The Awakening.

The massacre of the 26th of November in Bombay has scarred all of us in some manner or the other. It scares me till this day to think that I escaped that bloodbath. I left VT station at 8:30 pm. The atrocities at VT started at 9:30 pm. The killers were planning to open fire at 7 pm. It could have happened any time that evening. My friend was at the station at 9 pm. My classmates from my French class were bang opposite Leopold Café when the bomb went off there. They could not return to Thane that night. They spent the night at a friend’s place at Peddar Road. I slept that night thinking that the mayhem would end by the following morning. I was foolishly mistaken. What happened next was witnessed by the world. The Taj Mahal Hotel, the Oberoi Trident, Nariman House and VT station had turned into scenes of carnage. I was simply numbed by the thought that it was a marine invasion. What were our Navy and Coast Guard guys doing? My brother’s classmate lost his father in the Taj. His father was the Head Chef at the Taj, the captain as they call them. An acquaintance lost seven of her colleagues in the Taj. She did not sleep for 3 nights after hearing the news and had to finally be put to sleep like an infant. My friend escaped a blast at the Trident. She was right inside the building. My French teacher lost two of her neighbors in the Taj. The Director of my former workplace lives in the building right next to the Nariman House. He witnessed the tragedy up-close. Radio France International called me up for my testimonial. So were my French teachers and many French expatriates. But I finally lost it when I saw the funerals of Hemant Karkare and Major Sandip Unnikrishanan. I cried till the point that I looked diseased. That happened to a whole lot of other people too. The city is angry and united. This time our anger won’t die down. We won’t let it. We are going to use it a positive force against the enemies outside and the enemies within. We will come up will solutions and get them implemented too.

Lexically correct.

My mom has a curious affinity for dictionaries.

She loves them. She can’t seem to purchase enough of them. We have an English, Marathi, Hindi, French and even an Urdu dictionary at our place.

She taught me how to read a dictionary when I was 6 years old.

So when some months, when my sister asked my mom for some cash to watch the movie ‘Tashan’, my mother responded in the negative straight away! Taken aback, my sis demanded to know the reason for her refusal.

Our mom said that the word ‘Tashan’ is definitely not Marathi. She explained that she tried to find its meaning in the Hindi AND Urdu dictionaries and her efforts came to zilch. Hence, given that the word ‘Tashan’ is meaningless, mom reasoned that the movie is bound to be meaningless. She staunchly refused let one rupee of her money to be wasted on idiotic ‘scenes after scenes’!

My sister never got to watch the movie. Her friends went for it. They called her in the evening to say they wasted their time and money on ‘Tashan’ and my sister was fortunate to have escaped the ordeal. My sister prompted reported their views to our mom. Mom patted herself on the back for her lexical logic.

Bio! Bio! Bio!

Back when I completed class 12, there was a big mania for pursuing a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology / microbiology / life sciences and in that order. I bet half the people who jumped into these streams did know what they where getting into. For example, I have a friend who did her BSc in Biotechnology and is now completed disappointed about her decision. She did not like. She is now trying do an MBA and says that she didn’t like one single day of her biotech studies! There is a boy who also followed the same course of studies and is now pursuing perfumery. But at least his post-graduate studies have something to do with his Bachelors! I know another two girls who did their BSc in microbiology and are know studying management saying that microbiology was useless. Well there is nothing wrong about people studying management, but I completely disagree with them when they say that their studies related to the biological sciences were useless. Their reasons for choosing their Bachelors were wrong. We do not do our Bachelors just because newspapers like ‘The Education Times’ scream that the future holds great ‘scope’ for these fields. We choose our careers based on what we like. If you don’t like anything, you are bound to be in a mess.

Anyway, what I’ve found out over the last 4 years is that Bachelors degrees in Agriculture, Horticulture, Biology, Botany, Zoology, Biotechnology, Microbiology and Life sciences have nearly the same standing in the job market. It is only if you pursue a masters in one of these fields does it make sense for your careers. Now since I am in a studies councilor mood, let me tell those confused souls out there pursing one of the above fields what to do. If you can’t move abroad, it pretty difficult and expensive to make good careers related to the biological sciences. However, there are education options in France and Germany which provide good education at relatively affordable costs.

Learn German and/or French people. That will prove to be a good career move.

Then look through:

1. DAAD http://campus-germany.org for courses like food processing, environnement protection, masters in beer brewing, wine etc.
2. CAMPUSFRANCE http://campusfrance.org/en Search for courses related to the same fields. You will come across good courses.

Don’t worry. Your career decision is a good one. Just sculpt it properly

DELF B2!

My DELF B2 exam got over yesterday. What a relief! I slept peacefully. I desperately need that certificate and I think its coming. The hard work of the last 4 months seems to be paying off. I was just eating, drinking and sleeping French for the last 4 months. I have lost count of the number of magazines I read, the number of websites I used for French audios and the number of French movies I watched in the past 4 months. My fear of not being able to talk for the 20 minutes session of ‘Speaking’ section had nearly driven me out of my mind in August. But I did speak for 20 minutes and how! The decision to pursue DFA 1 and B2 part 1 together was a good gamble. I was advised it would prove tough but it has worked in my favor! The writing section turned out to be very easy; thanks to the exercises we did during DFA 1.

Finally my thanks to all the resources materials that helped me in my preparation for the big day:

1. Le Français dans le Monde. The magazine and the accompanying audio cds are a must for any French language student. More information on http://www.fdlm.org/
2. Radio France Internationale. The daily news broadcasts and interviews with authors, film-makers, politicians and people from diverse fields immensely help you to acquire the requisite listening skills for level B2. More on http://rfi.fr, the radio http://www.rfi.fr/radiofr/pages/001/accueil.asp and French language http://www.rfi.fr/lffr/statiques/accueil_apprendre.asp
3. At the B2 level you are also expected to understand the Canadian accent very well, in that case Radio-Canada, http://radio-canada.ca.
4. France 1, for all the information about all that goes on in France. http://www.tf1.fr/
5. TV5 Monde. For the help needed related to French exercises similar to the questions of the DELF exams http://www.tv5.org/
6. Alliance Française de Bombay. http://afindia.org/bombay
7. Alter Ego 4, Campus 4 and Café Crème 4. The best textbooks possible!

I am so happy! Vive la Francophonie!