Chennai to Secundrabad

Most of you would have listened the track d d d dilli dilli dilli....(NOKJ); well i feel like singing ch ch Chennai Chennai Chennai (cos am missing Chennai); As the NOKJ movie starts with the dialogue "Dilli is all about paisa, power, position"; Secundrabad (Hyderabad too) is all about "Fashion, Fun, Food". Located about 600 + km away from Chennai, Secundrabad is a land of mixed reviews.
Well Secundrabad is a home away from home for me. Although, i have been here since i was 4 years old for vacations, when it comes to settling in a place, we check out many things that are although far away from being important influence us.Few of the things are:
Lemme start with the negative stuffs;
1. Traffic: Being a Chennaite, i know a lot about about traffic & experienced a lot or should i saw suffered a lot, be it driving a 2/4 wheeler or even sitting inside bus/ in pillion, traffic jam irritates. Now if u have felt all these in Chennai, then Secundrabad is gonna frustrate you even more. Here for every 5m there is a speed breaker :( (driving a 2 wheeler wounds our back), roads are totally uneven with all pits & stones...
2. Weather: Summer sucks... well don't ask me is summer awesome in Chennai..at-least there is beach nearby in Chennai, that rejuvenates us. Here the sun really sucks your body glucose as in ads. (U can never ever step out without a proper sunscreen)
3. People: With this t-talk on the run for months, people are racists (not all, but many); although you can mange with Hindi here in most of the cases; u gotta speak Telugu with local ppl(vendors, kurkas, etc) cos they see u as a filth if you don't converse in Telugu

Now the positives;
1. Fashion: From a just born to just-to-be-dead, every one is beauty conscious, (it's lil bit negative too; imagine a 50 year old wearing legging & skinny top???); but being here, fashion maniacs like me can be on par with upcoming styles. Chennai gets the fashion stuffs nearly months later than its other metropolitan counterparts, but Secundrabad has all well fashioned & stylish stuffs in market as soon as India adopts it.
2. Fun: When its all about coffee, afternoon lunches, evening movies etc in Chennai; Secundrabad is all about night outs, the real hi-tech city never sleeps.
3. Food: From Paratas to Rotis, Currys to Gravys, Biriyanis to Pulavs, Dosas to Upmas, Chats to Junk... name it u can have it... but unlike Chennai chat stalls & hotels where aloo (potato) is main ingredient, thus making you fat, is neglected here, so whatever u eat, u can be carefree about your shape, cos street food here are very less in calories & fats.
4. Boys: Well, life here is "mujse dosti karoge??"; "can we have a coffee??"; "Will you dance wimme?"; Guys here are like BFF type, some are just looking/dating type; not much into serious commitments. (well, then again heres a warning, befriend people at your own risk; cos u never know wen one things leads to another) If you are in need of jus friends then say guys clearly, they will understand. (P.S: about girls i seriously dnt know, cos dint befriend one yet, most of the gals are stylish, hard to find homely gals & abt their char, will say wen i get friends here in girls) (P.S: I like Chennai guys too in character, care, affection; but guys in Secundrabad are more stylish, less egoistic, less chauvinistic, more pampering :P like in Bwood movies)

Well this is Secundrabad - The City Of 3Fs "Fashion, Fun, Food" & am loving it... :) :)Will come up with a next blog about AP Tourism :)

Novels for the Novice

Well this is again a post about English. For people who are going to start reading novels for the first time I wish to include a few suggestions. Gone are the days where novels are as big as your engineering textbooks. Those were Shakespeare-ian times. Nowadays novels as a small as 100 pages. Be it small or big; novels should have a capability to make readers glued on till last page. That's the only trick which creates passion. Some of the novels i suggest for the novice are

1. 2 States: It's one hell of a novel. Be it in terms of simple English or witty humor; CB has done absolute justice to his 4th novel. This is definitely the best from Chetan Bhaghat. Start with this and you will surely love the novel, Chetan Bhaghat and English (not exactly in this order).
2. I too had a love story: This book is for modern day Romeos and Juliets. This is definitely an awesome work from a first time author. When it comes to real life tragedies people become more stronger than before. Ravinder Singh is one of that kind. Read this heart touching love story. This is definitely a good start for an amateur reader.
3. Preeti Shenoy Novels: This one is especially for girls because it will kindle your feminine feelings and also you will be feeling a bit of you in every book of hers.

Once you have done with these books then you can move on to more higher level books like CB's rest 4 novels, other Indian authors like Durjoy Datta, etc and even fantasies like Harry Potter and Twilight.

English - Communication Skills

“Try and bring me down, I will rise to the top, say I am wrong, I will prove I'm right; tell me I can't, I'll show you I can!!!”

This quote is what I often say to my heart. The blog you are reading currently is not just my latest one, but it’s the one am writing well nah typing after ages; which brings me back to the quote on the pinnacle of this page. I was to engrossed with my styling job that I forgot my first love “WRITING”; then when some people including my heart said you have changed to tracks to the fashion world & you know more belong here, I felt embarrassed so am “back with bang” now.

            The topic I have preferred now is my all time favorite “ENGLISH - COMMUNICATION SKILLS”. Well, most of you guys would wonder what the big deal is there about this communication skill stuff; I want to say you guys one thing; either you people are the lot who have some inbuilt prodigious skill in English (I feel am one among them) or the bunch of kids who speak English with a stylish accent & artificial gestures. I do accept certain people do exist who doesn’t fall in both of these categories yet have an awesome knowledge & command over their language. This blog is just another blog for the above 3 categories, but there are people who really think English as an alien language, if you have not met much people like that then you must have been a student of one of the top C.B.S.E / Anglo – Indian schools & a graduate from top university. Each & every class is an average & above average school/college has at least a gang of guys (by guys I mean the gals too) who are afraid of English like how am afraid of cockroaches. After 4 years of college life in a remote village near Sivakasi, I came to know some shocking facts about how under privileged people in rural Tamil Nadu are. Well I will come up with that part as a separate blog, now about the communication part; let me share you few of my experiences in my college…

•  First day in my college started off with those formal self introduction stuff, and believe it or not only two out of sixty plus students spoke in English (obviously am one of that two); and my situation & reaction was similar to that of Tammanna’s in the movie Kalloori (as I dwelled mostly in Chennai & Hyderabad alone plus C.B.S.E education made me think English is a piece of cake for every one).
•   Second thing that startled me was 70% of the students in my college were from Tamil medium & the worst was they had never spoke English for even 2-3 continuous minutes.
• Till my school days (although my school is not the crest among the C.B.S.E schools) my teachers made it mandatory to converse only in English in the school premises, habitually I started speaking in English with everyone there. My first big shock came in form of my bossy senior when I said “Excuse me!!” when she stood in my way; at that time nothing happened apart from her mysterious glare, the very same night we had a meeting at hostel they call it Seniors-Juniors Collaboration Meeting (I translated form Tamil to English) & I call it Seniors Bullying Juniors Meeting, in that crap meeting they made me stand in front of 400 students & shouted, scolded, warned me that my attitude was wrong, at that moment I didn’t understand the head or tail of it. After the meeting my roommate explained that it was all because I used the word “Excuse me” to my senior which was a crime of disrespecting her.
• Same scenarios occurred a lot of times, sometimes I laughed outrageously at their hesitation & hatred towards English & at times I laughed prudently.
• Lots more of funny, sentimental scenes happened which I will explain in my next blog. 
• The last & worst shock was when I read my slam book, not even a single soul (I mean the ones who studied in Tamil medium) wrote correctly. I never expected them to write poems or beautiful jargons, but I thought 4 years of Engineering Education with 6 communication skills paper would have made them learn at least some basics but I was in vain.

o   Some of the words from my slam book:

§  tallent – talent

§  gorgious –  gorgeous

§  bouldly – boldly

§  you work hardly – you work hard / you are a hard worker

§  notty – naughty

§  prosperious – prosperous

§  you English speak nice – You speak English nicely / et al

Well, I really do appreciate some of my friends who always approached me or some other student who converses properly in English for help, sorry guys I couldn’t help you much because most of you approached me only while I was waiting for my H.R interview with H.C.L; the things you needed from me, here it goes:

• First & foremost love English like you love your mother tongue, I have seen most of you guys defend very well in the so called group discussions on movies, cities etc., in Tamil/Telugu.
• If it’s your first time with an English daily opt for Deccan Chronicle, slowly you can switch over to “The Hindu”, because if you start with The Hindu then you will feel that English is vague which is actually not so. 
• Try to converse small terms & sentences correctly with no grammatical error.
• Always go in for a pronunciation tutorial from BEC. 
• Keep an Oxford dictionary (at least a pocket one) handy. 
• Try watching Hollywood movies with sub titles (most of my friends at college especially guys watch it just for the visual effects & other quixotic effects).
• Read novels not the 1000 – 2000 pages which you have seen in my room, go for simple stuffs, for beginners in reading (you are good in English or not, it doesn’t matter) opt for books like Enid Blyton’s Famous Five / Secret Seven, Hardy Boys, even Chetan Bhagat’s because his books are matured yet realistic & adaptable to Indian youths. 
• What’s more that’s it… English is as simple as that & if you want to master it you must have these skills

§  E – Elegance

§  N – Naturalness

§  G – Grammar

§  L – Love (for the language)

§  I –  Ignition (to speak)

§  S – Style

§  H – Hell – bent (on speaking)

Well I will wind up my saying my last but never the least opinion “Since English is the global language, if you master it; then yours is Earth & everything in it” (literally):P

Catch U Guys Up In The Next Blog With A More Interesting Topic

Until Then,

Love You,

Take Care,

Cheers,

Tanya