That’s when a small girl comes out of the blue and literally barges in to our home. She might be between 7 and 10 years old. No eye contact…she just walks in and seats herself on the chair. I put on the best ‘happy’ voice ever and say “Hi”. No response and no eye contact. “What’s your name?”. No response. Hubby and I have never seen her before. She’s well dressed and is obviously one of the kids who stay in our apartment complex. Y looks at her fondly and moves closer. He likes children. That’s when she almost pushes him away.

Sunanda realises that the girl is from D-Block. She also cautions us that she is not “normal”. So, Hubby gets Y out of her way. All of a sudden she makes a dash towards the balcony. Hubby shouts out to me to secure the sliding glass panels. I keep talking all the while hoping to elicit a response. As she stands in the balcony, I try one more time in the same happy voice …”Look at the star”. That’s when she looks up and says “Amma”. Suddenly, she blurts out something in English…and it’s a huge a relief. Atleast we can communicate! All of us were as disoriented as the girl. Soon enough the concerned people were alerted and her mother came along relief writ large on her face. The little girl’s name is Spurthi.

This incident shook us out of our senses. How many Spurthis out there who go missing and are never found. I shudder at the very thought of the million what-ifs that go through my mind. We’re all thankful none of those what-ifs came true.

Overseas Women’s Club Annual Christmas Bazaar
Date – 29-Nov-08 (Saturday)
Venue – St. Mark’s Cathedral on MG Road.
Timings – 11am – 4pm
Entrance fee – Rs.100 for adults & Rs. 50 for children above 12 years

Community Services of Bangalore
Date – 02-Dec-o8 (Tuesday)
Venue – Lalit Ashok Hotel
Timings – 11am – 7pm
Entrance – is free (yippee!)

The United Charities Bazaar
Date – 06-Dec-08 (Saturday)
Venue – St. Aloysius School Grounds, Cox Town
Timings – 9am – 5pm
Entrance – No info

The proceeds will go to the different charities these groups support. So, go on and have fun!

As if I didn’t have enough to deal with, Y’s been extremely cranky lately. He wants to lay his hands on everything he sets his eyes on. He screams his head off at the drop of a hat! I’ve heard of the ‘terrible twos’; is this the start of it I wonder.

I’m in no mood to answer calls, return missed calls or even reply to emails. And coming to emails…something weird is happening. When I try to compose emails on my gmail account, some of the keys at random just won’t work. I don’t understand why that’s happening. The keys work fine while in the Yahoo account as well as when I use Notepad. So all in all, it’s been an emotional roller coaster ride these past couple of weeks and that’s the reason why I haven’t had any posts. All I want to do is curl up somewhere and remain there until I feel fine.

Some good things have happened too… I’ve finally started on my knitting project. All thanks to the frequent power cuts, I’ve also learnt to make Rasgullas. What else does one do when the milk curdles once too often (I’m bored of making paneer everytime).

After all the venting I’ve done, I’d like to wrap up with a poem….

The Purple Cow ( by Gelett Burgess)

I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one.

The European Union announced that an agreement had been reached to adopt English as the language for communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the deal, Her Majesty’s Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as Euro-English (Euro for short).

In the first year ‘s’ will be used instead of the soft ‘c’. Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard ‘c’ will be replaced with ‘k’. Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have less letters.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome ‘ph’ will be replaced by ‘f’. This will make words like ‘fotograf’ 20 per sent shorter. In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the state where more komplikated changes are possible. Government will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also al wil agre that the horrible mes of silent ‘e’s in the language is disgrasful, and they would go. By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing ‘th’ by ‘z’ and ‘w’ by ‘v’. During ze fifz year, ze unnecessary ‘o’ kan be dropd from vords kontaining ‘ou’, and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer, Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

Phew! Typing this out has been tough for obvious reasons. I was searching for a certain embroidery book which has gone missing and found instead the above written out rather neatly in my hand on paper which is now yellowing. It’s almost as if it happened yesterday…I remember I found this in a book and decided to copy it out as I thought it rather interesting. Besides, the book had to be returned. I don’t even know what the heading means. And as I check it out on the net right away, I realise that I could’ve saved time spent typing by just copying & pasting. You can find just about anything on the net!!! I’m left wondering why I ever even bothered to write it down back then….but it sure did take me down memory lane to the year 2000 when my life was going through some tumultous times. It’s funny how in retrospect, it doesn’t feel so terrible anymore.

 
PS:
1) I have NOT shot any of my present/past maids (YET!).
2) I do NOT own any firearms.

hus
PRONOUNCIATION: (rhymes with fuss).
MEANING:(noun) married man, esp. in relation to his wife. Shortened form of ‘husband’.
USAGE: mostly used by Mallu girls in Kerala.
ETYMOLOGY: I have absolutely no idea about the origin of this word. Haven’t found it on the net either. Can’t even understand how it came about that ‘hus’ is used as a shortened version of husband when the rest of the country uses ‘hubby’. Therein lies the beauty of my native state Nobody comes as close when it comes to the usage of words and their pronounciation (…remember the ungles and the andies?).

As a non-resident Keralite, I was quite amused when I came across the word for the first time. Infact, it took me a while to understand what was being asked when I was encountered with ‘So, how is your hus?’ or ‘Where does your hus work? I’ve grown quite used to it these days and have even been known to use it in jest.