Judge me not!

How often do you pass a second glance to the man rushing past you? How often do you notice his sweaty brow, knit in anxiousness as he shouts into his cell phone? How often do you visualise life through his eyes?
Or life through the eyes of the newly wed bride who, wearing a dozen bright red bangles,nervously tries to adjust her veil knowing that every pair of eye is on her, intently noticing her; judging her.
Or maybe the child you see every day on his way back from school, completely engrossed in his own magical little world, rambling to himself and unconsciously kicking the pebbles in his way.

Do you ever wonder who you would be if not you?

I judge people. I judge them for every single action of theirs. I judge them for how they talk, who they talk to, what they wear and how they act. I judge them if they don’t use proper grammar, if they’re hypocritical and even if their face annoys me.

Yes I am judgemental yet I don’t classify everything into black and white and deny the existence of shades of grey. That would be unfair.

Did you ever wonder what went on in the mind of Harvey Dent as he chose the path of evil after being the perfect altruist all his life? Is there not a tragedy and despair arising from the actions of a thankless selfish society to blame for turning him into Two Face. They think it befitting to judge and categorise him into the ‘evil’ label little knowing that it was the evil in all of them who created him.

Everyone has the tiny specks of evil blended in their personality. Maybe they are less evil than you, maybe more. But before you judge them think of why the specks exist. You are sure to find a reason enough to not hate them for it.

Ten Most Annoying Grammatical Errors

I wrote this a while ago, as a sample for some organisation. The suckers told me I was a little too much of a creative writer. The slightly formal tone is because I tried to make it sound boring and apparently failed.

So *drumrolls*, here goes.

We’ve all seen them. They’ve annoyed us. We’ve pinched ourselves to stop from correcting them every single time lest we be the ‘grammar nerds’. Yet, we still cannot manage to just let them be.

Yes, I am indeed talking about the most annoying grammatical errors which mess with your head every time you hear someone say them out loud. Let us now take a look at the top ten most annoying ones.

Note: Picking all of them has been tough and even though some of them aren’t the ones you’d see regularly, they are pretty irritating. Also, any extremely annoying error that’s left out should rest assured it is just as much of a bother as the ones listed.

1. The Classic Your/You’re

Beginning by definition ‘your’ is something that belongs to you while ‘you’re’ is an abbreviated form of you are. Very easily confused you see this error everywhere around. Mostly seen in text messaging and spotted in the plethora of comments on social media websites, this mistake is extremely common and you could very well be the one making it if not paying enough attention.

2. You LOSE your marbles and the knot is LOOSE

Studies haven’t proven it but personal experience tells us that 90 per cent of average adults do not know the difference. We’ve seen it all around and even in the occasional daily newspaper, for crying out loud. ‘Lose’ with a single ‘o’ signifies a loss of something where as ‘Loose’ with two ‘o’ is ‘not tight’, ‘free’, or for lack of a better term, ‘forward’.

3. Your hair is shiny/dull/oily. Individual strands of your hair are shiny/dull/oily.

Out of all of the above, this hurts our ears the most. Constantly seeing people rant on and on about how their hair ‘are’ sticky makes us shout at the top of our voice and correct them, and keep on doing it until they get it through their ‘hair-brained’ heads.

4. The Disastrous Double Negative

The African American lady in your favourite American sitcom might be able to pull it off, but you cannot.

‘You’re not doing nobody a favour.’

Clearly this sentence has two negatives which makes it an incorrect statement. At the risk of sounding like a complete wannabe rapper, we suggest you avoid it.

5. Did you say him?

It wouldn’t be too much of a bother to add the missing ‘to’ to the above sentence. ‘Did you say it to him?’, just sounds so much better. Similarly you could use ‘Did you tell him?’ and completely avoid people like me judging you.

6. Misuse of the Present Perfect

Yes you were taught this tense in high school but not for usage in every sentence. In case a tiny detail slipped out of your head here it is again; you do not use it in a past scenario. We use the present perfect to talk about things that started in the past and continue into the present and/or the future.

‘Sara has took the bus to Pragati’,sounds wrong. Instead Sara took the bus to Pragati or Sara has taken the bus to Pragati would be correct since it’s a thing of the past.

7. ‘It’s’ a good thing the mechanic is here we have a car and ‘Its’ wheel is broken.

‘It’s’ with an apostrophe technically means ‘It is’ or ‘It has’ and hence is used in scenarios starting with the same. Its meanwhile, refers to ownership; a neuter version of his or her. Also there exists no word like its’.

8. Using Then for Than.

Probably the most horrific of them all, you hereby allowed to pass judgements against whoever uses this. Then, meaning soon after and than, used for comparison should not be confused. Sadly they are.

We see a lot of ‘X is better then Y’ used all around us. Completely wrong and absolutely needs to be corrected.

9. ‘They have arrived’

Now for the classic Hindi English goof up we see in few government office all over the country. In Hindi we, as a mark of respect, use a plural statement to address a dignitary or high official. This respect, when clubbed with English, gives you a sentence that lies neither here nor there. Officials in India rarely address their superior using a he or a she. The boss is always a ‘they’. A demonstration shall make it clearer.

Everywhere else in the world- My boss will be arriving in a minute. He is a big shot.

India- My boss will be arriving in a minute. They are a big shot.

10. The Who-Whom Battle

A favourite of grammar nerds, this argument goes on and on. To settle this is a simple formula-Who is for subjects and Whom for objects in a sentence.

For example:

-Who is screaming at this time?

-I don’t care whom you ask for it.

Bittersweet by Rumi

One of the most influential poets there is. I connect to him. Normally, poetry never seems to keep me gripped. His verses are so beautiful and yet so simple. They're cryptic but to each they mean something different. Something he/she identifies with.

In my hallucination
I saw my beloved's flower garden
In my vertigo, in my dizziness
In my drunken haze
Whirling and dancing like a spinning wheel

I saw myself as the source of existence
I was there in the beginning
And I was the spirit of love
Now I am sober
There is only the hangover
And the memory of love
And only the sorrow

I yearn for happiness
I ask for help
I want mercy
And my love says:

Look at me and hear me
Because I am here
Just for that

I am your moon and your moonlight too
I am your flower garden and your water too
I have come all this way, eager for you
Without shoes or shawl

I want you to laugh
To kill all your worries
To love you
To nourish you

Oh sweet bitterness
I will soothe you and heal you
I will bring you roses
I, too, have been covered with thorns

People are strange, when you're a stranger. Faces seem ugly when you're alone.

Welcome world!

Since I could not think of something really cool right now, I decided to leave the christening of my blog to later and right now, put the first thing I could think of.

Dilli Autos are so blended in my existence that even now, they're the first thing I think of.

I share a complex relationship with them. Hate them for the auto wallah who are a disgusting, money scrounging, proud, rude lot. With exceptions. Every now and then you find a kindly auto wallah and send blessing to his soul.

Yeah so hate them for all of this and love them for the simple concept of portability.

That should sufficient explain the blog url.

Also, I can never manage to think of an alternate name;a pseudonym for myself. Been trying since years now. Comes with loving your name I guess. Don't think replacing it with anything would do it justice. Or me. That comes with being vain.