Sasidhar (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} psasidhar) wrote,@ 2008-06-07 04:49:00 |
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Run!
I want to run. To compliment the emotional run I have been practicing over the last 28 years. I wish I had the physical endurance. I wish I had strong knees that won't snap in my autumnal years. Autumnal years, twilight years. My knees, showing the signs of abuse, are still my strength; they still take me from Here to Anywhere. (Psychelone, why did I capitalize the H? How vain of me to think that you read this?!).
Haruki Murakami, the running novelist, started running when he was 33. Is my desire to run the same as "Pulini choosi nakka vaatalu pettukundanta!" (Seeing the tiger, with a desire to have similar yellow stripes, the fox went and got the burns). Lousy translation. Ah, my mother tongue, how it has better phrases to convey a thought! Indian languages. I wish I had the time to learn a dozen Indian languages and not forget them. The nuances. The idioms. The cultural references.
While English has different words for conveying a burn - burn, char, singe, scorch, scald, sear, cauterize - it doesn't, as far as I know or what my thesaurus says, have a specific word for vaatha - "a burn caused deliberately/accidentally by a hot iron object"
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THE RIGHT WORD
If you're not an experienced cook, you're likely to burn your vegetables, char your meat, and, if you put your face too close to the stove, you might even singe your eyebrows. All of these verbs mean to injure or bring about a change in something by exposing it to fire or intense heat. Burn, which is the most comprehensive term, can mean to change only slightly (: she burned her face by staying out in the sun) or to destroy completely (: the factory was burned to the ground). To char is to reduce a substance to carbon or charcoal (: the beams in the ceiling were charred by the fire). Like char, singe and scorch mean to burn only partially or superficially (: scorched the blouse while ironing it;: singe the chicken before cooking it). Singeing is often done deliberately to remove the hair, bristles, or feathers from the carcass of an animal or bird. Scald refers specifically to burning with, or as if with, a hot liquid or steam (: the cook scalded herself when she spilled the boiling water); it can also mean to parboil or heat to a temperature just below boiling (: scald the milk to make the sauce). Sear is also a term used in cooking, where it means to brown the outside of a piece of meat by subjecting it briefly to intense heat to seal in the juices. When it's human flesh that's being seared in surgery, the correct verb is cauterize, which means to burn for healing purposes (: the doctor cauterized the wound to ward off infection).
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Attention spam.
I want to run. I want a friend who when I say I want to run, listens, doesn't immediately offer his opinions about running, but detects the hint of distress in my tone. I want to run, literally, figuratively.
I want to run. To compliment the emotional run I have been practicing over the last 28 years. I wish I had the physical endurance. I wish I had strong knees that won't snap in my autumnal years. Autumnal years, twilight years. My knees, showing the signs of abuse, are still my strength; they still take me from Here to Anywhere. (Psychelone, why did I capitalize the H? How vain of me to think that you read this?!).
Haruki Murakami, the running novelist, started running when he was 33. Is my desire to run the same as "Pulini choosi nakka vaatalu pettukundanta!" (Seeing the tiger, with a desire to have similar yellow stripes, the fox went and got the burns). Lousy translation. Ah, my mother tongue, how it has better phrases to convey a thought! Indian languages. I wish I had the time to learn a dozen Indian languages and not forget them. The nuances. The idioms. The cultural references.
While English has different words for conveying a burn - burn, char, singe, scorch, scald, sear, cauterize - it doesn't, as far as I know or what my thesaurus says, have a specific word for vaatha - "a burn caused deliberately/accidentally by a hot iron object"
===
THE RIGHT WORD
If you're not an experienced cook, you're likely to burn your vegetables, char your meat, and, if you put your face too close to the stove, you might even singe your eyebrows. All of these verbs mean to injure or bring about a change in something by exposing it to fire or intense heat. Burn, which is the most comprehensive term, can mean to change only slightly (: she burned her face by staying out in the sun) or to destroy completely (: the factory was burned to the ground). To char is to reduce a substance to carbon or charcoal (: the beams in the ceiling were charred by the fire). Like char, singe and scorch mean to burn only partially or superficially (: scorched the blouse while ironing it;: singe the chicken before cooking it). Singeing is often done deliberately to remove the hair, bristles, or feathers from the carcass of an animal or bird. Scald refers specifically to burning with, or as if with, a hot liquid or steam (: the cook scalded herself when she spilled the boiling water); it can also mean to parboil or heat to a temperature just below boiling (: scald the milk to make the sauce). Sear is also a term used in cooking, where it means to brown the outside of a piece of meat by subjecting it briefly to intense heat to seal in the juices. When it's human flesh that's being seared in surgery, the correct verb is cauterize, which means to burn for healing purposes (: the doctor cauterized the wound to ward off infection).
===
Attention spam.
I want to run. I want a friend who when I say I want to run, listens, doesn't immediately offer his opinions about running, but detects the hint of distress in my tone. I want to run, literally, figuratively.
