Hosur Road is Hell. Period.
The title of the article in TOI said it all..
17000 PCU per hr, the traffic in the busier areas on Hosur road crawling at half a km per
hr,500 trucks daily to n fro Tamilnadu, the road dotted with more than 50 IT companies, with
most of them having their own bus services. Numerous people in their own vehicles; cars,
bikes, bicycles.
And we can't forget the pedestraians, peddlers, people waiting for the BMTC
buses, hawkers, cattle and wot not!
Hats off to the traffic police who donned raincoats and gum boots and braved through the
raging traffic and waters to do their precious bit.
Bangalore is making news for all the wrong reasons..
The infrastructure chaos, Mr. Dewagouda's speculations and Mr. Murthy's resignation from BIAL,the not-so-sure-and-eager-any-more investors,the soaring costs of living, the rains, the traffic, the increasing rates of criminal activities; esp directed towards the so-called affulent IT population.. ,you name it, and Bangalore has it on the prowl these days!
No, am not going to rant abt all the woes and sob-stories of being in Bangalore.. [ any more, I mean ]
The rate at which this once beautiful Garden City is deteriorating .. certainly causes a heart ache..
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Friday, October 21, 2005
Series 'Nostalgia': 1
School Time
My primary school was IDEAL! A child's fantasy coming true![ though I never fantasized about a school as a child!]
I was admitted to the school after an interview with the principal. She was an elderly lady by the name Mrs. Srinivasan and asked me a few questions in english. I remember eyeing the small ,intricately carved glass dish with ravalgaon candies in sliver and pink wrappings,on her table.
It has a HUGE red iron gate, and as soon as u enter through the gates, a BIG square play- ground greets you.
At one side of the playground is a big badminton hall block.
[ where we were scared to go because it was kinda dark there, and every small sound you made echoed like anything! It had pegions flocked inside, and even their flights and cooing used to echo! ].
This block is huge, with 2 indoor badminton nets, and a hall with horizontal bar, parallel bars, pommel horse, rings and vault. We were shown documentaries/ movies/ cartoon films/magic shows / presentations here.
The 2nd floor is just an empty dark hall, where ladies used to do yoga and aerobics on saturday and sunday mornings.Above that is terrace, where our principal used to hoist the flag on 26th Jan and 15th Aug.
At right angles to the badminton hall , is the block for KG classes on ground floor, and 1st and 2nd std classes on the 1st and 2nd floors. [ each class has Div A and B ]. Next to this block is the sports storeroom , and then the small room, where we never were allowed, but we assumed one of our peons stayed there and locked children who didn't return to their classes after the big recess was over!
Then the main office, where we used to go with paper slips distributed in envelopes on sports days or annual gatherings, to collect our cash prizes! That corner of the sqaure was open , and we had the back entrance of our school there. There was also a small gym there with huge nylon nets [like those in circus] hanging from the roof.
The 3rd side of the playground had a well equipped gym [ we used to hear the rhythmic "haiyya huppa"s from there in the lunch break , as people in there did their exercises]
And staircases on either sides leading to the 1st and 2nd floors, which had the head mistress's office, and 3rd std and 4th std classes.
This corner of the square too was open, and there was a shed [ as we called it] with a rusty slide [ where everyone from my class had had his/her uniform ripped by the nail-heads protruding on the slide ].
It also had another small palyground there, which was always very shady due to the huge trees lining it.[ but we often treated this as the step-playground, [ like step-mom] because it was smaller, and we thot having shade on the playground was gloomy, unlike the big one which was always very sunny ( read "scorching" ..cause the lunch break used to be around noon time) . ]
Lunch used to be a hurried affair so that one could block the better part of the big playground for their team]
There were also 1 or 2 offices for the swimming tank / playgrounds that were conducted every evening from 5.00 to 6.00 and weren't a part of the school activites.
One had to sign-up for these separately with a monthly fee of 30 Rs or 45 Rs.
There were these wooden tapering vertical poles hoisted in the ground called "mallakhambs" where guys in red/orange underwares / langots used to do various acrobatic exercises.
Opposite to the KG block is the enclosed swimming pool, and a stone well.
There they taught swimming by tying empty tin cans [called dabba] to the learners.
[ I remember being choosey about the color of the tin can I would get, most fo them used to be yellow "dalda" cans and very few were red or blue ]
Later one would graduate to a rope [ they tied 1 end arnd your waist and the other your trainer would hold in his hand and walk the shores, while you splashed frantically in the water along the lenght of the tank.
Post graduation [ which was held ceremoniously at the end of the monthly coaching batch] meant jumping into the well, with a crowd of seniors, and parents as spectators.
[ My parents still cherish the proud memory of how their 10 yr old daughter "jumped the well" without being pushed by her trainer! ]
The school is small, and was walkable from my then house.Most of my playmates were my classmates. We all stayed in the same lane, and either someone's grandpa or grandma, and in case of the more affluent ones, their ayahs would escort the bunch to and fro from school. After we moved from the KG block to the gym block, we were allowed to be on our own.
We all use to register for the evening playgrounds [ called mandals] and used to rush to school by 5.00 in black shorts and white t-shirts.
The 1 hr that followed used to be exercise,a few amature gymnastic tricks like cartwheeling, arching your back, struting on the balance beam; taught by the people who practiced there, 2-3 rounds to the ground, a super charged game of dodge-ball or kho-kho or langadi [ dunno wotz it called in english.. hopping on one leg and chasing others in a confined space.]
Summer vactions would see us in the tank during the afternoons, and at the mandals in the evenings. Getting vaccinated against typhoid / cholera before the swimming classes started was a group activity.
We used to line up in front of the gym, where the doctor used to put up a table, a stove with boiling water to sterelize [ spell-check .. 1.2.3..failed!] the needles , and the vaccine. One by one we used to face the doctor and get the job done. Screaming in pain was cowardly, especially when you were with your friends. Wincing [spell check..] was fine, and smiling was heroic!
I still remember the knot in my stomach as I used to await my turn. After the injection, within 3-4 hrs your hand would swell up and become heavy. We were allowed to skip the evening plagrounds that day! By night time, the pain would become unbearable and we used to hate the swimming classes like anything. The chlorine smell of the tank still reminds me of the swimming classes and the injections....
Outside the school gate, the roadside was lined by small stationary shops and bakeries.
Saturdays were half day schools and we were allowed to skip our lunch boxes and carry 10 Rs to school so that we can treat ourselves with slice cakes, cream-rolls or samosa and patties. There was an automobile-repair shop too , just next to the school. The owner was a huge man with bushy moustaches and used to wear a metal kada in his hand. His hands used to be blackened with all the grease and grime, so much that we used to think he never would be able to clean his hands. He used to pinch our noses with those hands and scare us saying that the black of his hand has rested on our noses forever!
Our old house [ better know as panse wada] is no longer there. We too have moved from the heart of the city to the outskirts now.Most of the playmates have scattered here n there.My beloved Mrs Srinivasan has left for the heavenly abode. The bakery owners have grown old, and some of the bakeries are now "snack centers" and "juice bars". The kada-wala uncle too is nowhere to be seen in the repair shop now..
But my school still stands tall, with all its glory. The blocks are repainted, and the jungle gym is removed , but the school appears as dear as it used to be....
I was admitted to the school after an interview with the principal. She was an elderly lady by the name Mrs. Srinivasan and asked me a few questions in english. I remember eyeing the small ,intricately carved glass dish with ravalgaon candies in sliver and pink wrappings,on her table.
It has a HUGE red iron gate, and as soon as u enter through the gates, a BIG square play- ground greets you.
At one side of the playground is a big badminton hall block.
[ where we were scared to go because it was kinda dark there, and every small sound you made echoed like anything! It had pegions flocked inside, and even their flights and cooing used to echo! ].
This block is huge, with 2 indoor badminton nets, and a hall with horizontal bar, parallel bars, pommel horse, rings and vault. We were shown documentaries/ movies/ cartoon films/magic shows / presentations here.
The 2nd floor is just an empty dark hall, where ladies used to do yoga and aerobics on saturday and sunday mornings.Above that is terrace, where our principal used to hoist the flag on 26th Jan and 15th Aug.
At right angles to the badminton hall , is the block for KG classes on ground floor, and 1st and 2nd std classes on the 1st and 2nd floors. [ each class has Div A and B ]. Next to this block is the sports storeroom , and then the small room, where we never were allowed, but we assumed one of our peons stayed there and locked children who didn't return to their classes after the big recess was over!
Then the main office, where we used to go with paper slips distributed in envelopes on sports days or annual gatherings, to collect our cash prizes! That corner of the sqaure was open , and we had the back entrance of our school there. There was also a small gym there with huge nylon nets [like those in circus] hanging from the roof.
The 3rd side of the playground had a well equipped gym [ we used to hear the rhythmic "haiyya huppa"s from there in the lunch break , as people in there did their exercises]
And staircases on either sides leading to the 1st and 2nd floors, which had the head mistress's office, and 3rd std and 4th std classes.
This corner of the square too was open, and there was a shed [ as we called it] with a rusty slide [ where everyone from my class had had his/her uniform ripped by the nail-heads protruding on the slide ].
It also had another small palyground there, which was always very shady due to the huge trees lining it.[ but we often treated this as the step-playground, [ like step-mom] because it was smaller, and we thot having shade on the playground was gloomy, unlike the big one which was always very sunny ( read "scorching" ..cause the lunch break used to be around noon time) . ]
Lunch used to be a hurried affair so that one could block the better part of the big playground for their team]
There were also 1 or 2 offices for the swimming tank / playgrounds that were conducted every evening from 5.00 to 6.00 and weren't a part of the school activites.
One had to sign-up for these separately with a monthly fee of 30 Rs or 45 Rs.
There were these wooden tapering vertical poles hoisted in the ground called "mallakhambs" where guys in red/orange underwares / langots used to do various acrobatic exercises.
Opposite to the KG block is the enclosed swimming pool, and a stone well.
There they taught swimming by tying empty tin cans [called dabba] to the learners.
[ I remember being choosey about the color of the tin can I would get, most fo them used to be yellow "dalda" cans and very few were red or blue ]
Later one would graduate to a rope [ they tied 1 end arnd your waist and the other your trainer would hold in his hand and walk the shores, while you splashed frantically in the water along the lenght of the tank.
Post graduation [ which was held ceremoniously at the end of the monthly coaching batch] meant jumping into the well, with a crowd of seniors, and parents as spectators.
[ My parents still cherish the proud memory of how their 10 yr old daughter "jumped the well" without being pushed by her trainer! ]
The school is small, and was walkable from my then house.Most of my playmates were my classmates. We all stayed in the same lane, and either someone's grandpa or grandma, and in case of the more affluent ones, their ayahs would escort the bunch to and fro from school. After we moved from the KG block to the gym block, we were allowed to be on our own.
We all use to register for the evening playgrounds [ called mandals] and used to rush to school by 5.00 in black shorts and white t-shirts.
The 1 hr that followed used to be exercise,a few amature gymnastic tricks like cartwheeling, arching your back, struting on the balance beam; taught by the people who practiced there, 2-3 rounds to the ground, a super charged game of dodge-ball or kho-kho or langadi [ dunno wotz it called in english.. hopping on one leg and chasing others in a confined space.]
Summer vactions would see us in the tank during the afternoons, and at the mandals in the evenings. Getting vaccinated against typhoid / cholera before the swimming classes started was a group activity.
We used to line up in front of the gym, where the doctor used to put up a table, a stove with boiling water to sterelize [ spell-check .. 1.2.3..failed!] the needles , and the vaccine. One by one we used to face the doctor and get the job done. Screaming in pain was cowardly, especially when you were with your friends. Wincing [spell check..] was fine, and smiling was heroic!
I still remember the knot in my stomach as I used to await my turn. After the injection, within 3-4 hrs your hand would swell up and become heavy. We were allowed to skip the evening plagrounds that day! By night time, the pain would become unbearable and we used to hate the swimming classes like anything. The chlorine smell of the tank still reminds me of the swimming classes and the injections....
Outside the school gate, the roadside was lined by small stationary shops and bakeries.
Saturdays were half day schools and we were allowed to skip our lunch boxes and carry 10 Rs to school so that we can treat ourselves with slice cakes, cream-rolls or samosa and patties. There was an automobile-repair shop too , just next to the school. The owner was a huge man with bushy moustaches and used to wear a metal kada in his hand. His hands used to be blackened with all the grease and grime, so much that we used to think he never would be able to clean his hands. He used to pinch our noses with those hands and scare us saying that the black of his hand has rested on our noses forever!
Our old house [ better know as panse wada] is no longer there. We too have moved from the heart of the city to the outskirts now.Most of the playmates have scattered here n there.My beloved Mrs Srinivasan has left for the heavenly abode. The bakery owners have grown old, and some of the bakeries are now "snack centers" and "juice bars". The kada-wala uncle too is nowhere to be seen in the repair shop now..
But my school still stands tall, with all its glory. The blocks are repainted, and the jungle gym is removed , but the school appears as dear as it used to be....
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Deja Vu
The term déjà vu [ also called paramnesia ] is French and means, literally,
"already seen."
Those who have experienced the feeling describe it as an overwhelming sense of familiarity with something that shouldn't be familiar at all. Say, for example, you are traveling to England for the first time. You are touring a cathedral, and suddenly it seems as if you have been in that very spot before. Or maybe you are having dinner with a group of friends, discussing some current political topic, and you have the feeling that you've already experienced this very thing -- same friends, same dinner, same topic.
Humm.. so this is what deja vu is..
Wikipedia sure haz lots more to say..
But lets just take it in layman's term, wihout going in the biological, medical aspects of it all.
Hasn't it happened often, you are amidst a group of friends, someone has cracked a joke, and as everyone is laughing, giving high-fives, suddenly you feel as if you are watching this whole scene as an outsider, and in the scene that is taking place, you kind of know who is going to comment next and what..
Or you are on phone with someone, and while speaking you realise that you had dreamt (or is it the same creepy thing.. Deja Vu?) about this conversation and on afterthoughts ( or should we say fore-thoughts? ) had found such a conversation totally impossible? " Me talking with this person about this? .. impossible.. wot a dream! "
..You are having a routine conversation with mom and BAM! you know what shez going to say next even before she utters it! [ ..nope it ain't abt how predictable / unpredictable moms are! ]
All such incidents have sent chills down my spine.
Even the most trivial, mundane, uninteresting occurrences of Deja Vu..
[ Unlike all the eventful ones in most Bollywood movies; murders,chases, masked faces, haunting places with old mansions,
crooked trees, horrifying discoveries of bodies, weapons, and yeah.. the eternal "barsat ki raat"s ]
[ okie.. am not sure how grammatically correct this use is.. " deja vu happened..", or "deja vu occured" or none of the above! ne-one who is not less sure than me, please oblige with the correct usage]
Even after the consolation that Deja Vu has happened to *almost* everyone around me, my friends, siblings etc etc atleast once, the very fact of pre-experiencing something and re-living it AND having a conscious knowledge of it.. is terrifying.
Deja Vus about unknown places, like temples, or roads you haven't travelled on before are the creepiest of all!
I even had a Deja Vu with my nephew .. simultaneously..(!!?? [ does this word defy the cronology ?] )
I mean what I thought I had experienced before was the same thing that he thought he had experienced before!
This incident really boggled my mind!
Two individuals, with nothing in common, [ apart from the family bondage of-course],
experience the same thing before-hand! *shudder*
What puzzles me is the extent of details! In fact a particular object, or surroundings trigger that "I've seen this before" feeling!
Also what is amazing abt these deja vu's is you recall the familiarity of the incidence, when you are re-living it, unlike the dreams which we have, some of which we recall after waking up, or some we never do but the fog/ghost of a dream always remains in your mind!
And at certain instances, there are dreams which you can watch like a movie, even when you are woken up. It has happened to me sometime.. " 5 more mins mom, sapne mein age kya hota hain dekhna hain! ;-) :-D "
Atleast therez some acceptable[ albeit not totally] justification about dreams that whatever your mind has in its depths, surfaces through some incident in your dreams. [ there are streams of thoughts which don't stand by this explaination]
Wot ever it is that triggers these Deja Vus, I just pray there ain't any spoilers in store for me!
;-D
"already seen."
Those who have experienced the feeling describe it as an overwhelming sense of familiarity with something that shouldn't be familiar at all. Say, for example, you are traveling to England for the first time. You are touring a cathedral, and suddenly it seems as if you have been in that very spot before. Or maybe you are having dinner with a group of friends, discussing some current political topic, and you have the feeling that you've already experienced this very thing -- same friends, same dinner, same topic.
Humm.. so this is what deja vu is..
Wikipedia sure haz lots more to say..
But lets just take it in layman's term, wihout going in the biological, medical aspects of it all.
Hasn't it happened often, you are amidst a group of friends, someone has cracked a joke, and as everyone is laughing, giving high-fives, suddenly you feel as if you are watching this whole scene as an outsider, and in the scene that is taking place, you kind of know who is going to comment next and what..
Or you are on phone with someone, and while speaking you realise that you had dreamt (or is it the same creepy thing.. Deja Vu?) about this conversation and on afterthoughts ( or should we say fore-thoughts? ) had found such a conversation totally impossible? " Me talking with this person about this? .. impossible.. wot a dream! "
..You are having a routine conversation with mom and BAM! you know what shez going to say next even before she utters it! [ ..nope it ain't abt how predictable / unpredictable moms are! ]
All such incidents have sent chills down my spine.
Even the most trivial, mundane, uninteresting occurrences of Deja Vu..
[ Unlike all the eventful ones in most Bollywood movies; murders,chases, masked faces, haunting places with old mansions,
crooked trees, horrifying discoveries of bodies, weapons, and yeah.. the eternal "barsat ki raat"s ]
[ okie.. am not sure how grammatically correct this use is.. " deja vu happened..", or "deja vu occured" or none of the above! ne-one who is not less sure than me, please oblige with the correct usage]
Even after the consolation that Deja Vu has happened to *almost* everyone around me, my friends, siblings etc etc atleast once, the very fact of pre-experiencing something and re-living it AND having a conscious knowledge of it.. is terrifying.
Deja Vus about unknown places, like temples, or roads you haven't travelled on before are the creepiest of all!
I even had a Deja Vu with my nephew .. simultaneously..(!!?? [ does this word defy the cronology ?] )
I mean what I thought I had experienced before was the same thing that he thought he had experienced before!
This incident really boggled my mind!
Two individuals, with nothing in common, [ apart from the family bondage of-course],
experience the same thing before-hand! *shudder*
What puzzles me is the extent of details! In fact a particular object, or surroundings trigger that "I've seen this before" feeling!
Also what is amazing abt these deja vu's is you recall the familiarity of the incidence, when you are re-living it, unlike the dreams which we have, some of which we recall after waking up, or some we never do but the fog/ghost of a dream always remains in your mind!
And at certain instances, there are dreams which you can watch like a movie, even when you are woken up. It has happened to me sometime.. " 5 more mins mom, sapne mein age kya hota hain dekhna hain! ;-) :-D "
Atleast therez some acceptable[ albeit not totally] justification about dreams that whatever your mind has in its depths, surfaces through some incident in your dreams. [ there are streams of thoughts which don't stand by this explaination]
Wot ever it is that triggers these Deja Vus, I just pray there ain't any spoilers in store for me!
;-D
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Sudoku ! yatte miyou..
Sachin Pilot does it and so do my dad n bro..
The current range in the dailys.. Sudoku.
I tried to distance myself from it for quite sometime.
Especially when ppl around me were really hooked to it.. cause some how I knew that though t'was a daily ritual for them, as soon as I wud try to pry .. they all wud turn into fierce competitors ..
" which level did u try.. EASY? bah!"
" Why are u using a pencil AND an eraser? he he ..*smirk* *snigger* .."
" 3 hrs!!!???.. wot r u doing? ... plzzzz its a CAKE! ..."
" FYI.. page 3 has the solution.."
Some considered giving me a hand.
A paper, a pen and loads of " let-me-show-you-how-to-crack-it" !
" See, this is the thing."
I stare at the 9X9 in front of me...
" This , this and this shud never have the same digits...."
I nod and stare at the vertical , horizontal , diagonal lines slashed in the 9X9
"...and this and this shud have all the digits atleast once. "
Again.. slash slash slash.. I still stare at the 9X9 till the earlier slashes float in a diffrent plain than the newly drawn ones..
[ like those illusions that we recieve thru mails, " if u stare at it long enuff, u can see the dots moving, circles rotating, lines floating, grid changing color .. and if you stare long enuff, your boss can see you all dazed and glazy eyed in front of the screen! "]
"..AND, each of these shud have all the digits .. none shud be repeated.."
I lose my glazy stare which I was concentrating hard to manitain..
" .. and ultimately the BIG picture shud be same as these individual ones.."
I look at the BIG picture in front of me..
slash slash and some more slash, square, dot dot , Big dot , another slash , rrrrip..!!!!
The enthu volunteer has stabbed the paper triumphantly..
"..See.. this is soo damn easy! God .. Sudoku is addictive!.."
I grin at the volunteer to acknowledge the efforts!
Though I didn't get it that time.. it got me finally.
The best thing abt it is you need not calculate and u need not be a math geek or anything .. Sudoku is so math-dud-friendly.
Its fine even if you can't count from 1 to 9 [ see.. not even 1 to 10! ].
In fact the numbers in sudoku ain't treated as numbers at all.. u might as well take 9 different symbols and play it!
Finally a number game without maths! :-D [ so much for an Engg graduate from COEP! ]
I don't think its addictive, because once you get it, its the same all the time.
So never over-do it.
After lazy sundays' monsterous meals, curtains drawn, amidst the content lull , when the rest of the newspaper is devoured..
....a Sudoku each for me n my husband!
That makes a real cozy Sunday afternoon!
Signing off for now,
Snehal
The current range in the dailys.. Sudoku.
I tried to distance myself from it for quite sometime.
Especially when ppl around me were really hooked to it.. cause some how I knew that though t'was a daily ritual for them, as soon as I wud try to pry .. they all wud turn into fierce competitors ..
" which level did u try.. EASY? bah!"
" Why are u using a pencil AND an eraser? he he ..*smirk* *snigger* .."
" 3 hrs!!!???.. wot r u doing? ... plzzzz its a CAKE! ..."
" FYI.. page 3 has the solution.."
Some considered giving me a hand.
A paper, a pen and loads of " let-me-show-you-how-to-crack-it" !
" See, this is the thing."
I stare at the 9X9 in front of me...
" This , this and this shud never have the same digits...."
I nod and stare at the vertical , horizontal , diagonal lines slashed in the 9X9
"...and this and this shud have all the digits atleast once. "
Again.. slash slash slash.. I still stare at the 9X9 till the earlier slashes float in a diffrent plain than the newly drawn ones..
[ like those illusions that we recieve thru mails, " if u stare at it long enuff, u can see the dots moving, circles rotating, lines floating, grid changing color .. and if you stare long enuff, your boss can see you all dazed and glazy eyed in front of the screen! "]
"..AND, each of these shud have all the digits .. none shud be repeated.."
I lose my glazy stare which I was concentrating hard to manitain..
" .. and ultimately the BIG picture shud be same as these individual ones.."
I look at the BIG picture in front of me..
slash slash and some more slash, square, dot dot , Big dot , another slash , rrrrip..!!!!
The enthu volunteer has stabbed the paper triumphantly..
"..See.. this is soo damn easy! God .. Sudoku is addictive!.."
I grin at the volunteer to acknowledge the efforts!
Though I didn't get it that time.. it got me finally.
The best thing abt it is you need not calculate and u need not be a math geek or anything .. Sudoku is so math-dud-friendly.
Its fine even if you can't count from 1 to 9 [ see.. not even 1 to 10! ].
In fact the numbers in sudoku ain't treated as numbers at all.. u might as well take 9 different symbols and play it!
Finally a number game without maths! :-D [ so much for an Engg graduate from COEP! ]
I don't think its addictive, because once you get it, its the same all the time.
So never over-do it.
After lazy sundays' monsterous meals, curtains drawn, amidst the content lull , when the rest of the newspaper is devoured..
....a Sudoku each for me n my husband!
That makes a real cozy Sunday afternoon!
Signing off for now,
Snehal
Monday, October 17, 2005
Why "Three Princes of Serendip" ?
Well.. ..I've accidently been coming across a few very interesting blogs..[ and its been quite a while reading them..]
Every time I came across a new one, I would feel an urge to write one too!
Every time I felt like starting with one.. I wouldn't.. for no reason wot-so-ever..
And when I finally did start one.. I wanted to name it "Serendipity" ..Alas! The domain wasn't available..
[ why Serendipity? ...well..not now.. but I definitely will come up with some "fortunate discovery" abt it..].
The nxt, very obvious step.. was synonyms.. and I came across this in the quest:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Word History: We are indebted to the English author Horace Walpole for the word serendipity, which he coined in one of the 3,000 or more letters on which his literary reputation primarily rests. In a letter of January 28, 1754, Walpole says that "this discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word." Walpole formed the word on an old name for Sri Lanka, Serendip. He explained that this name was part of the title of "a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of...."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well.. so much in the name of debut!
Hope this leads me to far better discoveries I ain't looking for.. :-D
Every time I came across a new one, I would feel an urge to write one too!
Every time I felt like starting with one.. I wouldn't.. for no reason wot-so-ever..
And when I finally did start one.. I wanted to name it "Serendipity" ..Alas! The domain wasn't available..
[ why Serendipity? ...well..not now.. but I definitely will come up with some "fortunate discovery" abt it..].
The nxt, very obvious step.. was synonyms.. and I came across this in the quest:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Word History: We are indebted to the English author Horace Walpole for the word serendipity, which he coined in one of the 3,000 or more letters on which his literary reputation primarily rests. In a letter of January 28, 1754, Walpole says that "this discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word." Walpole formed the word on an old name for Sri Lanka, Serendip. He explained that this name was part of the title of "a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of...."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well.. so much in the name of debut!
Hope this leads me to far better discoveries I ain't looking for.. :-D
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