Words, comforting in their familiarity
As I sit in my chair before the computer, sipping a cup of hot tea, many thoughts and ideas attack me from all sides. Half of them concern my virtually non-existent talents in Spanish, and the other half concern the comfort a familiar voice can offer. The language barrier is something that has always concerned and baffled me. I never had to face it when I arrived in Paris, seeing as I spoke French perfectly well. But, it hit me on the face when my Senegalese neighbour started speaking in rapid-fire Senegalese. This was quickly followed by an overheard conversation between two of my Chinese neighbours. And suddenly, I felt surrounded. I almost wished that I could speak in Tamil or Hindi with someone who would understand. I understand that feeling claustrophobic about incomprehensible languages is slightly crazy, but it made me realise the importance of the spoken word. I almost took my language skills for granted. I automatically assumed that I could manage because I spoke 5 languages and understood two others rather well. Apparently, that is not enough. Probably because 3 of the 5 languages are Indian languages. Words that I can understand are almost comforting in their familiarity. A simple ‘thank you’ can communicate so much to one who understands the meaning.
But then, I am in a rather crazy, philosophical mood, pondering the meaning of love and life, of words and meanings, of music and melody. They are all indications that there is still sense in living this life we so desperately seek to control. But, I suppose the very same words, that held so much meaning, can become meaningless and irrelevant if overused. I learnt this the hard way. But this said, I will always love words. After all, there is a reason for doing a masters in literature…
The joys of cooking
Earlier this evening, I was looking for a recipe and I stumbled on this very interesting article. The author speaks of the pleasures of cookng the old-fashioned way and vents against the western-centric, restaurant-style, efficient cooking. What can I say? I couldn’t agree more. I have been cooking since age 12 and I find that the more time and effort you put into the cooking, the better it turns out. I enjoy the task because it is both interesting and relaxing. What could be better than taking an hour off to patiently chop vegetables into exactly equal pieces, making rice with exactly the right texture, grinding freshly roasted spices and cooking the way you have always seen your mother and grandmother cook? I might sound crazy when I say this, but I really and truly enjoy the task. Half the satisfaction comes from cooking right. Eating is just an extension of the pleasure.Try as I might to recreate the dishes I cook at home with industrial vegetables from the local supermarket in Paris, or tinned vegetables that I buy for the sake of convenience, I fail every single time. My spinach sambar that turns out so delicious back home in India is an absolute disaster by my standards here. Is it the variety of spinach, the heat of the electric hot-plates, the quality of spices or my cooking style? I don’t know. I can honestly say that packets of instant rasam are no match to the rasam mum makes in a vessel made of tin over a burning coal stove. My grandmother’s sambar always turned out best on a similar coal stove in a stone vessel. I recognise that cooking that way is both time-consuming and energy-inefficient. But the taste makes up for the inconvenience.
The article discusses the pleasures of eating with the fingers. I still do when I eat at home. I enjoy feeling the food on my fingers. I would abandon the fork and the spoon any day for a hearty meal on a banana leaf. But well, that’s just me. Maybe I am an obsessed food-lover. But, reading that article has made me hungry. And it’s 1 AM. Not a good thing! So, I am going to try to sleep, all the while planning out the menu for tomorrow. I only wish there was someone other than me to eat what I cook. It is kind of boring to eat alone.
The Sound of Music and the Power of Language
I was listening to A R Rahman’s song “New York Nagaram Urangum Neram” from Sillunu Oru Kaadal this afternoon. Seeing as I was slightly free and wanted to relax, this seemed a good choice. Now, this is not the first time I am hearing this song, nor is it the first time I actually paid attention to the lyrics. But, today was different. Feeling slightly depressed as I was, thanks to the rain in Paris, the lyrics got an entirely new feel. I had never before noticed the astounding complexity of sounds in the song. Rahman is known for using many layers of sound to create his truly unique music, but this one takes the cake. The song, about a young husband spending time away from his wife in faraway New York, touched a chord. The sheer pain of separation and the desire to get back as soon as possible came through every word of the song. How did I miss this one? Given that it is the ringtone of my phone, I get to hear it quite often. But it never touched my heart the way it did today.
That set me thinking. How many songs have I heard that makes me want to cry, laugh, feel nostalgic or express some emotion in some way? Well, the answer is clear. Not too many. The ones that do are few and far between. One song that never fails to elicit some kind of reaction from me is the song Mettuppodu from the movie Duet. It really is beautiful. I reacted with confusion when I first heard it. I was quite young, still a teen. I had no idea language could mean so much to someone. And I frankly could not understand why someone would want to sing about the Tamil language of all things. Today, I have come a long way. And I do agree that the language has a beauty that none other can really match. I am not an expert in Tamil. Indeed, my first attempt at reading anything more than road signs in the language came when I was 17. But, as I discovered the world of Tamil literature, I realised that it is a language that was more beautiful than Milton’s English or Racine’s French. However, my primary languages remain English and French. I would not want to torture my poor readers by writing anything in Tamil. Today, I hear the same song, and I feel a sense of nostalgia. I wish I could abandon clumsy attempts at explaining Indian cuisine in French and English and just revert to Tamil. With the nostalgia comes a sense of shame. Shame that I know English, French or even Tamil better than my own mother tongue, Kannada. Hell, I can even speak, read and write Hindi. But I cannot distinguish between Kannada and Telugu. Some Kannadiga I am!
Anyway, with that observation, I go back to listening to music. And yes, much as many find it difficult to believe, I prefer Indian music any day to anything western. Maybe it is just me, but I need to feel the words, understand them with my heart and not my brain, and above all, relate to it. Indian music lets me do that. Pop, rock or jazz do not. It is as simple as that. I prefer the beautiful and melodious voice of Nithyashree Mahadevan supported by only a tambura, or the Instrumental theme music of the film Bombay to Britney Spears singing in an accent that is as alien to me as Swedish is to the average Indian. Music, poetry, literature and language can all heal the soul and make one happy.
On a totally unrelated note, I just wish people would stop associating Tamil with the LTTE. I speak Tamil, live in Tamil Nadu, and love the sound of the language. It doesn’t make me a terrorist!! Argh! I just wish they would stop.
End of the Socialist dream?
The results are in. Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s right-wing, hardliner presidential candidate is on his way to the Elysée Palace to take charge as the country’s new president. The results, declared a short while ago, confirmed what psephologists have been saying since the beginning of the electoral campaign. Sarkozy won the elections with 53% of votes in the second round, compared to Ségolène Royal’s 47. What do these results signify? Where does the Parti Socialiste go from here? Royal was the first woman to come this close to be elected president of the republic in the history of France. But, what happens next? Will she rise to the occasion and succeed in revamping the party to make it more appealing to the voting masses? Or will she disappear beneath the rubble of wannabe presidents who never actually managed to do anything in life?
Analysts suggested that Sarkozy’s pro-American, capitalist stance contributed to the success of leftist candidates in the first round. From my personal experience with the French, I know that this is a country that obsesses with job security unlike any other western democracy I know. I followed the election campaign with interest, and I must say both Sarkozy and Royal were extremely convincing in their arguments. If I had not been a convinced liberal, believing in the law of the markets, I would probably have voted for Royal. However, one of the proposals in her election manifesto caught my interest. She promised to raise the minimum salary, or the SMIC as it is called here, to 1500 euros a month. That would mean a proportionate increase in all salaries, because one can obviously not raise the SMIC and leave the pay of someone who was earning a lot more than the old rate unchanged. And it left me wondering how she proposed to raise the money needed for the endeavour. But I suppose one can dream.
Next comes Sarkozy. With his promise to tighten immigration rules, fight economic stagnation and ensure better pay for longer hours, he caught the imagination of many people in the country. The promise to tighten immigration rules and make regularisation of illegal migrants more difficult certainly strikes fear in the heart of many an immigrant, illegal or not. Unpleasant reminders of Jean-Marie Le Pen and his campaign of La France pour les français, and its similarity to the Sarkozy agenda is scary to most people. However, I cannot but support his endeavour to abolish the ridiculous 35-hour work week law established by Martine Aubry in 1998. To me, it is inconceivable that the Indian government promulgate a law establishing a cap on working hours. In such matters, the law of the markets should apply. At the very least, the law should be flexible. If I want to work more to earn more money, I should be able to without my employer cribbing about having to pay more for every hour beyond the 35th hour.
Anyway, these are just the rants of an obsessed libertarian who firmly believes that the government must govern because that’s its job, while letting the markets peacefully generate wealth. Many of the French would disagree. But hey, we live in a democracy. And dissent is healthy!
Confessions of an obsessed anglophile
These are, as the title suggests, the confessions of an obsessed freak. I am totally and completely fed up of people using the words then and than interchangeably. I am also fed up of people forgetting that good is an adjective, and well is an adverb. One cannot do good in studies. He/she can only do well. Is it really that difficult to remember some basic rules of English grammar? I am a stickler for good grammar. So, shoot me! The French would not take kindly to someone speaking their language badly. They will and do correct glaring mistakes in language. While I acknowledge that writing in e-mail lingo is both quicker and easier, there must be some ground rules on writing in serious columns and blogs. I agree that your blog is your own personal way of saying what you feel like. But, that doesn’t mean you render yourself totally incomprehensible to the unsuspecting reader who stumbles on your home page.
I was looking for some maps on the Indian Ocean region a few days ago and I stumbled on a blog that supplied great maps, but was written in atrociously ungrammatical English. I was curious enough to look up the name and location of the owner of the site on www.dnsstuff.com. And voila! I find that the site is owned by someone in California, United States. My reasoning that it must be a work of a person who was not a native speaker went flying out of the window. This business makes me think that George Bernard Shaw was right when he lamented the state of the English language in the play Pygmalion. Why can’t people just take the effort to learn the language they use every day?