Category: Jottings

Speech Sounds – Vowels

 

There are twenty vowel sounds in the Received Pronunciation of England (R.P.). These include twelve pure vowels and eight diphthongs, belonging to different phonemes. They are illustrated with the following sets of words:

Pure Vowels (Monothongs):

  1.   even, see, teach, field, receive, machine, key, people
  2.   bit, ink, rich, begin, effect, matches, city, village, coffee
  3.   head, bed, nest, breath, feather, measure, many, bury, said
  4.   axe, cat, fan, tax, had, sad, rank,  band, man, bag, lack
  5.   arm, part, car, hard, pass, dance, bath, staff, calm, aunt, laugh
  6.   got, hot, ox, box, God, bottle, borrow, quality, want, cough, gone
  7.   all, corn, horse, morning, four, bought, door, law, walk, warm, daughter
  8.   put, book, good, room, wood, woman, cushion, full, sugar, bush, should
  9.   boot, two, shoe, rude, juice, music, food, tooth, lose, you, new, beauty
  10.   up, cup, gun, much, uncle, bundle, month, country, young, blood
  11.   fur, earn, word, girl, hurt, curse, serve, thirst, journey, surface
  12.   ago, about, forget, human, problem, liberty, drama, beggar, bigger,

Dipthongs (Vowel Glides):

  1.   aim, pain, play, day, gate, age, waste, rain, eight, they, great,
  2.   home, open, go, gold, blow, window, boat, soap, though
  3.   ice, bite, high, write, tidy, cry, cycle, five, die, child, buy
  4.   out, loud, cow, how, allow, shout, house, mouth, round,
  5.  oil, boil, boy, annoy, join,  coin, noise, point, voice
  6.  ear, fierce, near, real, cheer, zero, here, hear, severe
  7.  air, chair, care, share, bear, wear, prayer, their
  8.  poor, sure, surely, tour, during

Personification

Personification:

 A figure of speech wherein objects of nature, animals, inanimate objects or abstract ideas are treated as if they had a personality and were human beings. Examples:

  • The sea was singing songs.
  • The river glideth at his own sweet will.
  • The Ant said to the Grass-hopper.
  • The parrot sang sweet songs.
  • Melancholy marked him for her own.
  • Death lays his icy hands on kings.

Personification is usually expressed:

Through Verbs: Express feelings or actions connected with human beings.

  • The very walls will cry out against it.
  • The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night.
  • Anxiety is sitting on his face.
  • Earth felt the wound.
  • Woods rejoiced and welcomed him.
  • Mute nature mourns her worshipper.

Through Adjectives:

The raging storm, the angry sea, the hungry shore, the smiling land, the blushing rose, the sullen sky, the remorseless heat, furious waves, pitiless cold, etc.

Metaphor

Metaphor is a figure of speech where there is an implied comparison betwen two objects, persons or situations. Metaphor does not state, like a simile, that one thing is or acts like another thing. Metaphor states that the two things are one and in a manner identical. Metaphor  is a figure of of identification, e.g. Her eyes are like pearls. (The comparison is implied. Eyes are identified with pearls. Unlike a simile there is no use of ‘like’ or ‘as’.

Metaphor is usually expressed in the following forms:

1. Explicit identification:

  • The camel is the ship of the desert.
  • Procrastination is the thief of time.
  • Old age is the sunset of life.
  • Idleness is the nursery of sinful thoughts.

2. By the use of ‘of’:

  • He was faced by a sea of troubles.
  • Let us fight with the weapon of truth.
  • Hold fast to the anchor of faith, hope and charity. (Anchor in the form of faith etc. ‘Anchor’ is identified with “faith’ etc.)
  • The tree of liberty only grows when watered by the blood of tyrants. (‘Tree’ in the form of ‘liberty’; ‘water’ in the form of  ‘blood’.) 

3. Expressed through a verb:

  • The ship ploughs the sea.
  • Remorse gnawed at his heart.
  • Do not ape the manners of the rich.
  • Our country is being drained of its resources.

4.A whole sentence: Sometimes a whole sentence is metaphricallyy used to fit in a particular situation. If a man, for example , goes on changing his jobs, we merely tell him, “Well, sir, A rolling stone gathers no moss“.

Similarly:

  • He is sowing wild oats.
  • The cat was out of the bag.
  • He hit the nail on the head.
  •  Make hay while the sun shines.

These are all examples of Metaphor.

5.Expressed in a phrase ( where the objects of identity are not clearly expressed):

Through nouns:

  • At last there is a ray of hope.
  • He laid down the reigns of his office.
  • They spread the light of knowledge.
  • There is not a shade of doubt in it.

Through adjectives:

  • He had a fiery temper.
  • There was a stormy discussion in the meeting.
  • She has a rosy complexion.
  • He has a stony heart.

 

William Wordsworth’s “She was a Phantom of Delight” – Audio Analysis

William Wordsworth’s She was a Phantom of Delight – Audio Analysis

She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment’s ornament;
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A Traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.

The Tiger by William Blake – Audio Lecture 1

     TheTiger by William Blake – Audio Lecture 1

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The 3 idiots

The Three Idiots – First Impression

The Three Idiots is a blast – breathlessly exhilarating. Hat’s off to Rajkumar Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and the cast. Amir Khan is a magician, a puppeteer. He holds the strings to people’s heart or let me say he puts his heart and soul in what he does. And it shows. After a long time I have come across a movie which I’d like to see again. Besides entertaining in a superb way, the movie playfully conveys a lot of messages – Be Optimistic; Trust your intuitions; Follow your heart; Do not succumb to pressure; Voice yourself; Education, Knowledge, Learning is more important than marks and degrees; Don’t run after success, it will run after you if you have the ability and most importantly Make others happy; Be kind and compassionate.

Well, do not get a wrong impression by this list. Go and watch the movie – it makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it makes you think. You roll with laughter when Chattur gives the welcome speech on teacher’s day, you cry when the boys discover their attitude, you sit on the edge of the chair during the delivery and marvel when everything turns out well and you come out of the cinema hall thinking on a lot of matters.

All in all – The Three Idiots is a must watch – excellent, contemporary story, direction, cinematography, music and acting.

Life

Life never turns out

the way we want it

the way we imagine it

the way we dream it

Life is a mystery

the more we try to unravel it

the more entangled

we find ourselves in it

Life does not provide answers

It does not give way

It leaves us with Q.marks

Restless

Like blind men, we traverse

Unaware  of our destinations

Puppets in Lord’s hands

Walking with the hope

That all will be well!

Parental Pressure

Recently I watched the film Chal Chalein. The film touches upon a very sensitive subject – parental pressure on kids to perform well in studies, to become doctors, engineers, administrative officers etc. The producer (Mahesh Padalkar) and the director (Ujjwal Singh) should be applauded for taking up this issue. It is indeed a very serious matter. Consciously or unconsciously parents are subjecting their children to inhuman hours of study. They are taking the fun out of their children’s lives.

It is not just grown up kids (9th to 12th standard) but very small children are going through this trauma of doing well, of excelling. In metropolitan cities, there is literally a mad rush. Parents want to admit their children in the best schools of the city. From the age of two and a half they start grooming them – sending them to special preparatory schools, making their tender hands write all kinds of scripts and numbers, making them cram alphabet, rhymes, and essays. They do not realize that by thus tutoring small children, they are killing creativity, curiosity, imagination and individuality. As it is life ahead is tough, competitive and it pains to see childhood thus wrangled.

Here we are starting a grading system for the 10th class but what about little children? Why should they be subjected to this kind of manipulation, just because their parents want good schools for their children? And why do schools have such stupid, stringent rules for admission? Instead of taking a written test of five or six years old (for which the child has been preparing for two years or more), can’t there be a simpler criterion for selection? I think this issue needs serious attention.

Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner is a disturbing, powerful, intense, gripping and provocative novel. It stirs a number of emotions. Once you start reading it, you cannot put it down. The degeneration of Afghanistan, the displacement and migration of people bring back memories of the partition of India. The pain/the struggle, strike a chord even in people who were not directly affected by the partition. We have all grown up listening to stories of how our grandparents fled, escaped, leaving everything behind, hoping to return to their motherland one day. But that day never came. How people adapt to new places, people, situations, occupations is a remarkable thing about mankind. We know this by example. In Hosseini’s novel too, we find Afghan families adapting to the changed situation, earning bread and butter in anyway possible.

Besides this we get involved with the characters and their destinies. At a very early stage in the novel we realize there is more to Hasan’s and Amir‘s father’s relationship. We are angry at Amir’s cowardice and subsequent ill-treatment of his loyal, childhood mate Hasan. It proves how jealousy corrodes the goodness within. That one mistake changes/affects the lives of so many people. We feel sorry for Hasan who has to live life like a hazara and endure all kinds of unimaginable insults. The story would have been different, had young Amir protested and saved Hasan from abuse. Hosseini’s portrayal of childhood with its vulnerabilities, fears, jealousies, tensions, is terrific.

All this in the backdrop of the turbulent Afghanistan – the end of monarchy, invasion by the Russian forces and the rise of the Taliban regime. But it is the personal story of the two childhood friends – Amir and Hasan that binds the story together. And the message ‘there is a way to be good again’ is something we all need to imbibe.