Will catch up… After a short break

Now, I can’t tell you the duration of the break, could vary from a fortnight to a month, not more than that. With certain changes going on in my workplace, hectic schedules at home with my little one, other commitments I’m left with very less time for blogging. Hmm… lame excuses, you’ll say, but it’s true. Also, what happens is, when I do log on, I find so many interesting blogs that reading them seems more rewarding!

Ok, for time being, I’ll leave you with this. There are good deal of puzzles that I receive on my mail, here’s a link to one of them. It’s one among the mind reader stuff; Do check out if you enjoy them and haven’t stumbled on this one.

My pick – Enid Blyton

Just musing… Rowling & Blyton… both women writers, both wrote for children (and were read by all)…

I like any book that keeps me hooked, and Harry Potter did keep me hooked. But was it just quality writing that got her to the top, or was it the media hype? Thanks to Bloomsberry, it seems they even projected her as a male author initially, so that young boys would not get pissed off!

Yes, Potter’s popularity has made any human being oblivious to the muggle world an illiterate. (By the way, I just read Rowling was going to write some “who dunnit” stuff, would love to read that!) But give me a choice between Rowling and Blyton, my first pick would be Blyton.

Her best sellers being the famous five series and secret seven series (though I personally preferred the mystery series, also called the five find-outer series), there was something about the way she wrote, that made me drown into the book, literally live the book, every single page of it.  My mom would supply dinner at my table; seizing the opportune moment I would not nag her cooking. (Oh, she’s an excellent cook, but I loved nagging her!) I would not know if I ate less or more. And then when I finished the book, my five senses still functioning abnormally, with just the recent memory functioning at it’s best, I would recollect moments of the fantasy world Blyton had taken me into.

The fact that her books still sell over a million copies every year shows… I have a lot of company!

Famous Fathers

Father of Arithmetic                                 - Aryabhata

Father of Scientific methodology               - Aristotle

Father of Computing                                - Charles Babbage

Father of Grammar                                  - Panini

Father of Taxonomy                                 - Carolus Linnaeus

Father of Genetics                                   - Gregor Mendel

Father of Calculus                                    - Issac Newton

Father of Geometry                                  - Euclid

Father of Numbers                                   - Pythagoras

Father of Psychoanalysis                           - Sigmund Freud

Father of Surgery                                     - Sushrutha

 

Not an exhaustive source of information – this is not a text book, of course. What I want to know is, is there a mother of any field of study? I browsed wiki, and the title there did say “List of people known as father or mother of something”, but my eyes failed to hit upon anything significant!

Snail-mail… Forgotten forever?

I always told my friends, “I prefer snail-mail to e-mail”, and there were for sure at least three amongst them who felt the same. Yet, though we are in touch, it’s through e-mail, not through snail-mail. Snail-mail is almost obsolete these days, barring certain official documents that do pop up sometimes.

Hmmm… Snail mail… Rings a bell? Nope? The postmaster would ring, those days! Snail mail: The general delivery mail, s-mail, surface mail – whatever term you’d like to use.

Oh, I do love e-mails. In this hectic life, e-mails are a lot easier, simpler. Hit the send button and your mail reaches your pal in a jiffy!  If there’s a really nice picture you loved, or a piece of info that you found useful, you can easily forward it to hundreds.

Yet, there are times when I get nostalgic… One of my friends used to write “Guess who?!” on the back of the envelope, trying in vain to disguise her neat handwriting. And I would retort, “Forget it, you dim-wit, you could type it or get it written from someone else, but I’d know, anyway!”

Ah, there are e-cards with lovely animations, lovely e-invitations too. As part of my quotidian custom, I preserve them, but their worth seem kind of subdued compared to the collection of my old greeting cards.

Sigh. I have to come out is. After all, one cannot be reminiscent forever. Also, it’s not fair blaming the innovations in technology, enjoying the benefits of the same!

Note: This post being just about letters, I’m excluding the webcam and other gadgets that add to the utility of e-mail.

Blogger’s Block

That’s right! Barely started, and nothing in this entire world is inspiring me to think of a single line to write, except for this “blogger’s block”. I first thought that I had coined this term (yeah, he he), my limited vocabulary sentient of only “writer’s block”. And then google showed me 61,000 websites with the term! Someone said, “Every blogger goes through it.” Is that true?

I came across a post on “How to overcome Blogger’s block.” by Amit. And this picture he has uploaded from blaugh.com! Ha ha! Made me feel a lot better!

From my kiddy’s vocabulary

Translating my little one’s magical word to a neighbour who turned to me with a question mark on her face, I asked her what her child’s version of the same word was. Got me thinking, each child’s self-framed language is unique. I’m sure all mothers (ok, also fathers, granddads, grandmas etc) enjoy this lovely phase, where the entire family starts conversing in the kiddy’s language, even while he/she’s not around!

They do have an unpredictable shelf life, though. The child soon replaces his/her magical word with the more commonplace, actually right word. Sometimes I wish my son had not got hold of the right word so soon!

There are people who teach babies babyish words, i.e., easy short forms. The way I love it is to spell a word as it is to my little one, and then follow his version of the same. Un coding and understanding a little one’s language can be very interesting, easy at times, confusing at times, but thoroughly enjoyable throughout.

From my kiddo’s vocabulary… there are “easy level” words, like TT for TV, “Nee nee” for Neeru (Water), “Cheeyu” for “See you”, “Ned” for “Red”, “Boo” for “Blue”. (Oh, he loves to say Boo, so he goes on, boo boo boo boo)

And then there are reverse words (usually easy too, these are just fun!), like “Meenama” (It used to be Meena maama earlier) for “Vimaana” (Aeroplane), Pacchali for Chappali (Slippers), dammu for maddu (medicine). I’ve heard most of these from a lot of other kids as well; guess babies have some kind of telepathic understanding in this regard.

Now for the “difficult level” words. These can be understood easily if you have been present the first time the child coins this word, or someone who has been there informs you. Otherwise, you’ll have a tough time wracking your brains! My little one used to say “Anga” for song. When he felt sleepy, he would mutter, anga anga, which meant that I had to sing. Sometimes, the demand would be more specific, like “Tinku tinku”(Of course, “Twinkle twinkle”). One more was “Nammi” for curds or yogurt. I don’t know what made him name it so!

The other day he accidentally said “Dubbu” when I said “Muddu”. I echoed “Dubbu?!” and he burst out laughing. In seconds, he had the whole family laughing, emphatically pronouncing “dubbu” every now and then, before getting into another ripple of laughter.

One word we have not been able to decipher from his vocabulary is “Mini Dodia”. He comes up with the expression several times, but it was just impossible to relate it to anything or anyone. I don’t think we’ll know what it means. (Sigh!)

Need a break from your hectic schedule of life? Just try conversing with a tot. No matter how you feel, a word from a little one can never fail to arch your lips into a happy smile J