The babelfish is traumatized beyond disbelief!
A mere twelve days she leaves her blog unattended and when she returns what does she find? Besides the loving messages from the ever too sweet people who evidently missed her updates *muuah, I luuurbh you all*, there was the most heart rending discovery of the year.

Dear reader, you whose gentle soul has perhaps been stirred by the b'fiss's verbal navigations between madness and civilization, you who have been bably's companion through thick and thin and comments manifold, how will you react when you hear this tragic tale. Will you break down and weep uninterruptedly as babel herself did?

The time has come, gentle reader to tell you all. Quail not at the thought of untold horrors to be revealed soon but bear up bravely and more importantly help b'fiss bear up bravely because she is a mere twenty seconds away from a hysterical outbreak.

Dear Reader, there is a shark in the fish bowl! These are murky waters you and I tread and 'tis an age of betrayal when none can be trusted. I shudder to think such ignominious behaviour is possible in this supposedly humane society of bloggers but it's true. There is a nameless, faceless and probably heartless blogger who *hold your breath* has usurped the babelfish's username.

Hoimoi I say and Hoimoi some more!*
*greek word meaning alas and implying the deepest sort of despair...can you blame bably if in her moment of despair she resorts to Greek to express her profound sorrow, even as she has resorted to using the third person in a desperate attempt to stave off the reality of having her personal blogspace trespassed.

Imagine this. The b'fiss returns to the blogsphere still somewhat dazed from the excitement of watching the sister get married, and that too to someone who did not have a gun pointed at his head or other interesting parts of his anatomy. And to make up for the long silence she has stories galore revolving around aunts and sisters and friends who stay up till dawn on wedding nights fighting over cushions and other friends who are heartless enough to leave her unchaperoned on aforementioned nights because they have to walk the dog the next morning. But then she comes across this, this, this verbose Euryproktoi!**
**hehe, another greek word actually. somewhat censored, so all those whose moral sensibilities are likely to be offended, note I didn't mention any specific age group, please turn your eyes from this part of the small print...whispered undertone....umm euryproktoi means...ahem *I blush myself at such a graphic meaning but lets get it over with* elderlypersonwhosearsehasbeenwidenedbyrepeatedanalpenetration. there I said it, phew.

In short then, bably is shattered. She has had her blogdentity snitched and while she would love to call this new blogger an upstart usurper she won't. But be warned dear reader if you find strangely worded, marginally pretentious comments on your blogs claiming to be from the babelfish do not assume at once that it is this fish.

This babelfish will now sigh profoundly and swim away to a quiet corner of her fishbowl to mourn in silence the loss of her virtual identity. Farewell gentle reader, perhaps some day in some distant planet we shall meet again, for now this fishy heart is broken.

Fare thee well indeed.

The b'fiss family bowl has recently been taken over by one nos. aunt, one nos. cousin and one nos. bride-to-be sister.

The aunt is the life and soul of the wedding party, never fails to mention that she has flown ten thousand miles for our sakes only and keeps reminding me that if I am to get married it must be after a minimum of four years and I am only allowed to pick a boy from the city. For those who know not the intricate details of our fishy lives my sister is getting married to a boy from Arambagh. Which is erm..somewhere in the state of Bengal, possibly in the district of Hooghly, but my geography being what it is, let's just say the place is a three hour drive from the city. The family has no inbred prejudices of course against anyone who should not chose to live in the very heart of the city but when it comes to a wedding it all gets very complicated. Right now our biggest worry is what time the groom will reach on the day of the wedding, there being just the faintest chance that he'll arrive at eleven at night when all the guests and possibly the bride as well have gone to sleep. The aunt is suitably traumatized at the thought of having to drive out three hours to attend the reception at Arambagh and every possible chance she gets she repeatedly urges me to ensure my life-mate lives on Southern Avenue but failing that anywhere within Calcutta or some major metropolitan city will do. Major arguments have arisen over this between the aunt and the father since the latter is currently insisting I marry either a Frenchman or an Italian or possibly a German. What I find most bewildering is this general insistence on my marriage given that I made it perfectly clear to the family from the time I was four and capable of constructing a grammatically coherent sentence that I was not getting married.

The cousin is presently giggling her way, somewhat hysterically, through her India trip. While the bfiss has never entertained the slightest doubts as to her ability to be entertaining, the cousin's sudden bursts of laughter are somewhat unnerving.

This ain't a fishbowl any longer it's a whirlpool.

After-thought : the difference between my cousin and me is when she's on the computer I very conscientously look the other way. whereas when I'm on the computer if she happens to be in the same room, she will, without fail look over my shoulder. I'm exceptionally fond of the kid, she's a year younger than me and one of those bherry nice types but this is a killer.
And since one reader athas questioned my love for my aunt, I have a minor clarification. This is the one aunt I actually like. Well one of three at least. Then again, family luuurbh is always on the border of love-hate-and-kill-yourself-before-I-kill-you.

Act I :

cassy (standing at the threshhold of that sacrosanct space of the don of all Judean times, the Head's room; earnest, serious, polite) : sir, may I come in?

don c (with all the (cor)leonine gruffness of the original Vito ) : no!

exit cassandra.

[the story is told with much anguish to the babe(l)fish who on realizing a week later that she has to visit the head for some work feels suitably petrified]

Act II :

b'fiss (standing at the same place; wide eyed innocence radiating from voice, also slight element of breathlessness) : sir, may I come in?

don c (benignly) : yes.

*b'fiss does mental dance of jubilation, steps into room, walks up to desk, ignores feeling of solidly muscular and boney knees changing to jelly like consistency and instead focuses on fluttering eyelashes to full effect*

don c (stern voice of judgement) : biye bari jachho? *off to a wedding?*

b'fiss (looks left, looks right, feeling overwhelmingly panic-stricken and mutters) : eh?

don c (raises eyebrow of stern judgement) : eto sheje guje keno?! *why are you all decked up?*

b'fiss (looks down at self, grapples to understand the import of the question, looks up at don, sinks back into stupidity in the face of eyebrow of doom and repeats) : eh?!

don c (looks fiss up and down, mutters ) : oh na, shawl-ta dekhe mone holo *no, the shawl misled me*

short while later, exit babelfish.

Thereafter had anyone been present on the corridor outside the room they would have been treated to the sight of the babelfish taking off her shawl to reveal semi-tattered jeans and fairly non-descript kurta and staring at shawl for all of five minutes.
It was a nice shawl. But there was absolutely nothing about it which suggested I was decked out for a wedding!

If anyone assumed that the Head of the Department of English at JU, like Principles of schools and Abbots of well, abbeys occupied the sort of exalted position where appointments have to be obtained well in advance to catch a glimpse of the glorious being, such an anyone would be dead off the mark. The best place to catch a glimpse of the man is at the canteen. Actually it's not quite the best place going by prevalent definitions of best, since my reaction usually is, damn, he's there, oooh, he's hot, aargh, hide fag!!! Finding him is easy. It's the next part where people generally discover that they've finally reached the top of the minaret but the stairs have mysteriously vanished. Put it simply, the don is unpredictable.

These days however gone is that look of joyful delight at the misery of hapless students and he looks merely weary of the world in general and the department in particular. So much so, that the last day I went to badger him into giving me the optional I wanted, he looked so tired and forlorn I actually just handed him the application letter and left instead of making a general nuisance of myself as I would've on other occasions. It's just that he was sitting there looking deluged with work and my instinctive reaction was to wish I could pick him up, croon over him and cuddle him for a bit and then pat him on the head and put him back.

embarrassing silence.

yes well...I know everyone who actually knows the man I speak of is probably wishing they hadn't read that last bit but that's what I felt. And there was no disrespect meant, I feel the same about my parents these days what with all the pressure they're under with the wedding in all of two weeks and the bride and groom missing and the bride's sister being utterly unhelpful. Maybe the world would just be a happier place if everyone was crooned over and patted more frequently.

In conclusion, the fiss's recipe for world peace : cuddle the world!

coming up soon *never mind how soon* : the fiss's plans for world domination and why she is better off as a super villain rather than as a super hero(ine)!