Tamil

I think I came across this phrase in school. Since I chose to study “Hindi” as my second language, I probably didn’t get to study this phrase first hand. “Poruthaar Boomialwaar”. A very powerful phrase that every kid should learn, understand and imbibe in his/her life. I told Noni that the only thing I want to teach my kid would be “delayed gratification”. I cannot say it is an uninfluenced thought, we all have heard of and seen some version of the marshmallow experiment. But my reasons are slightly different. I have personally felt places where I won just by sheer perseverance and places where I lose sleep simply because I can’t wait. And I have generally seen some form of correlation between impatience and poor skillsets (learning/execution/planning) etc. So I sort of have my own subset of proofs for the marshmallow tests. So one thing I want to teach my kid (if it is teachable) is delayed gratification. ...

 As I was rolling in the bed y’day night trying to sleep, I weirdly started thinking how Hindi as a language fared in my life. When I entered middle school, I had to make a choice for the second language. And my parents rightly made my choice for studying Hindi. They felt, I would anyway pickup Tamil and knowing the national language is very important. Yes. I totally agree today – besides, I am sure Hindi was simpler than Tamil. In those times, choosing Hindi has its own disadvantages. For instance, during Engineering college admissions, if two candidates had all parameters equal, then the candidate who chose to study Tamil would get preference. At least that is what I was told. I never had to validate it though. ...

Funny that I should talk about music. But anyway, laugh all you want. I am going to talk about something related to music. After a long time, I liked what I heard in OK Kanmani songs. I didn’t quite care about the lyric, but I didn’t find it obscene. Yeah, that’s been a while when the song is not obscene. And its more obscene to hear kids mouth the lyrics innocently. Somebody really robbed them off their innocence without telling them about it. ...