A polyglot dog

My grandchildren have a boxer pup. He is growing up quite well and one day may look like this handsome model. More importantly, he is being trained to understand several languages. English, Kannada. Tamil, Hindi, and a variety of loud screams with a powerful but limited vocabulary to signifiy raw emotions.

Now, children are supposed to learn languages easily. Remember we had in Math separate classes for algebra (comes from an Arabic word!), arithmetic and geometry? We had separate lessons because each presents its own interesting points and challenges. Now suppose you had combined classes with all three thrown at you randomly, would you still pick it up as well!? Thankfully nobody has tried this experiment.

But if you are a Bangalorean with a diverse set of friends and relatives and neighbours and school mates, you learn languages in a vocabulary goulash. I often observe people (except oldies like me) answer a line in say Kannada with one in English. Switch to English and you get Hindi back. Or even Tamil. Then you decide to emigrate to Dahl-land and speak in rashtrabhasha, only to be yanked back with a bit of Kannada or English.

Nowadays someone sends me emails that I can learn and master English easily by taking their lessons. They guarantee a dramatic improvement in my poise, confidence and employability. I know that for decades this is a good business in Kerala, Punjab and such. Regions where people grow up speaking their mother tongue so well they don't really need to learn English, until they hit the career wall and want to emigrate to richer lands and lifestyles. 

Poor people who don't learn their mother tongue well are indeed the most deprived. They will discover that they are like plastic flowers, with no inner sap or nourishment as they grow up.

That brings me to the boxer. What is his mother tongue? Should we bring him up to be a polyglot? 

558 Rue Paradis - Thanks MGM for a lovely afternoon!

http://youtu.be/5ZaJ5oHADIY

Another autobiographical French film, with well-done English subtitles, that moved me enormously,

A lower middle class Armenian family works hard at making clothes in Marseilles to bring up their son Azad Zakar. He grows up and turns out to be a successful playwright and gets hooked by a Parisian socialite who decides to develop him as a celebrity. Over the next fifteen years, he loses his touch with his poor and ageing parents and hardly gets to see them. Of course he still has lots of childhood memories and feelings...He sends his parents money regularly, and instead of spending it on their needs, they secretly keep all that money in a box in their small apartment on the mantlepiece, like they always used to do with their little money when he grew up.

His father comes to visit him in Paris, and sees his new play. It's a great success, and its story revolves around Azad's childhood. After the premiere the old man sits alone in the theatre for Azad, whose celebrity name is Pierre, to come and fetch him as he had promised. Azad almost forgets his father in the hullabaloo after the play but remembers just when getting into his expensive limousine with his wife Carole. He goes back to his father, and apologizes. In that silent moment inside the empty theatre, he presents his father an antique flute, and they bond like in old times when the father used to play a refrain, to put a young Azad to sleep every night. Far into the night the parents themselves would continue to work at the embroidery and making clothes, to earn a bit more to get over their difficulties.

The entire move is here for you to see. it is so touching.

Finally Azad finds his Armenian roots and acknowledges the love and care of his noble parents, but by then his father is no more. However Azad is happy that he makes his mother Mayrig feel like a queen in the mansion with the rose garden down their old street, at 558 Rue Paradis, that he has bought and outfitted for her to live in comfort with servants. He promises to surprise her with visits accompanied by his two lovely children, not Carole who is now separated, but their young and delightful Armenian lady tutor.

What is secularism, is it difficult?

Secularism as defined by dictionary.com is -

—noun

1. secular spirit or tendency, especially a system of political or social philosophy that rejects all forms of religious faith and worship.
2. the view that public education and other matters of civil policy should be conducted without the introduction of a religious element.

—Related forms
sec·u·lar·ist, noun, adjective 
sec·u·lar·is·tic, adjective 

So it is clear that secularism is connected with civil policy, government and education. Do you find anything non secular in India? Only in some school prayers and cultural programmes. The government and civil discourse rarely connects with practised religions. The pure and simple fact is that people are too busy running their lives around here in India to bring in religion into matters of education and civil policy.

But why did secularism raise its head? Because in many countries and societies, religious heads started dictating governance and civil liberties and duties. In some countries, they bother how you pray, when you pray, where you pray etc. they also have people coming to your house and telling you to change your religion or ...I have heard arguments against my current belief and living state as 

- you will go to hell if you don't convert...

- you will get X Y Z if you convert...

Etc. So some people offer carrots and sticks in the name of religion.

But actually all religion is a problem only because we allow people to go and convert, why don't we let people be as they are!?

Now consider this. If a kid hears a new language, sees people with a different dress style, or appearance, sees different kinds of food being eaten, or people praying differently from what he is familiar with, what is his first reaction? Surprise, wonderment, maybe even fear, curiosity, lots of questions. How do you, as a parent or elder, deal with this is important. If you tell him people are different all over the world and there are many forms of dress, language, culture, music, prayer and social conventions, any kid will be willing to accept it and move on happily.

The problem arises only if you, as an elder or parent, start judging or condemning. Or persuading others to convert.

Equal respect for all religions begins with you. And ends with you. The government has NOTHING to do with it.

The Empty Feeling of Being a Man

Today is being celebrated as World Women's Day. From the movie Gulaab Gang featuring a tough woman fighting the injustice of the world, to a million other things including special restaurant menus and all women discounts, the whole world is a noisy celebration put up to put down man.

All I can say is Bah. Yes. Bah. Like in Mis'Bah ul Haq the Pakistani captain who roundly lost the Asia Cup to a better side. Similarly we men feel an utter emptiness and the cruel injustice of this world when women have these celebrations.

You see, history is a total conspiracy to malign man. I think the trouble started with Eve. When it was read out from the scripture that Eve caused Adam's downfall, the story-teller felt a big whack on his head. It was the nearest woman with a blackened cooking pan. That story-teller breathed his last even without as much as a Bah. Ever since then, women hold a grouse against mankind. Note that they call it mankind. When they could very well have called it womankind. Perhaps they felt woman and kind don't go together.

Now look at the 21st century man. He is comprehensively screwed by society.

1. He is blamed for all the economic ills.

2. He is blamed for all the wars.

3. He is blamed for the traffic jams, he is pulled up for coming home late after being stuck in jams.

4. He is measured and reported to be spending only 18 minutes a day on house work. When his boss, the woman has all the time to do it! Bah. Rather she wants to spend her time rankling that man is goofing off outside. When all that he is doing is some bumbling job and then starting and getting stuck in traffic jams.

In Bombay I was introduced to a series of bars that litter the commuter route home. I believe the men get so depressed about the thanklessness of it all that they go get drunk and then go home.

It's not only Bombay. Even in Tokyo, men (and even women, bless them) go to bars and drinking sessions every day after work. To forget the hopelessness of life before they reach their beds at night. So Japanese colleagues are always together, 6 days a week.

And the women? They fuss over their children. To make them strong, efficient men. Forget the girls. Nobody cares. Everyone knows they are privileged. It's the men who have to join the race and become rats.

I also don't understand this whole business of house work. If you psychoanalyse any man, you will find out that he is ALWAYS thinking about house work. He is full of ideas and alternatives. And so much so that it is a case of analysis paralysis.

And don't let the man come into the kitchen. He will burn the food, mess up everywhere, and leave the kitchen such a ruin that the woman will have all eternity to remind him of how he messed up the kitchen.

Talking of eternity, this famous Thinking Man by Rodin is a wonderful metaphor. I think it shows the quintessential feeling of emptiness that man is feeling, as he contemplates his condition. Dennis the Menace explains to Joey who asks, "what's the man thinking about?" "He's trying to remember where he left his clothes." 

I bet there will never be a sculpture of a woman who was wondering where she left her jewellery or fancy clothes or whatever. Because she will head to the nearest fancy store and get replacements. After all it's Women's Day!

Pure Sacred Smoke

Indian cricket has reached a new low in Bangladesh. After tasting big defeats repeatedly in SA and NZ, we thought they will be more at home in Bangladesh. But they have lost to Sri Lanka and Pakistan and struggled to beat Bangladesh. Today they are spinning a web around Afghanistan but we have to wait and see the result.

One end of the pitch in the Asia Cup games is called Cycle Agarbathis end. Not your Park end or Lord Bentinck end. Why this burning bathi end of a name? Because the prime sponsor of the tournament is Cycle Brand Agarbathis.

As Agarbathis go, it is the leading brand in India proudly hailing from Mysore. Since any product's success in India is measured by the number of its spurious copies out there, Cycle Agarbathis are definitely right up there.

But the connection between Agarbathis and cricket is not very obvious, until you see their ad. There, a boy, a mother and a soldier all say that it's because God is up there protecting us, that things are going alright. And the Agarbathis are merely your way of daily reminding God to protect you and your later saying thank you to God.

I believe BCCI was willing to sign up Cycle forever in place of Sahara provided the Agarbathis helped India win the Asia Cup. But holy smoke, no such luck!

I can already see someone accusing NaMo of tempting Hindu voters with free supply of Agarbathis, a sure way to bribe God.

Did you light your bathi today? GOD, No? You will surely choke on your luck.