The emailers..

Sure.. all of us email. I mean in this age of the Internet, who doesn't? But this title, the "emailers" should strictly refer to people who email for everything. And I've come to believe I am one of them. Often I email my professor who is one floor below mine, rather than simply going over and conveying the information. And this has more to do with practicality than laziness. Before you start questioning that line of thought, let me assert that indeed I got into this groove of things 'coz of Dr P back in UC. Often we scheduled meetings in the stairwell or near some classroom only for me to learn later that he'd either forgotten about it or scheduled something else in it's time slot. "Why didn't you just send me a confirmation email" would often be his chagrined response. In his defense, I guess the email helped him directly put it on his Outlook calendar or something similar to schedule a meeting which would then send him a reminder and essentially set the ball rolling. And so it began. Emails for everything... from meeting for coffee to setting the thesis defense date. From friends to professors to colleagues to family to companies to industries and what not. Email. The easy, comfortable, reassured way of reaching people who remained connected. And so I was hooked to it. I have discovered however, that in Paris people prefer the personal touch. More often than not, it's more of you could've just told me rather than email me. Often emails are forgotten, ignored or trashed without being read and people seem to remember personally scheduled meetings rather than impersonally worded emails. It also helps build rapports with people you haven't worked too often with in the past. I've learned to work with this situation though. These days, I send an email as a correspondence-retainer and then follow it up with a phone call or a personal visit to the office of whoever I am contacting just to make sure they read the email. And here it works out even better because while they can certainly understand my written French, with my spoken French (though I presume I have gotten infinitely better at it), it still leaves room for some interpretation and entertaining dumb charades at times. Finally, communication is the key. And who cares if I had to resort to either actions or English to convey the last couple of words to complete a message? And in time, I won't need those either. Fingers crossed.

"Bi"-lingual

For many people learning French for the first time, it may seem absurd that French words have a specific gender. Of course this is nothing new to people familiar with our very own Hindi. Like mera bag(my bag where bag's male) or meri kursi(my chair where chair is female). Interestingly, taking the very same examples to French yields the same gender. It's mon sac and ma chaise respectively male and female for the corresponding examples of bags and chairs. Most words match for the two languages as far as I checked, except some, like "telephone", which is male in French and female in Hindi. Which makes it "bi-lingual" in more than one sense, if you get my drift. The funny part's when the ignorant English speaker attempts French or vice versa. Often times the gender is messed up.. Perhaps it's not so weird when the English speaker says mon chaise for his chair even though the chair is female. But it's funnier when the French are trying to explain something to you in English. Like when the computer hangs, for example. English, being gender-neutral, we tend to say, It's not responding. When the French people translate it for you, they often say, He is not responding. Ok, I don't know why, but I thought this was funny when I started writing this post. Now it seems a little rhetoric. Ah well, it's something interesting, if not funny at least for a few lingual enthusiasts. For everyone else, Happy middle-of-the-week and hope I think up something more fun next time around! A+

Instant Karma

There's something about meeting new people... something fascinating.. something exciting, something that holds new possibilities. Of course all of this is true of only the 'nice' people you meet.. not the creeps. Yet a lot of them are those you know you are unlikely to ever meet in your life again... one time wonders. And they enrich those few moments that they're present in your life. And it happens all the time.. those train journeys, that person in front of you in the queue. And only a few make it as far as name exchanging... some others remain that veil of memory that touched you at some point of time.

I especially love traveling to new places... They offer umpteen opportunities to meet new people of all kinds.. And considering I was going to a conference where I didn't know a single soul meant that opportunities would present themselves. And they did. Granted it started a little slowly, thanks to all the French talk... but then came lunch and I was seated with 9 strangers. Some soul-searching, a lot of salad later, I had 3 interesting people that I'd met.. But dinner was my favourite time today. It beat all the experiences hands-down. I wandered to the Toulouse centre all by myself in the hopes of finding some nice little restaurant where I could make up for the measly lunch or the total lack of it. And so I found La Piazza Papa, an Italian trattoria amidst the bold french cafés. Having seated myself comfortably in a corner glass-paned 2 seater table, I was pondering over the menu when the chuckling chatter of the nearby table caught my ear and when I looked up, my eye. Two couples at the next table were as eager to strike conversation as anyone I've known and so my rudimentary French flowed. The waitress pushed our tables together seeing as we got along as well as we did. It was as much fun as I could've hoped for in an evening I'd looked forward to spending with Vikram Seth (the book in my bag). In the end, we ended up having a broken conversation where they told me all they could about Toulouse... what I shouldn't miss seeing and importantly a gelato they said I shouldn't miss. Here's the kicker.. they took me there and I am glad I went, for it was honestly divine. For every passing conversation in trains, there come opportunities like these, which end up being one for the blogs. And traveling down memory lane is the best trip ever, isn't it? So shouldn't we be making the most memories possible? That's a simple one to answer. Yes, we should. Signing off from Toulouse...

French flaws

What happens when a country starts to grow on you? Embarrassment! I have been saying "Bonjour" instead of "hello" and "pardon" instead of "sorry" consistently over the past week. While the others think I am alien, I turn red from the heat/embarrassment or both and am found floundering for the right equivalents for words that the people can understand. So much for trying to embrace the French culture. Hmph.

BTW, Happy Friendship Day everyone! If you want to read rants from last year - here you go!

Read my mind

I figure everyone thinks in a different language, a language that may not be your thai-mozhi (mother tongue). I know I do. I think in English... Even when I pray to God or am mentally hoping for something, it's all in English. I think I saw it in Dasavatharam, where one of Kamal Hassan's dialogues says that he thinks in English. I totally identify with that. But that does not affect the delivery or the continuum of my speech or writing in any of the other languages that I am fluent in... But it does play a big role in French. Maybe part of the reason is that the sentence formations in the two languages are very similar. And do I find that I form a sentence completely in English and translate it word for word to French. And I realized that just today when I had a conversation in excess of 5 exchanges each with a colleague. I think for like a second before responding to the question. And in that second, there is a substitution process going on in my head. I don't know if I'll ever fluently think in French. It's unlikely. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am learning a new language after eons and I never really paid any attention to techniques when learning the other languages as a kid. And now I know that's why some other people's English sounds funny. They are translating it from their own languages... I bet that's what my French is to them as well. Funny. So what language do you think in?

A French Wedding

It was a long weekend this past weekend and we were out to celebrate the weather and a wedding - that of S's boss. So it took us to the north of France... We saw the beautiful beaches of Normandy before heading out to the rustic St Dizier near which the wedding was... But while the pretty part of this experience will feature on Citystalkers shortly, I take this time to write about the wedding itself. The card said 4:OO PM to past midnight... I couldn't imagine what we would possibly do for 8 hours.. Until we did and I found out..

4:00 PM: Signing in -So the couple arrived fully dressed exactly at 4:00 to the registrar office where by 4:05, the minister had confirmed that they were not forced into saying oui to one another and they'd signed their contract of marriage.

4:15PM - The ceremony - A few handshakes, a lot of pictures later, the couple and indeed the whole bunch of invitees waded over to the church across the street where the ceremony began. There were a lot of songs and they'd given us each a Program book in which one could find the lyrics of the songs. I took immense pleasure in loudly singing off-key, invoking a few engaging and other mutinous smiles from surrounding people. Within the hour, the vows were taken, the
rings exchanged, the kisses, the flowers, the Wedding March, et al. It was an exercise of sorts for the witnessing public.. The Father made us rise and sit at will and indeed I started debating my decision of wearing the heels that i'd bought for my own big day. And already. The night was yet to unfold.

5:00 PM - Mini party - At the hall of the registrar, was a mini greeting party where people like me who didn't have an inkling as to who the bride and groom were, could be introduced to them. And then came the champagne and the mini-appetizers... things that looked like those things on the Monaco biscuit ads back in India. Having nothing to do makes you hungry and we all eagerly devoured whatever we could lay hands on (whatever veggie in my case) and set out for taking pictures.

We idled... we chatted and we gossipped.. but the time was barely 6:10PM. It was too long to just wait around drinking more n more champagne after all. We decided to explore the countryside. The husband found out about a bar called Moulin Rouge about 10km away and so A, SK, V, S and I set off to 'explore'. As beautiful as it was deserted, we enjoyed a coffee/beer at the bar and then decided to make best of our 1 hour before the formal dinner to take pictures at the mustard fields, near unsuspecting cows and a tiny brook and became one with the nature out there.

8:00 PM - Back at the dinner - The dinner was at a community hall close to the earlier venue and featured beautifully arranged round tables with place names as souveniers. We seated ourselves there and were soon served the first course in our 6+ course menu. And that was the only thing to be served early. Every course following that literally came an hour later in between which there were silly games, a slideshow of the couple's pictures, a few karaoke songs, the couple's first dance soon joined by many other couples. All went great until S decided this was as good a place as any to embarass me... and offered the groom that I would sing for all of them. He then convinced me that singing in front of 30 people was a piece of cake and that I would manage blah blah... Well, if I was going down, so was everyone else. I smoothly convinced all the Indians on our table that we would all sing together. And so what do you know? There we were... rendering It's the time to disco to tumultous applause. Thats not all... guess what happens next? They play the song again and now want to be taught dance steps to it. Put in the centre of the happenings, unable to refuse the 25 odd eager people who'd formed a circle around me to follow my dance steps, I wildly invented. But that wasn't half as strange as seeing everyone repeat the steps I taught. It was crazy. Everyone had a blast... and the DJ proceeded to play Mahi Ve next and off we went inventing steps once more. Bollywood music was a raving hit and the DJ actually ripped our songs to play at other functions. S and I danced for a long while before returning famished for each course after almost an hour. But before long, everything had become a little too much to take. It is especially taboo to leave a party before the bride and groom have cut the cake. And the cake wasn't cut till 1:30 am. And after that came the champagne and the toast and then coffee!

By the time everything was over, I don't know what time it was... because we excused ourselves at 2:30 am. Then we had a long winding drive of 33km in pitch dark to get back to the hotel.

One hell of an experience. And to think that I had unsuspectingly asked S, 'Can't we leave around 10?', we would've not even have made it past the two appetizers. Lol.

French kisses

Nope.. This is not any spicy blog about what you may have thought its going to be from the title.. This is about the French way of greeting people (or saying goodbye to them). I believe it is called faire la bise.. La Bise means kiss in French.. So this is the action you might've caught on TV somewhere where 2 people exchange kisses (to the air) on alternating cheeks. It seems that 2 kisses is the norm.

I was at a party yesterday.. It was a birthday party for an Indo-French kid hosted by his family, an entire bundle of Indo-French folks... They spoke fluent Tamil and French and halting English.. It was my first time at any such gathering and I was observing the customs quite amusedly. Initially when I met the first 2 people, I enthusiastically followed along kissing the air ( I realized that these people exchanged 4 kisses - it seems its a custom for people in Nantes) But my interest waned when I met another whole bunch and I saw more of the surrounding people than the one was meeting while kissing the air around me 4 times!! Gosh!! It was a pretty long drawn process and started to get to me a bit.

That apart, at the time of cake cutting (there were 2 huge cakes to accomodate servings for the number of guests), each one flanked by a flowerpot cracker. There were 2 bottles of champagne and we were each given sparklers (mathaappu) which we were to light when the birthday boy was about to blow out the candles.

And once we were done, we got started with the goodbye kisses. Some customs just require getting used to.

A 6 course meal

Today I have achieved what I believed impossible. Well its both what you think and what you don't know. I lasted a 6 course meal - you got that from the title of the post. But I also lasted an entire day of presentations in... FRENCH. Congratulations to me! I never thought it was possible. When my professor suggested that it would be "good for me" to attend the presentations given by the senior members and partners of the project and get introduced to them as the new stellar PhD student, I was excited. Then he revealed that they would be in French. Thats when I mentally tuned out and willed myself not to sleep. I have slept in many classes in the past and A will vouch for that a 100%.. But in a teeny conference room with 6 senior members all waiting to see that spark of brilliance come from me, it wasn't the best of ideas. But this post is not about how I survived 6 gruelling hours of making out an odd phrase here... a number there and the parallels between French and English on the screen ahead of me (scientific is scientifiqué - there are many words like that). Its about lunch. The French like their food. That explains why the initially decided upon hour-long lunch stretched into twice that length.. It can also be explained by the fact that there were 6 courses.

Before today I had no idea how any meal could have more than 3 courses -appetizer, lunch and dessert, right? Wrong! The French start with what they love most - bread. Our choices today for Course 1 were wheat bread and baguette... And then the chef brought in Course 2 - plates of salad for each of us.. Thankfully he was forewarned about me being veggie and so while the others crunched on their chicken/pork/lamb or whatever, I grazed on my carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes. The salad was soo huge that I half suspected that that was it. Wrong again! Giving us ample time to finish (everyone had scraped their plates clean except me), the chef cleared the plates and brought in the main courses - Course 3... Boiled ripe Roma tomatoes and boiled beans with basmati rice for me as opposed to chicken tikka masala for them.. Its an unfair world. The boiled beans had no salt or any flavour and I couldn't take more than two of them. The tomatoes were yummy and thats all I ate.. what was I to eat the rice with anyways? I was sure dessert was next after the Basmati disaster - wrong again.. And in came Course 4 - Cheese. Seriously, I thought it was flan or something on my plate - but it turned out to be 3 ample portions of what I identified as blue cheese, goat cheese and ambiguous cheese.. with guess what? Bread of course! I was mortified by then and barely chewed anything while others munched away to glory. I was hoping we were done once and for all. Of course I was wrong. Course 5 - Dessert - a fried banana pie. This was yummy with a delectable crust and everyone cleaned up their plates, thank you very much. Now surely it was over? Who could get back to those meetings without that last course? Course 6- A shot of espresso!! My first ever and I needed it to wake me from the lull of the 2 hour lunch. The caffeine didn't as much as the bitterness did and I was grateful for the dark chocolate that accompanied it to remove the taste from my mouth.

Off we all trudged into the meeting room. Waiting for us was what we'd started with at breakfast- coffee, tea, orange juice, croissants and pain aù chocolat.

J'apprends le français

How long is it since you learned a language? For most of us, the languages we know were the ones we learned way back in primary school. So if you're like me, you won't even remember how it felt to learn a language. The grammar, the prose, the verbs, the sentence constructions etc are sooo trivial that we don't even notice the way we use it. If you know Hindi, you'd realize like many foreign languages, even our good own Hindi has "gender" for things. Aam ka ped, neend ki goli - ok you get it. Its sooo imbibed in us, we dont realize that its monumental for someone who doesn't know the language.

So, I started learning French out of pure boredom by myself a couple of weeks ago before the brainwave that I could actually "sit through" a French 101 course at school struck me. However I kept at the self-learning and built a cute little vocabulary. Ofcourse anyone who knows French knows that NOTHING is pronounced the way its written or vice versa. The only saving grace is that the sentence construction is pretty similar to English and once you build your vocab collection of verbs, you will be failr good with practice. Ofcourse learning the language and practicing in front of your computer is one thing and speaking it with a native is a whole another thing.

Today was the first French 101 class. The instructor was a Frenchman, a PhD student was a sweet guy who spoke English with the easiest-to-distinguish French accent (sorry to disappoint you - he was NOT cute looking!) And so after a couple of sentences from him, we were all to introduce ourselves in French (if we knew it) or atleast try. When my turn came, I took a deep breath and started out "Je m'apelle Jaya" and so on. And to my own surprise I did fairly well. Except that though I knew my age in French, I was shy to pronounce it! Overall it was a good first class. It gave me that flutter which I hadn't felt in sooo long.. The feeling of knowing absolutely NOTHING while you sit in the first class. That too its a romance language... how bad can it be? With no crediting to worry about, this one should be a breeze. In all my excitement, I bought my first textbook in the US for this class!

On the "downside", I donno how long I expect to stick around here to do justice to this class.. But for what its worth, from the "Je ne comprends pas", its slowly becoming "Je comprends" :-)

Until later, Au revoir!