My School Days Girl-friend
Grammar
All of a sudden, Grammy
threw her arms around my neck, her head resting on my shoulder. I could feel
the warmth of her silent tears rolling down from her eyes
By
Mukesh Sharma
A few days ago, I visited US library at K.G. Marg, New
Delhi for the renewal of my membership. I was surprised to spot my school days
girl-friend Grammar sitting quietly and calmly in the reading hall, engrossed
in some book. When I was at school, she was a good friend of mine. She would never indulge in
small-talks. She would always preach discipline. All classmates used to
respect her a lot. Out of love and respect, I would also call her by a nick
name ‘Grammy.’
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| My School days Girlfriend |
The moment ‘Grammy’ caught my sight, she sprang to her
feet; she walked up to me and gave me a hug. We sat down for an hour and had
warm chit-chat in the light of sweet memories of the past. Here, this blogger shares the excerpts of that interesting talks with his
valued readers:
Blogger:
What a great pleasure to see you here Grammy after such a long time! How do you do?
Grammy:
How do I look? You see! A woman is as old as she looks
and a man is as old as he feels.
Blogger:
Great! You are an ageless beauty. Even mighty time
respects your beauty. And ever yours, I am one of your votaries.
Grammy:
Okay. I am flattered! I am flattered! You writers know
how to play with the words. Where and how to use Simile, Metaphor, Hyperbole, Euphemism, Antithesis, Oxymoron, Personification, Apostrophe, Epigram, Irony, Pun and Metonymy.
Blogger:
I have learnt this all from you only. You are my teacher.
You are my best friend. I am a writer because of you. To be honest, you are my
first love; you are my love-lady.
Grammy:
Frankly speaking, I don’t have very high opinion of men.
I have bitter experience with the men. Naked truth is a man loves a woman for sex, and a woman gives sex for the love of man. Men are attracted towards women for sheer sexual urge. In the
beginning, they make great show of love and affection. They would love to hang
out with their girls. After winning her confidence, they use her, they misuse her, they abuse her and
at last they disuse her for another body (woman). So is the situation with me (Grammar) also. Once one has good command of the language, Grammar is given good-bye. In US, over 45 per cent women above the age of 50 end
up as single. It's a male chauvinist society. I don’t trust man. I enjoy celibacy.
Blogger:
Don’t generalize it. You can’t draw a conclusion on the
basis of the behavior of some selfish men. You know, those who understand you,
love and respect you the most.
Grammy:
Don’t placate me with your words.
Blogger:
It is not an exaggeration Grammy! It’s truth. You are the epitome of discipline. You teach discipline. You are like nature that teaches
nothing but discipline. The sun rises in east; it sets in west. The earth and
all the planets revolve around the sun in a synchronized orbit – it is a
perfect example of discipline.
You see, Grammar is a crux of life. God has succeeded in
creating all planets and stars because He knows the Grammar of universe.
It is the Grammar
of the body that brings man and woman close to each other.
Truth is stranger than fiction. Handful of wily netas who are public servants rule over
the masters (the public), for, they know the Grammar of Democracy. On the contrary, the public can simply maunder
and mumble but can’t do anything, for, it doesn’t understand the Grammar of Politics.
Grammy:
Hold you horses, I am impressed! I am impressed! But, you
know, many scholars contend that Grammar is more confusing than comprehensive,
and cite reasons:
-
If one studies the grammar from very first
chapter to the last, rules are progressively discarded one after the other.
There are no hard and fast rules in conventional grammar. It is full of
exceptions. So a student remains confused even after studying the whole grammar.
-
It is
also silent on the rules of preposition. Why the meaning of a word changes with
different preposition e.g. call on, call for, call upon etc.
-
It is also maintained that conventional
grammar doesn’t teach sentence making. It teaches one how to correct a
sentence, not how to make sentences . . .
Blogger:
These morons know only conventional grammar taught at
school level in conformity to colonial education system which is based on
rote-learning and it is a corrective
grammar only; it teaches to correct the sentence. These so-called scholars have
no knowledge of your other parts – Syntactical
Grammar that teaches the sentence making and Generative Grammar that teaches to generate the sentences. Those who
are acquainted with all the parts, know that Grammar is comprehensive, not
confusing.
Further, as far as rule of preposition is concerned, standardized
collocations are the answer. English is a language of phrases. Root words/key words pair with other
words and produce standardizes collocations and convey different senses. So, no need to go into the rule of
preposition.
Grammy:
Well, some find fault even in my eugenics. Scholars cast
aspersions and take jibe at me saying English has no grammar of its own. An
American Lindley Murray who was a Latin Scholar and he was of the view that Latin was the most scientific language in the world and it's grammar could justify any language. So he just converted the Latin Grammar into English Grammar in
1795. And his book set the precedent for succeeding books on English Grammar.
Blogger:
So what, you know Latin is the direct descendant of Sanskrit. All the European languages are
genetically related to Sanskrit only which is looked upon as parent language
for all the European languages. So you should take pride in the fact that you
are the pampered daughter of Latin, and a great, great . . . . grand daughter of
Sanskrit – a divine language which was fully developed and advanced even 5000
years ago at a time when the world was a savage and even most of the modern
languages were non-existent.
Grammy:
Oh my goodness, you know a lot about me. You think a lot
about me? Now I can understand your sneaking love for me, right!
Blogger:
I understand only one fact. If you love your children,
you must respect their mother. I love English language. So I respect the mother
of English language i.e. you Grammy.
Grammy:
So, you have great respect for women!
Blogger:
Of course, like mother-nature, only a woman has power of
procreation. Man is a child of woman. His life revolves around woman only.
Without woman, this little world of man will cease to exist.
Grammy:
O man, you are a true man. I never knew that you had such
warm feelings for me.
Blogger:
That’s not all. I would like to unfold my heart today.
You see, I wanted to marry you, but I couldn’t summon the courage to pop the
question. I contented myself with the thought: those who can’t be held in arms, can be had in heart. Even today,
you live in my heart. You are the queen of my heart.
All
of a sudden, Grammy threw her arms around my neck, her head resting on my
shoulder. I could feel the warmth of her silent tears rolling down from her
eyes.
Tears welled in my eyes too. Consoling and comforting her, I whispered in her
ear:
“Worry not honey, the next birth would witness the grand and gala union of the body and soul. ‘Amen, Amen, Amen’ she blurted out in deep voice
echoing from the heart. And with a good-bye kiss, we parted to meet again in the next birth . . .
