Summer Language Update

Here's another one of those posts...

• Chinese: Chinese here refers to Mandarin, or 'Standard Chinese'. It's been a pretty crazy adventure of discovery learning Chinese from scratch with never having stepped out of the Indo European safe zone that most (including me) usually stick to (ie Spanish, French, Persian, Italian, German, Hindi, etc, the usual 'safe' languages). Chinese is a Sinitic language, which is a unique language family unto itself. Most interestingly, it's an analytic language. Chinese is a beautiful language and the cultural traditions its preserved is truly massive. The pronunciation is hard to get used to, but is fairly regular and uniform. The tones will throw you off but they aren't too hard. Forming new, complex or technical vocabulary or even toponyms is extremely easy if you know the constituent ideas or characters - For example, Shànghǎi (上海) is formed from Shàng (上) which is on, and hǎi (海) which is sea. So, Shanghai literally means on the sea. I would say I am halfway at HSK 1 level, and with a knowledge of around ~250 characters with their readings (pronunciations) and meanings.
• Spanish: On hold for now, sadly. Reading practice now and then. I want to start preparing for B1 soon. Still at an A2 level, but will require refreshing and getting back in touch with.
• Portuguese: On a long hold. No changes. I've decided to forget about learning this for now, since being another Latin language it clashes with Spanish, so there won't be much progress for a long, long time.
• Persian: On and off learning. I've started using some online sources, and I'm finding the language is much easier than earlier thought, especially since I'm not looking to learn to speak it. However, the sources I have won't be useful for intermediate and above. Grammar, word formation is not too hard, but verb conjugation is extremely odd and difficult. Mid beginner level now.
• Urdu: To be honest, I'm fast losing my interest in this language and I find I can barely relate to it. It seems to exist in an exclusive cultural bubble and isn't practical or useful at all. Nevertheless, listening to Sufi/semi-classical Hindustani music, reading practice, more Persian knowledge and comments on Reddit India are contributing a lot to my enhanced understanding of the language and the culture behind it. It really doesn't take much effort though, if I start getting to speak Hindi/Urdu I'll get better at it quickly. The harder vocab gets memorized after you encounter it a few times. Early intermediate level now.

I'm considering trying to learn a language from a totally new language family, either the Turkic one (Turkish) or Semitic (Arabic/ancient languages like Aramaic, etc) but for now that would be too much to juggle around and too high a target with my limited materials.

 I also somehow feel a nagging need to learn at least one major classical language - Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Classical Chinese or a Classical Semitic language - to give myself a 'cultural, classical rooted-ness', which I did not have the opportunity to get earlier. There's so much one misses out on without knowing a classical language and being able to read texts in it. 

Maybe someday?

Waltz With Bashir.

Waltz With Bashir is an Israeli documentary that I watched just last night.

It's a unique movie in that even though it's a documentary, it's animated. This allows for a lot of creativity with the flashbacks and the dream scenes that occur. They are shown as hallucinatory as would be expected from a real experience. 

The movie is about the film-maker's deployment to Beirut, Lebanon, in 1982. Israel intervened in what was later to become the Lebanese Civil War, on the behalf of its Christian Phalangist allies, led by the charismatic Bachir Gemayel.

For a war movie, it was very silent about war itself. The war is simultaneously to be both totally absurd and totally natural, almost like it's an essential part of life. That was very unnerving, and I felt it went against the very stereotypical expectations of war - the inflamed passions, the hate, the anger.

Cue the war scenes. People are shown dying so randomly it's absurd. Another thing is you don't know which side the people who're doing both the killing and dying are on.

Sadly, it looks like some people have missed the point of the movie and use it as fodder for their own political views and accusations. Not once did the movie try to take sides or moralize.

It's the rawest documentary on war I've seen. It's very anti war in its own way.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone interested in the Middle Eastern conflicts, or the effects of war in general.

Intermezzo d'Estate : A Summer Interlude

It's been a while. Feels like ages, when in reality it's just been 3 months.

Three long, long months. A lot has changed since then.

For one, I finally am done with college and I've graduated. In hindsight it seems like a very meh thing, but it was something I had been anticipating for years. Now when I look back I barely remember my college days. It's odd, but I'm not questioning it for now.

Another thing is that I've fallen head over heels in love with Chinese language and the classical history and culture. The Sinitic world is one of the most culturally resistant parts of the world and has retained many aspects that make them stand out culturally, for example the Tao, Chinese characters. Confucian ethics. The modern country of China is also becoming increasingly more relevant, and the language is a fascinating one. Then, you have regional variations of Chinese, which makes me draw parallels of the Arab world and Indo Aryan/European languages. But that's a big subject, I'll get into it later. Suffice to say I've been learning Mandarin and reading up on Chinese culture and history.

The third thing is the absence of any defined roles anymore. I'm not a student. So what am I? Well, I don't know yet. I'll have to make my own identity. I've been trying my hand at some more serious writing lately and I've submitted a short story I wrote to an online magazine, let's see if it gets accepted.

These days I spend my time reading, watching movies, trying to write, or looking for new stuff. Also, most promisingly, I've been jamming with a friend I met on Reddit, with whom it looks like I'll be recording an album. As of now, there's a song already recorded, there's more to follow later. Maybe this can sustain me for a few months. My Chinese learning has been derailed for now thanks to a weak regimen, but I'm looking forward to enrolling in formal classes so that I can take an exam.

These three months have had almost as much change as the previous 6 - 9 months before them, but yet it all seems so natural that I can't even identify them to write them down. I've grown into these changes so much that they seem like an old part of me. Odd, isn't it?

Well, the summer's over. The dreaded Southern Indian monsoon is here.

Of Corporation Roads.

As always, the road seemed to go on forever when I stared down it. Onwards and onwards, my view of it blurred by the dust thrown up around it.

To where? Did it stop at Vellore? At Bangalore? At Belgaum? At Kolhapur? Or was where I was standing in Chennai its final destination?

I could've asked around, but the fact is, you'll get different answers from everyone you ask. Try it, you'll see what I mean.

"It goes all the way to Kashmir!", said an auto driver, probably in jest. "Delhi." said a kid. "Marina Beach.", said the bus conductor. "Trichy.", answered another. Aah, which one to choose?

As I weighed each answer, I watched the bikes, autos and cars go up and down the road, on either side.

I asked the guy at the tea stall for his opinion, after ordering a cup of tea. "Who knows, I just arrived from Kerala...", he murmured, stirring the tea.

I asked the kid serving biryani at the nearby store, as I sipped the tea.

"Half, for 90 Rupees!"

As good an answer as any.

Kuttanad, Adyar Zomato Review.

http://www.zomato.com/review/rQGxM

Ghost Site Blues.

There's a certain feeling you get when you look at an abandoned website - a feeling of disconcertment, and incompleteness. It also feels a bit rude and intrusive, as if you're looking at something that was meant to be left alone. It's like looking at a half finished painting, a work in progress, that's somehow stuck in an artist's creative limbo.

You don't know what happened, but you can see the result of it. It's like a virtual capture, a snapshot of a moment in time - thoughts, musings intact, patterned and textured by that moment's thought process. News, frozen, opinions, half formed and brashly said... And you, you can see, from your vantage point, how they stack up to your present reality and if they were of any consequence at all.

In a way it's sad, you almost wish you could reach out and tell them how things ended up turning out, as if they're still stuck on the other side, oblivious, when in fact they're as much in the present as you are. On one level, you're aware of that fact, but you still have this feeling of shouting out and saying, "Hey! I know the answer to that one! You're wrong!".

My theory is that calling out a person on their hindsight, a sort of 'virtual schadenfreude', is the main drive for these feelings.

On the other hand, to put it optimistically, I think that we like to tell people that it's alright, it turned out fine in the end.

English in Africa

This is gonna be a short post, where I put up a link I found online and don't say more than a paragraph about it.

I think it's interesting that in many African countries, English has become so prominent, both officially and colloquially. However, outside Africa, I'm yet to encounter any media/cultural stuff in African English, beyond music (even that stuff is a bit niche/not as well known). Maybe, along with Indian English, African English will become more prominent in the Anglosphere - part of a sorta 'third wave English', as I call it (The 'first wave' being British, second and current being American). I can already feel a distinct and more cohesive Indian English identity, language and feel. It's got media, songs, and even movie bits in it now. It can only get better. I'm assuming it's something similar with African English as well.

Spanish A2 Results!

I finally got my Spanish DELE A2 results this week, after around 3 months of waiting! I'm happy to say I did pretty well. 

I got 83.03 %, with almost full marks in speaking and listening. Very pleasantly surprised, as I thought I'd do my worst in speaking and listening. On the other hand, I lost most of my marks in writing, the section I was most confident of doing well in.

So where does that leave me now? I didn't join B1 classes because they started too soon and I needed some rest, so that's not an option anymore. And if I don't give Spanish sufficient practice, I could end up losing a lot of my proficiency (I've already lost a little, but not too much. What I've lost is mostly speaking skills.)

I could use iTalki, but it doesn't seem to be much help so far. Oh well...

I guess I'll have to learn it on my own for B1, with movies, videos, songs and stuff. Gonna be pretty hard, but no choice. Either stick to it, or risk forgetting what I've learnt.

After all, A2 isn't a beginner level, it's beginner - intermediate, sort of a fluency threshold. 

Anyway, I should think about that later, and for now be happy with finishing A2, and get some small, routine practice in.

New Years?

2013 got over a little over a week ago. Most people, including most of my friends were out celebrating.  I didn't really care. I listened to some nice music, and had a nice sleep.

Why is it that we celebrate the New Year, other than the necessity of celebration? I mean, I've had a lot of fun, crazy New Years, but didn't really feel it was day I had to celebrate.

My theory is that, to many people it signifies a sort of hope, a hope for change. It offers them a chance for them to get their shit together and disown the mistakes and failures of the year before. It lets them tell themselves and their friends that they'll change, and become a new person. That the new year will automatically be better and more magical than the year before.

I don't buy any of that. That's just escapist, to me. I mean, let's say you have an actual life event set to happen for sure in the new year, it makes sense - a graduation, a marriage, whatever. But naively expecting things to be better? Doesn't make sense.

Either, you know specifically that there's something in store for your life, or you change yourself. Otherwise what's the posturing all about?

And even then - you can change yourself anytime if you really want to! Why wait for a far off, magical day? That shows that you're not serious about it in the first place. You're just setting yourself up for failure, or too lazy/scared to break from the status quo.

And even then! If you want to do something worthwhile from the New Year - do it. Don't make a fuss of it.

Do something or don't. But empty posturing and drama don't help anyone. least of all you.

Happy New Year - May it be one without expectations.