ni hao!!

While in school, my English language teacher used to say, "English is a funny language.." Now I say, What about Chinese???
I am learning Mandarin(Chinese) these days and boy...it is so twisted!!! Initially, it felt like a singing class with all the tones and phonetics that we have to keep in mind. For the same word, the same set of letters, different tones imply different meanings. The script too is interesting.. pictorial. Modern Chinese has less of pictorial stuff which means each word has its own set of letters..which means unless you know a word, you cannot read it. There are certain alphabets missing..like for example "George" is pronounced as "Chiao ch" :)
Today, we had the first mock conversation and now I know how tough it is to process the foreign language, filter it into my brain and spill out what needs to be said..!!

on the run...

Indian Railway stations have always been swarming with beggars 24x7 as long as I can remember. When my innocent eyes first saw kids my age begging with their sorry faces, I handed a coin to the one standing nearest. Then suddenly,in a rush, they were all over me with their dirty hands spread out ...saying that they'd not taken any food, saying that their younger siblings are hungry..that moment, I do not remember now, whether I was terrified or scandalized.
As I grew older, left for college, I heard talks about beggars producing more children...which implies, more hands to beg...which implies more money. This is no news to us mortals now. But then, it meant a lot to me. Pity changed to bitterness at the sight of beggars. I felt like I would be encouraging them to beg more if I hand them the money. So, this entire phase right till a few days back, I cringed at the sight of hands spreading out infront of me.
But then,few days while taking a stroll, unconsciously I took out some coins and handed over to the handicapped beggar. A few steps ahead, I repeated my act. . After handing out the coin to the second beggar, I realised that something inside of me had changed. With the one rupee coin in my hand, I have nothing...with that same coin in their hand, they have something...!