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Saturday, August 29, 2009

Anyone Here Know Konkani?

I am in the process of learning how to write my name and my girlfriend's name in as many Indian languages as possible. Well, at least as many different Indic scripts as possible. This all started with a waiter from Kerala.

I visited Bangalore's new Chili's restaurant one afternoon and my waiter asked me where I was from. I then asked him where he was from. When I told him I had visited Kochi, in Kerala, he asked me if I had picked up any of the local language, Malayalam. I pulled a pen from my pocket and wrote "toddy" on my napkin in Malayalam, which simultaneously impressed him and made him laugh. He then showed me how to write my name in Malayalam.

When I got to work, I showed my name to Robin, who is from Kerala, and he fixed some problems with the spelling. Then he showed me how to write "Anjali", and then it occurred to me that I could ask around to find out how to write our names in many languages. I turned to Jitan and asked him how to write our names in Hindi and Oriya. Then, Javed showed me in Urdu.

Here is what I have so far (my name is always on the left, hers on the right):

Assamese
Us in Assamese

Bengali
Us in Bengali

Gujarati
Us in Gujarati

Hindi
Us in Hindi

Kannada
Us in Kannada

Kashmiri
Us in Kashmiri

Malayalam
Us in Malayalam

Manipuri
Us in Manipuri

Nepali
Us in Nepali

Oriya
Us in Oriya

Punjabi
Us in Punjabi

Tamil
Us in Tamil

Telugu
Us in Telugu

Urdu
Us in Urdu

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Love Aaj Kal


Sunday - What To Do?


Sunday, we were feeling stuck at home. Anjali had a mending broken arm and I had a sunburn. We just wanted to get out for a while. Aha, Gold Class!


Gold Class


I could watch paint dry or grass grow in Gold Class. This is a movie theater experience where you sit with approximately thirty people in reclining leather chairs. A butler brings you food. It is nice to enjoy a movie while nearly falling asleep in an easy chair.


The Movie


Love Aaj Kal was not my first Hindi movie. I had viewed Delhi-6 a few months prior. For that movie, I had just heard the story of Rama and Sita, so I could draw parallels between the movie and what I had learned. Dialog was something which escaped me completely. In fact, I only remember identifying one phrase, "phir melange", which equates to "see you soon."


This movie was a typical chick flick. Two people are in a relationship in England, but the woman is moving to India for school and the man wants to move to California. So, they decide to break up, but never really get over each other. The guy strikes up a conversation with a restaurant owner, who reveals over the course of the movie to this young man his love story in India. Disclaimer: I may get a lot of this wrong, so gimme a break. The older gentleman, Veer, explains how he fell in love with a girl while they lived in Delhi, but she moved to Calcutta. He followed her, but found that she was engaged to another man. Likewise, the young, broken-up couple in the movie had moved on and the woman tells the man she has accepted a marriage proposal. She tells him that she will be getting married as they are flirting with each other via SMS, while both are sitting at dinner with their significant others. Anyway, the chick gets married and the guy lives out his dream of moving to San Francisco. The guy finds himself bored in San Francisco and thinks of the young woman. Perhaps it is just me, but he comes off as a jerk the way he only thinks of his ex-girlfriend when he shouldn't: when he is in a relationship with someone else and when his San Francisco life is not as great as he thought it would be. The young woman leaves her husband during their honeymoon. So, the broken-up couple end up together. Veer, the older man, ends the movie by returning home to his wife, whom you discover to be the woman he went to Calcutta for and was beaten by her fiance (and his friends) for his pursuit.


Understanding the Movie


I was able to keep up with a few things during the film. It was also cool to find out that some of the dialog was Punjabi and a phrase I have been saying for a while was revealed as something which makes sense (thanks Adi). When dialog passed me by, I focused on costuming, menus and other surroundings. I paid attention to locations in the movie which I might visit some day in the future. Who knows, maybe I will visit Calcutta some time soon, although a trip to Delhi is likely in my immediate future.


Rating


We got out of the house, enjoying some comfort snacks while sitting in an air conditioned theater. We watched a movie, a chick flick, and shared an experience. All in all, I would call that a good deal. But, Anjali has apologized a time or two about the fact that I had to sit through a foreign movie. Should I tell her that I have seen many foreign films without subtitles? Perhaps she will feel compelled to treat me to an evening movie with explosions, babes and/or spaceships...