Thinking about thinking

Memory is sketchy. Observations are more of imagination than anything concrete. May the conclusions be objective even if wrong.

I studied in Kannada medium for the first ten years and then as a rule moved to English medium for my +2 (or two years Pre-University Course) and engineering. My spoken English was non-existent. I don't remember what I thought about thinking in English when I was in +2 or whether I really tried to engage in that. However, I remember going completely blank whenever I tried to think about technical concepts in English during my engineering. For some reason, I never tried to translate anything into Kannada. I'm not able to guess whether the reason being I found it difficult to find Kannada equivalents of the English technical terms or found it difficult to use English technical terms naturally in Kannada sentences.

It doesn't mean that my curiosity and creativity were curbed as I moved to English medium(on the contrary I grew up more skeptical though remaining philistine throughout). During my school days too I had been a passive student although I don't think I was much into rote learning by the time I reached the high school (8 to 10 years of my student life). Not that I thought by-hearting silly but didn't have the focus to study multiple times.

Once I moved to professional life, my usage of English went up. And nowadays I think only in English and it's not just technical information. I find it interesting to observe that where the common lingo would have been Kannada when conversing face-to-face, the imaginary talks are conducted in English. In contrast to my inability to think in English I suppose I shouldn't have any difficulty in thinking those conversations in Kannada.

I have heard a saying, if you can't articulate then you haven't understood clearly. But even when I wasn't able to articulate them clearly, I thought I could understand the concepts presented in English. I suppose grasping and articulating are not completely interdependent functions which may appear so if  there is a prevailing condition of a common language in grasping and in articulating.

But my engineering friend, who studied in English medium throughout, once told me he couldn't think in English and always translated everything into Kannada whenever he had to ponder over any of the concepts. He was one of the sharp brains in the class (but volatile and I was average).

I wonder whether there is another brain function called mapping between languages. If that's the case this should be the flow for a student with mother-tongue and the medium of instruction being different.

Grasping in the second language->Mapping to the best language->Thinking in the mapped language->Mapping to the second language->Articulating in the second language

I suppose 'mapping' is not a common function since in general there is no need for this ability. Children who have problem with this function would be best served if they study in their best language. For others the medium of instruction shouldn't matter.

Movie Review: Gangs of Wasseypur(Part 1)

I like mostly movies like the pirates of the Caribbean or the movies of, say, Jim Carrey. In other words, I like absolute fantasies or absolute absurdities. Any other movie, not withstanding my feeling while watching it, leaves me unsatisfied and sometimes even frustrated. Especially, the so-called offbeat movies or the offbeat movies made for the multiplexes leave me rather confused. I struggle to find a way to appreciate them.

I recently watched the movie,"Gangs of Wasseypur (Part - I)". It looked as if all stereotypes were woven together.

1. The difference in self-respect and ambition between an upper caste and a lower caste
 The upper caste Pathan is shown to be a man with an overwhelming self-respect who is biding his time to move up the ladder. The lower caste Qureshis for all their nastiness are still stuck to their fate and behave obsequiously in front of their upper caste Hindu masters.

2. Chivalrous upper caste and rapist lower caste
The upper caste men are chivalrous with their women but lower castes rape. However, the actual scenario in a Bihari village could be rather different as this article says. However, the portrayal in the movie probably does justice to the stereotypical feeling.

3. Hindu woman
A sexually liberated and provocatively dressed Hindu woman becomes second wife of a chivalrous Muslim man.

4. Karma philosophy
There is no dialogue that has the wit of "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse" but "You are right; he is a male" has the wisdom of over two thousands years.

5. Purity of Wife
If one expects that a moment of non-stereotypical has arrived, the director immediately recognizes audiences' child like emotional state and declares "nothing has happened" to the purity of the true wife.

6. Whimsical woman
Now I shouldn't be thinking that the director inserted scenes inspired from the Godfather without any purpose or that he had an illusion that copying classic scenes would naturally make his movie also a classic, so I had to interpret Durga's betrayal of her husband in a new light. That probably wasn't required if I stick to the stereotype of a woman. For want of a strong and compelling reason of that scene I could only say that the woman was cunning, whimsical etc...

Black and White

In the land of the colourless Dravidian
there lived once a light skinned man
married to a woman swarthy of the skin
and there was a scion of the said union

Everyone gushed whom "appa's son"
when the land rotated towards the sun
but when the light faded as day came down
"amma's son" they said in unison