All hail English

English is a very funny language. One word here or there or, for that matter, even a letter here or there, can change the whole meaning and spirit of the language. For example when Saurab bought his first guitar he wanted to tell everyone "Yeee I got my first 6 strings", but as luck would have it his status message came out to be "Yeee I got my first G strings". Well he still claims the status message was not his - "Ye sab opposition party ki chaal hei". Well whatever be the case, his exact feelings didn't quite get reflected: all because a 6 became a G.

But it is not the accidental interchanging of letters or words that is the main problem. Nowdays the medium of communication between various organs of the society happens to be in English. For eg: the "official" language of almost all private as well as most of the government educational institutes happens to be in English. And that, as we will soon see, is not always good. So how do these institutes still survive when not everyone in these institutes are not exactly English professors? Well here is where the Indian concept of Jugaad comes in. For the uninitiated, Jugaad means "somehow get it working" which mostly involves tweaking the existing concepts to suit one's environment.

One funny incident that I can remember, happened to me during the first year of my under graduation. As every engineer will know, there is a compulsory mechanical workshop for all the first year students. It involves hammering, cutting steel plates, digging sand and what not. We had a chief instructor who, at the start of each class, will explain how to do the experiment meant for that day. On that particular day the experiment involved sawing a thick steel piece. How the instructor communicated to us with his limited knowledge of English vocabulary was, in my opinion, an incredible example of Jugaad in English literature.

"Today we see how we saw". Then taking the saw in his right hand and the steel piece in his left, he continued - "Take saw, then saw", pushes the blade forward "and saw" pulls the blade backward, "saw" - pushes forward, "and saw" - pulls backward.

He did this 3 or 4 times. "Saw saw saw saw. All see how saw?". Everyone nodded.

"Now, you saw I see". Everyone started sawing their steel piece. One guy, in his enthusiasm to finish the work fast, was sawing the steel piece at a furious pace. When the instructor saw this he immediately stopped him.

"Don't saw saw saw". Then showing how to do it smoothly, he continued -" just saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw".

I was amazed at how, with explicit usage of just a word, he held his on throughout the entire session, though I wouldn't be surprised if anyone lost his sense of grammer after this class.

But sometimes English can be a real badass, especially in the hands of a person who is not very comfortable with it. The incident, that happened to Nandu's friend, more than illustrates this fact. In one of the classes in her college days, the professor had asked the students to study the day's lesson and come prepared for his next class. The next day, the professor started asking questions regarding what he taught the previous day. One of the questions was asked to Nandu's friend. Now she, being the typical college student, had no recollection whatsoever of what was taught the previous class.

She started blabbering - "Err sir it is...that is...then only but also...err...sir.....sir I don't know the answer".

The professor was furious. But he would never have meant what he said next.

"What!!!You don't know how to reproduce. Yesterday I taught you everything and today you can't reproduce. No, I won't allow this, you have to reproduce. C'mon try, I will also help you to reproduce"

The girl was stunned. She didn't know what to say. She knew the professor didn't mean it, so she had no idea how to react. As for the professor he was clueless as to why the whole class burst out into laughter. Poor Prof...poorer student.

People holding very high positions are expected to be very good in communication. Thus it cannot be stressed enough how critical it is for a person holding a very important position, like a Director of an educational institute as in this case, to be proficient in English and to be precise on what he wants to convey. Else incidents like this are bound to happen :-

It was the first day of the college and the Director was addressing an audience comprising mainly of students and parents. He started his lecture with an history of the institution and about how the students - and their parents - have made the correct decision in joining this "great" institute. Then he came to the main topic.

"Younger generation discipline very bad. One boy one boy ok. One girl one girl ok. But one boy one girl - Total problem"

He continued ranting.

"Today's girls boys no study. Today's girls boys no class attend. Today's girls boys full day sit under the trees."

Then he went on to propose far reaching measures to improve student discipline.

"This year we cut all trees".

Whew, this guy should have been our Finance minister.

Then, addressing all the parents in the audience, he emphasised how his reforms were going to improve their children after 4 years in this institute.

"Today you give me one child. After 4 years I give you another child!!!"

Well what else to say - All hail English.

PS: The below video captures the theme of this post precisely. The plot from this famous mallu movie where the hero is trying to impress the girls' parents with his english whereas the villain is trying to prove that the hero doesn't know even the basics of English grammer.

Nandu ban gayi engineer

Disclaimer: As usual high dose of masala and imagination involved.

Nandana ( Nandu  for me) finished her schooling in 2006 and it was time for college admissions. After her entrance exams results were announced, she wanted a seat in PSG, a private engineering college in Coimbatore. But Mummy dear(my mother-in-law) was pushing for GCT, a government college, also in Coimbatore. This resulted in an intense "war" between PSG and GCT in the house. Each side employed all the modern day technologies like Google for data gathering to strengthen their arguments for and against each of these 2 colleges. The war was so intense that by the time the day for the counselling arrived, their neighbors knew more about these two colleges than even the PSG and GCT students themselves.

Finally the D-day arrived. Mummy dear tried one last attempt. She made Nandu her favorite breakfast, puttu and kadala. If Mummy had hoped for a result favourable to GCT, her hopes were dashed. All she got back was a plate with no puttu left.

By the time Mummy, Nandu and Daddy reached the counseling centre, the counseling was already underway. After some half an hour or so, Nandu's chance was fast approaching. Nandu started biting her nails. She was getting tensed. Only 1 seat each left in PSG and GCT and there were 2 more girls more to go before her. She still had her chances for PSG. But it was going to be a very close call. Meanwhile Mummy too was biting her nails. After all GCT too was in the race.

"PSG...PSG...PSG", Nandu's mind was racing.

So was Mummy's, "GCT...GCT...GCT".

Luckily the girl didn't choose either of PSG or GCT.

The list narrowed down to 1 girl with 1 seat each in PSG and GCT.

By now Nandu and Mummy had no more nails left on them. But the race was still on, nails or no nails.

The girl in the front was taking all the time in the world to decide her college. Tension was slowly, but surely, building up. Finally when it seemed that this girl will never decide her preference, she got up, went to the counter, and gave her choice. Nandu and Mummy turned their heads at the same time onto the screen.

Screen started blinking. After 30 seconds or so an updated message came up.

Number of seats left
----------------------
PSG:0      GCT:1

Nandu thought someone just slapped her. Mummy thought she just won a million dollar lottery. GCT beat PSG in the battle of titans. Poor Nandu. She was just not lucky that day. And this is how she got joined production engineering at GCT.

Once the classes started, Nandu had left her disappointment behind and was looking towards a great campus life in GCT. She soon realized she had to overcome many obstacles in the male dominated field of Mechanical and Production Engineering. One of them was the workshops. Workshops were heavy duty stuffs. To lift the heavy hammers and tongs itself was beyond her, let alone use them to make to forge something. But then these are the situations where being a girl helps. All she needs to do is put on a damsel-in-distress face.

Zoooom!!!From nowhere the instructor reaches her place.

"Enna ma, hammer romba heavya", he asks
[What happened my girl, is the hammer very heavy]

"Amma sir, onume panna mudiyathu. Epadiyavathu help panungo sir"
[Yes sir, I am not able to do anything sir. Please help me sir]

The scene after 5 minutes would be this.

Standing in one corner of the workshop, Nandu and her co-damsels will be discussing the global issues concerning the world

"Lakshmi, you saw the new Shah Rukh movie da. Oh he's soo handsome in that no?".

"Yeah Nandana, I too heard about it. I want to see it da"

"Don't worry da, I will come. I want to see that film once more da".

Meanwhile the poor instructor would have broken his back doing each of their work. One may wonder whether this trick will work all the time. Well trust me, it does.

Some of her college professors were world class. One of them, let's call him NK, had a unique teaching style. He comes to the class and straightaway he goes and writes a problem on the blackboard. Once he has finished writing the problem, he turns and faces the class.

"Find the solution to this".

No sooner does he says this than the geeks get busy while others, ie, 99% of the class, get sleeping. After the initial struggles, the brightest geek of the lot would be ready with the solution which NK sir starts evaluating. NK will read each line of the solution given in the textbook. Then he compares it with the corresponding line of the solution that the student had got.

"Torque = 72.........hmm Torque=72...ok"

"Distance=50....hmm distance=50...ok"

"86....86...ok"

"22.....22....ok"

"98....45...What!!! Your solution is wrong. See the value should be 98. You got 45. What the hell is this"

"Sir but 98 is the page number of the book."

The whole class bursts out in laughter.

"Oh ok, no problem, let's continue. 45....45...ok".  And the brilliant evaluation continues.So much for his teaching abilities.

Another Professor, who manages to use his pants to cover his entire stomach, deals with late comers in a different way. For example, once it so happened that one of Nandu's friends, Kapil Dev (not the cricketer, Mind it Rascalas!!!), came late for his class. Kapil stood outside the class and requested Sir's permission to enter the class. Sir stopped teaching and turned to face him.

"Who are you"

The poor guy didn't know what to say. He just kept looking at sir with his mouth open. He knew the professor knew his identity very well.

The professor pulls up his pants, and again asks, "Who are you".

"Sorry sir"

"Your name is sorry?"

"No sir, I am sorry for being late. I will not repeat it sir".

"Who are you"

Poor guy knew there was no escape. He knew his Prof very well. He will keep asking "Who are you" till you reply properly. Not that a proper reply will guarantee one's entry. But nevertheless....

"Kapil Dev", he replied.

"Ooooooo you are Kapil Dev"

"Really sir I am Kapil Dev sir"

"Yeah and I am Mahatma Gandhi"

Poor guy was at his wits end. He gives up and leaves the class. And this is how this professor put an end to the "menace" of late comers.

Nandu, in her 4 years, had made quite a lot of friends. One of them was Aparagita Varman. This friend of her's faced an unusual problem in college. The teachers had a hard time pronouncing his name. More so when attendance was being called.

"Arun Palaniselvam"

"Present Miss"

"Aruna Prabhakar"

"Present Miss"

"Appu Doraiswamy"

"Present Miss"

When our hero's chance comes, all hell breaks loose.

"Apa Raita Varman....err no....Upper jaati Varman.....Upuma Raita Varman err no....aah crap roll number 3"

With a heavy heart, he will stand up and acknowledge his presence.

And so, in this fashion Nandu completed four eventful and joyful years after which she graduated in 2010.

Frustrated

What happens if you trust your roomies so much that you don't care to logout of your blog once you are done with it? Nothing much other than that your blog will get hacked. Though I am not 100% sure who wrote this, if I have to take a guess, the major credit for this post goes to Akshat bhai, with no less contributions from my dear ex-roomies Anshul and Saurab. This post had been lying as a draft for several months now. Now I am posting it verbatim. I have not changed even the title.


"
NOTE - The incidents of this true story have happened over past two years. This is a true story, the story  of my life.

It has been several months or rather years since I have joined Matrimonial Site but honestly, it's a sheer disappointment for me. There are several reasons for the same. First and foremost is the inability of the matrimonial site's search engine to publicize the most eligible bachelor of the state (no price for guessing ... it's me) and if by chance someone selects my profile and expresses interest, the horoscope feature puts hurdle in my way. The way which could lead me to my would be better-half. Another reason for disappointment is that when  I search with "my criteria" , there is hardly any females being listed by the search engine. One fine day my friends came up with this.

Looking at that, even though I laughed with my lungs out, I felt happy that atleast I had someone (in a fake pic) with me. I want to confess that I couldn't sleep the whole night, not because the pic was haunting me or because of mosquitoes in my room, because the sense of being with someone filled me with joy. Now I cannot wait to meet the special one. I know she is out there, somewhere waiting for me. That is why I have started attending my friend's marriages, I travel in city buses, I walk a long way instead of taking an auto-rickshaw, so that I can find her, the princess of my dreams. 

I know most of you will probably laugh reading this but this is the story of my life. I request all my friends, even those who fell prey to my petty pranks or my blog posts to pray to God so that I can get married soon.

Waiting ... waiting ... and waiting .....
"
So this is how one's blog gets hacked.  As someone has said, if you have friends like this, who needs enemies.

Update: My roomies' prayers and efforts have been finally answered. I got married to a very beautiful girl.

The Trip

It was an overcast sky, with the clouds threatening to open the floodgates any moment. But Saurab cared two hoots to what the rain Gods think. His MTP (MTech Project) is over and done and according to him, he has earned his break. But with rest of Mtech CSE students still breaking their heads and laptops to complete their MTPs, poor Saurab had no one to give him company to enjoy his break. But Saurab was determined to make the best use of his break. As usual he approached his all-weather friend Akshat.

"Oyee chal, Vihar lake chalte hei".

Akshat, as usual, put on his "too-tired-after-work" look on his face. You can never blame him. He just finished watching Ram Gopal Varma's ki Aag!!!He had enough torture for a day.

But Saurab was not the one to give in too easily. He threatened Akshat with dire consequences - singing in Akshat's room all day through- if Akshat didn't go with him. Poor Akshat had to give in. It was too much of a punishment for him. Thus Saurab succeeded in persuading his friend to go with him to Vihar lake. But Saurab was not satisfied since he wanted a bigger group. He decided he will drag with him the first few guys he sees on the way. Unfortunately I happened to be one of them, along with Rakesh, Vishal and Nazeem. Now what can these 4 poor souls do if someone comes and theatens to sing the whole day in your rooms. Nothing but give in to his demands. Thus the group was formed and the plan made.

Vihar lake is actually a restricted area for students. This is precisely why all students want to go there atleast once. Rule breaking runs deep in an IITian's blood. Since it is a restricted area, there is a fence which separates our hostel from the lake. Saurab enquired with his friends as to how to reach his destination. He came to know that some smartass had made a small hole in the fence through which students can crawl through to reach Vihar lake. With this ground breaking information in hand, Saurab led the group towards the fence through the hole and finally after 20 minutes or so into the journey we managed to reach our destination.

The scenic beauty, coupled with cool monsoon climate made our day. It was such a relaxing time. After spenting an hour or so, we made our way back to the hostel. Even though the time was around 6 pm in the evening, it had already become dark. We crawled back through the same hole and were almost back in the campus when we saw the H12 student head and some men, whom we had never seen before, standing near the hostel. As we approached the hostel, these guys stopped us. We looked at each other. Everyone had the same expression on their face - clueless. On top of that these guys looked real frightening. I got the feeling that each of them had one kilo of biceps and chest muscles for their evening snacks. Such was their body build.

Then one of them spoke

"Kaha se aa rehe ho tum log".

"We just went to Vihar lake", Saurab replied.

"Aisa kya". He turned to face his fellow-muscle mates. "Talashi lo inke".

We had no idea what was happening. They body searched us. But apparently, from their looks, they didn't find anything they were expecting. Then they confiscated our ID cards and told us to collect the cards from the Dean tomorrow. That is when we realised we were in serious trouble. Vishal, who somehow had a great talent to get on the wrong side of our professors, sighed

"Dean hi bacha tha milne ke liye. Ab ye tamanna bhi poori ho gayi"


No one knew what to do. Everyone looked at Saurab with a face which can be best described as "next-time-enjoy-your-damn-break-yourself-$@#$%%@#$%". Saurab somehow felt the sky was looking beautiful at that moment and kept admiring it till he was sure we were no longer looking at him.

Everyone started thinking about what to do next. Rakesh was the first to chip in.

"How about applying for new ID cards. We can tell them we lost our old ones".

"Dude, we had lost our brains when we listened to a great mind and went to some restricted area, but rest assured they still have theirs"

"Ok how about this. We forget the entire thing and do nothing about this. What can happen", Vishal opined.

"Looks like you don't want to stop with meeting just the Dean. With the kind of talent you have, you should aim for the Institute Director himself".

Thus the brainstorming session went on and on. Ultimately we all decided on the best route possible. Meet the Dean the next day and beg for mercy. Everyone agreed that we will meet up outside Dean's office and then go in together.

The next day me and Nazeem went together to the Dean's office. Throughout the entire journey Nazeem, as usual, was indulging in philosophy and religious thoughts.

"I think we got what we deserved. This is Allah's way of telling us we have wronged and need to repent for this. Rules are meant to be followed and not broken. We should never have gone to vihar lake.".

"How come your Allah never tell you these things on time. He waited till we got caught and then he gave you this advice?".

"Allah does everything for a purpose", he replied.


"Great. I hope his purpose doesn't include both of us getting kicked out from the institute"

We continued walking till we reached Dean's office. Saurab, Rakesh and Akshat were already waiting for us outside the Dean's office. After waiting outside the office for sometime, we were called in. All of us went in without knowing what to expect next. When we entered, the Dean was typing something on the computer, with his back to us.


"So you like to break rules is it", he asked without turning and continuing with his work

"No sir", Saurab replied almost immediately

"Oh you mean you didn't break any rules".

"No sir...err I mean yes sir...I mean not exactly sir...",Saurab started blabbering. He looked at us with a help-me-out-here expression.

Dean finally turned around to face us.

"So why did you go there", the Dean asked calmly

"Sir we went there to enjoy the scenis beauty", Saurab explained.


"Is it. You guys went to Dargarh to enjoy it's scenic beauty???".

"The what....". We started looking at each other's face. No one knew what the Dean was asking. I was even more confused. I slowly came close to Nazeem.

"Psst...what is this Dargah. Is it some restaurant or something". 

Nazeem glared at me with a What-an-idiot look.

"It's a religious place, like a mosque. I guess he thinks we went there and attended the preachings, which maybe of extremist nature", he whispered.


Meanwhile Saurab continued wailing

"No sir, nothing like that sir, please sir, believe me sir, we haven't even heard of anything called Dargarh. We went there to just see the lake. That's all".

"No no this is very serious. I will take action"

"Sirrrrrrr...", Saurab let out a cry. Somehow his cry sounded somthing similar to how our bollywood heroines cry out nehiiiiiiiiiiiii when the hero dies.

"Sir sir please sir, don't take any action sir. I am the only son of my parents"

"O you mean if you had a brother, I could have taken action"

"Yes sir...I mean no sir...please sir don't take action"

This went on for sometime. Finally, and I am guessing he had enough of Saurab's wailing, he let us go with a warning and a petty fine. We were all relieved. We paid up the fine and came out of the office.

Once outside, Saurab was happiness personified.

"Tho bhai log mazaa aaya na. Ab kaha chalna hei". 

What happened next is best kept a secret.