Mind your language!

Shilpa Shetty was allegedly called a pig in Big Brother. The world seems to be in great difficulty because of that. It’s front page news! There are 20 odd talk shows discussing the nature of reality shows like Big Brother and its Indian cousin Big Boss, and how racism is still there! Now, I don’t want to discuss the same thing. I think they are over doing it anyway. There is a reason it’s called a “show”. Let it remain that… don’t make a show of that.

My concern, as a keen observer of different culture and English language, is the choice of abusive words in different countries.

Calling someone pig, it seems, has lost its favor among Indians. When I was young, I mean really young, “bloody swine”, used to be an elite english gaali! How refined our language was – no pig, no boar, no hog, but swine! If one doesn’t know the meaning of it, it sounds so sweet, with a swaying tone. Did you notice it rhymes with wine?

Now, however, “dog” is the abusive word of choice. Now, the range of emotions that can be portrayed with the term “Dog”, is unbelievable. Right from describing gluttony (Kutto ki tarah khaya), to talking about someone behind his / her back (Bitching!), it can really be used anywhere. Even when greeting someone. Some of my “Yo” friends, inspired by 20,000 odd rappers (with ludicrous names like Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, 50 cents and Ludacris), have started greeting each other with “Wassup dog?”! Bad influence I say.

The other factor in this pig vs dog war, according to me, is film stars. Now we all know how movie stars swear in movies. Take the example of an iconic hindi movie - Sholay! Both the dog and pig are prominent in the dialogues. But, with all due respect to late Mr. Amjad Khan, his “suaar ke bachho” was pale in front of Mr. Dharmendra’s “kutte, kamine…”. More importantly, Mr. Dharmendra has repeated his dialogue often in many movies, and managed to teach Indians their most important gaali. In training, we call this reinforce technique.

There is this other factor, which struck me. There could be a cultural thingy here. Indians, contrary to what Ms. Jade “Goody two shoes” thinks, are very respectful to what they eat. We don’t prefer to use those that we eat as abusive words. Earlier, we never ate pigs. Now that we have started eating (at least in urban India), we stopped using “pig”. In western culture, this appreciation for food seems to lack. They call people “chicken” and “pig”! Of course, even in India, exceptions to this exist (one prominent example is where people of India call Inzamam Ul Haq – “Aloo”). We should treat this as affection though.

Anyway, enough of this stuff. You go back to whatever you were doing; let Ms. Shetty enjoy the Rs. 3,00,00,000/- that she reportedly got for all those “horrible” things that were told to her; let Endemol (the creators of Big Brother) enjoy all the hype and increased viewership; let Ms. Goody enjoy the trip to India proposed by Indian tourism department; let the media find some real story for a change; and finally, let there be peace on earth. Amen!

Man eaters...

What did you think when you first read the title?

Here's what my friend thought. “What happened to you? Reading about cannibals! Did you get it for free or something? Watching too much TV?” - My friend’s comments when he saw me read a new book – “Man eaters and jungle killers” by Kenneth Anderson.

It’s not his fault. It’s the time we are living in. ‘Man eaters’ no longer refers to a tiger, a panther, a bear or a rogue elephant of the jungle as vividly described in Mr. Anderson’s book. Unfortunately, it means Nithari. It means Hannibal Lecter.

Steep climbs!

Remember Kailash? My ex flat mate, who left Bangalore to pursue his dreams! When he left, I wrote a letter to him - you may read it here.

Well, he is in San Diego now, training to be a commercial pilot. Do visit his blog for an account of how his flying is going. Please leave your words of encouragement for him there.

Why is it called steep climb, don't ask me. For what I think about his stunts, I give you a chat excerpt:

kailash: i was flying at sunset this evening
...
me: Great
kailash: already doing manuvres
me: You are training to be a commercial pilot, right?
kailash: thats correct
me: What manouvre?
You take off smoothly, up to cruise speed, land smoothly!
No manouvre required.
kailash: s turns, turns round a point....steep turns,
me: Ok...
kailash: slow flight ...all very imp for check rides
me: ... and the free coupons that you are giving me...
kailash: i alsodi stalls today at 6000 feet
me: can I exchange for another flight?
kailash: xchange with whom
me: Any other damn flight!
kailash: sorry no xchange no refunds

Small problems

Small problems often clog our mind for a long time. Often, we think too much of a situation. We ponder over smaller things to convince ourselves that we are right. Most often we fail to ask ourselves a few questions:

Are we really getting anything out of this?
Does it matter?
Will it change my world if I did it the other way?
Is it important to prove that I am right?

Rest assured

Rest is very important in our life. It rejuvenates us; gives us the energy to deal with problems, oh sorry, issues; gives us, well, rest. Now that I have written such a complex sentence, and you have read it, let’s take some rest.

Welcome back. Coming back to the point I was trying to make – we don’t take enough rest. Rest can help you do better in your life. Let me give you some supporting examples of rest, straight from the classics. Let’s look at the battle of Kurukshetra. We see many Maharathis (big fry) take leave of absence in some pretext or the other. Karna did it, Drona did it, many people did it – with some silly excuses – if he is the commander I will not fight, etc, etc. I think all these rests kept them fresh and ready for greater battles. Same thing happened in Illiad as well. Achilles didn’t fight for many days, until Patroclus died. And when he came back to the war, no wonder, Hector couldn’t win against him. Hector was tired from the continuous battle, and Achilles was fresh. Don’t believe me? See the movie Troy. Eric Bana as Hector looked like he could do with some sleep when he came out to fight (he could definitely use a shave). Deviating slightly from the topic, you should watch this part where Brad Pitt and Eric Bana are fighting. I think Mr. Fred Astaire would have danced like that if given umbrellas, err… swords. I think they were playing for the crowd; trying to impress Helen and others holding dress circle seats. Who choreographed that scene – the Chinese synchronized swimming team coach? Anyway, so what I am saying is, learn from the classics. Take rest.

Let’s take a look at a current problem and see how this old theory of rest can work. Without further ado, I present to you, the Indian cricket team. As you know, some of our players were rested for a few months. When they came back in, their performance improved dramatically. Zaheer Khan, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman – all benefited from the rest that they got from not shooting for ads and not playing cricket, of course.

I am secretly hoping my manager reads this and gives me some rest in office. He needs some rest too. Now whoever coined the term Manager was very clever. The manager thinks it comes from manage, but no! Take some rest (like I have been) and you will see, it means “man ager” or “a position that ages a man”. See the benefits of taking rest? It gives you fresh perspective.

I can go on and on with examples but will refrain because of two reasons. First, I think you get the point. Second, the keyboard definitely sounds like it could do with some rest. So let me give it some rest, take some rest myself. After all, waking up restless at 4 in the morning and writing this stuff can’t be too good to support the theory! Rest of the theories is coming up in near future. Till then, rest in two piece.

Who is a happy man?

"A man who cooks in the evening with limited amount of vegetables in his own house; one who is debt free; one who is in homeland is truly happy."

Translation from a Mahabharat episode where Yam (god of death) asks the question and Yudhisthir answers.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

The best time: One week of vacation - relaxing at home, resolving problems with people, reading old books, eating ma’s cooked food, meeting relatives and shopping.

The worst time: Coming back – Finding out a lot of negative issues evolved between friends while you were away.

When I was fixing a part of my life's biggest problems recently, I realized that thinking about the issues didn't help me all these years. When I got down to resolving them, it was rather easy. It was easy because the other person was eager to resolve it too. What stopped this from happening before was our ego. Analyzing several other unresolved issues in my life, I find they are all ego related. I hope my friends are able to resolve their problems on their own and resume the beautiful friendship that they used to share.