Much Ado About Anything

We live in a crazed world derived from the largeness of our self created egos. We can't tolerate a single harmless remark without making it into a national drama. We bark orders at waiters who may slip just a fraction of a minute when serving us sauteed duck, we drum our fingers endlessly while waiting to be billed at grocery stores cash counter. We flip out privilege customer cards just to get that alteration done 'right now' and glare mercilessly at the parking attendant who's allotted the last available space on the ground floor to the car ahead of us. We are ready to chew off the manager's frizzy head if heavens! she dare bring in a threading customer to fill in the five minutes of space while we were late.



We check our FB feeds once every ten minutes, feeling oh-so-connected with oily schoolmate Pinky who's become Ms. Chandigarh now and distant Shobha Maasi from the States.


We feel empowered.


We feel impatient.


And, in the land of snake charmers, we suffer from a displaced sense of importance.


Where will this end?

Losing my Religion

Having been brought up in a house where Cliff Richard dominated conversation strains, and later schooled in one of the best convents of the country, English has been my preferred language of expression.


However, in the last two decades of my life, I have noticed that most people think in Hindi and then translate into English such as 'it is only kept there' (woh wahiin rakha hai). Sample this: did you knew where he's went?(aapko pata hai woh kahan gaya hai?) 
Of course, using the wrong tense anyways tenses people up: Check this: Did you got those movie tickets?(Did you get those movie tickets)


Some people have a bad habit of misusing English words- take a look at this one- we can substantiate it with a lower priced scheme (speaker wanted to say subsidise it) or we can give a memorial to her (instead of memento) - Heavens knows what the poor lady would have exclaimed to have her own memorial! Or even this: I am not getting good vibrations from her (really?! Vibrations...a-ha)- speaker wanted to say vibes. Or this: Instead of the scheme, they are not performing well (speaker wanted to say inspite)...


Another oft heard refrain is the super use of superlatives- have you seen 3 idiots? Sabse best movie hai!!


There are yet others who speak fluently but want to take the thin bylane while writing. Most people who have worked with ad agency copywriters would agree with me. As a client, I am often subject to torturous spelling and grammatical errors, making me feel no less a school mistress.


Yet others believe in expressing themselves by liberally peppering their sentences with aa aa aa...ummm especially phone conversations.


While I pride myself on my chaste English, there are some who survive on Hinglish- pakao-fying me, latkaoing me...


Sigh! Yet another set believes in starting all their sentences with 'Means?' or 'Means!' or even 'Means;' seldom signifying the correct usage thus: 'Means:'



There are, of course, a million other little grains of wisdom which one encounters in daily life.
But the true horror and widespread impact of the monster of this incorrect usage was felt on the day I remarked to my sister: let us get a trap to get rid of the mices in this house....!