ONLY THE BRITS COULD HAVE INVENTED THIS LANGUAGE!!!

ONLY THE BRITS COULD HAVE INVENTED THIS LANGUAGE!!!

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Then shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England ..
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends
and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
in which your house can burn up as it burns
down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out,
and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?

I WOULD LIKE TO ADD THAT IF PEOPLE FROM POLAND ARE CALLED POLES THEN THE GERMANS SHOULD BE CALLED GERMS!!!

Note: No offense meant but found this on the net and felt it was a funny read...

RIP, Uncle Pai...

"The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.

- By James Bryce

My journey with Amar Chitra Katha began even before I could talk and read. It began when I was a mere toddler crawling on fours all over my grandparents’ house. My granny strongly believed that book reading habit should be instilled in children as early as possible and as a result, the house was strewn with Amar Chitra Katha comics even when I could barely talk. She would show the colored pictures and narrate the stories of Rama, Krishna, Abimanyu and other mythological figures. As I grew up, I would spend hours together seeing the pictures and eventually reading the comics myself.

My first Tinkle copy was a gift from my mom dad when I stood second for the school in my first grade final examination. I’ve been a regular subscriber to this day and still enjoy the comic capers of Suppandi and Shikari Shambu. While Uncle Anu and Tinkle Tells You Why greatly appealed to the geeky me since I was a kid, the cheeky antics of Ramu Shamu and Anwar had me in splits. I would genuinely feel sorry for Chamataka and his partner in crime Doob Doob, every time Kalia outwitted them to save the sprightly Keechu and Meechu. I hated Tantri, the Mantri with all my heart, for trying to harm the loveable King Hooja.

I was always awed by the imagination of children like myself when I read their stories published in each issue. I secretly wished my name was published too and wrote letters after letters dreaming of the day I could show off my name and address published in the comic to my friends.

A very old edition of Tinkle first introduced me to the word “Tsunami” and I was fascinated by the power of waves. I even remember the Japanese folk tale associated with the phenomenon, which was mentioned in the issue. My family and I remembered this, years later, when the fateful Tsunami stuck our very own coast.

The greatest moment of my life was when I met Uncle Pai in person. This was sometime in Jan 2009 when Amar Chitra Katha conducted a quiz on Indian Mythology in schools across the country. The first round was conducted at individual schools and the top 15 of each participating school in that round were qualified to the regional round at Woodlands Hotel, Bangalore. Though I lost out in that regional round, I remember the hundreds of teenaged Amar Chitra Katha enthusiasts like myself looking forward to participating and winning the comic hampers. And not to mention, each semi finalist got to shake hands with Uncle Pai himself. When I requested him for an autograph, he laughed heartily, signed my prize copy (Amar Chitra Katha’s Lal bahadur Shastry) and said, “Do something for the country like this great man”.. I was on the seventh heaven for almost weeks after that.

It came as a shock today morning to read in the newspapers that our beloved Uncle Pai (17 September 1929 – 24 February 2011) is no more. It was funny, the way we were aware of Uncle Pai and never knew his real name for ages - Anant Pai. We referred to him as Uncle only, like some fond relative whose visit we always looked forward to. Albeit in the form of a 30 page comic book, once a fortnight!!

To the simple bespectacled man I met about 12 years back, who was responsible for making my childhood more memorable than it could have been otherwise, who was my role model on par with Enid Blyton, who was indirectly instrumental in turning me into an avid book lover and who is the beloved Uncle to thousands of children who grew up anywhere in the last three decades.. Rest in Peace, Uncle Pai!!

Paighaam laya saawan….

I don’t know if I’m merely reading between lines or if truly there is something called signs!!

I hate Mondays even in the best of my moods. I suffer from Monday blues all the way till 3 pm on a regular working Monday and today was worse than usual.

This monday morning began with my almost missing my office shuttle and the relief when I made it, kept me from catching my usual forty winks.

I’d fought with a close friend for no apparent reason over the weekend and we were still feeling raw about it.

As I entered my ODC, my manager motioned me to join a call that I could not make heads or tails of. This was followed by a meeting with my lead and my manager where I began with a volley of complaints and problems. Uff, my week never had begun this bad!!

The day somehow dragged on and while I was groping over a particularly tricky code implementation, I suddenly went blank. It was around 7.00 in the evening and I’d already reached my daily quota of saturation. On a usual day, I’d take a walk outside my office building when I feel saturated; the cool breeze and moon have a good effect in clearing my head. Today, I just picked my bag on an impulse and caught the 7.30 bus home.

Surprisingly, the bus was quite empty and I got a window seat. I randomly chose a song on my iPod and it turned out to be my favorite – Chaiyya chaiyya from Dil Se..

I slowly began to relax and as the bus moved out of EC and on the elevated Hosur road flyover, I realized the heat was stifling and that was part of my discomfort unconsciously. I wished for a cool breeze and as if in summons to my wishes, the strong smell of earth instantaneously filled the air and within seconds, heavenly droplets of water started falling everywhere.

As the heat dissipated, I kind of calmed down and eventually started humming along with Sukhwinder Singh’s raspy vocals. The change gradually put me in an introspective mood and I started going over the day’s events. The song changed to Shaan’s Paighaam laya saawan, yet another favorite.

Then I don’t know what happened; it was as if a voice from within spoke, that I was doing my best at work and if that was not enough, fretting would be of little help. For one and for all, I had to stop taking it all personally and, forcibly ensure family and office remain separate without interference. And the best sentence of all – today might have been bad; but thank God for that, it could have been worse!!

The rain, the songs and that voice within managed to put everything in perspective. And so simply at that, while a conscious effort would undoubtedly have been tedious.

There is always a silver lining. We just need to look more carefully. From different perspectives. And voila, the sentimental side of me took over – truly a paighaam from saawan…