Hindi Lesson 4: Why Raj Will Never Have A Girlfriend

This is a conversation between Pratap and Raj, the youngest of the Kumar children. I've gotten to the point where I can understand the gist of the conversation in context, although I'm unclear as to the subtle differences between तुम थिक हो, क्या हाल है, and आप कैसे है -- besides, of course, that आप is more formal than तुम.

प्रताप: हेलो राज, क्या हल है? सा थिक है?
राज: ह, सब थिक है। और अप कैसे है?
प्रताप: मई भी अच्चा हु, सुक्रिया। ऋषि ओर संगीता कैसे है?
राज: ऋषि अच्चा है, लेकिन संगीता अच्छी नही है।
प्रताप: क्यो? क्या बात है? क्या व बीमार है?
राज: नही, वह नाराज़ है क्योकि... क्योकि अप याहा है!
प्रताप: अच्चा? यह बहुत बुरी अत है! पर संगीता क्यो परेसान है?
राज: मालुम नही। लार्की है, ना?

This, translated, becomes:

Pratap: Hello, Raj. How are things? Is everything well?
Raj: Yes, everything is well. And you are well? (Help me out on this one... in the last lesson "kaisa" meant "what is it like," and so literally would this be "and what are you like?")
Pratap: I'm good too, thank you. How are Rishi and Sangeeta... like????
Raj: Rishi is good, but Sangeeta is not good. (There's that "accha" again.)
Pratap: Why? What's the matter? Is she ill?
Raj: No, she is angry because... because you are here!
Pratap: Really? (This time the text gives "really" as the translation for "accha." This word must mean just about anything it wants to mean. ^__^) This is a very bad matter. But why is Sangeeta upset?
Raj: I don't know. She's a girl, no?

On behalf of women everywhere, let us band together to beat the crap out of Raj.

And why, by the way, is Sangeeta upset that Pratap is here? (I'm not peeking ahead at the story.) Is she angry because she finds herself forcibly attracted to him? Or is it more along the lines of "she'd like Pratap to stop continually trying to catch her coming out of the shower?"

Only time will tell...

Tagged... I'm it!

Following Sashi's meme:

Five Things You May Not Know About Me.

Unless, of course, you're my parents (who are both regular readers). I'm not going to search through my brain to try and find five things you two don't know about me.

1. I used to be able to program in BASIC. Now, of course, I've forgotten how. Not that it would do any good on my computer.

2. I still think about the characters from the novel I wrote in high school, and know exactly how their lives continue, and what story the second book should tell. I've sat down, several times (as recently as last summer), and tried to write it. But I've changed since high school, and can't find my way back to the world I once created.

3. I've been using the same shade of nail polish (without variation) for two years. I can't imagine using anything else.

4. Although I've lost the ability to play all of the Debussy and Liszt and Mozart I spent so many hours memorizing in high school and college, I can still sit down at any piano and instantly play any of the Super Mario themes (from the original through Super Mario World -- including MarioKart).

5. Every night before I go to bed, I check to make sure that the oven is turned off. About twice a year, I find that it is still turned on (always when someone else has been cooking, of course ^__^). These odds make it completely worth it.

There. Now I've done my first meme. Have I sold out? ^__^


(Oh, and here's a bonus #6 -- my high school boyfriend told me that he invented "^__^" just for me, and that it would be our own personal, secret emoticon... and I believed him.)

Notes from BOB

I'm back from BOB Chicago.

The salwar wore beautifully and didn't crumple even after two days of sitting on trains. I may have, however, committed serious cultural infractions by wrapping the dupatta around my neck multiple times and tucking it into my jacket as if it were a wool scarf, instead of wearing it over the jacket (like everyone else I saw) and letting all that tightly-woven Indian cotton warmth trail away behind me, unused. As soon as I got inside the amphitheater, I unwound it and let it fall; but when I was outside... well, it was all of twenty degrees! So... right.

The competition itself was great fun. Highlights include:

Arriving in Chicago, meeting my friends, pulling out all the printed ticket information from the internet, and realizing that BOB Chicago had no official start time. All we had to go on was "the doors will open at 6:15." Quickly explaining to my friends what IST stood for, with a brief confab as to when we should actually arrive, we ended up hitting the venue at about 6:30, and stood in a 4,000 person crowd until the doors actually opened at about five minutes to seven. The program began at 7:00 exactly.

My friend poking me during the "warm-up-the-crowd" pre-show and asking "Blue, what's biodata?"

The MC (whose name I would tell you if I could find it in the program) starting the night off with this statement: "Before the show starts, I would like to ask a favor of all of you. Please stop voting for Sanjaya."

Realizing that everyone onstage who said "bhangra" said it a little differently (often very differently) and feeling a weight lift off my phoneme-addled shoulders.

Ghaamudyaz' use of glow-in-the-dark dandiya sticks. Also: Ghaamudyaz' use of the dark.

All the teams who included balancing (as in "people-on-other-people") work, particularly Rutgers' four-high tower of men, all wearing dhotis and turla.

Wickedly wondering if all the dhotis were sewn closed or if any of them were just tucked in at the waist... and if any of them would fall off.

UBC Girlz Bhangra's live vocalist.

Listening to the MC announce UBC (a group from British Columbia), and hearing the two men sitting next to me instantly start a heated conversation about what kind of visa these women would have to get to come to America for the weekend, and how early they would have had to apply for it (eventually, someone leaned over and explained that they would only have to use passports).

Listening to the two a capella groups that performed while the judges were tallying the points. The first group was... how do I say this nicely... not that good, but the second group was phenomenal. And as soon as the second group finished, my friends and I all turned to each other and said "yeah, they just got served."

Picking the winners in advance and totally calling UCLA's Nashaa. Of course they were going to win. Their set combined the best of Leonard Bernstein with the best of Karan Johar. Plus, their dance told a story. Never underestimate the power of a story.

(They were also, btw, kickass dancers.)

One suggestion to the facilitators: if you could figure out how to feed the 4,000 ticketholders, you would stand to make a fortune. There was no food available in the giant (empty) McCormick Place complex except the overpriced restaurant attached to the Hyatt. There was also nowhere else to go to get food, unless one wanted to run for a mile or two down I-55. My group ended up eating at the hotel restaurant, which was all right (though if you ever go, don't order the drink that includes peaches, milk, and spritzer... the "peaches" are actually that heavy syrup stuff that sits in the bottom of cans, and milk and soda are, in retrospect, a really bad combination).

Anyway. If BOB had set up a food stand next to the entrance, and sold samosas or bhelpuri or anything, they could have charged up to $5 per person without fazing anyone (as the only other food option started its appetizers at $9 and the entrees went all the way up to $50) and made a killing. Of course, they would also have had to make over 4,000 samosas.

And, finally, a note to Team Michigan: We know that it's great to be a Michigan Wolverine. Chanting it continually, between every set, didn't help anyone. Particularly during the second half when y'all got tired out and just started screaming "Blue! Gold!" over and over. Seriously, you guys.

Pretty Anticipatory Dancers!

I had to spend tonight attending a rather poor performance with some extremely poor dancing.

Luckily, I'll be able to spend tomorrow night here, where the dancing should be considerably better.

I'll give a full report when I get back. I'll be with the friend mentioned in this post, and there will be much fangirling.

And yes, I'm wearing the salwar. ^__^

Alice, Part Five: The Analysis

As I'm feeling exceptionally nerdy today, I'm really, really tempted to do this as a series of Infocom InvisiClues (who here remembers InvisiClues? Ennis? Abi, did y'all play Zork in Bangalore in the early nineties?)... but perhaps that indulgence will be better saved for when computer screens contain the capacity to absorb those magical "invisible ink" highlighters.

Please refer to the original text and my adaptation for reference throughout this post (go ahead, bring them both up under "new window" or "new tab," whichever you prefer, so you can click-click-click back and forth... if you're one of those really cool people who has a computer with two monitors, well... this would be the time to put them to use).

Here we go!

The biggest issue when adapting Alice (either the Wonderland or Looking Glass half) is that neither book has a throughline. A throughline is best defined as "that necessary pull that forces the characters to complete their story." With LOTR, it's Frodo getting that fracking ring to Mt. Doom. With KHNH, it's Aman palming Naina off on Rohit before he dies. With "nearly every romantic story ever made," it's one character getting another character to love them (or two characters convincing sets of parents to let them marry, etc.).

Alice contains no such necessary pull. In Wonderland, she wanders, bucolic, through the forest until she happens to find the "beautiful garden" of the Queen of Hearts; but she was not searching for the garden (and in fact she only found it when she had forgotten she wanted to see it). In Looking Glass, there is the issue of Alice making it to the eighth square so that she may become a queen, but there's no sense of urgency; she's certainly not in any hurry. There's also no "if/then" syllogism set up -- that is, there's no real benefit to her becoming a queen (besides the fact that she wants to be one), and no major consequence if she doesn't.

All the Looking Glass film adaptations (with one exception, which I will note) force a throughline by setting up the idea that "once Alice becomes a queen, she will then have the power to go home." L. Frank Baum already wrote that story, and his version works better. Not to mention that there's nothing in Carroll's text to suggest Alice wants to go home; she seems to be perfectly happy wandering around in Looking-Glass Land, free of the adult-imposed rules and constraints that dictate her life in Victorian England (the book starts out with Alice wishing she could do as she pleases without receiving punishment from her parents and governess, and supposing that she must be able to do anything she wants in Looking-Glass Land, where all the rules are backwards).

The sole exception to this imposed "wanna go home" throughline is the 1966 Alan Handley film Through the Looking Glass, which uses as its throughline the idea that Alice must become a queen in order to have the power to drive the Jabberwock out of Looking-Glass Land (why the Red and White Queens do not have this power is never explained). The Jabberwock, need I mention, is never tormenting anyone in Carroll's book. It appears only in its eponymous poem, and never as an actual character. (The Irwin Allen film also features the Jabberwock as a character -- a hilariously grotesque monster which looks like a man dressed in Hefty garbage bags. He randomly appears throughout the movie and chases Alice around, and his purpose seems to be to drive her to the next interaction. There's also an After-School Special moment at the end where Alice "overcomes her fears" and stands up to the Jabberwock. But... I digress.)

When I sat down to work out my throughline, I thought "what's the real force driving Alice towards becoming a queen?" The answer came when examining Carroll's chess puzzle, and considering that pieces/characters were in fact captured in the game (and in the book). I thought "what happens to these pieces after they leave the board?" and supposed that they left the world of the game -- a synonym, of course, for death. Thus Alice now has a clear driving force to propel herself towards the eighth square; not only does she (like the puzzle suggests) have pieces chasing her every move and threatening to take her off the board, but becoming a queen will allow her greater mobility and power.

This also allowed me a few moments of philosophy, and the opportunity to write the following exchange (which deviates from Carroll's dialogue, but is perhaps in its spirit -- note the knight's description of his move):

ALICE: What happened to the Red Knight?

WHITE KNIGHT: I’m not sure. We don’t really know, do we, what happens to people after they leave this chessboard.

ALICE: I’m frightened.

WHITE KNIGHT: Why?

ALICE: Because I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know where I’m going, and any minute now a knight or a rook or a bishop could come right through here and…

WHITE KNIGHT: Yes, I suppose all those things are true. But that’s what life is, isn’t it? We never know what will come next. And, if you think about it, we never know where we are going! I, for example, always set off on a straight line, goal in sight… but life gets in the way, and I always find myself… oh, at least two squares downwind of where I meant to be! But do you know what the best part of it is?

ALICE: What?

WHITE KNIGHT: I get to meet people like you. Now – do you know where you are?

ALICE: No, I don’t think so, anymore.

WHITE KNIGHT: We’re at the border of the Seventh Square. I’ll see you through it safely. And then you’ll be at the Eighth Square, and –

ALICE: And I can be a Queen!

WHITE KNIGHT: Absolutely. Would you like that?

ALICE: Yes.

WHITE KNIGHT: Then I would be honored to help you get there.


(I love the White Knight. He... just gets me all verklempt, every time I read his chapter.)

The other alteration I made had to do with the element of design I mentioned in this post: the idea that I wanted to create opportunity for arresting visual choreography. There is always an issue, in Alice, of how to get the characters on and off the stage. As Alice continually travels, there are two basic ways to do it. Either she leaves the stage, there's a scene shift, and she re-enters, or all the other characters leave the stage and new characters come on.

I didn't like either of those ways. They're kind of boring. Irwin Allen uses the first method, and thus when I watch his DVD and use the "skip to next chapter" button, every chapter begins in the same way: Alice entering Stage Right and "discovering" a group of people. Boring, boring, boring. (BTW, for all my trashing of the Irwin Allen film, it's probably still my favorite because it not only has the best and cleverest songs, it has the best character cameos. Carol Channing, Steve and Eydie, Ringo Starr, Sammy Davis, Jr., and the one-and-only John Stamos.)

Then I noticed that nearly every square Alice visited (with the exception of the third, where she travels by railway) included a poem. I wanted to use these poems, but I didn't want the action of the scene to stop while an actor stood and recited. I decided that the method of transportation in my adaptation of Alice would be poetry -- that is, whenever a poem began, it would "come to life" and Alice would be swept into it; and when the poem ended, she would find herself in a different place. (Sashi, don't you agree that's one of the functions of poetry: to take a person to a different place?)

Here 's an example of how I did it.

ALICE finishes straightening the chess pieces and picks up the book.

ALICE: That’s strange – the pages are all in a language I don’t know. It wasn’t like that before.

ALICE looks at the looking-glass.

It did happen. I did get through. And this is a Looking-Glass chessboard, and this is a Looking-Glass book! And if I hold it up to the glass, the words will all go the right way again!

ALICE takes the book to the looking-glass.

ALICE: Twas brillig, and the slithy toves… no, it’s still in a language I don’t understand.

But suddenly the poem surrounds her, and the ensemble is there creating a forest and a Jabberwocky within a tangle of bodies and innumerable arms and legs while the little PAWN bravely steps forward to fight.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jujub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought –

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

‘And has thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’

He chortled in his joy.

The chair, table, chessboard, and looking-glass – all perhaps incorporated into this moment, i.e. the chessboard serving as the PAWN’s shield – are suddenly swept away; the ensemble is gone, and ALICE is left alone onstage with the RED QUEEN.

ALICE: What a strange poem. I felt as if I were actually in the forest –

RED QUEEN: Speak only when you are spoken to!

ALICE: I beg your pardon – oh! I am in the forest!

I was able to get it to work for every poem and every transition, of which (dare I say) I am infinitely proud. When the White King and Haigha begin reciting "The Lion and the Unicorn," for example, the Lion and the Unicorn appear and begin fighting for the crown; after the ensuing dialogue, when they recite the second couplet (which ends with them all being "drummed out of town"), the drums belong to the Red Knight, who is coming towards the square to capture all within but is driven away by the White Knight, who is then onstage to have his scene with Alice.

The other changes were predominately surface-level; I removed, for example, the exchange about "ham sandwiches and hay" from the White King's scene because, after all, I'm going to a predominantly vegetarian location. I allowed the Sheep in the shop scene to haggle with Alice, taking my inspiration from this charming young man. I kept as much of Carroll's original dialogue in the play as I could possibly squeeze in, and the play stands at about 80% his writing (organized into script form) and 20% mine. This, of course, you saw with the way I handled Chapter Seven.

Looks like I've come to the end of this series, unless there are questions or concerns I can field from the audience. I'll keep you posted on what happens to the text, particularly as the translation process begins. That ought to be interesting.

'Till next time...

Alice, Part Four: The Adaptation

Here is the second half of this dual post: my adaptation of Chapter Seven. I'm putting my adaptation and the original text side-by-side so you all can see how I adapted it. The following post (which will probably come tomorrow, and should be the final post in this series) will analyze why I made the choices I did when writing the adaptation.

(For copyright purposes: the following text is under copyright, all rights are reserved, and I will hunt you down.)

*********************************************

WHITE KING: Hello? Are you – are you part of my army?

ALICE: I’m a pawn, if it please Your Majesty.

WHITE KING: A pawn? Well, a pleasure to meet you! I’m the White King.

ALICE: Yes, thank you, Your Majesty.

WHITE KING: I need you to do something for me, little pawn. Look all down that road, and tell me who you see.

ALICE looks.

ALICE: I see nobody, Your Majesty.

WHITE KING: I only wish I had such eyes… to be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, in this light!

ALICE: Oh, but there’s somebody coming now! But he’s moving very slowly – and what curious attitudes he goes into!

WHITE KING: Oh, he’s an Anglo-Saxon messenger, and those are Anglo-Saxon attitudes! His name is Haigha. My other messenger’s called Hatta. I have two, you know. To come and go. One to come, and one to go!

ALICE: I beg your pardon.

WHITE KING: It isn’t respectable to beg.

HAIGHA arrives. He carries a few bags slung over his shoulder.

HAIGHA: My lord!

WHITE KING: Tell me, who did you pass on the road?

HAIGHA: Well, I passed nobody.

WHITE KING: Quite right – this young lady saw him too. So that means Nobody walks slower than you.

HAIGHA: That’s not fair. I’m sure nobody walks much faster than I do.

WHITE KING: He can’t do that, or else he’d have been here first. What news do you have for me?

HAIGHA: I’ll whisper it.

HAIGHA leans over to the WHITE KING and screams in his ear.

HAIGHA: They’re at it again!

WHITE KING: You call that a whisper? I feel faint.

HAIGHA: I’ll give you some hay, my lord.

HAIGHA takes hay from a bag and applies it to the WHITE KING’S forehead.

WHITE KING: There’s nothing like hay when one’s feeling faint.

ALICE: I would think that cold water to the forehead would be better – or perhaps some sal-volatile.

WHITE KING: I didn’t say there was nothing better, I said there was nothing like it!

ALICE: Who is at it again?

WHITE KING: The Lion and the Unicorn!

HAIGHA: They’re fighting for the crown!

WHITE KING: The Lion beat the Unicorn

HAIGHA: All around the town!

Alice, Part Three: The Text

I've decided, to help everybody out as I explain this next part, to place a short sample of the original text of Through The Looking Glass and my adaptation side-by-side.

Since they're both a little lengthy, I'm doing them as two separate posts.

First, your text sample -- from Chapter Seven: "The Lion and the Unicorn."

(For copyright purposes: Through the Looking Glass is very, very public domain.)

******************************************

The next moment soldiers cam running through the wood, at first in twos and threes, then ten or twenty together, and at last in such crowds that they seemed to fill the whole forest. Alice got behind a tree, for fear of being run over, and watched them go by.

She thought that in all her life she had never seen soldiers so uncertain on their feet: they were always tripping over something or other, and whenever one went down, several more always fell over him, so that the ground was soon covered with little heaps of men.

Then came the horses. Having four feet, these managed rather better than the foot-soldiers: but even THEY stumbled now and then; and it seemed to be a regular rule that, whenever a horse stumbled the rider fell off instantly. The confusion got worse every moment, and Alice was very glad to get out of the wood into an open place, where she found the White King seated on the ground, busily writing in his memorandum-book.

`I've sent them all!' the King cried in a tone of delight, on seeing Alice. `Did you happen to meet any soldiers, my dear, as you came through the wood?'

`Yes, I did,' said Alice: several thousand, I should think.'

`Four thousand two hundred and seven, that's the exact number,' the King said, referring to his book. `I couldn't send all the horses, you know, because two of them are wanted in the game. And I haven't sent the two Messengers, either. They're both gone to the town. Just look along the road, and tell me if you can see either of them.'

`I see nobody on the road,' said Alice.

`I only wish I had such eyes,' the King remarked in a fretful tone. `To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!'

All this was lost on Alice, who was still looking intently along the road, shading her eyes with one hand. `I see somebody now!' she exclaimed at last. `But he's coming very slowly -- and what curious attitudes he goes into!' (For the messenger kept skipping up and down, and wriggling like an eel, as he came along, with his great hands spread out like fans on each side.)

`Not at all,' said the King. `He's an Anglo-Saxon Messenger -- and those are Anglo-Saxon attitudes. He only does them when he's happy. His name ia Haigha.' (He pronounced it so as to rhyme with `mayor.'

`I love my love with an H,' Alice couldn't help beginning,' because he is Happy. I hate him with an H, because he is Hideous. I fed him with -- with -- with Ham-sandwiches and Hay. His name is Haigha, and he lives -- '

`He lives on the Hill,' the King remarked simply, without the least idea that he was joining in the game, while Alice was still hesitating for the name of a town beginning with H. `The other Messenger's called Hatta. I must have TWO, you know -- to come and go. Once to come, and one to go.'

`I beg your pardon?' said Alice.

`It isn't respectable to beg,' said the King.

`I only meant that I didn't understand,' said Alice. `Why one to come and one to go?'

`Don't I tell you?' the King repeated impatiently. `I must have Two -- to fetch and carry. One to fetch, and one to carry.'

At this moment the Messenger arrived: he was far too much out of breath to say a word, and could only wave his hands about, and make the most fearful faces at the poor King.

`This young lady loves you with an H,' the King said, introducing Alice in the hope of turning off the Messenger's attention from himself -- but it was no use -- the Anglo-Saxon attitudes only got more extraordinary every moment, while the great eyes rolled wildly from side to side.

`You alarm me!' said the King. `I feel faint -- Give me a ham sandwich!'

On which the Messenger, to Alice's great amusement, opened a bag that hung round his neck, and handed a sandwich to the King, who devoured it greedily.

`Another sandwich!' said the King.

`There's nothing but hay left now,' the Messenger said, peeping into the bag.

`Hay, then,' the King murmured in a faint whisper.

Alice was glad to see that it revived him a good deal. `There's nothing like eating hay when you're faint,' he remarked to her, as he munched away.

`I should think throwing cold water over you would be better,' Alice suggested: `or some sal-volatile.'

`I didn't say there was nothing BETTER,' the King replied. `I said there was nothing LIKE it.' Which Alice did not venture to deny.

`Who did you pass on the road?' the King went on, holding out his hand to the Messenger for some more hay.

`Nobody,' said the Messenger.

`Quite right,' said the King: `this young lady saw him too. So of course Nobody walks slower than you.

`I do my best,' the Messenger said in a sulky tone. `I'm sure nobody walks much faster than I do!'

`He can't do that,' said the King, `or else he'd have been here first. However, now you've got your breath, you may tell us what's happened in the town.'

`I'll whisper it,' said the Messenger, putting his hands to his mouth in the shape of a trumpet, and stooping so as to get close to the King's ear. Alice was sorry for this, as she wanted to hear the news too. However, instead of whispering, he simply shouted at the top of his voice `They're at it again!'

`Do you call THAT a whisper?' cried the poor King, jumping up and shaking himself. `If you do such a thing again, I'll have you buttered! It went through and through my head like an earthquake!'

`It would have to be a very tiny earthquake!' thought Alice. `Who are at it again?' she ventured to ask.

`Why the Lion and the Unicorn, of course,' said the King.

`Fighting for the crown?'

`Yes, to be sure,' said the King: `and the best of the joke is, that it's MY crown all the while! Let's run and see them.' And they trotted off, Alice repeating to herself, as she ran, the words of the old song: --

`The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown:
The Lion beat the Unicorn all round the town.
Some gave them white bread, some gave them brown;
Some gave them plum-cake and drummed them out of town.'