Calls for National Integration - a linguistic one?

Calls for National Integration - a linguistic one?

India has always been a land of many cultures and languages. You cannot travel more than 100 miles without encountering a new dialect or language. Such is the diversity of the people.

But I would have never imagined that the boundaries between them were so distinct. Over the last year I have come to realize that people are more than happy to socialize with others that share the same mother tongue. Personally, i have never quite noticed or experienced it until now. Ever since my school days i have had friends whose vernacular varies from bengali to gujarati, from malayalam to hindi. I have never found it difficult or weird mingling with a crowd in which tamil was not the medium of communication. I guess English has always kept us all together.

Last year more than 20 of us came to Minneapolis from Tamil nadu. We represented the lion's share of all desis in the city by far. Who would imagine that in America of all places, with English being the only dominant language, bonds will form between people who shared a common language as opposed to a common interest. Groups slowly formed neatly divided by language. Tamil guys stick to Tamil Nadu, Telugu junta to Andhra and Marathi people to Maharashtra. The boundaries were as well known and evident as our state boundaries in India. Never more so than now when there has been a huge hiatus of students from Mumbai and Pune to match the Tamil population eye for eye.

Even though I see this phenomenon in flesh and blood in front of me, I still believe that it is just an aberration. People do not have a natural tendency toward ones with a common language. Yes, initially maybe, but your closest friends simply do not need to share the same mother tongue. As long as you enjoy each other's company, it really doesn't matter whether you call your mother mom, amma or aai.

p.s. this post has no reference to manmohan singh's address to the nation today or to Kalam's support for hindi although it is an interesting coincidence.

Camping at Lake Superior

Split rock lighthouse!

Its been a year since I landed in Minnesota and one thing missing from my ever growing travels was a visit to lake superior.

Last weekend I finally got to soak in the brilliance of the world's largest fresh water lake. It was a proper camping trip............tents, grills and all. Even though the drive isn't as beautiful as people make it out to be, nothing can prepare you for the first sight of the lake. The sheer volume of it is breathtaking. Anybody who has been to Duluth will know what I'm talking about. And a cloudless sunny day to boot. Just magnificent. I guess this is the best time to visit even though people come up here for the fall colors.

Even in summer, the water in the lake is far too cold for a dip. So we just had to keep to frisbee and kites on the beach. I was quite looking forward to the barbecue that night. It was almost comical looking at the five of us trying to grill every vegetable known to man. I have to concede.......the idea of a barbecue was not conceived with vegetarians in mind.

But it was capped off by a brilliant starry night. It was a new moon day and all the stars had come out to play. Just sitting there gazing at the sky was really the ideal end to a wonderful day!

Le tour de Rochester

Le tour de Rochester

Summer finally feels like it. Searing temperatures, bright sunshine, native minnesotans complaining of the unbearable heat...............unbearable - i would gladly take them on a trip around chennai in may on my kinetic honda to make them understand what unbearable really means.

In an automobile dominated country, its pleasantly surprising to find that there are quite a few dedicated biking or cycling enthusiasts around here. If it wasn't for them, there wouldn't be such wonderful bike trails all over rochester and minnesota. Biking, and therefore bikes, are of two types - mountain and road. And there are bike trails to keep both parties interested. I haven't really tried the dirt bike trails through the woods and orchards but I have taken a fancy to road biking. These are the race bikes - thin, large diameter aerodynamic wheels, a sophisticated gear system, and light as a feather. And these beauties can really fly. I haven't really clocked the speed but I'm sure they can easily do more than 40mph. And recreational trails are the perfect paths to realize the full potential of these speed machines. Biking along the zumbro river here in rochester and soaking in the scenery just adds to the joy of the whole experience. I use an old Schwinn, but some of the latest road bikes like the ones from Raleigh and Specialized are just unbeatable.

So if you have always enjoyed cycling and are thinking twice about buying a bike, just rent a bike and see for yourself. Off roading with a dirt bike or flying through trails, once you are hooked, there is no turning back.

My favourite movies!

My favourite movies!

I was just watching Chariots of Fire after ages and it simply overwhelms me everytime. So here's a list of some other movies that do the same..............

In no particular order

Patch Adams
Finding Neverland
Philadelphia
Good Will Hunting
One Fine day
Castaway
Forrest Gump
The Hurricane

Impressions of my new iPod

Impressions of my new iPod

I am now officially a member of the ipod bandwagon. I finally gave into my urge for an ipod shuffle and recently bought the 1GB music player. Here are some thoughts.

Joys
1. It is your best companion while you are on the move. While walking to the office, at the gym, doing grocery or even chatting with someone, its there and ready for your musical pleasure.
2. Its as light as a feather. You forget that you actually have it in your pocket.
3. The simplicity of it all. Its so easy to use. You can operate all the controls without even looking at it.
4. Even though the shuffle is meant to play a completely random selection of songs from your collection, the ability to control that with song rating is great. And ofcourse, when you want to listen to albums in order, you always have the option of doing so.
5. It looks darn good. Ofcourse its almost always hidden from public view(and hence envy) owing to its minute size.
6. The battery life. I can listen to music continuously all day without having to recharge.
7. I can now move large files. Most divx movies have a file size of 750mb. I have no problems with that anymore.

Irks
1. The ear buds supplied. They are crappy to say the least. It just cannot handle bass or mid range frequencies well. And the wires just get tangled and messy all the time. Leaving my Koss headphones back in NC was my biggest mistake of the year so far.
2. iTunes. I've read reviews of most iPods and they say that iTunes is what makes any iPod a really great buy. Infact recently, iTunes was found to be the second most popular music download software. I disagree. Apart from the fact that it arranges your music collection neatly, the functionality leaves much to be desired. There is no drag and drop method to build playlists, especially with the shuffle being a flash based USB drive, i should be able to drag and drop music onto it. Even that wouldn't be too much of a concern if not for Apple's feeble attempt at preventing music piracy. You can associate your iPod to only one iTunes library at any given time. Which means if you dont have a laptop, and you want to manage songs at both Work and home, you are helpless.........almost. Thanks to the Database Builder it can function like any other flash drive which plays music.

Poetry in motion!

Justine Henin-Hardenne is at it again.........on the brink of her second title at Roland Garros. Unbeaten on clay this year and on a 23 match winning streak. She is back with a bang. If not for the mystery virus that kept her out the whole of last year, I'm sure she would have more grand slams in her kitty by now. And hey, she just turned 23. I know that might sound old when compared to her tall, slender, blonde russian teenaged compatriots. But, I think her best days are still ahead of her.

She looks and feels stronger from the injury and seems to be hitting the ball harder than ever. But the thing that has changed about her is her thought process on court. She no longer tries to outrally or outgun her opponents. There is a lot more thought that goes into the points, a la Hingis. Hingis had to play intellingently every point to have any chance coz she lacked the strength to rally with the Williams, Davenports etc. But Justine has the strength, the groundstrokes to do that. If she starts working her points out, she can be devastating.

And how can I write something about Justine without talking about the most outrageously gifted backhand in all of tennis. Its even hard to imagine where she generates all the power and control over a single-handed backhand like that. Anybody who plays tennis will know what I'm talking about. There are very few moments in sport when you realize that you are overwhelmed by the sheer joy of what you are witnessing......A Mark Waugh cover drive, a Michael Jordan fadeaway, a Ryan Giggs shimmy, a Pedro Martinez fast ball, and a Justine Henin-Hardenne backhand...........poetry in motion!!! You could watch it all your life.


I'm not even watching her matches on TV, yet I realize how much I've missed the diminutive Belgian's play. There is no way in the world I'm going to miss her final on Saturday, not because of the prospect of her lifting the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen for the second time but for the sheer joy of watching her play tennis.