Indians just don’t like to wait patiently in a queue. Why? It took me years to figure out why, but now I am convinced that the reason has nothing to do with mutated genes or skewed education or indiscipline or lack of consideration for others. It is a cultural thing.
Cultural???
Come, let me take you back some 5000 years (give or take a few 1000 years, depending on who you believe). We are entering a very critical phase of an ongoing story. This is the bedroom of a person who has already been recognized as God. Krishna is sleeping. Duryodhana enters his bedroom. Looks around. There is only one seating place, near Krishna’s head. He sits there and patiently waits for Krishna to wake up. Shortly after Arjuna enters the chamber. He hesitates for a moment, Duryoshana, the person he hates, is in the bedroom before him. But he contains his anger and stands at the foot of the bed.
Shortly after Krishna wakes up. Who do you think he attends to first? Not the person who came first. But the person who Krishna sees first. So it is all about grabbing eye balls. Doesn’t matter who came in first. What matters is who the clerk / officer / babu / chaprasi decides to attend first.
There, you see why Indians do not like standing in the queue. As I said it is a cultural thingy.
People die.
The man with silk smooth voice, Jagjit Singh, is no more.
All we can do is listen to his gazals over and over again.
There will be no new ones any more.
Sad.
I wonder how Chitra Singh will take this.
First son.
Then daughter.
Now husband.
But she is a brave woman.
And this too shall pass.
A very effective way of committing oneself to a project is to open up. This works in a very paradoxical way. On one hand you would like to keep things to yourself, especially if you are a private person. And therefore, opening up to public scrutiny makes you feel vulnerable. On the other hand, however, once you are open to public scrutiny, and because you are in open to public scrutiny, you may feel motivated to do what you always wanted to but did not have the discipline to.
Take an example. Assume you always wanted to write a novel. You have the rough sketch in your mind but because are oh-so-busy the wonderful story inside you in not taking shape. What do you do? You tell others that by the year end you will publish a novel. There! Now you are vulnerable to ridicule. Now you need to prove that the tittering were all misplaced. Now you need to do something by the year end. Got the idea?
It is with this intention I have thrown myself open to public ridicule. And not just to those who are within reach, but the whole world. Visit Learning French and judge for yourself if I have taken a step in the right direction or not.
It did not strike me till the guide at Hampi told me so.
Karnataka has three types of rocks: a) Soap Stone, b) Granite, and c) Sand Stone.
Hampi (a UNESCO World Heritage) ruins are made of Granite.
The temples of Pattadakal (a UNESCO World Heritage) and the Badami Cave temples are of Sand Stone.
The temples at Belur and Halebid are made of Soap Stones.
Follow the stones and you would have covered a considerable part of Karnataka's tourism offerings.
I have just about started reading this book and I already have three of the most common emotions sweep already over me:
1) Envy: When I read this: "Sheena Iyengar is a professor at the Columbia Business School, with a joint appointment in the Department of Psychology". A women writing a best seller and is doing better than me! (I guess a bit of caveman is still alive in me)
2) Shock: When I read this: "... I was taken to a vision specialist at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. He quickly resolved the mystery: I had a rare form of retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited disease of retinal degeneration, which had left me with 20/400 vision. By the time I reached high school, I was fully blind, able to perceive only light."
Which quickly changed into 3) admiration.
I am now looking forward to reading The Art of Choosing
Lesson for me ... do not wish a life that is not yours.
The year is 2002. This is my first trip to a non-English speaking country. I am going to France.
I land at the Toulouse airport via Milan. Upon landing I search for immigration. To my surprise, I cannot find it. Funny! How do I enter the country?
I approach a person who seemed to be wearing a police uniform. I ask him about immigration. He rattles off something in French pointing to doors marked "Sortie".
Hmmm... Sortie. When I was small I was an avid Commando comics fan. RAF used to fly sorties. Why is this person pointing to sortie? And why doesn't he speak English? This is an airport and if he is a policeman, shouldn't he be there to help?
I stare at him for some time trying to catch some words that I read in a French phrase book that I had purchased some days ago. Nothing!
I move away. Traces of panic appear. If I am delayed here, my baggage will be taken off carousal and who knows how to find them. In desperation I look around. There is a young man standing near a desk. All others are moving around. Perhaps, he can help. I go to him. As I walk towards him, I am trying to remember what I learnt in the phrase book.
"Parlez vous anglais?: I stammer out.
"Yeah, a little".
Relief.
I ask him about the immigration.
He looks at me strangely and says, "collect yous baggage and walk out." and points towards "sortie".
"But if I enter France without an immigration stamp, I will have trouble going back."
"Hmm... How did you come here?" he asks.
"From Bangalore to Bombay via Milan."
"Did they stamp your passport at Milan?"
"Yes they did."
"Then you have nothing to worry. Since we are all part of European Union, you can enter anywhere into Europe."
"Oh I see!"
I thank that person immensely, find out where my luggage could be (it was more than half an hour since I have landed) and exit.
Phew!
I have since visited many other non-English speaking countries - Germany, Belgium, Switzerland - but that first trip is frozen in my mind.
Lessons learnt:
a) No matter how much information you have about a place or about related events, nothing will prepare you when you reach that place (I knew about the formation of EU.)
b) There is no substitute for local language. Your customers may speak English well, the person on the street will not.
All memories came flooding back when I created this web page on Free Online French Learning Resources. If you are planning to visit France in future, or wish to learn a language that will exercise your brain cells, this is the place to start.
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