Missing..........

Yea........some parts are missing. This picture was taken by one of my apartment mates, somewhere near Stony Brook.

I don't know who sculpted it or destroyed it but the remains give a very artistic look.

Who is an artist here????

As you "like" it!!

It was evening at BNL and I got into the BNL shuttle and closed my eyes. Usually, if there is no disturbance, I would sleep and begin some random thoughts or a dream or some music comes up (its a really different tune you know??). But if somebody is talking among themselves, I listen to them with my eyes closed. Of course if its interesting.

But yesterday evening, two undergrad girls were talking about something which I didn't understand at all. But they were blabbering something, which made no sense to me. However, there was something strange in those girl's way of talking. They use a lot of "like" in their speech.

If was like........
we were like.........
Like.........I was like...........
You know.....like.............like...........like............like.........like..........like...........

Wow! can't they speak simple english??? And I was counting how many times one of the girls used the word 'like'. There were 104 likes in her gossip in a half hour journey! Forget about you guys, but I myself don't believe that I've counted so many of them. Maybe, american way of talking......but I know few amrus, who very well speak decent english and know what they are talking. I'm not talking about old, sophisticated people but very much young people who are good friends.

But talking about amrus english, one thing that I've observed is that there is so much emphasis of an expressive way of talking, rather than the meaning itself. It creates an impact on what one would like to say. My apartment mate always had issues with this way of talking.......the accent. Yeah......it bothered him a lot as he had to take ESL class in the first sem. We always make fun of this line in a movie, where the girl says,

"Who aaaaaaaaarre yyyyouuu?"

My friend says, "Kitnaa Kheenchthi hai be!" Other example was...

"Freeeeeeeezze, don't move".

"Am I a refridgirator??? Is there a compressor in my stomach or what??", was my friend's reply. Yes, sometimes its funny if english is not your native language. Because whatever you talk or listen, sometimes people tend to translate in their vernacular language and understand them. Another example is ........You Know...

There will be 100 You know's and Like's in people's conversation that tend to completely erase the essence of what they talk of. It irritates me for most of the time. Anyway, who cares, my own english is sometimes vague.

I am listening to main theme of 'Chariots of Fire'. Its soothing. I saw Pather Panchali. Its a decent movie with good print. Its about a rural family and how they go about their life. Good screenplay and surprised to see in the titles about the music....composed by Ravi Shankar. Also I didn't know that it was Satyajit Ray's debut film that won him accolades. It was a Merchant Ivory Production.

Will watch the The Last Emperor tomorrow. I remember watching it as a kid but don't remember it actually. It was directed by Bernado Bertolucci and has won 9 academy awards......should be a nice weekend movie to see.

I like that. Well let me stress once more time..........I llllikke that......

like.........like............like....like....like......like.....like.......like.....like......like.........

god help me!

Few more one-liners........

Following are some of the funny things that I used to note down at the end of my notebook during my college days, about my teachers.

• Suppose say, there is somethinglike water in the pond.
  
• If you don't do the homework, I'll kneel down in the sun.
• Now I make this a double bond, and I get a Tyu-Butene (for saying 2-butene)
• Hey......why are you rotating the college?? (my friend told me this)
  
• What is the collolary of this theorem? (for corollary)
• You know..........8 is always divis by 2.

Shayari by one chem. teacher..........

"Boyyssssssss........
Don't make noissee........
Don't raise your voice......."

Now, I hardly remember some of these.........anyway, nanna called just now....says Bruno is doing fine and there is no need to worry. So.....I may've a good night sleep now......

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.................

From grammar to glamour

By the way, there were many grammar mistakes in my previous post. When I was referring to my dog Bruno, I used 'it' in some and 'he' in other sentences. I always had this problem since the begining. I observed this mistake in many others while they talk or write in some articles.
This reminds me of one petty incident happened during my junior college days. We had Sanskrit as second language and the grammar part in the subject was a little tough for many. One of my friends used to dub the grammar as glamour. So in his words,

• we had lot of 'glamour' in first year than second year in sanskrit and english subjects.
  
• students commit many glamour mistakes.
• students should practice glamour in the subjects and get cent percent marks.
  
• and whatever we speak should be 'glamour'atically correct!

Wow!.......its glamourous!.....

One other incident is where one of the lecturers doesn't pronounce the 'Pa' sound. He used to make 'Fa' sound that confused us for a while. Here is the best of all....

He said, " In fre-finals, forty fercent of the fafer will be froblems only, fractice the froblems get good marks and fut in your fockets".

There was another professor in Biochemistry course who used to pronounce the other way. In biochemistry, we had something called 'fibrinogen'. He says, 'pibrinogen'. "Have a pruitpul puture" .......%^&*@#$.......

There were many such funny incidents on which I could recollect a few. Those were the most enjoyable days I spent.

I've been watching quite a few movies lately from the university library. So far, I've seen Fantastic Voyage, In Custody, Sound of Music, Satya, Bedazzled, Run Lola Run, Salaam Bombay and Arth.

I got Pather Panchali, The Last Emperor and Dead Man walking today. I heard a lot of Satyajit Ray movies, but never got to see them actually. One of my friends comments was that he makes sick movies. That was his perception, but he points out that he makes movies on sick and poor people and earns money, laurels and become rich. Ummnnnn.......maybe but having said that, the contemporary movies makes no sense to me as most of them have no story or nothing but sick faces, which has become a trend now.

Hence, I decided watching old classics or some of my all time favorites. I don't mind watching any number of times as they never make me bore. Well films made now are for sheer business. Mahesh Bhatt is one director who openly says that he makes films for money. There is no emotion, film-close-to-my heart or for class. Now, most of them are skin flicks. Well.......there is a glamour mistake there.

Greatest fear

I was surfing the net sometime back and I found an interview with A.R. Rahman. I saw that interview in Rendezvous with Simi Garewal some 2 years ago. Some guy must have recorded and put that on net..... so I played it in my mp3 player.

It was a nice one where he talks about his past, present and about his music. Simi, I observed usually asks many such questions which make the guests to think for a while before they can answer. So was ARR......thinking......taking his time to answer.....pausing occasionally and is very good at giving succinct replies.

One such question was, "What is your greatest fear?". He replied, "To lose your loved ones". True, the answer for that question could be anything. But I could relate to what he said. It is really frightening to imagine about any person whom you see all the time in front of you, suddenly disappears forever. There was this other interview of Javed Akthar few years back, where he mentioned that those were really horrible times for him when both his parents expired. "I felt I was standing in front of a tiger", he exclaimed.

What made me to bring about this topic is just a couple of days back, my father called me from India. He never calls unless its an emergency. It was about my 10-year old dog, Bruno. It's sick and vomiting foam. This was unusual. He said he's taking Bruno to hospital and take X-ray to see what happened. Its stomach was bulging it seems and isn't looking good.

After couple of hours, I was told that Bruno can survive a maximum of 6 months. Its spleen and liver stopped functioning and when it deteriorates, it'll be euthanized. The very thought of it was shocking. We all raised Bruno. ......

It came to our house during the 1996 world-cup final. Sri Lanka was winning at that time and we were excited to see a small animal in our drawing room, which was nothing but a pseudo skeleton with a big tail. We loved it so much that we made him sleep next to our beds. It is like we all were growing at the same time. The most interesting part was when he used to understand what I say. As if he knows Telugu. Not even hand signs but a mere change in the tone would explain everything. I still remember the way he shows his happiness, the way he surrenders when he does something wrong and his furiosity.

Hearing about a living being dying in a matter of time is very scary. Its like a cancer...more like a deadline. Yes, really a 'dead'line. Ofcourse, many might have experienced this painful time but it still scares them once they recollect the past.

Many say, facing death is the biggest fear a person can have. But losing your loved ones is the greatest fear of all. The best one could do is to take a good care and be close to him. I told my mother to take as many pictures of Bruno as they can. I hope to see Bruno when I go back in november. Again, its just a matter of time....................

Its time.....

It took me about 20 minutes on what I should start with. This is because I don't have the habit to write or type something more often. I heard people 'maintaining' personal diaries etc. which they say is a good habit and keeps them mentally healthy.

For me, I never had to do that because I hardly used to think of anything else and lot of the time my brain is blank without any thoughts. I tried to 'maintain' a diary during my engineering days, but as would be the case.....not for long. Maybe it was not a good time as there are many other things to do in those four years.

My mother says that I can remember things from my childhood and she boasts about my memory. Wow! that was long time back. In the recent years, I started forgetting few things, stopped thinking about other things for the simple reason that I was not thinking at all! I guess there was too much work after that.....and ..........well.....thats about it.

So its time for me to keep track of few important/nasty/petty things that might help in remembering something or help me (or others) to improvize as a person. Also, I think there is nothing wrong in trying out few things other than the routine. Explore.......explore.....