Thursday, July 12, 2007

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

The other day when I was speaking to the Director of Cancer Institute In Adyar Chennai I mispronounced some one's name or said it wrongly = so He corrected me with a look like I was belittling their culture or something - I said to get a name right all the time you have to have lived in the same place for a considerably long period of time -Unfortunately I have other skills and I have done a lot of work so then if now and then a I mispronounce why should it be such a big deal - so then he said okay and that is true- but these other characters in the lab they made a big deal of it - How much can I do? Must you explain every process right from signal transduction to cancer therapy plus every instrument= how it works and why not it does nt work plus understand the ethos and spirit of the place - who can do this much- I would say Go girl Go scream on who ever you want.to God wanted me to go to Delhi but I was hell bent on going to Madras since at a that time I knew no one in Delhi. Now I feell 2-3 years in Delhi would have done me a world of good even if I did nt settle there in the long run. Ofcourse after sometime in Madras He said he wanted me to remain here on some important work which I did .( when I say God told me , Imean in the Spirit not some human voice -atleast not until now) Sometimes I feel am going crazy in the head- much like William Carey's wife who went loo loo - atleast that is what these Malayalee's claim ( her sacrifice was so very immense) ssBut coming to my earlier point - I did every piece of work very carefully and spelt and pronounced every word accurately but you cant do that all the time - the other day I spelt Sunita Williams name as Serena Williams in one of the blogs but felt too tired or lazy to go correct it - so I let it go - But yes if you are in the same place and country you can get all the names correct all the time or should I think I dont know - one has to go back to old stuff to see if we got everything right . It is not my fault - there is keyboard slip up and if it is not one of your life's work why bother.

2 comments:

Amrita said...

i feel very sorry for your african lady friend. Seems like she has a lot of problems...poor soul. If I could meet her I would ask her to get psychiatric help and Christian counselling.

Janet Jeyapaul said...

Well she seemed she had it all together- Africans by and large have alot of good insight into what is good or bad for their culture. I remember once a cleaning black lady saved enough money and contributed it to Pres.Clinton (who was president at that time) for education purposes sending a strong message that every mite counts and everyone could participate positively for the good of the country or some such thing.By and large black women esp the educated ones are a hardy lot(very resilient) not easily flustered or
discouraged- no wonder soul music is so powerful