The Idea-smithy

An actual conversation with someone who wishes to stay low-profile but has some very HIGH hopes indeed!

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Happy Mother’s Day to my maddening, delightful, one-and-only mom!

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More idea-toons!

The friendly neighborhood pet-puja-provider (also known as Piggy’s Poison Plaza at that much-neglected blog called Office Capers….someday I’ll start it up again) started it all with much fanfare on Monday announcing that the speshul menu on the 14th would be:

I was intrigued by the menu (an old bad habit, am afraid) but I didn’t risk the food, since Piggy has discovered V-day but hygiene remains a remote indecipherable concept.

Today at lunch, I said,

So no Sena trouble yesterday, right?

And the new kid on the office-block promptly replied,

Remember those MBA entrance group discussions? One guy would start shouting on some point. Ten minutes later an altogether different dude would be harping on the same thing a few decibels higher with Dude no.1 nowhere in the fray.

Strange but apt metaphor that, was the general lunch-table consensus.

Move over politicos, stock markets and temperatures…the queen of the media makes news again!

After another day spent panicking over the state of ‘the common man’ following the antics of our local politico-goons, Mumbai really must be back to normal if the news is any indication. Let’s check out what India TV thinks is big news today.

Rakhi Sawant slaps her boyfriend!!!

This comes on the heels of the very well-covered incident where Rakhi Sawant threw her boyfriend Abhishek Awasti out of their house and cried “BREAK-UP!”. I didn’t catch that on TV since everyone else was hogging the box for such mundane things as rioting, violence on the streets and politicians getting arrested. Fikar not, Rakhi gives me my time’s worth with today’s lunch news though.

Yesterday someone nudged me and told me that my favorite melodrama queen had broken up. I hastened to get in touch with the queen of desi bloggydom who reassured me that it was just a tiff and things should soon tide over. True to her word, Rakhi gives us some more entertainment (oops…news) today, which leads me to the conclusions that all queens have a soul connection with each other.

(Okay, I couldn’t find any good photographs of the event on the internet, so these are my own pathetic attempts. Used my camera-phone to shoot the TV so apologies in advance for the appalling photography…)

So we watch as the errant boyfriend (what exactly did he do to get her to scream?) goes down on bended knee and eats humble pie several times over. We ooh as he gets his mug punched over the obscenely huge bouquet of red roses….atta, girl Rakhi!!!

 Then he’s made to say “I love you” and promise never ever ever to hurt her again in English, Marathi (aayeechi shapath!) and Hindi. Reporters fall over each other and there’s much giggling, shoving, nudging and sniffling (?) to be heard while we’re told what’s big news on national TV…ooops India TV.

The heart almost aches for the boy. But that’s the price of being Mr.DramaQueen. Truly,

Is thapad ki goonj usse desh ke kone kone tak sunaai di!!

Last week, I was told,

You should really get used to distinguishing your online and offline life!

And I wondered if I was spending too much time online. Only 8 hours+ at work. Some blogging on weekends. Who’s counting email? And now anyone in the world can see my chosen apparel for the day with Yahoo! Avatars. Oh and there’s always Instant Messenger.

Instant Messenger is in constant use across timezones, plugging people in different countries into one office. On one hand I marvel at the wonder that I’m talking to people in three continents much more often than with friends and family in the same city. Out of sight, out of mind, they say. Well, these people are constantly in my line of view as long as the green dot is flashing next to their names! 

Today, I got an email from a colleague titled

* IM not working *

I had to read the email to discover that I was being asked to email for queries instead of assuming she was offline (and hence off-office for the day). I mailed back

For a minute, I thought you were saying “I’m not working!”

Haha! I wish!

Imagine if instead you had said: IM on strike!

Or: IM off for the rest of the day!

IM not taking any more messages!

IM not a servant!

IM going nuts!

The last message I received was:

IM gonna quit!

Presumably that refers to the application and not the person. Tomorrow I’ll know when I see the green (or grey) dot next to the name.

Mum was my first teacher, especially in English. I think I get my love of language and words from her side. Oh, and the sense of humor too, perhaps?

We’ve been subscribing to the Readers’ Digest for donkey’s years now. I don’t even remember when I started reading it myself. Only that it was one of the many books, newspapers and magazines always around. I started with the end-of-story filler jokes and then graduated to the colorfully illustrated Laughter-The Best Medicine, Life’s Like That and All in a Day’s work. Before I knew it, I was reading the stories and articles as well and my parents had one more contender to the monthly issue. It was always a tussle.

In the house that I grew up in, we had a magazine stand, stuffed to spilling point with mum’s Tamizh magazines but also with the month’s issue of RD discreetly tucked away. Once it was found under a pillow after the last reader fell asleep on it and made the bed over it by mistake. But there was always a struggle over who got to read it the day it arrived.

Now, I find that RD eventually ends up in my parents’ room where both of them take their turn reading it and then it lies atop their respective bedside ‘to-read’ stacks. Then the next one arrives and the ‘old’ issue is relegated to the newspaper drawers. I don’t get to see it at all unless I salvage it before it goes to the raddiwallah!!!!!!

Foul! I cried and stole it away this month, whereupon it lay on my bedstead for 3 days with dad turning their room upside down looking for it. Though I actually got to read it only today. Sprawled on my tummy with mum idling next to me, I leaf through it and announce that I am going to do the Word Power challenge.

Aloud, she urges. So I start…little thinking that it will turn out to be another episode of Mum’s haha-pie. Ten minutes later, after I’m done, I read out the answers with the notes that follow (”knowing the root of the word improves your understanding of other related words…a trick I picked up after the CAT entrances” I tell her). She yawns in response and I am tempted to make my usual wise-cracks about…

I need all this. After all, I didn’t study in a convent like you! All I went to was some unknown village school.

All because the area my school was in, used to be a village in…godknows, the 18th century?

Ahem, ahem, I preen, anticipating a high score…and tell her that ‘tangent’ is derived from the Latin word tangere.

She says,

I’ve heard of Tanjere. I think its a place in Africa.

I interrupt her to tell her that she might be thinking of Tanzania.

No, there’s some place called…

..she continues

Or maybe you’re thinking of Tanjore, where our ancestors were from!!

And we both dissolve in laughter as she calls me a very silly girl .

Every word and its meaning becomes a new discussion, a new joke. So ferre contributing to circumference turns into a story of faireewallas who are actually those men who pull hand-carts.

Maybe they’re called that because they ferry things around, I observe.

She laughs and tells me that it’s more likely because they do feras around the city with those carts.

When I get to genus and read out the example: ‘Some trees are called oak but do not belong to the genus Quercus’ , mum says it reminds her of a childhood poem and starts to chant. Mid-way through the first word, I join in and we go

Oak before ash, in for a splash!
Ash before oak, in for a soak!

As we end in unison, she asks wide-eyed, if I had studied it too. I tell her no, I’ve just heard her say it so often, I may as well know it too now.
Parse (meaning to analyze grammatically) has mum observing in all seriousness,

So a parson is a person who analyzes the sins of the parishioners?

And she begs me not to be write this down, for fear of offending our Christian friends. I laugh her off and tell her not to worry, everyone has a funny bone somewhere.

Integer leads us to a weird conversation since it comes from the Latin word for ‘intact, whole’. This makes perfect sense to me but mum asks why we say something is an ‘integral part’ of something. I tell it that’s used to describe a part without which the whole does not have integrity. I conclude,

So it is something that brings integrity to the whole.

She disagrees and tells me that it has to do with doing what you say you will. And when I shake my head, she counters with

If I’ve said I will murder somebody, I must do it or lose my integrity???!

Great. Grammar lessons turn into philosophical debates with mum. I laugh and announce that she’s not meant to be thinking of such esoteric ideas.

Precambrian has us both stumped. The options aren’t of any help either:

a. 50 million years ago
b. 200 million years ago
c. 400 million years ago
d. 2 billion years ago

No wonder we didn’t know it, we weren’t around then!

says mum in finality which ends the discussion.

And finally there’s pedagogy which sounds vaguely familiar to me but she claims to not have heard of.

I only know synagogue!

My claim to knowledge goes kaput as I get it wrong too. And I read out:

Relating to education; the profession or theory of teaching. Greek paidagogs (slave who escorted children to school). You had one of those, didn’t you?

She bristles and says,

He wasn’t a slave! He was an orderly, a paid, government servant.

Whatever…I grin and shut the issue. Dad wants to read it and my grammar lesson is over.

I haven’t seen you in awhile.

he said.

I’ve been waiting.

I murmured.

You’re sure about this, right?

he asked in some trepidition, reacting perhaps to some hidden uncertainity in my voice.

I trust you completely.

I dimpled back. And closed my eyes. His hands moved gently.

An hour later we were done. I stood up and told him,

You’re the best, you know?

He just smiled.

He’s modest but creative, my hair-stylist.

And as I walked out of the door, his last words were,

I really like you. You give me all the freedom I want and it makes me put my heart into my work!!!

So I’m now wearing a man’s heart…not on my sleeve….but woven into my crowning glory!!

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

She was the kind that stopped to pet stray puppies. But food was only ever surreptitiously slipped to bit-bound horses ferrying kids on beaches and abandoned cows. Dogs and cats had their fans world-over but who thought of these forgotten ones? She did. Impartial with love but she tried to distribute equally what she could and ended up caring for the underdogs (or horses). Fair share for everyone.

Saturday afternoon found her clutching an envelope, mixed excitement and resignation. She didn’t even really like shopping. But one did what one must. She thought of last week’s phone call, begging, pleading with her to do her part to make one life easier. She sighed and thought, no human being should have to beg that way. So she squared her shoulders and walked in. A new credit card gleamed in the darkness of her wallet. It wouldn’t be lonely for long. Not as long as she was around to see it got its fair share.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

For Ammani’s 24-hour challenge-4

Wet weather, cold drops trickle down the back of my neck. And the roads are slippery.

The nasty wet rain says to me,

Oops, I missed a spot!

in mock-sheepishness.

And so you did!!

I mock-retort back and supress a smile.

There are places even the rain can’t get you!!!!!

~o~o~o~o~o~o~

And I’m basking in all the lovely sunlight that’s we’ve been having the past couple of days and feeling soooo good about it! Not so fast though…the last time we had one of these spells, I did a virtual whoop-dee-doo…and quite immediately the rains were back. So here then, while whooping silently, is a picture to remind me of one more horrendous monsoon survived!

Welcome, welcome back sunshine!

So this is why we’re having trouble making connections?

Reminds me of that Pepsi/Coca-cola war some time back. What do you think? Was this deliberate?