Mispronounced Words

 Growing up, a lot of words were mispronounced, by us and those around us. These included a few English words-

Daver or Diver for Driver

Tation for Station

Hochipal for Hospital

Pumpture or Pumpchar for puncture

Child for chilled, as in child Beer.

The purity of a language is a myth, according to Javed Akhtar. Those languages which borrow and grow live longer, as is the case with Mangled English.. it lives on. It has words from many foreign languages. Surprisingly, Hindi or Hindustani also has words from many languages like Persian, or Afghan.

One of the most-cited words of this kind in Bandicoot, from the Telugu word Pandikokku.

Stepwell in Hyderabad

 Bansilalpet has a neat stepwell, and an art gallery that has old paintings and photographs of that area and the stepwell. Near R.P. Road in Secunderabad. Worth a visit. 

Hyderabad Heritage Walk

 Mah Laqa Bai Chanda was a Courtesan, poet and warrior in the Nizam's time. Her tomb in Hyderabad was the starting point of our walk, which continued to the Moula Ali shrine nearby, dedicated to Ali, the Prophet's Son-in-law and whose followers are Shia Muslims.

She was also a possible inspiration for the book Umrao Jaan Ada, made into a film by Muzaffar Ali. A colourful personality. Pics from the tomb and Moula Ali hill.

Wedding in Chennai

 Went to Chennai for a few days, after quite a while. I used to attend a December conference at Great Lakes Institute for a long time. This trip I went to a wedding, and spent time with Vijayakumar-old friend and colleague-

On the way Pune-Chennai

Jayanti, another cousin of my wife's.

Ajai and Swethalakshmi, groom and bride.

Gayatri, wife's cousin and husband Kumar

at his place. Also met a couple of his partners in a new venture.