Cramps.....Excitement... Fun... Anxiety... Joy... and Cramps!!

Well, the title of the post paraphrases my physical and mental state over the last weekend. I had been to Bangalore to participate in a quiz contest. Driving down from Chennai was an experience in itself. Petrol and Toll consumed our wallets! Not Teja's, he did not have any money to begin with! We hit Bangalore late into Thursday night. The cramps caused by the travel in the back seat of a tiny "zeny" car did not help matters the next morning, when I had to stand in the queue at the registration desk at IIMB for a full one hour!

The prelims came, and then the nail biting wait for the results and then the news of qualification. Amidst all this, I had an awesome time with friends. Life seemed so beautiful, all of a sudden!

The quiz finals were great - made all the more special by Chaitra's and Supreet's presence in the audience! It was so long since they saw me quizzing!! Thanks yet again, to Supreet and Chaitra for sponsoring those coffees and dinner and the movie and for the MacDee.

To top it all, on Sunday there was some major relocation activity to be undertaken by Supreet. Shifting his luggage took the cake for being the most demanding activity of the weekend. Well, now you know why the cramps revisited me!

Some self realizations/belief reinforcements post Bangalore trip:

1. I still tend to make wrong decisions when it rains!!
2. Some people dont realise that in absence of sound logic, intuition seems a good alternative (related to quizzing!)

Rewind

I was invigorated to write some more on the topic that I posted 5 months ago. The latest in the series of insightful comments - some approving, some not so much of my opinion- was written by Skanda. He raised the issue of Kannada having lost its rightful place because the Kannadigas do not "come-out" with their linguistic identity as much as Tamils do.

Frankly speaking, the issue gets complicated because of the underlying demographics prevalent in the state or the city. I am sure 10 years ago, when none of this IT boom was heard of, Bangalore was as awash with Kannada speaking people as Tamils are in Chennai even today. If you visit North India, vast areas have Hindi as the local language. So, anybody who does not know the language feels left out and unable to communicate. The fact that Hindi is the national language needs no reinforcing here, because even if it were not, the local language would still be prevalent (which of course is Hindi).

As far as Bangalore is concerned, the mix of the people in the city landscape has gone more skewed towards non-Kannada speaking people over a period of the last decade. Consequently, Hindi has become a de facto language for many. I have personally experienced this many times in Bangalore where the rickshaw drivers speak in Hindi which is actually unheard of in Chennai. It has to be admitted that Chennai still lacks the cosmopolitan colors that is present in Bangalore. Once the city of Chennai gets more people from across the country for economic reasons, then the shifting linguistic profile of the population will force a change in the way locals see a foreign (read non - Tamil and Indian) language. I have noticed this in cities such as Madurai where a large tourist population floats in annually. So, for the locals - the businessmen, auto-drivers, shop keepers etc. - Hindi is definitely workable! Even Pondicherry exhibits similar properties.

I feel that when push comes to a shove, everyone, irrespective of their linguistic preferences, will settle for the language spoken by the majority in any given instance. Bangalore, presents a paradox in this respect. You move towards places like Rajaji Nagar and Malleswaram and you find the Kannada influence stronger than in areas like Koramangala.

All said and done, patience and tolerance for something that is foreign or unknown to you is important. This holds for both the native speakers and the "otherwise" population. Assimilation becomes a lot easier. Mumbai is a shining example!

Back Again...yet again!

Its time to blog again after a brief hiatus perpetuated by sloth and behavioral malignancy caused by being stuck in an inertial frame with respect to penning down my thoughts for public consumption.

To begin with, I have hit the second year of my Masters programme in Business Administration. Being half an MBA gives you jitters!!

Economics seems to be the new buzzword around! Well, the credit must go to Freakonomics for getting people to ask questions about things we thought were obvious, but were not. A couple of days ago, I finished reading The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford. (Very many thanks to Chaitra for gifting me that book). Its not as suited for a layman as Freakonomics, but is definitely insightful. During the period of my internship, I have read a lot more books. Shashi Deshpande's short stories were written in a very down to earth manner, but there are lots of references to the female perspectives on life which I guess, women will associate better with than me. Sudha Murty's book, The Old Man and His God, and her writing was a serious letdown!! I advise people to read that book, so that one day when they think of writing they can always benchmark their worst performance on her writing.

Chennai seems to having the most fickle of the weathers. The afternoons are so stifling, that its hard to breathe, the evenings are washed out by rain, the nights are breezy and chilled and the next morning, the sun is out in full force that makes you take a cold water shower!