The last few days have been spent almost entirely in front of the computer.......endless hours, sliced away by some thief of time.......and still my term papers remain incomplete. Most uncertain I am as to whether they will ever infact be completed, and the uncertainty of incompletion is driving me to certain and complete unhappiness. In fact, I think the word I am looking for is disconsolate.
I am disconsolate because I have realized I cannot submit anything within a deadline (there goes my future as a brilliant business administrator). I am disconsolate because I have also realize I cannot come up with anything imaginative/original (yaaargh, there goes my future as the shining spark on the Indian cultural scene). I am disconsolate because though I have written as much as fifteen hundred sparkling words on Oedipus Rex, the summation of what I have written is *nothing*. It's as if I have the landscape descriptions for my masterpiece of a novel.....I just haven't come up with the characters or a plot line yet....sigh, how does that work out?
And then I was made most disconsolate by an anonymous-for-the-moment one who hinted that my orthography might pose problems when writing the term papers. Having duly glumped and felt sad about such unfortunately true insinuations I was reminded of my recent period of Hyderabad Blues.

Perhaps it was the lack of anything better to do that made these little variations so interesting or maybe it's just that the city is one of scattered orthographic delights. Fifteen minutes after I entered the city and crossed the Hotel Fish-Land (quite a blaring welcome sign *that* seemed to this blogsick fish) I noticed a sign which read Picnic Dhoaba (interesting concept, getting your laundry done while you eat I suppose, for the uninitiated, dhoba sounds like the bengali word for washerman). Further on there were the notices which read "do not through litter on the platforms". And food items were inevitably spelt by some rool of the thumb....hmm....I wonder if Nizaam's has ever heard of something called a chicken rool. Of course for the elucidation of the illiterate and the truly uncouth (read tourists and lovers convinced their names should be inscribed for posterity) on the walls of Golconda Fort there was the edict, "No writting on the walls."

But the most delightful notice was spotted in an STD booth on the university campus. Mid delightful long distance conversation I found my attention distracted by a notice announcing that 'snacks,tea,coffee,cooldrinks' were to be found after 4pm at the canteen located "at the back said of the ladies hostel". And the last memory was of the most attractive Indian Railways notices simply headed with the words CARE FULL and ending in an admonition worthy of recollection, Your's luggage, your's responsibility.

I laughed.....until I remembered my spellings were no better anyway. Then I sobered up and went to write my term paper. Which I regret to say is even more inane than I feared. For a while this afternoon it seemed the ju-jheel (read not too shallow pond facing department) would be a most appropriate final destination for me but then I realized drowning myself for one term paper was a bit much. The other after all is due at the end of this month. That would probably be the best time to join the pond-scum.
Smart decision as it happens, otherwise I would have missed learning the greatest secret of in the history of human existence. This was passed to me this evening by the prophetic Cassandra Mortmain. We were philosophizing (read blathering) about the epics. I was telling her about some of my favorite reworkings of the Ramayana and why Ravana is notnotnot the bad guy (any one who wants to start a pro-Sri Ram rant at this point feel free...but I can substantiate my point...I may be ignorant of much but I know my myths), she was mourning about hanuman's tail catching fire when I realized that all the great epics have some things in common. I sat up and declared my epiphanic realization and was just getting all prepared to launch into a full-fledged discourse on the world's greatest epics when cassy declared most calmly and knowingly "yeeeah, they all came from the same source"
*there was a long pause while I tried to work out the geography and archaeology supporting that*
Then she shook her head, realizing I was too dimwitted to get it, and explained.......
Aliens.
should've figured!!