Friday, August 27, 2010

Oriya - same word with different meaning

There are some words in a language which coexist in other languages. Most of the time meaning is different in each language. Sometimes because of usage of these words create a funny situation, here is an incident about it.

It happened when I was in Denmark. Along with my 3 Oriya friends I was going to visit the ISKON temple. Oriya here means people from state of Orissa in India. So we started from our home and reached the Vanlose. We had to catch a bus from there to reach our destination, so we were waiting at the bus stop. There were two women from Somalia standing there next to us probably waiting for the same bus.

Then we saw that two of our oriya colleagues are coming with family.
Then one of my friends said - 'Kya hain yar.. aaj pura oriya oriya log mil rahe hain'. (English - What is this man, today we are seeing all oriya oriya people).

After listening that the Somalian woman looked at us, which we ignored.
Then I said to my friend - 'Han yar, aaj to oriya din hain... sab oriya log :)'(English - Yes, its oriya day... where I see all oriya people).

Like this we said few lines using the word oriya. Everytime we use the word 'Oriya', those two somalian woman would give some strange look. We didnt understand, so we just continued our discussion and ignored her look.

After some time that lady came to us and this is what we discussed.
Lady - Hey, are you talking to us?
Friend - No, why?
Lady(with little anger on her face) - Then why are you saying 'hi' again and again.
Friend - No, we didnt say 'hi' to you.
Lady - Oh, you said 'Oriya' 3-4 times, that means hi in Somalia language.
Friend - Oh, we didn't know that. Oriya is a language spoken in India by people of Orissa. We are just talking about that.
Lady - Ah, thats the case. I thought you guys are just pulling us and we felt little embarraced when you said it again and again. But now its clear, its okay:)

There are some other words which have different meaning in different language like -
Chumma in Hindi means a kiss, but in Tamil they say Chumma for saying 'simply'. Like - Chumma I did it means Simply I did it. It was
little surprize when I heard girls using that word while talking in office.

Sunday, August 01, 2010

Connecting the Dots

Recently I read this article about Steve Jobs -
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/notes/santosh-pandey/steve-jobs-must-read-even-if-you-have-before/450429641487

This article is inspiration for this blog post. I have experienced similar 'Connecting the dots' funda in my life. It was when I completed my 12th Science from Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra and I was looking for admission to engineering. Among the universities in Maharashtra, Pune university is the best university for doing the engineering. There was 70% reservation of seats in Pune university(home university) for student from Pune, Ahmednagar and Nashik district. Other 30% seats were reserved for students from other universities. So ideally no student from these districts will join any college outside Pune university. But I joined Govt College of Engineering, Karad, which comes under Shivaji university and ranks around 15-20 in Maharashtra.

Once I joined college, most of the seniors and classmates would give me a surprised look and ask me about why did I do this mistake? At that time, even I didn't have any strong answer apart from one. I have got admission to Government Engineering College which costs 1/4th compared to any private engineering college. Even if I would have tried for admission in Pune university, getting admission to Govt Engineering College in Pune was impossible considering my marks in 12th:)

But after completion of my first year, I got distinction and a chance to change my college. Most of the people don't know about this rule, but in Maharashtra you are allowed to move from one govt engineering college to other if you have a strong reason for that or you have good marks. And I had good marks. So using that rule, I got admission to Govt. College of Engg. Pune(COEP). COEP is the best engineering college in Maharashtra after IIT, Pawai.

This is how the dots connect for me in my past. I got admitted to Govt. college of Engg. Karad because I was going to get transfered to COEP Pune :) Off course you can't connect the dots in future, you just have to take the right decision at current time and think that the dots will connect in future and be happy :)