Mayank's Blog

(Thus is my first attempt at writing fiction. Hope you like it.) “But what if there are civilians inside the bus?” Charu hesitatingly asked. “They will be martyrs in our freedom struggle. You should not worry about them. That’s a price every one of has to pay if we are to end the years of injustice and oppression by the Indian government”, Krishnaji thundered. “Don’t you remember the day when you first joined our movement?” How could Charu forget that fateful day! Charu was the elder of the two brothers that lived in a sleepy village of West Bengal with his widowed mother. They were very poor just like everyone else in the village. However the only thing that separated them from other children in the locality was the fact that his mother made sure that they attended the neighbourhood government school every day. From childhood it became clear that Sona, his younger brother, excelled at academics while Charu struggled through even the basics. Even the school’s only pan-chewing teacher

When I came across this poster for a new Hindi movie, the title of the movie confused me. Now I know that ‘Luv’ is clearly misspelt, but ‘Storys’ got me thinking. It took me over a minute to clarify my doubt. This brings me to the point - what were the producers/directors thinking when the named this movie? Is normal, correctly spelt English just not cool enough? Or were they having a space crunch trying to fit in all the words in 160 characters? This SMSing of English leaves me baffled as it just not stops here but has percolated into our schools and offices. We all know about email signatures – the “Thanks & Regards” ones which no one really means but writes anyways. It is just standard practice. But there is a senior manager in my office who abbreviates ‘Regards’ with just ‘R’. Now if you don’t have the courtesy to even type out the entire word, then why insult the recipient of your mail with that letter ‘R’. It’s like saying “Oh! I don’t really regard you but I am going to mak

Have you ever got your ears, nose or throat examined through a दूरबीन (Telescope)? The more important question is whether you want to see a doctor who claims to do exactly the same! I had the pleasure of meeting such a doctor whose clinic proudly proclaimed the following: Looking at the poster, I was surprised as well as disturbed to know how little we know about our national language. Oh wait a minute, Hindi is not our national language but the official language. There is no national language of India. No wonder, we have people displaying such gems in their mastery of the language.