming comes news reported by the New York Times as follows:

The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.

Bravo doctor! We are with you on this.

Tags: Global Warming, Nasa, Space, James E. Hansen

Communally Hated!

Posted this poem called "Communally Hated" on Shakespeare & Co. It has received an interesting mix of reviews and feedback. Do take a look. Here's something I wrote about the background of the poem:

The context is the intense dislike the son of the soil has for migrants, a subject that has fascinated me enough to write a novel about. I am a migrant in Bombay, you know, though I spent most of my life here. So, I have been listening to the voices of the sons of the soil describing the migrants.

We do make sterotypes of immigrants be it the locality, the city, and in a wider sense the country. Thus we seek to make common cause with people like us to dislike and hate these new people who bring with them their own cultures (as most of us do).

In some sense the context is also the communal flare ups we see now and then. It seems we have a tendency to target a community by their defining characteristics and then rain abuses on them, which is reflected in the words I used in this poem.
Tags: Migrant, Bombay, Communal, India

Doomsday? Armageddon? Deluge?

Reading this cover story in Time, I smirked thinking, "Hey, you disbelievers you were wrong." But then I sat up and read it again, this time with my heart slowly creeping towards my mouth. For one traumatized and still recovering from the last deluge on July 26, 2006 (spent the night in office, was totally cut off from the world, the trusted cell phone went into hibernation when I needed it, didn't have news of what was happening to family), this is alarming. And this being June and the month of rains in Bombay, I - and, I am sure, most of my immediate friends and family - am on the brink another rainy Armageddon, and this is definitely not good news!

The gist is, the world, our world, may be tripping into an environmental catastrophe of great magnitude. Can you imagine, ice blocks the size of whole countries are falling off and melting in the Arctic and Antarctic? If the entire polar region melts, that would mean the level of water would rise by four meters all over the world. Ergo, the whole of Bombay would be submerged to a few islands (as it was before the Brits reclaimed it from the sea). No, I am not joking, go read the article. Remember the ice age and how the dinosaurs were wiped off? Something similar. Only this time we humans may be the ones to be wiped off.

The article, in all earnestness, says all is not lost. The process can still be reversed and the earth saved from calamity. But that requires the will and efforts of several people, like you and me for instance. This is what you can do, in India.

The Time cover story says it all. Read this, and this, and this, and this, and this. Sorry, registration may be required. So if you aren't a subscriber of Time beg, borrow, or, steal the April 3, 2006 issue of the magazine. There is also this article on how India and China can save the world or destroy it, since, we neighbors, are the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide in the world.
Tags: Doomsday, Armageddon, Time, Global Warming, Bombay, Mumbai, India, China

MacKenna's Gold on Surround Sound

Bought, after much persuasion from son Ronnie, a surround sound system. Now I have near orchestral sound within the house, good to relax with when I want to watch a movie or listen to my favorite music. I am the type of person who goes with the times and do like the latest teenage sensations except for some rap singers who, methinks, are c(rap)py. I like Michael Jackson, whatever anyone says, of whom my son is a great fan.

Yesterday, I watched my favorite movie of all times – MacKenna’s Gold – on the surround sound system. And my, what sound effects, the sound of the bullet shot ricocheting around the hills, and the most cinematic moment I will cherish all my life, i.e., MacKenna (played by Gregory Peck) appearing from the diagonal slope of a rock and surveying the deserted landscape, eyes narrowed, just a bit cynically. How we all imitated him in the seventies, long shirtsleeves, broad belt, ramrod straight back, slow walk! Alas, Gregory Peck is dead, now!

The goodness of MacKenna, the badness of Colorado (played enigmatically by Omar Sharif – oh, Omar Sharif – how much I craved to be like him in those days, despite his badness, saying he looked more Indian than Egyptian, darkly handsome and all that!) were all stuff of schoolboy enthusiasm in those days. His dialogue, "I make the jokes, compadre," was a favorite. So also was the eye of the eagle that filled the entire 70 mm screen at Basant Talkies in Chembur (now seen in the small screen in the privacy of home, half reclining on the sofa!), the rock on the cliff that, um, just rocked, and rocked, and rocked, before it fell in the climactic scene!

This is one movie I can never forget. It was and still is, a giant of a movie. Go here if you would like to buy it on Amazon. Disclosure: I am not an Amazonian, I only buy books from them, sometimes.
MacKennas Gold|Gregory Peck|Omar Sharif|Amazon|Michael Jackson

Sas, bahu & Sensex?

For those not familiar with Indian television “sas, bahu” would mean little. It literally means “mother-in-law, daughter-in-law.” [I am assuming that mostly those outside India read this blog.] This is the term used to describe the endless soaps that air on Indian television. For your information, in these bubblies, women go to bed with a kilo of jewelry on them and wake up, no, not with drool in their mouths, but perfect coiffure and make up.

Sas bahu serials are all about mothers-in-law who harass daughters-in-law and vice versa. This, um, archaic tussle arises because a majority of Indian families are still undivided where the mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law live together and fight for the man’s attention. Sounds familiar?

Imagine my surprise when I saw a promotional advertisement on CNBC announcing its program “Sas, Bahu and Sensex.” For the uninitiated Sensex is the stock market index of the Bombay Stock Exchange. Or, it may be that all the jewelry is proving to be too heavy and the daughers-in-law, for a change, would like to unburden them and invest the money in the stock market.

Now, hehe, isn’t this going a bit too far? Or am I being daft? Do sassies and bahus discuss the Sensex? And what do they discuss, bulls and bears?
television soaps|Mumbai|Bombay|India|Sensex|Sas Bahu|

Is It Football Anymore?

Football fever is here! The FIFA World Cup in Germany, I mean, the four-yearly kick-fest, full of jingoism and male chauvinism. Man, the aggression, the tension, the pride – they are so tense some don’t sing their national anthems – the cheering, the color, the painted faces, the ultimate expression of man’s need for letting out their pent up joys and frustrations. A cruel sport, have patience, I will come to the cruel part.

So the swearing takes place in front of cameras, the medieval jousts are fought in front of an audience of billions from a 191 countries around the world. I presume, because there as many countries that are members of the United Nations.

Now, ahem, about the cruelty party. Have you seen the players staring murderously at each other, tearing each other’s team jerseys, murderously tackling each other? And some of them are taken out in stretchers. And these are the guys that play for the same teams in other competitions elsewhere. Like, like, well, I don’t know. Beckham made polite conversation with the Trinidad and Tobago player he plays with though they were competing murderously yesterday. But Beckham is a civil guy, nodding all the time, like an elder stateman to the lesser mortals who can’t control their flabby mouths.

In my day and age we played football and we didn’t tear at each other’s jerseys. And we didn’t need yellow cards. [Note: The writer played soccer for his college, though, was only a substitute player.] Makes me wonder if it is a sport anymore. Duh, I am growing old!

FIFA World Cup|David Beckham|United Nations|Trindad Tobago

Random thoughts for today!

It has something to do with working in an outsourcing unit. After all, you are a minion and nothing more. Even if you aspire for more, you know you will make it to the leader of minions, nothing more. Where is the independence you craved, the attainment of freedom you once wanted, the things you wanted to achieve and call your own?

All existential angst of a world that has gone from one big place that could at best be navigated in eighty days, to an interconnected, closely linked village where anybody is just a chat or a short message away. Yesterday I was traveling with a colleague and mentioned that fifteen years earlier I didn’t know what a website or a blog was and today I am a prolific daily blogger. It is really frightening, this sudden leaps in technology. I feel that if I don’t keep in touch I would be a dinosaur in no time.

Really, a call or visit to Delhi or Kerala is not what it used to be in those days. Nowadays a call to the US is the usual thing. Distances have contracted, times zones have collapsed, man has created more time for to agonize over Beckham and Victoria’s personal life and preferences. I watch a lot of football these days. Can’t resist soccer, my favorite sport.

According to this must read article for Indian BPOsyou really can’t say how long India will hold on to its outsourcing pie. China is following closely on our heels, though revenue from IT enabled service is around half of India’s $ 12.7 billion a year. A cause for worry is that inflation is driving up wage bills in India, and that may prove detrimental. As my friends in Shakespeare & Co. are fond of saying “More anon.”
outsourcing|India|China|Indian BPO|

Ways of saying "How are you?"

There are umpteen ways of saying “How are you?” in Indian languages and equally enigmatic replies you can expect. Amazed? Here are a few:

Entha vishesham? (What is special? – Malayalam)
Sukhamthanne (I am fine)

Kasa kay? (How and what? – Marathi)
Chalalay ahe (It’s going on)

Kem cho? (How are things? – Gujarati)
Maja ma (I am in fun (maja) [A Gujarati always says he is having fun])

Kemo nacho? (How are things? – Bengali)
Bhalo aschi (Things are fine)

Kaisa hai? (How are things? – Hindi)
Theek hai (Things are good)

Eppidi irukka (How are things? – Tamil)
Nalla irukka (Things are good)

Want to add some more to this list? Do indulge!

Malayalam|Marathi|Gujarati|Bengali|Hindi|Tamil|

CP Surendran's "An Iron Harvest"

I am reading friend CP Surendran’s novel "An Iron Harvest.” The prose is brilliant, poetic and the story is based on a true incident about the mysterious disappearance of Rajan, an activist, during the Emergency of the 1970s.

Che Guevera manqué John, CP Surendran’s protagonist, belongs to the “Red Earth” an extremist organization that kills evil landlords. CP, that’s what I call him, excels in poetic description of Kerala and its ethos.

What shines through the brilliant imagery and perspicuous research is the deft execution of this debut novel, biased as I may be, which is a must read. Pick up "An Iron Harvest.” even if it is at the cost of the next binge at the neighborhood pub.
CP Surendran|Roli Books|An Iron Harvest|

NASA to Drop Global Warming Studies?

Got this from Mark Bernstein’s blogsite. It says Boston Globe reports in this article that the White House has decided to cancel or delay most of the forthcoming NASA earth science missions that were supposed to study Global Warming.
Mark Bernstein|Global Warming|Boston Globe|

A Chick Corea Quote

This quote came from Answers.com. Liked it immensely!
"It's very difficult for me to dislike an artist. No matter what he's creating, the fact that he's experiencing the joy of creation makes me feel like we're in a brotherhood of some kind... we're in it together."
Chick Corea
Chick Corea

Manic Monday Musing!

Another Monday morning. The usual ennui the usual reluctance to get back to work, the usual everything. Here comes a query from a colleague. I hate queries. Argghhh. Aaah. Here’s divine coffee from the canteen, guess that would drive away the blues, like that song, who sang it? “Just another manic Monday,” that girl Madonna. So it’s tired sinews, aching limbs, throbbing head back to the daily grind.

Interesting thing is I am using a tool for posting direct from Word into my blog. That’s a lot of time saved. After all who wants to open “blogger” type the username and password and then wait for the posting window to open after ages. And then the “Publishing” icon that keeps rotating, rotating, for ages. Just do a search of “Word tool for Blogger” and you will get the link to this software, provided by Blogger itself.
manaic monday|Madonna

A Child Bachus!

After a long time of keeping away from television news channels I accidentally switched on the television to watch what was going on. Ho-hum, it’s been a while; let me see what they are up to, has anything changed?

Imagine what I saw on a prominent Indian news channel? Wonder of wonders, a three or four year-old child who addicted to alcohol. Of all the hypes I have seen in my more than four decades of hyperbolic life, this one wins hands down. The presenter went blah, blah, blah in all earnestness. No, it wasn’t a passing reference, but the issue hogged prime time with interviews with the father who went to great lengths to defend his child. He made it sound as if it is quite normal for a child to have a few drinks every evening.

You know, things like, if it is good for the child’s health then it’s okay. How did the child get into this habit? When the family was on a holiday in some remote region, where medical help wasn’t available. Ergo the child had to be given a few pegs. Okay, okay, so the child was healed but why couldn’t the parents deny the deadly potion once they got back from wherever no medicines were available?

And, these are the news channels that tom-tom a great deal about in-depth analysis of breaking stories of national importance. Now, as I watched aghast, the said channel went into overkill and interviewed a doctor and some sundry experts about the child’s ill-gotten habits. But not a word about the ills of drinking, which has been the reasons families have been disrupted, fortunes lost and, most importantly, been the cause of marital discords. And, pray, what is such trivia doing on national prime time?

I am not an expert on ethics, so I wouldn’t venture into those areas. But is this ethical? Again, I feign ignorance.

prime time|Indian news channel

Oh, that Indian English bhi na?

Amit Mukherjee’s Indian English: What you think of grammar? Drew a good response on Caferati and following is my contribution:

Quote

Amit, I think technology is driving the development of language in ways we do not even realize. Caferati conducted an SMS poetry contest in which I was a participant. Words like "u" for "you" and "n" for "and" would definitely be recognized someday. The need arose out of the expediency of economizing a few finger depression on a telephone keypad (an product of technology). But till such time as the OED doesn't officially recognize this language let us use the unabridged versions.

About being multilingual, I agree. (I follow the American style of spelling and writing, as it is my bread and butter. So "realize" instead of "realize.") We are already multilingual in that when I speak to my colleagues in the US I use a different accent and language than when I speak to my colleagues in India.

In business process outsourcing units employees are told to speak slowly and emphasis the last syllables clearly. We tend to speak too fast and this habit is manifest in our writing. In fact, the language in the first post shows urgency and a shortness of breath, which is common when we speak in English.

And Jane, when I used to work with Brits in the Persian Gulf they had become so Indian in accent that newly-arrived Brits used to remark that they had gone "Completely native."

And Jon, it isn't genuflection, rather, an attempt by the local culture to assimilate a foreign language. Thus I hear a lot of Indians saying, "walk fast fast" instead of "walk faster" as they are used to saying "one one mango each" in their local tongues.

Unquote

Indian English

Argumentative Indian

Amartya Sen is right. I haven’t read his seminal work, “Argumentative Indian and Identity and Violence” but saw the argumentative Indian in operation on a recent trip to Delhi. We, Indians, argue, and how.

First of all, at the check in counter at Delhi airport a man had illegally opened the luggage he had checked through security and the airline employee insisted that he go back and do another security check. The man was all red in the face and arguing loudly with her and wasn’t ready to acquiesce. The argument went on interminably for more than the half hour duration that I was in queue till a man ahead of me said in frustration, “Please for God’s sake do what she says or you will miss the flight.” He could have easily gotten the security check done again in less than half the time he spent arguing with the airline employee. I am sure the flight was delayed because of the unnecessary arguing.

Again at the boarding gate a crowd of irate passengers had gathered with boarding passes anxious to get into the plane. What were they so anxious about? Wouldn’t they get seats if they were a little late? This is not a Bombay local train, people. They were arguing loudly with the airline employee who was almost in tears. Why don’t those people gathered there realize that they have to board only when their flight is announced? There were mothers with babies in their hands, Pappu and Happy with their MP3 players, and a rag tag bunch at the gate waiting, waiting, waiting, before their flights were even announced.

One woman was demanding loudly, “Open the gate now!” What if the plane wasn’t properly equipped for the flight and fell into the sea? Will you take the responsibility dear argumentative madam? For God’s sake let them do their jobs, I felt like shouting. I could see violence developing in the minds of the mob that had gathered there. A terrible violence indeed. Amartya Sen has correctly identified the defining characteristics, i.e., argument, identity and violence. I would add one more: ego.

We go to unnecessary extents to make our point without making allowances to a more balanced point of view. Forget that we don't even listen carefully to assimilate the other point of view. I am sure as we were waiting to board the aircraft, amid all the hullabaloo, quite possibly, a man must have been holding up our departure by arguing with the ground staff of the airline at the check in counter.

And violence did happen eventually, as the crowd started chanting, “****** Airlines Hai! Hai!” If Amartya Sen were to be there he would have been amused!

Argumentative Indian| Amartya Sen | Delhi Airport

Fratricide and now drug overdose. What’s happening, anyone?

So a leading political party’s leading politician’s son is facing arrest on drug charges, and his father’s erstwhile secretary was the fixer. What’s so disturbing about it now that the politician is dead – killed by his own brother? Nothing, except that the politician himself was not much of a saint. Neither was his secretary who is now dead of an overdose of drugs and champagne, which he snorted in the company of his dead boss’s son.

There were allegations made against the politician (he was considered prime minister material, imagine!) of complicity in the murder of a journalist. He was a minister at that time and refused to quit. Skeletons are falling fast and furious from his cupboard. Power, murder, drugs, champagne, what a deadly mix!

What a sad state for a political party that talked so much of nationalism and nationalistic pride to be in this murky situation. As someone said things are getting more and more murkier. The party had come to power with promises of good governance and to put an end to the rough methods of previous regimes. Goes to prove that they weren’t any different, and were even more depraved than the previous ones. The reason being that they probably knew the party wouldn’t last long and wanted to make the proverbial hay while the sun shone.

India|Indian Politics

A "Tum Tum" is a "Tuk Tuk"

It’s called a “Rick” in Bombay,
It’s called a “Tum Tum” in Pune,
It’s called a “Tuk Tuk” in Bangkok,
It’s called a “Rickshaw” in Delhi,
It’s called a “Trishaw” in Singapore.

All onomatopoeic avatars of our good old rickshaw. We call it "Rick" in Bombay because of the state they are in, i.e., rickety. What’s it called in your town? Would appreciate if you leave a message, dear reader!

rickshaw|Bombay|Delhi|Bangkok|Singapore

Breaking up is hard to do!

To promote the movie Break-up starring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaugh, beer manufacturer Budweiser has announced a national Break-up Day and put up a website by the same name. Droll, isn’t it? But not surprising since one in every three first marriages in the US will end within ten years.

That apart, another website has come up with the best break-up songs and another provides links to the best break-up videos.

Seems breaking-up is the butt of jokes in the US of A the country that gave us the dictum “Marry in a hurry and repent at leisure.” Has anyone thought how people who break-up would be feeling?

I guess no!
Break-up Jennifer Aniston