Withering Heights

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I was 19 then...a fresh research scholar at Vizagh with loads of cash in my empty pockets. 

There was this Hindi film running in Leela Mahal maybe. It was titled Navrang.

I saw it all of 12 times in a month. Understood not a single word of spoken Hindi but was humming its unintelligible songs.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHYCcnbWID5dmBRnsvFqFNEVrOx-aShhESxRXIyn-FXvcioUxyK_MShdO7EWUhJSzbDxE4FZxINeLp_GsW4n6DR7DQ0LWkNgNdnpqpgclesoZ0gSFvIKoHN6Wt1thgMBY_MB-R-TSVnh8/s1600/1959+Bollywood+Poster+NAVRANG+%257E+V+Shantaram.JPG

I don't think I can watch that movie for one minute now...I understand Hindi.

I turned 65 in 2008. My son showed me the movie Great Train Robbery on the screen of his PC:

http://film24h.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-Great-Train-Robbery-1978.jpg

I loved every screenshot of it. I didn't follow a single sentence of the dialogues. I still don't. But I would love to watch it again on the big screen at home.

When I was 12, I read Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer. Could get the gist of the story but not the meaning of most words.

I turned 65 when I read his Huckleberry Finn printed from the PC. Read it twice over and loved it and thought I got the meaning of its crazy dialogues.

I then read his Following the Equator same way. But it was easy to read and follow.

I loved reading dictionaries...in particular the massive Webster. I would pull it down from the rack in search of some obscure word and get lost for a couple of hours browsing it and forget the word I was looking for.

I thought I knew the meanings of most words in English that I find in newspapers and most novels.

The other day I ordered Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi. And opened it with relish.

And found that I have to consult the dictionary for at least 2 words in each para.

Fortunately my son gifted a smart phone the other day.

So I lounge on the single sofa Sailaja gifted me...with the bloody book in the right hand and the phone in the left (for opening the Free Dictionary).

I feel humbled.

Don't know the meaning of a simple 4-letter word like 'trig'.

The consolation is that the Cambridge English Dictionary also doesn't...

...Posted by Ishani

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