Why(s)??? of a 3 year Old

Why moon is half today? Did some body take a bite?

(While painting) Why mixing colors produce another color? Where did the original color go?

(Looking at a magazine) Why the kids in this photo have different colored hair? Why their skin color is different ?

Why there are three wings in the ceiling fan and not two or four?

Why pigs do oink oink and a sheep does ba-ba?

(Looking at a story book) Why clouds are colored as blue in this book though they are white in color in sky?

Why do you go to office every day?

Why do you have a sad face on? Can you make a happy face?

Why grapes are red, blue and black but strawberries always red?

Power Cut

Snap! We were settling down to have dinner and the power went out. We didn't have a power backup in our rented apartment. This was the first power cut after we had returned from US and settled in Pune. And so we vented out our thoughts on the status of electricity in India which by the way is really in a good shape in Pune compared to the other states like UP, Bihar etc. It is mostly 24/7 in the area we live with really occasional outages.

With time I have learned to appreciate the perks of these power cuts.

For when else in our multi-storeyed lives, we so freely open our apartment doors for ventilation and find the neighbor's door open as well? When there is a power cut and no backup power available in the apartment, that's an ideal time for people to get out of their shells...chat, sync up and share.

During a power cut after dark, as a family we cuddle around a source of light usually a candle or emergency torches and disengage our lives out of Wi-fi, TV etc.

If you have a toddler around, it can be fun making shadow birds, dogs etc out of your palm, and watch them explore playing with their shadows. And even if no birthday is around, blowing candle when power is back is always entertaining for a toddler.

More often the not, an extended power backup brings back memories for me of the bygone days of childhood when the families of that time ate, slept and just chatted endlessly on the rooftops during power outages after dark. The smell of flowers mixed with the night-time breeze, the cold conditioned air, spotting the constellations in the star studded sky and just dozing off...

Power cuts can be frustrating on a hot summer day and specially if they continue on and on unannounced...but they can have a brighter side too, as I have discovered.

Lost in Translation

"Yen idhayam udaithaai norungavey, en maruidhayam tharuven nee udaikave"...

So you don't know Tamil, then you won't understand what these words really mean. Try the Hindi translation...

"Dil hotey jo, merey seeney me do, doosra dil bhi mein, tumhe deta todney ko"..

These lines are from a popular song aka Hosanna...The first time I heard this song, it was in Tamil. I was captivated by the melody. Another superb track by Rahman. I was equally disappointed though as I had remotely no idea what the words meant. The movie was remade in Hindi. But I'm sure something got lost in the translation. And that's what I keep hearing when I hear about a nice movie from one language translated to another. Why is translation not perfect?

The other day at work (Pune), there were 2 guys from computer maintenance in my cubicle helping out with a network connection set-up. Our team had just moved to a new floor and there were quite a few logistics that needed to be sorted out. They conversed in Marathi for few minutes and I was standing there with a loss of understanding. Finally they made a move and a frustrated 'me' requested bluntly, 'Translate please'. One of them replied, 'No worries, this can be fixed'. This was not a translation, but I know from where they were coming from. He provided me the answer I wanted to hear but I would have still preferred to go back in time and know the details!

Having spent the last few years in US, I have been in company of friends from different states of India who spoke distinct languages - Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Kannada, Gujarati etc. In any social gathering we would rely on English as the medium of general communication. But folks would often naturally switch to their mother tongue making it impossible for the ignorant ones to understand. Even when the speaker realized the lost look of others who didn't understand and quickly translated it, the words often lost their original effect, the original gag, the magic of the moment...

Why do we still have so many regional languages in India? Why do we have so many across the globe? It's rhetorical. I do understand the historical, cultural and social significance. I understand the beauty of diversity and magnificence of ancestry. It is unreasonable on my part to question. But it is such a helpless condition. I think overcoming the language barrier is one of the most critical issues of our time. Aren't we all in our own ways trying to find solutions to meet our needs in order to live, work, travel or operate abroad? Thankfully English is understood and spoken widely but there are so many exceptions.

That is why a recent email at work from HR caught my attention. It was titled - 'Do you want to learn French?'. It made me think that probably some day I might go to France and knowing French will help me. But I wish the mail read 'Do you want to learn Marathi?'. Now that would be so helpful in the day to day interactions of the city I'm living in. Sure I can opt for some after office classes but having this provision in office campus would make it so much easier.

Coming back to translation, I know it will never be perfect, because it just cannot be. Words have the heart and soul of a person. It has one's understanding, which is bound to differ when translated. But how I wish there were just a few languages to know. There won't be anything to get lost in translation then!

Diwali ki Safai

 It is not the right time of the year to talk about Diwali. But a recent conversation with a friend brought back some memories.

 It was the month of October last year and Diwali was around the corner. I associate Diwali with lots of light, colorful rangolis, some firecrackers and tons of sweets. But being in India after so many years, I was soon to realize another important aspect. How conveniently I had sidelined it during all these years of my stay in US? It's ceremoniously called 'Diwali ki Safai'.

 My Bai first mentioned it. One day she said she'll be late to work as another 'Didi'(the female member in charge of a household she works for) has asked her for 'Diwali ki Safai'. I sneered of how people find ways to keep themselves busy. I looked around my rented apartment. Things looked alright and I thought it didn't need more than 1-2 hrs of cleaning if at all. My thoughts then drifted to memories of childhood.

 I recalled how my mother felt really strongly about this Safai. While we as kids could just think of how many firecrackers we could negotiate for ourselves for Diwali, my mother's agenda included 'Safai' i.e. to clean every nook and corner of the house. "This real cleaning of houses happens only once a year during Diwali", she argued. Weekends near Diwali involved climbing to attic to organize and clean, or wash all silver, copper and brass vessels or dusting at those witty corners of house which were ignored all year along. These were some of the tasks that we as kids could never appreciate.

 Now as I absorbed these memories and looked around my apartment again, I noticed things which I had not done before. The spots in the balcony glass pane, the mesh of wire under the TV table, the old newspapers lined in the kitchen shelves....sigh! Few days passed and by the time I could make up my mind, it looked like I was running out of time. A week from Diwali my cook casually inquired, "Bhabhi Diwali ki Safai nahi karva rahi hain?". I could see him glancing at the greased spots around the exhaust fan in kitchen. That grease blended nicely with the grey metallic color of the exhaust fan all this time, but seemed to stand out for some reason at that moment. I told my cook that it's planned for the weekend. It was actually not.

 I did not have my Bai's approval. Due to her busy schedule it couldn't happen that weekend. I could really feel the pressure now. People were talking about it in office buses, on lunch tables and in social gatherings. Diwali was just one weekend away. I finally got a slot from Bai. I remember that weekend where like a crazy person I had started a tsunami in my kitchen from 6 am in the morning. It is very easy to get tired in all the anticipation when you start cleaning from one end and the other end is not visibile anywhere. Every person in the house was cleaning something or the other that day. Finally after 6-7 hrs of 5 adults cleaning the house, we stopped. We could have continued on as I have learned over time that household tasks are open ended. But we stopped. The entire floor was water sprayed as the last step. As we settled down in sofas and looked around, I had the 'after the storm' kind of feeling. I don't know if it was the coolness of water or the relief that it's over, but everything appeared really calm and clean. I had done my share of Diwali ki Safai!