YESTERDAY
So! It was a jamboree. That Google Wordmasters challenge in Bandra yesterday morning..
Good fun, just getting there, and good fun too, to laugh and shout in a chorus and feel decidedly collegial for a while. A max. 200-word essay to be written using 20 given words, in 45 min or less. Not very objective, especially when you have an all-seats-occupied- standing-space-only auditorium full of people of all ages- teenyboppers to silver-framed grandfathers biting at their pencils, tense and raring to go. I would have expected a TOEFLish word-usage screen to set the bar for the first level, perhaps an essay to follow for quality. But perhaps they know better. It was good fun to do, although I clocked in at about 160, without much sparkling expression. I realize I have become dependent on using a keyboard, and need the space to change words around or press shift f7 at whim, make word messes on whim.Dim lights and cramped seats where one sits sort of slanting to get the arm space right, no thanks. The auditorium was impressive, with several large monochrome prints of stars from the silver screen by Gautam Rajadhyaksha lining the foyer; and posters from the Shakespeare Globe Theatre setting aspirations at the spotlights. Yet beyond all this, 6 person strong queues haggling for forms for the usual science and commerce courses. and I wonder about the roads we take and the ones we don't.