Say it Ain't So

More excerpts - I swear one can't help but eavesdrop here, you simply can't help it.

Tourist Question: Where can I wash my hands?

Restaurant Employee Answer: On the toilet.

This one kills me because I knew he meant in the toilet, because the sink outside the bathroom at Freedom nahee working, but the sink inside the loo runs all the time, sometimes non-stop. Still, I was most amused this morning, listening and thinking "She doesn't understand - he means 'in the toilet'.... Wait, that doesn't sound right either.."

Today's Hindi class, the second last one, is really where Vanessa kicked our teacher's arse, which she's been doing for days, coming up with formula's to help make sense of the language, otherwise we would be completely lost. (She's a math tutor and we've discovered we both love formula's, Lemonanas and Bollywood movies.)

Lemonana, by the way (called a Nimboonana in Hindi!*) please make it a.s.a.p - it's crushed ice, lemon juice and fresh blended mint aur torah chini, kripya. And little sugar. (That's pretty much my one week of Hindi in action and put to good use. I can order a drink with some sugar added, please.) *I stand corrected, please see Ayelet's note!

Here's your Hindi Sentence Structure Full Power Formula:

Subject + Indirect Object + Postposition + Direct Object + Action + Doing + Auxilary Verb

Simple, nay?

This would be why I am drinking coffee translates into Main coffee pee rahi hun.

The verb to drink is peena, and this would be why I love this sentence.

For anyone wondering how I graduated from middle school, I'm wondering the same thing. And the crisis I had when I turned 30, where I thought "My God, I am the same foolish person I was at 19! How could this be, How could God let this happen?!" Well, imagine the trauma that would have ensued had I realised my true level of maturity.

I haven't even told you about the night in Pushkar when Mahesh was trying to explain masculine and feminine to me and Sarah and how I could not stop laughing at this exchange:

Mahesh: Water is male, like Shiva. Fire is female, like Durga....

Sarah: What about everyday things like fruit?

Mahesh: ...Banana is male.

Sarah: Go figure.

more discourse and then...

Mahesh: Fountain is male -

Sarah: Really? But the water, oh of course, like the banana.

Five minutes later, Sarah looks over at me and says to Mahesh, who's looking at me like I'm on drugs because I can't stop laughing "She's still laughing about the banana." And I swear, that made it even harder to stop, then knowing he would think I was rude or "a bad girl" for laughing about the ridiculously obvious genderisation of a banana. I know, genderisation is not a word - but as I just noted, I still don't know how I passed Grade 8.

The Hindi classes would be a total bust without Vanessa, who is one smart cookie asking all the right questions but unfortunately this also really points out our teacher's ineptitude. For example - he wants us to translate sentences like "I had slept when he come."

Teacher: You have already slept, then He, the direct object, he cames to you.

Eufemia: The thing is, no one would ever say that in English.

The best part was Vanessa getting translations for "like" - as in 'Make me a coffee like hers' and the really important questions, "How do you say crushed ice?" at the end of class. I was still feeling bahut under the weather so I said "Oh my god, I'm going kill you." Because I woulda thought she coulda got that translation in Goa, when she was there...When she was there... When she is going....She will be going....Present Indefinite tense...Future tense...

Vanessa leaves in 2 days. Sigh. Big big sigh.

Yesterday, my favouriteVanessa quote was: I just don't have time to stop and make small talk with anyone.

And wouldn't you know, she was going to help me put my pictures on this blog and no joke, no site in Rishikesh will let us do it. (Not just us, Pedro can't upload his business information with the images he needs to post)

Here's 2 things I wanted to tell you: The movie's correct title The Braveheart will take the Bride had subtitles in English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayam, Gujarati and Bengali. Like, I've heard of one of those, Bengali, beforehand. Kannada, (pronounced like Canada, my home and native land!) is spoken in Bangalore.

And perhaps this dialogue exchange, taken direct from the English subtitle translation, will point out what I find heart-breaking about India, or moreover, some of the situations I've heard of in India (Though let's remember my tendency to melancholy. Though let's also remember this country is making me wonder bahut about my father and mother's childhoods in postwar Southern Italy):

Daughter, upon realising she has to get married soon to someone she has never met: I had forgotten I have no right to dream.

Mother: Of course you can dream. Just don't expect it to come true.

The thing is, would this have been the longest running movie in India's history if love didn't triumph in the end? After several nail-biting plot twists (I kid, I kid) fab dance sequences and a crazy martial arts duel almost to the death plus lots of pontificating about Hindustani honour, love wins over arranged marriage. The movie was made in 1995, and according to our restaurant employee source, it ran until 2002, non-stop in one cinema in Mumbai.... I'm thinking of how long movies like Titanic ran back home, or in Japan with a large teeny-boppy Leonardo following.

Seven years? That means there had to have been an audience for it. Interesting.