The Idea-smithy

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

(Click on thumbnail to see the comic)

More idea-toons!

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.

A whole year-and-half after this, I present the second edition of Mum’s cooking…errm…laughter. Those of you who have met my parents have mentioned what nice ‘normal’ people they are. Well, don’t go jumping to conclusions…most people don’t know that I howl at the moon every fortnight (and keep that to yourself or I’ll come visiting for an extra pint of the red….muhahaha). I have to get the genes somewhere. Here’s what mum had to say this week about….

BMC: The disaster management cell has asked people to stay home all weekend because they know that their management is a disaster!

Tushar Kapoor: The best thing about Gayab is that he was gayab all through the movie!

Queen Elizabeth: (in response to my quoting something I saw on TV “Even the queen’s husband is not permitted to touch her in public”): I don’t suppose he touches her in private either.

And that led to a catty conversation about the royal family with our usual debate of “What did Charles ever see in Camilla when he had Diana?” and the absolute kicker “Is he ever going to get to be king?”

Mum: I wonder why she doesn’t abdicate for him.

Me: A la “I abdicate the throne of England for the man I love”?

Mum: Apparantly even she doesn’t love him. Tsk tsk.

Miaow!

Mumsy has a crazy sense of humour. Figures….I have to get it from somewhere!

Some of her wisecracks..

About Tushar Kapoor: He’s really dashing…he dashes all your hopes to the ground!

On a family photograph taken in poor lighting: The caption should read ‘Curry, currier and curriest’

About my wedding: When you get married, I’ll cry…not for you, but the boy who marries you!

After seeing the promos of ‘Jawani Diwani’: Why doesn’t he just change his name to Emraan Kiss-me?

When I make everyone late for the party with my preening: If that mirror of yours had a mouth it would cry “Oh, mercy, leave me alone!”

About Bob Dylan: If that’s supposed to be music, you can record my arguing with the milkman tomorrow…I’m sure it will be a bestseller.

I know your new shoes look good but they really don’t need to adorn the hallway.

Well, have a rocking 2006 full of laughter and love, all of you!