I was watching Spelling Champs on ESPN yesterday. As I was watching the Indian version of the Spelling Bee, one thing occurred to me. Actually two things. One, and that of philosophical, perhaps even ontogenetic importance, just how bored does one have to be to watch that?
Yesterday was one of my busiest days and yet I managed to finished everything and still catch Spelling Champs. Contrast that with days when I only have to buy potatoes before the cook comes in and yet, I manage to mess that up. Has to be some sort of Murphy’s Law of Useless Pursuits or something.
The other thing that occurred to me was, boy, those kids are bright! Cochleae, Gingivitis, Acciaccatura, no matter what you throw at them, they get it right. And I need my computer to spell occasion and convenient! I used to be good at spelling but Word has made me lazy. Besides, I figure, who uses words like derailleur (French origin: mechanism for changing gears) and piccalilli (A kind of pickle)?
The only mistakes the kids made were because of poor pronunciation by the host, Rajat Kapoor. Man, they need a better host than him. The poor kids had to periodically keep looking at the ‘experts’ for verification. The experts being some gora named Andrew and one BBCD (as in the European counterpart of ABCD), Rana.
However, those kids need some serious phonetics lessons. All of them pronounced H as etch. All of them! The only exceptions being two south Indian kids who pronounced it as hetch. People, it is pronounced aitch.
On an aside, I found this joke and it’s hilarious. Like, seriously funny.
Welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline;
If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.
If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6.
If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are depressed, it doesn’t matter which number you press. No one will answer.
If you are delusional and occasionally hallucinate, please be aware that the thing you are holding on the side of your head is alive and about to bite off your ear.
When tall, suave, handsome Kaustav Kapoor walks into her office, ditzy private investigator Kasthuri (aka Katie) Kumar has anything but detection on her mind. He is, after all, a scion of Bollywood’s first family—perhaps he has a role for her? Perhaps she will, at last, get to sashay down the red carpet in a designer gown, with flash bulbs following her every move?
But Kapoor’s intentions are much more prosaic: he wishes Katie to trace the heroine of his new blockbuster (and, if Katie’s read the glossies correctly, his life) who is mysteriously AWOL. Despite her misgivings, Katie finds herself unable to refuse the task entrusted to her, and thereon follows a bewildering hunt for the film star across a trail of corpses.
And if that isn’t excitement enough, she has to contend with the maddening and mysterious, but, oh-so-hot, Tejas Deshpande.
The first in a brand new detective series.
IN BOOKSTORES NOW.
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