I woke up this morning, feeling very content about the extra 30 minutes i spent in bed since I dint go to the Gym, giving my body ample time to recuperate after yesterday's work out. The sun peeking just over the brow of the hill, was shining like a yellow diamond setting my morning ablaze with energy. I popped out of bed, stretched around and switched on the television as I prepared to go through the usual morning of getting ready for work.
My ears perked up when I heard "oil prices" uttered by the Bill Tumble of BBC Breakfast. "Oh no!" I thought to myself, "not again!". In the last six months I have watched helplessly as the diesel prices shot up from under 95 pence to nearly 130 pence earlier this week! But the, suddenly I was not sure of what I was hearing! My hand groped around in a hurry for the remote, and I increased the volume and re-winded back to hear it again! And this time I was sure I heard "dropped"!!! What joy! Oil prices for the first time in god knows how many months, dropped down below $124 per barrel. I had a little celebration, by jumping up in the air and clicking my heels together with my hands stretched over my head, it felt so gooood - that was until i fell on my backside!
I strode into the morning sunshine and got into Cherie (my car - a mini cooper D!) and set off for work, and this time not watching the fuel gauge as closely as I usually do. I tuned into the usual Classic FM, to listen to Simon Bates as usual with delightful classical music and news headlines. Just as I was pulling off the dual carriage-way, he began telling about classical events of interest. He was announcing the new exhibition at the British Library of the Indian epic Ramayana. And when I heard him pronounce "Ramayana", my blood began to boil! He pronounced it as "Ram" - "a" - "Yea" - "Na". And he repeated it about 5 or 6 times for good measure, just as if to wind me up!
I have lived in UK for over 6 years now. Every now and then that I have pronounced something wrong, there has been someone or the other who has interjected me and corrected me. When I realise I pronounced something wrongly, I do make a sincere effort to find out the correct pronunciation, and pronounce it correctly. All the times i pronounced "Wa" as "Va", times i pronounced Wales as "Vales", and Water as "Vater", there has been someone or the other to pick me up and let me know that is not how it is pronounced. The one that always gets me is "Thorn", i can never figure out how to get my tongue stuck out like a lizard to say "Th" with a bit of wind in it! Nevertheless, every time I talk about Theatre people are clueless about what is in "tatters"!
And when i heard Simon Bates pronounce Ramayana, every one of those instances were coming back to me. And I was growing more furious with every one of the instances I remembered. I mean I can understand that English speaking natives are unable to pronounce Indian words and names correctly. I have quite a battle to get most people to pronounce my name correctly, but then that is still understandable. I am normally pretty patient with this.
But then the reason for my blood to boil over the Simon Bates pronunciation Fiasco is that, he is a respectable presenter of a very respectable FM station. And if he cannot even make a small effort of finding out the correct pronunciation of Ramayana, that just shows the utter lack of respect for other cultures by him, and sadly so is the case with a lot of presenters in English media! After all, Simon Bates was talking about one of the two Iconic epics of Indian culture, its the least he could have done to find out the correct pronunciation, and get at least close to sounding like that!
But the classic FM presenter is not a lone ranger in this guilty department. Pretty much most English media presenters have shown (in my opinion) little respect for foreign cultures. There are a select few that do make efforts, I wish I could remember some of them or research a few and compliment them here - but then am just well annoyed at the moment at the majority who seem have sheer disregard for this - I just had to get this out of my system.
So much for my lovely morning start. Things did get better after I treated myself to a donut at lunch :-)
My ears perked up when I heard "oil prices" uttered by the Bill Tumble of BBC Breakfast. "Oh no!" I thought to myself, "not again!". In the last six months I have watched helplessly as the diesel prices shot up from under 95 pence to nearly 130 pence earlier this week! But the, suddenly I was not sure of what I was hearing! My hand groped around in a hurry for the remote, and I increased the volume and re-winded back to hear it again! And this time I was sure I heard "dropped"!!! What joy! Oil prices for the first time in god knows how many months, dropped down below $124 per barrel. I had a little celebration, by jumping up in the air and clicking my heels together with my hands stretched over my head, it felt so gooood - that was until i fell on my backside!
I strode into the morning sunshine and got into Cherie (my car - a mini cooper D!) and set off for work, and this time not watching the fuel gauge as closely as I usually do. I tuned into the usual Classic FM, to listen to Simon Bates as usual with delightful classical music and news headlines. Just as I was pulling off the dual carriage-way, he began telling about classical events of interest. He was announcing the new exhibition at the British Library of the Indian epic Ramayana. And when I heard him pronounce "Ramayana", my blood began to boil! He pronounced it as "Ram" - "a" - "Yea" - "Na". And he repeated it about 5 or 6 times for good measure, just as if to wind me up!
I have lived in UK for over 6 years now. Every now and then that I have pronounced something wrong, there has been someone or the other who has interjected me and corrected me. When I realise I pronounced something wrongly, I do make a sincere effort to find out the correct pronunciation, and pronounce it correctly. All the times i pronounced "Wa" as "Va", times i pronounced Wales as "Vales", and Water as "Vater", there has been someone or the other to pick me up and let me know that is not how it is pronounced. The one that always gets me is "Thorn", i can never figure out how to get my tongue stuck out like a lizard to say "Th" with a bit of wind in it! Nevertheless, every time I talk about Theatre people are clueless about what is in "tatters"!
And when i heard Simon Bates pronounce Ramayana, every one of those instances were coming back to me. And I was growing more furious with every one of the instances I remembered. I mean I can understand that English speaking natives are unable to pronounce Indian words and names correctly. I have quite a battle to get most people to pronounce my name correctly, but then that is still understandable. I am normally pretty patient with this.
But then the reason for my blood to boil over the Simon Bates pronunciation Fiasco is that, he is a respectable presenter of a very respectable FM station. And if he cannot even make a small effort of finding out the correct pronunciation of Ramayana, that just shows the utter lack of respect for other cultures by him, and sadly so is the case with a lot of presenters in English media! After all, Simon Bates was talking about one of the two Iconic epics of Indian culture, its the least he could have done to find out the correct pronunciation, and get at least close to sounding like that!
But the classic FM presenter is not a lone ranger in this guilty department. Pretty much most English media presenters have shown (in my opinion) little respect for foreign cultures. There are a select few that do make efforts, I wish I could remember some of them or research a few and compliment them here - but then am just well annoyed at the moment at the majority who seem have sheer disregard for this - I just had to get this out of my system.
So much for my lovely morning start. Things did get better after I treated myself to a donut at lunch :-)
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