In God's Own Country: Becoming Illiterate

One of the most interesting part of the recent (or not so recent?) Kerala trip was the language barrier. Trust me, it is worse than just being illiterate. Being unable to read the script is one thing. But out there in the South, I was effectively deaf and dumb too. It was evident from day one when we landed at Kochi station (where I also learnt an interesting fact: Kochi, Cochin and Ernakulam are the same). I called our bus driver who had been waiting outside the station since morining. After an abortive attempt at getting him to understand Hindi, I switched to English which he seemed to understand better. At the end of the conversation I succeeded in routing him to the wrong platform altogether. Blame Dijkstra :P.

Having a person in the group who knew Malayalam was no less than a benediction there. Thank you Abhilash for being the ominipresent (if not physically then wirelessly present) translator. Rescue calls (..._ _ _ ... if you will) of "Abhilash ko bulaao, Abhilash ko bulaao!" could be heard every now and then. Poor fellow had to remain on the tip of his toes during all the bus journeys through those narrow, winding, single lane roads, nestled in extensive tea plantations; relaying messages to and from the driver's cabin.

My innocent yet sincere attempts at learning a few phrases of Tamil were frowned upon by Mr. Sheldon. I did manage to remember one phrase for a long time though - "Tamil pesuvelaa?" - which, I was told, roughly means "Will you speak Tamil?" After that, I was given the standard bloodcurdling stare every time I said "Tamil pesuvelaa" to any local. Sheldon was involved in a very interesting conversation with our rickshaw driver when we were heading to Trivandrum station on the last day of the trip. It was raining cats and dogs, reminding me of the heavy rains which lash Mumbai in July and wreak havoc on train tracks. I requested Sheldon to ask the rickshaw-wallah if tracks get flooded in Trivandrum too. Initially a little shy, as expected, he finally relented to my beseeching, only after a bit of threatening - "If you don't ask the rickshaw-wallah now, I'm going to say "tamil pesuvelaa" to him!" Here's a short transcript of the conversation they had:

Sheldon (S): Tamil pesuvelaa?
Rickshaw-wallah (RW): Aama.
S: Illa bela pela lilia?
RW: Seela leela.
S: Kaali Idli Dosa Chutney illa?
Me (in soliloquy; afraid of interrupting): I told him to ask about the train, why in the world are they talking about food?!
RW: Kalai ya ya. Malayi na na.
S (nodding respectfully with a trace of a smile): Nandri, nandri.

Turned out the train was running on time. And what Sheldon was asking about was why none of restaurants served idlis and dosas for lunch or dinner!

During the return journey I ventured to decode Malayalam script with the enthusiasm and shrewdness of a hacker or perhaps a codebreaker. I tried relating the "Wingdings" Dravidian symbols to the corresponding Devnagari names written on the boards which displayed names of the stations on the way. I did succeed in constructing a brief roster of Hindi consonanats and vowels, each preceded by the corresponding Malayalam ones. But the number of symbols became so overwhelming that my zeal instantly dampened.

Next day, when the train entered Goa and Maharashtra, I could finally appreciate that feeling of "coming-back-home" after reading some boards written in familiar "अ आ इ ई" and "ABCD." And then there was this realization which probably all of us had towards the end - There is still a lot to learn, so many things to know, so many places still to see, still a long way to go!

The 'Lasts-Counter'

My latest OCD. I've been bitten by this weird bug. The "last-counter" bug. I see myself counting all the things I'm doing for the last time or probably one of the last times in VJTI, doesn't matter how trivial they may be...

"Here's one of the last time I'm listening to 'Carnival of Rust' at full blast in my room."

"Must be one of my last idlis at Idli House."

"Now then, how many more times will I be coming here and opening the mu-P lab?"

"Surely one of my last print-outs from Nirmal's printer."

"This was perhaps my last presentation in VJTI."

"Never again will I be sitting here on the first bench in ELR-7."

"My last 'inner-outer-contents-file' demand in VJTI Stores."

"The last staple-pin on my last assignment sheets."

"Is it the last time I'm looking into this mirror while brushing my teeth?"

"The last drop shot (going into the net, as always)."

"One of my last 12 am Rubik-cube practice solves in this bunk-bed."

"One of my last cups of tea at Citra."

"My last 1/2 kg packet of Surf-Excel."

"The last ManUtd match I'm seeing in the TV-room."

...the list is endless!

So, recently when sipping (one of my last) filter coffees at Cafe Mysore, my roomie who happens to get really irritated with my last-counts (which also happens to be one of the my prime motivations to come up with more of those ;) ) tried proving to me how naive it was to maintain this counter. "It's total rubbish if you say that you are doing something for the last time," he argued, trying to sound very logical and feigning a very mature demeanor. "Isn't it always possible to come back and do the same thing again, whenever you wish? Maintaining this last-counter is just a waste of time." But I had a diametrically opposite view. I'll never again be able to say "I'm drinking coffee at Cafe Mysore at 6:04 pm on April 25, 2009." In effect, considering how ephemeral everything is, anything I do is the last time I'm doing it.

Then the moment of realization - whichever point of view you take, it still doesn't really make sense in counting the lasts.

yathA kAshhThaM cha kAshhThaM cha sameyAtAM mahodadhau |
sametya cha vyapeyAtAM tadvat.h bhUtasamAgamaH ||

P.S. Probably one of my last blog posts from this computer in mu-P lab!

'Mess'y!

There was a time when I used to wonder why they call a 'mess' a mess (where the first instance of the word mess refers to a place to dine). Now after over three and a half years of mess experience, I can completely sympathize with the person who came up with that name! Here's a mess 'glossary' for the newbie.

Saadaa - Refers to the kind of breakfast eaten by people who have chosen to tread the path of abstinence from the pleasures of the palate.

Andaa - One of the most extensively used raw material for breakfasts in the mess; second only to potatoes. Comes in a multitude of forms. You can order omlettes, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs or bhurji. You also have a choice of adding red chilli, green chilli, turmeric powder, chopped onion, chopped tomatoes or coriander. Plus, there is an option for specifying the exact quantity of each of these ingredients except coriander which, as a rule, is used only in microscopic quantities. Finding the total number of possible recipes should serve as a good problem in combinatorics.

Double/Extra - For those with unusually large appetites (or those who skipped the previous meal) feel free to use the prefix 'double' or 'extra' to invoke the eat-more-pay-more rule of the mess. Fair enough.

Bhau - The generic 'foobar' type name for any mess-worker which you can safely use in case you don't know his real name.

Mutter paneer - The correct way to spell this dish is mutter paneer. It is pronounced in a similar manner with the word mutter spoken out loud and clear and the word paneer is whispered under the breath so as to be barely audible. The same rule applies to paalak paneer.

Potatoes - The most extensively used raw material for any mess recipe. According to one study, an average mess member eats at least four truckloads of potatoes during his four years of mess-membership.

Guest - An (unfortunate) outsider who accompanies a mess member for a meal.

Full-cut - Used to indicate your (fortunate) absence from the mess for a specified number of days in case you are going home. This can also be used as an escape strategy to get respite from mess food and eat outside for a few days. (Most mess member realize the futility of this strategy sooner or later, because eating out turns out even more boring, more expensive and time-consuming!)

Mess Bill - It is some sort of a fine which every mess member pays per month for not enjoying the mess food in the previous month.

Mess Balance - It is (almost) like the *121# service of the mess. Tells you how much money is remaining in your mess account after deduction of the monthly bill.

Mess Installment - The money you have to pay to "recharge" your mess account. It is indicated on a special notice every 2 months and almost invariably becomes topic for heated discussion: People having to pay lower mess installments carry a fiendish smirk for the next three days. People having to pay higher mess installments try to prove how they are being usurped inspite of eating so less.

...and finally, the most eagerly awaited...

Feast - Applicability of this term to a mess is highly debatable. It refers to a 'special' lunch served on Sunday afternoons. Includes (comparatively) large servings of a sweet dish like rabdi, gulaab jaamun or srikhand.

My "apt-get install" Experience

There was hardly any confusion in my mind regarding what I should write in my first ever blog post. It will come without surprise ,to most people I know, that this post is about how things changed after I "apt-get install"ed; or in other words, I switched to Linux from the "other operating-system!"

Back in school I had heard of this OS as one in which the mouse pointer on screen points downwards. :D Only a year ago I actually got a chance to "get my hands dirty" with Linux. It was the all new Ubuntu Hardy release. The moment I looked at the clean and clear Gnome UI, I realized what love at first sight is! It was time to bid adieu to Windoze. (Actually the first Linux UI I had seen was KDE, the K-series in Linux Kubuntu; I didn't like it much.)

Installing Ubuntu was a breeze. I was pleasantly surprised by the spectrum of softwares already available after installing the OS. For word-processing, spreadsheets and presentations, there was OpenOffice - I was comfortable using it from day one. For web-browsing there was the latest version of Mozilla, which I was using on Windoze too. I was surprised it even came with a P2P client (Transmission), a multi-account IM agent (Pidgin) and an easy to use powerful image editor, Gimp, which I like to call "Photoshop for the artistically impaired." It had all those typical Windoze games like Solitaire plus some new and interesting ones like Othello. Getting connected to the internet was one thing I was worried about - "Will my present ADSL router work? Will I need some different drivers?" Ubuntu answered - "Just open Firefox and start browsing you fool!" That's plug-and-play for you.

Soon I yearned for more functionality and more sofwares, like my favorite VLC player to play Prison Break episodes, a good music player (maybe like Winamp), and a circuit simulator to do some of my lab experiments. Was I being too exacting of this new OS? Then I opened the all-powerful "Pandora's Box" of Linux - the terminal. And I typed in this short line on the command prompt:

atul@atul-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install vlc rhythmbox geda

Following this, the terminal spewed some abstruse messages in quick succesion. After a few minutes, the terminal sat quietly waiting for the next command. My wish had been fulfilled, albeit without any pomp and show! (For an instant I was like - "Hey wait a minute, when did I click all those Next buttons? and what about the Finish button?)

There is one reason why I still respect Microsoft - for they made Age of Empires. In its 50 odd years, they managed to make atleast one good thing, let's give them credit for it. Question - How am I supposed to run AoE in Linux? I searched for some open source strategy games but none of them really clicked. (I am still trying to figure out how to play FreeCiv.) That was when I found WINE. It should stand for WINdoze Emulator, but thanks to the FOSS people's obsession with recursive acronyms, WINE actually stands for WINE Is Not an Emulator. Why not try a shot of wine, I wondered. Back on the reverent terminal, I typed:

atul@atul-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install wine

Yet again, without any sort of magnificent display, wine was installed and ready to use. And guess what, I can not only run AoE but also my Windoze version of Matlab 7 right here, from inside Ubuntu! Splendid!

I can just go on and on about all the new things I've been learning about Linux. It's like being a five year old again, and learning to use the computer with that curiosity, and then enjoying the satisfaction of learning something new everyday. And at the end of each day I realize what I've learnt is just a drop in the ocean. So, the next day I'm ready to dive in with even more enthusiasm! Hats off to Linus Torvalds, hats off to the people at Ubuntu.