Among women music artistes I like P!nk for her feisty personality and great attitude. She is also active in charity work and with PETA.  Her music runs the gamut from sad reflections like Dear Diary to lyrics that make you sit up and take notice  and think, like that of  Stupid Girls, and Dear Mr. President; she also has foot-tapping,  fun numbers like Get the Party Started which never fails to elicit a smile from me and which is featured below. Enjoy!!  

© Sosha Srinivasan

It was only after I published my last post that I realized there was something very different about the font – which is supposed to be fixed in this WP template.  So how did it get so humungous?  No, WP isn’t to blame –  it was the Windows Speech Recognition program on my new Lenovo  G550 BAQ laptop.  I had been breaking it in, training the computer (that makes it sound like some kind of wild beast, don’t it?) by dictating to it -  and I had what I thought was a bright idea… I’d dictate the post!! I had a niggling doubt whether it would work on the WP platform – perhaps it was configured only to MS Word?  It worked alright – but with a bloated font as you can see!!

© Sosha Srinivasan

I am just finishing one of the most  intriguing pieces of  writing I have had the good fortune to read – The Novel by James A. Michener. 

It is  somewhat disconcerting to realize  this is the first book by Michener that I’m reading.  It  certainly wasn’t that I lacked the chances – I’d come across his books before, both at libraries and my bookshop haunt – but always deferred the choice.  Why? Because most of   his other books are massive in size!  This one is a modest 435 pages long, so I thought I’d give it a shot – I wasn’t disappointed, though it did keep me up until 2:00 a.m.!  

 Essentially about the publishing world, the book is divided into four – from the  viewpoints of  a  writer, an editor, a  critic, and a reader.

I liked the part by the editor best – is it perhaps because I am one?  Here is an excerpt with which I was especially taken: 

“The editor  had several points on which she was adamant: ’Sentences must have grammatical structure.  They must preserve parallelism.  Once the  tense is established, it must be maintained to the bitter end.  Pronouns must have antecedents that can be instantly recognized, even by the careless reader.’  She  taught me that a well-constructed paragraph, with sentences in place and each word within the sentence properly used, was  a  creation of beauty: ‘It’s the basic unit of human thought, a format unto which can be poured your  most exalted conclusions, and also your  most impassioned depictions of  human relationships.’”

And here is another excerpt from the book – what a minor  character, Evan Cater,  says  specifically about the French film, Les Enfants du Paradis – and  about widening one’s horizons in general:

‘Remember that I said I thought it perhaps the best ever made.  It blew my mind. You may not agree. But your job as would-be writers is to see the movies and plays and operas that blow your minds.  Try to associate with people who are more intelligent than yourself and seek out work that explodes your  sensitivities.’

© Sosha Srinivasan

I’d decided that I should post at least twice a week -  like most  good intentions, mine was found lacking in implementation.  Now I’ve found a way (I think) to ensure I do post regularly – like I mentioned earlier, I have a huge collection of  quotes, and I have now decided that if I cannot find anything to write about, I’ll cull some of my favorites and post those.

Here are a couple  from a  woman with awesome attitude – and a fantastic sense of  humor: American writer, actress and comedienne Rita Rudner.

“When I eventually met Mr. Right I had no idea that his first name was Always.”

“I love being married.  It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.”

And here is a live performance of hers you can enjoy!

© Sosha Srinivasan

I don’t need to say anything except –  watch this mind-blowing video!  Fantastic, futuristic -it’s  like  something out of The Matrix!

The strange part is that I’ve been discussing essentially the same thing with my son the past couple of years – only I thought the concept would be translated into reality about ten to twenty years hence.  The video below just shows how much I’m off in my estimation of technological progress…

© Sosha Srinivasan

These last two years, my son, Arjun, has been showing a healthy (whatever that means!) interest in the opposite sex – and I have been privy to his elation as well as his heartbreaks…

We are very close – he often says I’m more like the older sister he never had than mother – I can nag, chivvy, mercilessly tease – or share a joke and even music I come across – this hip hop dance track Good Vibrations by Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch (featuring soul artiste Loleatta Holloway) that I saw on VH1’s Cardio Video is a recent example!

Only later did I realize that Marky Mark and Mark Wahlenberg are one and the same!  What a turn-around now compared to his bad-boy adolescent years!

Anyway, back to sonny’s love life!  Here’s a transcript of a year-old conversation:

Sonny:  You know, X isn’t really my type…

X was Sonny’s first girlfriend.

Me: What do you mean?

Sonny:  Well, er… (with a slightly embarrassed laugh) she’s too,  um, well-endowed  - and she’s short!

Me:  Desperation shows.

Sonny:  Mom!!!

Me:  Er, what’s your type anyway?

Sonny: (dreamily) Slim, athletic…

Me: (innocently) Oh! Well, I suppose opposites do attract…

Sonny makes a thunderous leap in my direction, muttering threats – and gives chase when I quickly scoot into the next room.  We then have a mock scuffle that ends in a hug!

I really enjoy this complex, caring, maddeningly irritating, talented teen…

© Sosha Srinivasan

I belatedly realized that there were a few categories that had been left out in the first post on Mallu Christian names…

The list continueth:

1.  Phonetically translated from shortened English names  (Elizabeth = Lizzy or Jessica = Jessie or Rosemary = Rosy) but then subsequently miss-spelled, e.g. Lissy or Licy (fortunately not Lousy!)  I once came across a Wincy – kept me wondering if a miss-spelled Eensy weensy spider nursery rhyme was responsible!   The reason is that the letter ‘z’ does not exist in Malayalam – the closest equivalents are ’s’ and ‘c’!

Male Mallus are not spared.  I once met a ‘Reggie’ (or so I thought) and innocently asked him if his full name was Reginald – as in the Archie comics.  he threw me a disgusted look and then spelled it out to dispel any doubt. “R-e-j-i : that’s my full first name.”

“Oh!” I replied, trying to be polite, “Ji like the Northies – with respect and all that jazz… ”  I trailed off as he gave me a blank look!

2.  Names that sound like noises – the most common from Kerala is Achu which sounds like a loud, too-late-to-check sneeze to me.

Tamil is not immune to similar tendencies – Kichu is extremely common diminutive of Krishna – I think that sounds like a politely suppressed sneeze!  I once met a Bhooma and couldn’t help thinking her name sounded like a mini explosion!

Here is a post from Timofeyevich on some more amazing laugh-aloud examples of Tamil names!

© Sosha Srinivasan

I’ve resigned from the job that I did over the last five-plus years – one that required me to commute a couple of hours every day.

I’ll hopefully be working from home in a few months’ time, but meanwhile I am taking a much-deserved break !

Another reason for this switchover was that the PC and broadband connection I recently obtained was lying idle the entire day – a terrible waste of a resource!

© Sosha Srinivasan

I relish creative stuff and commercials with a dash of humor always catch my eye.  This one made me laugh aloud – because an almost parallel story line runs at home!  My not-so-young son sometimes regresses into childhood and gives me a a long hug  or a nuzzle – and hubby dearest looks daggers at sonny from his corner…  Only (according to Wilkinson) hubby’s not anywhere in the competition – because he wears a full beard!

© Sosha Srinivasan

The story with a WW2 twist that I recounted in my previous two posts got me reminiscing about a few others…

During my stint as a management trainee at a Chennai hotel in the early 1980s – yes, the very same one where I had to do a juggling act with three telephones at the front desk(!) – I got talking to Mrs. Fernando*, an Anglo-Indian (Eurasian) lady in her fifties who worked in the linen room. One day she sprang a huge surprise on me when she told me she was a survivor of Japanese prison camps in Singapore/ Malaya! She was very young at the time, around nine or ten years of age, and she remembered being force marched for several months between POW camps with her family – and surviving it all!

It really is amazing how you can meet people who have the strangest stories to tell.

Which brings me to three excellent books based on each author’s experiences in South East Asia during the war.

Empire of the Sun (also made into a riveting movie directed by Steven Spielberg) by J G Ballard.

King Rat by James Clavell.

A Town Like Alice (US title: The Legacy) by Nevil Shute.

*Name changed to protect the privacy of the individual concerned.

© Sosha Srinivasan