Notes From a Plane.

I have seen it coming,
This day - the day I would miss my flight.
More and more frequently
I put off leaving for the airport
To the last possible minute.
My last three trips
Saw me in a mad rush
With taxi drivers coaxing
Their vehicles to run like race cars
On the obstacle courses of Aizawl roads.
Packing is a challenge I loathe;
Once upon a time, good boyfriends
Undertook that task for me.
Now I pack for myself,
Usually half an hour before I leave,
Haphazardly throwing in clothes
And hoping for the best.
Most times I forget something vital;
The last time I left a city,
I left my heart behind.
Airport food and airplane food
Are abhorrent, overpriced,
But I eat them anyway,
Because I rush out without having had time for a proper meal. My reluctance to plan my schedule properly is perhaps symptomatic of some inner repulsion at the thought of leaving another place yet another time. I love travelling to different places, meeting different people, soaking in different cultures. It is the journeys I hate.The International Terminal at Kolkata had mosquitoes: I was devoured by these bloodsucking insects as I waited. Oh, and I was on an international flight despite my not going anywhere abroad, because apparently, GoAir is an international flight.

Besides, I know by now what awaits me. The unimaginative decor of airport lounges, people staring at you for want of anything better to do, particularly lecherous guys who have no compunctions staring at you even when they're sitting right beside you, total strangers wanting to know where you're from, where you're going, and what you're doing there. Even as I write this, I caught the dude sitting behind me desperately peering through the crack between the seats, trying to read what I am writing. I stared him down. Small victory.

And this lady, sitting in the aisle seat- with, thankfully, an empty seat between us- this abominable woman has been belching every few minutes in the loudest, most disgusting way imaginable. Poetry is no longer possible. Believe me, a loud, deep, long belch will kill poetic inclinations any time. And her prodigious bulk prevents me from even attempting to get out of my seat to get at my stuff in the overhead compartment.

The Captain has at last announced that we are beginning our descent into Delhi. Yayyy!The overly conscientious flight attendant has suggested to us, over the PA system, that we should save whatever we have been working on before switching off our laptops. Seriously?!

Grammar Police!

One of the necessary evils of being a teacher is checking exam and test papers. Not my favorite part of the job, it is something that I have been compelled to do ever since I volunteered to help in a school while awaiting my own exam results whilst in college. As a teacher of English, over the years,I have seen student's papers that have had grammatical errors bordering on various degrees of the horrific, scandalous, hilarious, and frankly irritating. Here are some common mistakes which have persistently been committed by students:


1. 'Their' and 'There' and sometimes, even 'They're'. Also 'its' and 'it's'.


2. Using a phrase such as "He was one of the most famous writer of the age".


3. Combining two words - "infact", "inorder", "alot", etc.


4. Confusing like-sounding words - the latest paper I checked kept saying "imagery" for "imaginary"!


5. Unnecessary use of the apostrophe. "She always keep's her room tidy."


6. The invention of new words. Here's one in the current batch of papers:"Honey, wife of Nick also told lies as being impregnant before she marries Nick." Someone else has also written "leaved".


7. Misspelling of words: Examples from said batch : "revange", "commentable", "thingking","twarted","transcents", "metaphore", "intrigacies".

8. Using text message lingo. Examples "U r" for 'you are', "2" for 'to' and so on.


One of my students consistently submits papers that are very entertaining. Recently, she has described a protagonist of a novel as a "chick magnet" and another character as belonging to the "biological department". Other students have written of characters who have "illusioned themselves", while yet another writes of how "the author also uses this hole in his structure of the novel." Don't ask.


My obsession with the correct usage of the grammar has often given me a guilt-trip, especially when I remind myself that nobody here is a native speaker of the language. Having said that, I did feel a little less guilty after stumbling across hilarious pages such as this and this . This also makes sure that you are reminded of the mistakes you make. I'd recommend checking them out.

Old, Older, Oldest!

Weird fact: a total stranger asked me my age in total seriousness today. I was buying something from her shop, and she popped the question.
Weirder fact: I told her my real age. Just like that.
Weirdest fact: She pondered over my reply, and said "Hmmm... well, you're older than I thought." It's weird because I don't know whether she meant to insult me, or to give me a back-handed compliment by meaning that I looked younger than my age. In which case, regardless of how old I looked, I take it to mean that she felt my years were not few by any standards. As compliments go, that would have been one of the most back-handed ones I've ever received. I had to look really far behind to be able to see it.

I went to get a dress tailored today, since some of us thought it might be fun to get together for dinner, where all the ladies wore LBDs (little black dresses). The dressmaker, without any instructions on my part, immediately began looking for dress patterns that were short,yet mature. Ouch.

Is it my imagination, or am I getting older faster than I am inside my head? And why is everyone reminding me of my age? They almost always get it wrong anyway. The "underestimaters" think I'm a college kid (haha) and the "overestimaters" (whom I hate) look at my profession and label me as nearing forty. Not cool. What is more important anyway - your mental age or your chronological age? Inside, I'm just the age I want to be. Outside, I'm getting a little too old to mix with certain groups, dress in certain ways or do certain things.

Which got me thinking. Why this obsession with youth anyway? Granted, no one wants to get old and wrinkled, dependent upon younger members of the family. But when did this kind of attitude towards old age start? If we look at old texts, the Bible or folklore for instance, the old were venerated, respected, obeyed, almost worshiped. Now of course, the times are a-changing as Dylan would say. But what exactly are we achieving in our perennial attempts at everlasting youth? What kind of values are we inculcating in the younger generation?

Youth is fine, if it characterized by innocence, energy, curiosity, beauty - in short, all the finest qualities that one has in one's youth. In our society today however, being young seems to be equated with having a total lack of responsibility, accountability and remaining a baby. Being a baby doesn't always mean that you are youthful. If one isn't careful, one could end up being a 75-year old baby.

I see a lot of post graduate students still addressing their parents as "aanu" "aapa". C'mon, I think they can safely go past the baby-talk at this stage. Just call them "Kanu" and "Kapa" for goodness'sake! I may sound overly grouchy, but behind this babytalk is an accompanying lack of maturity in the way they relate to adults around them. If you're over 18, you're considered an adult. Period. So act and talk like one. Which is why I abhor the way the term of address, "U" is being used nowadays. Prefixing "U" was a way of showing respect to a person older than you, and it indicated good breeding, humility and propriety to know who to address as such. What is rather amusing and irritating now is that people prefix the "U" not so much as a sign of respect, but as a way of letting you know that they are younger than you. I swear people that I grew up with, who called me by my name just like everyone else, have suddenly started adding the "U". And it sure as hell isn't because they have suddenly developed a new-found respect for me! Which is why, I'm guessing, fellow blogger and friend Calliopia resents people adding the "U" in front of online nicks :) C'mon, it's a nick!

Anyway, I'm rambling on, which just goes to show that I may be a little more "senior" than I would like to believe. Oh well.

To end on a more upbeat note, something of mine is getting published by OUP, slated for release on December 9th. Here is the link, and I say something because it's an anthology, and I was asked to submit poems, articles and translations. I have no idea what they picked out. But I got my name on print, so yay!

Am off for a short holiday next week, and will be back and posting on the work I've done on the Aizawl Thunders soon. Ciao!!

OMG!!

I don't have much to say. I completely forgot a faculty meeting yesterday. I made the 18 kilometers to my workplace in 25 minutes despite Christmas-shopping traffic. I am so in my boss' bad books, which is where I continually seem to be these days anyway. Maybe there's a whole book dedicated only to my misdemeanors.

Human errors. Too bad we're expected to be inhumanly efficient sometimes.

One Morning on My Way to Work...

Now you know why I'm so bushed at the end of the day!