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Showing posts from January, 2014

The XX rated chromosome

"Oh Congrats! you're going to become an aunt!" Beamed my friend from Britain. "Is it a boy or a girl?" "...I don't know, Pre-natal sex determination is not allowed in India" "....???" ..... I could just give him 'Is-that strange?- that's how is it- I never thought its a big deal-infact isn't surprise element great' look He didn't leave it at that, being a stubborn man, and being my friend... I wanted the conversation to end because this wasn't interesting and frankly speaking (hehe reminds me of Arnab Goswami) I am a little tired of enlightening Non-Indian friends of things that happen only in India and seeing the predictable reaction. Once in a while, the intellectual conversation of how developing world is so different and how India is 28 countries in 1 is fine but I can't really be a flag bearer to propagate it ad nauseam. But this was destined to be discussed. So I said it, again, with an intenti

Child is father of the man

Oh my! This idiom was a nightmare. I would detest getting it for my exams to explain, or comment on... One moment I would feel I know what it means, next moment it would evaporate as I'd start to infer it word by word. It went on and on in loops. Child is a father- okay- of a man- what the hell? It comes from a couplet from William Wordsworth called " My heart leaps up" My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.   In simple words, as I yet again reproduce this from online text is that a person will have same qualities as an adult as he or she had as a child. In child psychology it is developed as the inclinations and preferences the child would develop once he/she grows into an adult. In Hindi, the corresponding idiom is "Poot ke paer p