Amulet, you mostly all alone here with your tête-à-tête parter missing? Arey rey.. Let's fix that a bit. How are you doing while Blinky is away? Here'a a video to annotate whatever was your response. : )
Couple of days ago, one mummy posted on the forum saying that her child who is in English Medium School, and talks English with everyone, does not speak "correctly", or speaks with an accent. Personally I think a Telugu accented English is cute. People should have their own English; it helps others, trains their ears to catch other types of cadence in the spoken language. Recently someone sent me a youtube video of a couple of members of parliament in the UK parliament. One makes a small speech about handicapped access in buildings, and another one listening to him could not understand head or tail. English is the official language (not Gaelic, or Welsh) in the UK parliament. Have a looksee and listen: "Sorry, could you repeat the question?"
Sweet! We send and receive such things from the children each year. However, there is this recent realization: Long ago, we had, once in a while, mistakenly assumed children to be small grownups, and made some stupid mistakes. And now, when they are actual grownups, they try to dupe us by behaving as if they are large children.
Thank you, @Amulet. Season's Greetings to you and yours, too. I'm not good with compliments but I thought you should know that you are rapidly becoming one of my favorite posters in IL. It might be time to drop the "et" part of your name. .
This thread's title, "Never Mind..." is obviously inspired from one of my favorite TV characters, Roseanne Roseannadanna. She would'a likely said that "If you eat a special diet, even when you fart in a group-hug, you can't get away with it."
Where is the matching Nietzsche bracelet with the T-shirt? Arey, gift toh set mein dena. Irresponsible friends! Dfft. To fine-tune, I preach, take it with a pinch of saw-dust, well, before it proves itself to be worth more than that to be swapped with salt thereafter. Rihana's gift is straightforward. Ek biomimicry wala human-sounding whistle. Jab mann kiya, she could imitate human whistle with that toy and not feel inadequate about her vocal shortcoming. Re: your gift, thinking, mujhe chakkar aa gaye ...what to gift ..what to gift representative of your outrageous participation. My head is still hurting from the gift soch-vichar. I am still on holiday. Will think some more and return. Friends usually solemnize their bond with utterances like 'you are in my prayers' /'you are in my thoughts'. You too were in my surrounds but not in prayers or thoughts but observations , hmm, only Amulet will find this Penrod's travel delight interesting. Next: Bhutan whutan ka visa dekhna hai. Later gator.
Book Recommendation Physician-Novelist reference in @Cheeniya 's thread "Kite Runner" reminded me of another book by a physician-novelist, of Indian descent. "Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese.Wikipedia offers much details on the book, including.... Amazon's Best Books of the Year: 2009 (#16) Publishers Weekly's Best Books: 2009 (Fiction) Indies Choice Book Award (Adult Fiction, 2010) Wellcome Trust Book Prize shortlist (2009) International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Longlist (2011) New York Times bestseller Here are some things beyond that wiki essay. A lot of Indians (especially from the southern states) went to Ethiopia, and east-Africa in general, to work in the professions -- law, teaching, healthcare, medicine, finance, retail. The church recruited nurses/nuns from India to go and live in many African countries. I liked the character in the book, Dr. Sujatha, a graduate of Madras Medical College, and her methods of dispensing care, and conducting her life in pretty difficult circumstances. She listens to "suprabaatham" in the early mornings in her Addis Ababa hospital quarters !! Talking of such mornings, unfortunately there was no mention of how Dr. S made her morning coffee; a grand omission for a novel set in Ethiopia*, with a Brahmin woman character from Mylapore, Madras. I would recommend couple of those book awards be stripped off. [*Ethiopia is the origin of Coffee. The name of the plant/bean/beverage comes from Kaffa, a town in Shoa, southwest Ethopia, the origin of the coffee plant.] This novel has a lot of references to social and political problems and how it affected life in the country, for both the natives, and the migrants from India and other places. One of the emotionally impactful thing for Indian readers would be the prevalence of child-brides, or the selling girl-children into a life of a domestic chattel in Ethiopia, and the sad conditions of girls too young to get pregnant, and the ensuing health risks. Cutting for Stone is a reference to Lithotomy: In Greek, 'lithos' is stone and 'tomos' is cut, and lithotomy refers to the surgical method of removal of kidney or bladder stones. Hippocrates noted it as 'lethal' work that should be left to surgeons.
