Language lessons in the jhups

With the HSBC form-filling occupying most of the day and attention of my project guide, I was left with not much to do on an even otherwise lazy and extremely sweaty Monday. In fact, the Kolkata weather has been showing signs of going beyond any hope of redemption and if this is going to continue or worsen any further, all my wet bed covers and night clothes are surely going to take their toll on me and my early morning blues.

Also, the number of breaks that the gang of summer trainees take have been increasing in proportion to the heat. With Aditya back (he had to miss a few days due to some back pain problems) in action, we had another mind to think of ways and means to escape from the often dreary schedule of many. We had come up with the soup break on Friday apart from our regular Singhara break at the neighboring jhups (as Sandipan likes to call them). Monday saw the birth of the tea and sutta break which happens just outside the back gates of the office at a very shady looking tea stall that has more used tea leaves and empty egg shells than perhaps space for the stall owner to sit.

With Anurag missing from the PG for the second day in a row, I could not get to the CD shop for my quota of the day but I did make full use of my movie time by digging into the reserves and taking out the copy of Saagar that I had so painstakingly ripped from a DVD. I must say that I had thought so little of lingual differences in the past that this movie sort of re-opened my eyes. An allegedly (???) fine actor like Kamal Haasan was reduced to a caricature in this movie just because he was not able to pronounce his dialogues with as much ease as perhaps a decent, yet limited by his talent, Rishi Kapoor could. The sentimental scenes that might have impressed me when I was naiver actually made me laugh this time because I could relate to the difficulties that Kamal was having in expressing the emotions in a way that he was not used to doing. In my little time at Chennai and now at Calicut, I have seen similar things happening to myself and my friends and I can guess how comical we appear while trying to test our new found linguistic skills.

The guitar practice did start but the first day disappointed. I could not get the hang of what the instructor wanted me to do. I guess these are just initial exercises and the first few days are going to be a bit tough, anyways...got to persevere.

As another morning beckons, I realize that it is going to be a Tuesday with an empty stomach, a razor sharp morning and afternoon and a diametrically opposite and inefficient evening and night. Ideally, I would like this day to be relatively a little more productive, what with two things requiring my immediate attention in the project...an interview with the payroll staff and another with the appraisal people to get the details on the only two processes that I have not yet been able to chart out. Work ho!