#TrendAlert : Aiyoh!

Ringing in the Tuesday with a blog post about something that is not very fashionable to talk about at the moment. Colloquialism is something we are all guilty of, but we are often unaware of having indulged in it. With ours being a country of diverse regional pools and having multiple language influences, it is only normal when the occasional 'yaar' or 'abey' creeps into our conversations without us even realising it. It is now even considered to cool to incorporate such slangs in your speech and informal texting language. What I love about the colloquial language is that it is our own and it gives us a sense of familiarity and comfort when we converse in it that the regular spoken english just can not.

source: www.indianmeme.com

Why this rant about colloquial language all of a sudden? Because one of our dearest 'regular use' words has left the echelons of colloquial language and joined the supremes. Yes! I am talking about the word 'AIYOH!'

Last week, Oxford dictionary released its list of new September words and it featured new entries like Yogasana and our beloved Aiyoh! To be honest, it does not really matter much to the aam junta but to the Indian purists who swear by the Oxford dictionary like a holy scripture, this is a big moment. By adding this word to the official Oxford records, the word now stands to get more acceptance.

More than anything, I am afraid of the misuse that 'Aiyoh' will be put to from now on. It is going to be used a lot more by that pretentious group of people in a party who sip on cocktails named after tools and talk about boycotting Chinese products while taking selfies on an iPhone that was incidentally assembled in China. And the next time Chetan Bhagat0 gets picked on for writing shit in the name of literature, they will point us to that one paragraph in their books where they used 'Aiyoh' : even before the word got picked up by the Oxford dict. "I am a visionary" he will claim. And what a sad day for Indian literature that will be. Arnab Goswami will use it in the course of time, driving us up the wall. The innocence of the word will eventually get lost in the maddening frenzy and what was just an adorable way to express exasperation will boil down to being a word like any other.    

For us regular Lucys, there is just the one upside that comes out of this move from the Oxford dict. New word to make on the Scrabble board! Yay.

Bring back in trend, the lost art of spelling correctly!

I missed publishing this post on Tuesday because it was my birthday and I was in an overly indulgent mood. So I quit working, planning or any activity in general and parked myself on the sofa with my phone and the television. Like I promised last week, I am continuing this week with talking about (and in this case, criticising) the hottest trend on the block. New Generation Grammar-less language.

First there was SMS. With it came a frightening trend. SMS lingo! Right became r8, hate became h8, happy brithday god bless you became 'hbd gbu'. At the time, this certain transition may have seemed the most logical thing to do as the keypads were alphanumeric and typing was, honestly, a pain in the ass. But what excuse does this generation have for typing words and making grammatical errors when there is spellcheck and a Qwerty keypad. What is worse that these very people talk in the same language they text in which is a disgrace. I have had younger people, meaning kids younger than me, come to me and blurt out incoherent sentences like 'I got swag bruh!'..... I mean, who talks like that. You text using this language and vocabulary because 1) in a textual exchange no one gets to hear you being an ass and 2) for some reason, it is cool to type like this.

I beg to differ.

Both in person and virtually, if someone uses SWAG in a sound conversation, I will legit punch them in the face. I cringe when someone types HBD to wish me on my birthday. Seriously, what good comes off those two seconds that you saved by not typing the two word HAPPY BIRTHDAY phrase. Then there are those who still have not left behind the alphanumeric keypad. Thanks to their immense and wide mental prowess, they replace the word TO with 2, the letter O with a zero and GREAT with gr8. The worst kind of people are the ones who actually say LOL instead of the conventional ha-ha. Oh wait, how do I forget the largest congregation of vocabulary defaulters! Those who have forgotten how to spell basic words like 'like' and 'this'.

Riddle me this, in this era of super intelligent computers and smart phones, how does one even fall prey to such unabashed foolishness. Why? To sound cool? Or to be a peer favourite. News flash!!! Talking or texting like this does not make anyone sound cooler. In fact, you are being judged heavily. People like me who like their sentences framed correctly with the least grammatical errors possible: we will not take you seriously. And with the internet being a wide open stage, two years down the line when you are applying for your dream job at a top firm, your poorly word-constructed tweets from the past will come biting you in the backside. So there is that.

Let me give you a simple example.
When we, grammar lovers, read a sentence that goes:

''I am lyk dis nly, luv me 0r h8 me, dis is mah lyf''

In our minds, it gets translated to:

''F*** ***!"

Don't complain later that no one tried to warn you about this.

P.S. I understand that there is a possibility that there may be grammatical errors in this post. Feel free to let me know in the comments section. I will not hate you. I swear. It will only make me like you more.

Breathe, Intolerants. Breathe.

This is not a rant about how people are going ballistic over other people who say that India is transforming into an intolerant state. What is happening all across the news channels, facebook, whatsapp and twitter is a show of intolerance at a much deeper level. Life has come quite the full circle for us citizens. And because internet has a permanent memory, one cannot speak or post anything without the fear of scrutiny of their past activity on social media with a fine tooth comb. The most outrageous part is that you do not even have to be a celebrity to be put to criticism. Internet trolls can get you for what you are. Online harassment and shaming is far more deep rooted to be discussed loosely here, but this is where it begins - the word of the year - Intolerance

Spare me the honour of being a leftist or a rightist or an elitist or an exorcist for posting this at a time when the social media is going bonkers over Aamir Khan. I got no feelings for the man, like I got no reaction for Anupam Kher being pro-Modi. Let me correct that, I have a reaction alright, but it is not facebook-worthy. Every single time, a 'celebrity' has a brain-fart, I want to be able to just shrug over their lack of common sense, hurl an abuse or two and go back to doing whatever unproductive procrastinating I was doing prior to that. 

Don't get me wrong, I do care about my country. I watched all the Satyameva Jayate episodes, I know the problems India is facing. More recently I have made myself aware to the many more problems courtesy of On Air with AIB. I know for a fact that if I had to deal with these said problems, I will have to get my face off of that smartphone and look around, talk to people and stuff and work maybe. 

The point is : Not everything needs to be posted on facebook. An occasional jibe, fine, understandable. But Facebook is not twitter where you post daily updates about who you think is a prize-a**

You also do not have to tweet about every little thing that happens across the country, unless you are a stand-up comic. I harbour a bias towards them, for they make twitter tolerable. And unless you are a Kardashian whose opinions people don't really take seriously, quit harbouring angst, hatred and disgust on social media platforms. You may be starting a chain of reactions that will poison many a ears. 

If you have a strong reaction, sit around the dinner table with your family and discuss it to get more perspectives to it. And when you have an informed opinion, more factual and resilient, be my guest and post it on your wall. Try and stop being offensive in communal/religious/political ways, we have enough goons trying to ruin day-to-day with things these. Spread kindness and virtue and some good humour. Lord knows we all have forgotten to laugh.

If you are doing this trolling madness for that notifications tab to blip continuously, please share pictures. Of your wife, your baby, your weekend escapades to Khandala or your new iphone. Guaranteed likes. That should keep you happy and content.

The point of interacting with your friends and acquaintances on the social media was primarily to be 'social' without the hassle of meeting up with them daily. To basically keep in touch. Don't be that person who has a troll-ish retort to every morning to a news headline. We have enough creeps all over the internet, don't be one of them.

I am probably sounding preachy right about now, so I will stop.  

Cheers,

D

Our Imperfect Perfections

I turn 27 tomorrow and I have a confession to make. I am an imperfect human. 

I am not a great looker and my sense of style is perhaps misplaced. I am not an exemplary cook nor am I a prominent name in the profession of my choice. If I were to decide the course of my life, I would fail miserably at it for I know not where my heart really lies. One day I want to be a master homemaker and the other, I want to be the most successful person there can ever be. I define the word fickle and push it a new level each day. But it is okay. It is okay that I look at the timelines of all the 1000 friends I have on facebook and think about how perfect their lives are on paper. It is completely fine, that some days I choose someone else's life as a comparison scale for what I should live like. I am only human. And I am vain as most humans can get. Sometimes less, sometimes more. We have all been there. Our virtual realities overpower the sense of our real selves, and no matter how many clickbait websites tell you that 'facebook infused depression' is a disease, trust me it is not. It is in our nature to be jealous, to be happy and sad, all at once when a friend gets engaged or promoted. We have been gifted the ability to feel, and to feel a hundred emotions at once. Then why create a pathological parallel universe and bracket yourself as abnormal, when our reactions are as habitual as breathing and sleeping.

But we are not all a whirlwind of crazy. We are loving and silent and loyal. We are practical and dreamy and loud and very accommodating. Sometimes, all at once! I know I am. A single personality trait hardly ever defines me and I have gotten it checked, it's not a psychological condition. My heart and the head are always in a tussle and there is never a clear winner. There can never be a winner for what is right for the heart need not necessarily coincide with what the head wants. And that's just about fine. Because if everything could be figured out in no time at all without us putting a decent amount of effort into it, failure and wisdom would be redundant. Wouldn't they?

We are a mixed bag of imperfections and that is what separates us from the rest, that is what motivates us to be unique. In every way, we are unique. Paradoxically, we are one. 
In our imperfect perfections, we are all one.

Cheers,
D!

Clouds and the Endless Sky

Clouds are one of my favourite things to photograph on any day. Especially the sunset. The orange hues, the burning red, the calm and cool blue tones and the disturbed rainy grey blacks. Silhouettes and Panoramas, everything looks other worldly set against an expansive sky. Here are few of the pictures I clicked over the last few months, spread across the various seasons and solstices, some from my phone and some from the camera. Irrespective of the medium, these images will transport you.

*peace*

Each one of these pictures spell out a moment etched in my head for life. Hope this resonates that.

Love,

D.