On Trains and on Life

There is a strange kind vibe that people who travel or have travelled have. There is this exuberance in their eyes, this charm in their ways this warmth and light that bounces off them. The exact same is the case with stations, train stations, airports, even bus stations. These are interesting places.

I think stations are still the place where you can glimpse life at its best and worst. People only just stop at a station so that they can move on. Its that point where you change things about your life and I think it is also magnificently analogous to what all our lives are about. There is an end of the road; we call it "death" but though fatal in the literal sense it is really not the point. The point is  the way you take, how you take it, and people you meet along the way how you interact and how they shape you and you shape them

The thing about people is that because for a while, they are on the same train as you are. It feels as if it will last forever. That its going to be like this forever.  We share stories with them, laugh chuckle and grin together and  seem to forget , that we are on a train and after a certain time either we or the other person is going to get off, and its never going to be same again.

And then you will get off at a  station where there will be lots of other travellers like you who will again take the same train you are taking for a station or two. and then again someone will get off. and it keeps going on until you reach the last station of the stop ; Death.

What I feel about learning a language

I have always hated grammar and I think its cramming it, is the worst way to teach and learn a language. I think so primarily because I feel language , any language, is like a giant pool of words grammar syntax expressed and formed cohesively to spit out the desired meaning. Therefore the only way to learn it is to dive into that pool. There just isnt any other way to do it. If you want to learn a language you must surround yourself with it. Read books, listen to the radio and watch TV shows movies, talk to people, listen to people, and do whatever you can do to "dive" into the pool and let it "become one"with you.

The reason behind that is simple. Suppose you have to make a point. First there is the thought you want to express, then you have the words for that thought are in your native language. and then you translate the words (taking into account the change in syntax) into the other language. If the learnt language always requires you to translate from your native language, then you may have learnt the words of the language or its syntax , but you are yet to dive into the pool.

Therefore one has completely learnt the language when one can fully express himself/herself in the language without first resorting to the native language. The thoughts convert to the words in the language you want them to be expressed into. and that s when you have mastered the language.

Word of caution! That doesnt come easy