What do i think?

What is this strange attraction to unknown languages? I can't figure out why I love to hear conversations in languages that I can't understand. It all starts with the musicality of a language. As I hear the natives talk, I feel the ease, passion and love that comes out. The inflections, intonations and expressions entice me into the new world, making me read pages and pages on Wikipedia - history of the language, it's phonetics , morphology , semantics and so on. I don't want to dwell much into this aspect of the language, I move on to cultural, social and historical progress of the people themselves. This comes from the fact that I have majored in one the ancient languages of the world - Sanskrit. Innumerable books have been written on the rich heritage and socio impact that this sanskrit has had over Southeast Asia. From young age I have been taught that sanskrit is superior to all languages. Deep down I still want to believe that. But that does not mean ...

SO - such a small word yet it conveys a lot especially to the kids today. Words like quite, very, extremely and really are replaced by the single most powerful word ' SO '. Sometime in 1996-97 I went to Calcutta to attend my friend's wedding. I was staying at my uncle's place who is a stickler for correct English among other things. He still types out emails like letters Dear so-'n-so... Comma.... Next line... Maybe an indent... No unnecessary abbreviations... Proper capitalization... 2-3 paras ending with yours affly sorry affectionately... Anyway, my first lesson on 'SO' was from him. He asked how the wedding was. And I said with great enthusiasm, "it was so beautiful". He added, "that??". I said "huh!" He explained, "it was so beautiful that... . The word 'so' expects a part that starts with 'that'". Oh! And he was actually waiting for me to answer. I changed and said that it was very beautiful :...

MADRAS NALLA MADRAS... I still belong to the old school localites who prefer to call the present Chennai - "Madras" and derive great pleasure in letting the letters roll off my tongue, tilting my head a little with pride and of course showing off a bit :-) My short stint of 5 years is not much when compared to my earlier 25 years before marriage. Yet, this was the most enjoyable time I had spent in Madras. Is it the town? Is it the people? Is it the music? Maybe a mix of everything... This was there before too! But now, the only difference is my husband.. He made my stay here sweeter even he was not around most of the time. Now that sounds pretty cheesy ;-) Date: 2nd October 2013 I have had some time now to review and compare Madras with San Jose. As my son keeps asking me, "you said we are going to US! This feels like Madras, just better." I did not know it then but now I feel it was like being under a microscope always, not that anybody cared about what I ...

What is Bhakti? It can be generally translated as devotion and Webster gives 'religious fervour' as its meaning. Does this mean that atheists cannot have devotion? How can explain this to different people from different walks of life? Most of all, how can we explain this to children who are influenced by what their parents think? Theists - It is very easy to reach out to theists and say: devotion or bhakti is that belief that you have in God which directs certain actions (puja, prayers etc) in your everyday living. Atheists - One has to leave out God equation and explain devotion in terms of concentration on activities close to one's heart. Children - Now this is the tricky part. Children are always forever trying to assess what to take forward to their adult years. Some children don't want to believe in God because their parents don't believe and their acceptance is of utmost importance. Some children implicitly believe what their parents say. Yet others are skept...

A long gap of more than year in my posts... yet, life moves on at a pace that is baffling at times. Lots have happened in this year. I stopped posting when I sent my younger one to school!! Okay, that sounds actually weird when I put it down in writing. Why?? I should have actually had more time to post more frequently... and yet I did not! Ah! I found a better use of my time :-) And what was that? SURFING THE NET. Reading blogs Reading recipe blogs Updating my sanskrit blog on and off (advantages of having a co-writer) Most of all, PLAYING FARMVILLE, FISHVILLE, TREASUREVILLE and all the nonsensevilles that I can lay my hands on. I sat before the idiot box with a laptop on my lap and reclining on my recliner (with an ottoman... without it the recliner is an utter waste). I definitely, definitely have to, definitely have to scrap no. 5 from the list, definitely. But these zynga and facebook guys keep dishing out newer games to get us hooked on to.

6.50 am Hari wakes up and says "I want the computer". Hey! first brush your teeth, then take a bath, then eat breakfast and then if you have time, we'll see. For about half an hour I don't hear anything and I am busy getting breakfast and lunch ready. Suddenly I look at the time... 7.20 am HARI!!! WHERE ARE YOU?? YOU OUGHT TO BE AT THE TABLE NOW. OK MOM! Let me finish bathing. I am at my wits end. I shout at the top of my voice in an effort to get something across. "Its going to be 7.30 and you have to leave at 7.50 am". 7.22 am Dad shows his face inside the bathroom and asks hari, "why are you making your mom shout?" PAT came a reply, "I am not making mom shout. Its the time!"

Not one morning passes by without Hari's polambals. He has to say atleast 23 times "I don't want to go school". These would be followed by lectures on 1. Its good for you 2. You don't want to be illiterate. Do you? 3. Don't you want to be a tech director like appa? 4. You have to do some work or the other to survive. etc.. etc.. My next strategy was - "you have to look after cows." I was stunned when he said ok. Thats where Bala came in and dropped the right sentence "looking after cows means cleaning cowdung too!!" "oops" That was something my 6 year old could not imagine. The bum-cleaning is mommy's job. How can he do that? Okay, Mom, lets make a deal. I will take care of the cows, but the cleaning part, why don't you do it as always? When that did not get any response from me, hari decided he will work at home like his mom. WOW! somebody wants to be like me! Thats something, coming from Hari who adores his dad! Now how ...

Come Friday and I don't want it to come!! Before the weekend begins I am already planning how to stuff it with all the pending things. By Saturday afternoon I finished about 10% of the work and suddenly I remembered Bala's cousin's husband was on his way. He wanted to meet two more cousins and Bala's mami too. It was easier to meet at one place. All of them arrived and plans for having dinner in a restaurant surfaced. Of late we are very hesitant to go out for dinner 'cos both kids become cranky and managing them becomes a huge task, leaving us no enthu for social talk. But all cousins and Mami were too geared up to go out and kept insisting we are all there to take care of sundu and hari. Hari had three more people to pose his questions. He was excited to get answers which are much different from the usual... "you talk too much" or "thats not for you" or "okay I am your mom, so do as I say" or "ENOUGH" as finale. It was so go...

Peter or petering is a slang that is widely used to denote those who love to show off their knowledge (or ignorance) in something that is totally alien. For eg., I was somebody who did not know a thing about the computer, net, middleware etc etc. After marriage, I started petering about CORBA and middleware (thanks to the evil of continuous checking of emails and writing code by my husband). The boyz/galz who drank tea from the local potti kadai till yesterday, say today, " you see, in the US where (pronounced whezh) ..." Thats petering for you. Guys who want to fit into a crowd try stuff like seeing vonly inglis philims and hate anything that has to do with bollywood, tollywood, kollywood, follywood and any other letter you can add at the beginning. Munna is our hindi peter . Despite not having crossed the borders of Tamilnadu, our munna loves to sprinkle his speech with accha, nahi yaar, and chalte hain... She sees sirf hindi philims. Her favourite is Shah rukh, Aamir, Rani...

A hot summer’s day. The harvest is over. The lands await ploughing. The ground is parched Await the rains like Chatakas. The brilliant Sun is furious. People venture not from their homes. As the train crawls, I see not a soul – Not even a cow. A village or two pass by And the third is seen. From the distance I notice A half-naked urchin. No shirt, no shoes. He runs as if his life depends on it. As the train slows to a stop, He reaches my window. He gives me an innocent smile. His face radiant with joy. I ask him, “What?” But receive no answer. As the train starts, he calls to me And waves with all eagerness. What would I not give to acquire a smile so innocent? His only worry – he mightn’t reach in time to wave! How I long to be pleased by such small insignificant things?

"எனக்கு நினைவு தெரிஞ்ச நாளிலிருந்து" music season has always created a sense of excitement in me. It was a season of endless kutcheri hopping, eating out and gossip. When I was young, I remember going for concerts with my Dad. The two that I vividly remember were S Balachandar at MFAC and S Kalyanaraman in Academy. I was thoroughly impressed by the former because I was learning violin then and thought I had to go for a lot of instrumental concerts. And not impressed by the latter, yet had to say he was good because everybody at home thought he was good. After 1993, I had my manni's TVS 50 at my disposal, college bunk adichi, attending concerts was a big thing(not that I missed anything or anybody missed me at college). I would generally, sit in a concert, listen for one song, search for any friends and start talking for the rest of the concert. This is first season I have sat through a couple of Sanjay's concerts without talking and actually listening.

In a effort to pen my thoughts in संस्कृतं, I have started a blog in samskrtam .

When we look at what sort of research work can be considered for a PhD degree, translation is definitely a no-no. Why? There is no individual contribution, value addition or in-depth study involved in literal translation of any work. Personally, I feel it is a routine job once the initial spadework is done. For eg, translating open source software strings would not be easy if a glossary of common words was not done earlier. Getting the glossary done is a major work. Once that is out of the way, the rest is easy and anyone with the glossary on hand can do the rest of the work. It gets more interesting when there are sentences to be translated. Windows, Openoffice and other software in Hindi and Tamil are being used widely (definitely in government organisations). But, why sanskrit? The best answer I can give is "Archival purpose". Someone somewhere might use it. Would I use Firefox in Sanskrit? Maybe not now. I might try it but I would most definitely like to see something fam...

For the past 1.5 years I have been working as part of CDAC-GIST team, translating open source software into Sanskrit. CDAC recently released a CD of software tools and fonts in Sanskrit on November 25th at Tirupati. Click here to read the press release. Thats the official post. A more personal post follows.

Relatives Galore yammadi!! enna koottam da saami!! (What a crowd!) Hari has seen more relatives over the past three months than in his entire five years of life :-) Am I happy? yeeessss... Am I irritated? maybe... But on the whole its been wonderful. Let me begin at the beginning. We arrive at Madras and mama with pranav come from bangalore. Stay with us for two days forcing me to cook 3, 4, 5... no no 6 times a day. Of course there has been my brother's family - sanjay, aarthi with chechal and sush - the visits to their place are more. One mama from pallavaram with his wife is frequent visitor, "I was just passing by and thought would pop in to say hello". Then my parents arrived from the US. Had three of my mom's sisters visit me. Bala's chitti, mami, cousin, his fiancee... etc. etc. So the number now stands at somewhere between 35 and 50. I lost count after 12 :-) Come navarathri there is an increase in mutual visits. Dipavali saw Shyam's family coming down...

Hari participated in two competitions today and won 1st in Tamil and 2nd in Sanskrit recitation. Okay, I just can't stop peethifying about this to all and sundry - pandal pottu, serial set vechu, mikela thaan innum sollavillai :-) Now to the topic. Competitions are one more thing that I have missed during my stay away from Madras. Till I left college, every recitation and oratorical competition conducted in the city in sanskrit had me participating and almost always bagging a prize too. On one hand, I was relieved to know that I don't need to go thro' the tension of standing before a frowning judge. On the other hand, I feel the same tension because it was my son who had to stand before the judge. When I was standing outside I got a chance to observe the OE parents walking up and down the school premises, giving pep talks to their kids, last minute revisions and ofcourse the thayirsaadam dubbas :-) The parents seemed more worried than the kids. Just as how I was more exci...

For the benefit of those who do not know the story of The camel and the Arab... Once upon a time (I love stories that start with this) an Arab was traveling in the desert with his camel. When it was night, the Arab put up a tent, tied the camel outside and he slept inside the tent. The night air was quite cold and the camel asked the Arab if he could put his head inside the warm tent. The Arab decided that it was not much of problem to let just the camel's head inside. After sometime, the air outside became colder and the camel requested for a little more space. As the night wore on, the camel came inside the tent and the Arab had no other choice but to move out. Till I got married, I was the camel of the family. The last of three children, yet, my stuff occupied most of the place in the house. Two cupboards were allotted for the three of us. I graciously let both my brothers share one cupboard for their clothes. There were two book shelves and one desk. Sanjay being the eldest or ...

Varalakshmi vratam First function after coming to madras. I was invited to a house in my complex. I went there at around 6.30 pm. There was another lady with two kids having a nice tete-a-tete about music teachers in Adyar, their paths in musical training, etc. WOW! that was something I had missed in Pune. Every household has someone or the other learning music or have learnt music during childhood. Here I am just one among thousands. In Pune I was - aalilla oorukku ilappappu sakkarai. Whenever there was a social gathering, I was probably one of the two or three decent carnatic music singers in town.

PHEW!! At last am back to where I started. Lots of good things happening. Hari is settled in his school and Bala as usual enjoys going to Porur listening to "idhu sema hottu machi" :-) I am waking up to how Madras was and is - the same... no difference. Just that I am older and no wiser. Hey! don't go away! This is not going to be a page in my diary! We had a bunch of people coming in and going. I am not talking about relatives, but about workers and officers of all sorts to set things up like gas, phone, pest control, watchman, etc... Before marriage when things were under my parents' control. It was a different story. These people would come twice every year (they still do) asking for money. It was always a big spectacle for me. If the workers were lucky, they met my mom who said a word or two but gave them money. If their stars were not aligned properly, and my dad was at home, they had it. The worker or community helper (as my son refers them) would come a few day...

If you want to read while you are at work, Click here. If you want to cheat your boss while you soak in poetry, Click here. If you think you miss out on the pleasures of seeing the printed word, Click here. Ok!! All three links lead you to the same place. 1. In school, I remember reading a lesson on The Art of Letter writing. 2. A Google search led me to this wonderful quote The Lost Art of Letter Writing - I long to receive a three page, heart-rending, soppy letter, filled with words carefully chosen and eternal. 3. I still cherish a couple of letters like, my violin thatha's letters to me from Benaras, my dad's letter from Kailash-Manasarovar trip, and of course, a few notes from Bala before marriage (no letters :-) 'cos he was already into the email world).