Numbers are wonderful ornaments for speech. For instance, if I were to encapsulate most of the events of the past few days, I could do it all with just one jewel.
Four and a half months of painstaking care, and in four and a half minutes, the mane was off. A four and a half hour flight to the capital, four and a half hours in the train, and from Visakhapatnam’s coldest winter in four and a half decades at 18 degrees, I was to be rattled by the four and a half degrees in R, made even more deadly by the early morning drizzle I got caught in. Not to forget, there was last night’s four and a half thousand rupee bill, and the resulting four and a half hundred rupees a glutton.
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Ever since I read supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, I knew that of the many heavy responsibilities bestowed upon me to better this world, one was to enrich dictionaries. Sadly, like many of the aforementioned responsibilities, I couldn’t pay enough attention to fully fulfill this one. Yet, I continue to take small steps towards making the reading world a better, more convenient place. Here’s last year’s creation.
relaze (v)- To relax lazily, and in the delightful process, expedite the dawning of crucial realisations.
Origin: From the proximity of the Z and X keys on the standard QWERTY keyboard.
More: Relazing, Relazer, Relazisation, among others.
Red Herrings: One of the common misconceptions regarding one of the noun forms of the word, relazisation, is that it is the American spelling for ‘relasisation’. That, as the origin and definition of the verb form clearly demonstrate, is a stupid accusation. Also, the word or any of its derivatives has no connection etymologically with the word ‘relaxative’ or its derivatives, apart from the fact that they share the same creator.
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To recall one of the few enjoyable moments from last semester’s lectures, “Phoetry is not eejy... One of the hallmarks of a great phoet is suffering. If you have not suffered, you can never be a high-class poet.” Laughing it off like most other things in those classes, I couldn’t ever imagine how true those words would turn out to be. Staying true to my late learner qualifications, I only got an eight on ten in Creative Writing in English, and with thorough honesty, I aver I deserved it.
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Finally, the fog has lifted off the grass outside my room to reveal bright yellow flowers blooming right on top of that little mound a little off the centre of the garden. It’s still the darkest, foggiest quarter to three in the afternoon I’ve seen for quite a while. If at all it requires any mention, the temperature is hovering around the ten-degree mark. My room’s tube light is still out of service, and the fan gathering more dust, leaving a musty damp smell beautifully hanging in the air. Without intending to demean the sheer beauty of the prevailing weather, I’d say this probably is an Orwellian dream. Tucked up on the edge of my bed in a neck-hugging sweater that makes me cringe even more for home, I look back at the year gone by- in pictures, phone calls, text messages, e-mails, and top of all, crystal-clear scenes from my eidetic memory. And what better song to give company, than one of the very few songs I loved from the school assemblies- Turn, Turn, Turn.
A new year, and the double-digit decade lies ahead, and for now, it is definitely a time to gather stones together.
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P.S. - 18 = 4.5 + 4.5 + 4.5 + 4.5. I’m getting the feeling at least a couple of people will have noticed this. Oh, and don’t bother about the title.
P.P.P.S. - As cold as it is, and as lazy as I am, I'm sure I'll be forgiven for labelling this my second bloggiversary post.
Animals make strange sounds
As do a machine gun's 500 rounds
Coo-coo-coo, cock-a-doodle-doo
Ho ho ho, me blog has turned two!
