T(w)o ‘thon’ or No(t) t(w)o ‘thon’

The days are passing quietly without much happening, which in itself is a bad sign. On top of that, I got entangled in a dumb squabble last week with AG (one of the friends who came to see me off here) concerning the existence of a numerical suffix ‘-ठों’ in Hindi!

The story is simple: I usually add the above-mentioned suffix to a number to stress multiplicity (like ‘n-fold’) as in दो-ठों (two-of-them). But when AG heard ‘-ठों’ uttered more than once, he could not contain his confusion, giggled and asked: What the hell is ‘-ठों’? I was as confused as he was and shot back: What the hell kind of question is that? And that’s day one of the confusion.

Next day, we were leaving the department to have lunch and he brought up ‘-ठों’ and stressed that it is NOT a Hindi ‘word’. And I stressed it IS! After too much stressing from both sides, it got stressful and we agreed to ask some other Indians around, then and there. (Just for some dramatic effects: It was drizzling then and sorting out this lingual debate was such a ‘high’ priority that) He called one (Source G*) and I called two (Source A & Source S). [It is also interesting to note that he called someone on-campus and I called people way out-of-campus!] Anyway, his ‘accomplice’ agreed with him and my ‘accomplices’ ‘agreed’ with me!

I write the second agreed in ‘inverted commas’ because my Sources confirmed that they have heard ‘-ठों’ used (and they themselves use it!) but added that it is at best a colloquial / regional construct; not an ‘authentic’ part of the Hindi language… (Oh yeah, that much is certain with no reasonable doubt now!)

So after day two, I still use ‘एन-ठों’ (n-of-them!) in Hindi conversations and AG still giggles at its use!

Finally, I’ll leave you with my website’s new address:

JKMSMKJ

*SG has made his first appearance on my blog in this post so no links available to use!

Happy (Belated) Holi

होलीको उपलक्ष्यमा तपाईंलाई हार्दिक शुभकामना!

होली मुबारक हो आपको!

OK, this post is 2-3 days (depending on whether you’re in Nepal or India) late but I had to do some brain-storming in order to compile some material for this post. I did not just want to post the answers to the last post’s questions! Now a couple of days after Holi, I do have some extra material… But before we get to that, let me give you the much-awaited (whoever was waiting for these should probably ‘Get A Life’) answers:

1) 2 (1)

2) D (1)

3) E (1)

4) D requires ‘e –> a’ while others require ‘el –> le’ to form ‘common’ words! (1) E should have had ‘quad’. (1)

5) No/Yes, I don’t care. (0) [But, I would like to see a sensible extension! :)]

…which is translation of a stanza (from a poem I guess!) penned by Ashok Chakradhar. The usual comments about accuracy, etc of translations of shers apply to this piece also! (Look at my earlier posts for details by searching for shayari… I don’t feel like linking to those again!) Here it goes:

जो मेहनत करी, तेरा पेशा रहेगा,
न रेशम सही, तेरा रेशा रहेगा।
अभी करले पूरे, सभी काम अपने,
तू क्या सोचता है, हमेशा रहेगा।
-अशोक चक्रधर

Jo Mehnat kari, tera Pesha rahega,
Na Resham sahi, tera Resha rahega|
Abhi karle pure, sabhi Kaam apne,
Tu kya sochta hai, Hamesha rahega|
-Ashok Chakradhar

Hard Work, keeps your Job,
Not Silk, at least your Essence.
Complete Now, all your Tasks,
Or do you hope, of Permanence?
-Ashok Chakradhar

For those who are wondering about the ‘Answers’ in this post, here are the

Questions