Seven Months

November 18th 2007 - It's now more than 7 months since that date. The 18th of June marked the end of my seventh month in foreign land, 7 months in Ipswich. Homesickness is slowly but surely creeping upon me. Especially since I have never been away from home this long. But it hasn't been tough at all.

With time I have started to fall in love with this town. The small yet peaceful town,that is Ipswich. The narrow roads,the double decker buses, the town center, cineworld cinemas, ipswich town football club stadium and the surrounding alderman park...I love it all..

I

You and I have fallen apart
You have moved on,but I have stayed put
But your happiness keeps me happy
You may not remember me anymore
Yet you still live in my heart

I am still mad about you.

You

I look at your picture so many times that I feel I know you
I think about you all the time that I feel you are with me
I see you all the while in my dreams that I feel you are made for me
I know so much about your past that I feel I was there with you since long

I am mad about you.

Wishful Thinking

I wish I could
go back in time, for you
I wish I could
set it all right, for you

To set right your mistakes
and erase the scars
To fulfil your desires
and reach for the stars

To wipe off your tear
To drive off your fear
And for you to be with the prince
You held so dear

If I had a chance
I would give my all
To have you live
The life of your dreams

Ipswich Diary-1

Ipswich is a small and peaceful town in the south east of England and home to Ipswich Town FC.Excuse me, but I have this habit of associating the places in Europe with the football club associated with them. But I will save football for another blog.
This friday, the 18th will mark my two months here in Ipswich.And already there have been some wonderful moments to take back home when my onsite assignment gets over. I have found several new friends here and have loved the time I have spent with them.
The most funny moment will definitely be the one when I went to HSBC to open my bank account.
The lady at the desk was trying to make conversation to fill up the silence while she did the necessary paper work. It went like this-
She: "Which part of India are you from?"
Me:"It is a place called Trivandrum towards the southern part of India"
She:"Is it as big a place as Ipswich?"
I almost burst out laughing.She was asking about a city 4 times the size of ipswich and 6 times as populous as it.I somehow controlled my laughter and replied "Trivandrum is a bigger city than Ipswich". Well,she didn't enquire anything more about my place and continued with her work.
May be she wouldn't have believed me since the people from the west still sees India as a place of bhookha nanga people,just as the various channels like Discovery and NGC portray.
It reminds me of the scene from Munnabhai MBBS: the chinese guy asking Circuit about where he can find "poor,hungry Indians".

Random

The clock on my desktop reads 12.48am.
As I move my mouse over the clock it reads Wednesday,January 9,2008.
So what's special?
The answer: Nothing :)
It's not like I am staying up late to write a blog.But somehow I am. Confusing? Well,even I am confused.I just want to post something I guess,especially after weeks of inactivity.Not that anyone is going to read this over here,but still somehow feel like blogging something...just key in a few words...
I am not having the access to my office blog for sometime now.I guess there would be more people reading if I post something there...
Anyone out there??????

The Catastrophic Apostrophe

First things first. I do not pretend to be an English expert, nor do I proclaim myself as a great exponent of English grammar. In fact, you will be able to find several grammatical errors in this blog itself. But that is not the point.

Now that I have got the disclaimer out of my way, let me come to the point. The topic is as the title suggests – the apostrophe. I believe it must be the most misused punctuation in English language. I am tired of seeing it misused in official mails, personal mails discussion forums, blogs, TV channels and just about everywhere. Hence, I have decided to raise, well…not a tirade but at least a small voice of discontent about the same via my blog.

The usage of apostrophe that bugs me the most is when it is used for forming plurals. For example, I have increasingly seen people make use of boy’s in place of boys; ignorant of the fact that both give entirely different meanings.

Another confusion is one that arises with the usage of it’s and its. People seem to ignore the fact that it’s is used to denote it is and its is used to denote possession. The proper usage is well documented here.

I will just point to one more maddening usage of the apostrophe. This is when using your instead of you’re. I fail to understand how sentences like “Your the only one” are supposed to convey the meaning they are intended to.

It really looks like an aggressive awareness campaign is to be conducted to save poor old apostrophe. While I was browsing the web about the inappropriate usage of apostrophe, I was pleasantly surprised to see the website of the Apostrophe Protection Society. It also provides some examples of misuse of the punctuation mark in real life.

Friends, let's all strive to avoid the misuse of the apostrophe.