Yelläks /ˈyæl•eks/

Each language in the world has some particular sounds which makes the distinguishable to foreign speakers. E.g. Tamil has the AaaA-ending, Bengali has lots of “Thik-Ache”, “Bhaaalo”, and “ache” and Telugu has many “u” and “ulu”. I do not know, how German sounds to the foreign ears since it is my mother tongue. But I can imagine that it is very much forced. For instance, if we say “Zug” (train) then the Z in the beginnning is very much forced, so that is sounds like the s sound made by a snake. Or the CH in Nacht (night) which is a sound as if someone snores hard.

Since most people in the world have a mother tongue different from English, it is quite interesting to guess from where someone comes from. The Americans roll the R in the back of the through and the British have a nice intonation. In Indian languages there are some things quite different:

First, many sayings and sentences are translated one-by-one into the English language. So sometimes you understand the single words, but the meaning of the total sentences is a mystery. One example: If you tell a story wbout something that had happened or the conversation get stuck, many times my friends asked me “Then?”. Then? I do not know. I mean the story is over or I do not know, what else to say. It can be quite irritating. Just imaging someone keeps saying “Then?” all the time, when you tell something.

In many Indian languages there are two different pronounciations for T: One is a dental T spoken with the tongue touching the teeth, the second one is produced by touching the gum with the tongue. Although I do not hear the difference, many Indians can tell, what kind of T has been just said. However since the existance of a dental T many Indians do not know the difference between the dental T and the English th, since the position of the tongue is almost the same. In addition the R is not spoken in the back of the throat, but with the tip of the tongue vibrating against the gum. This make sometimes funny sounds, such as TttRRRRilleRRR for thriller (a cycle brand) or “Absolutely notting was tere.”

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You can include a snippet of a map from Google Maps on your web page. After determine the cut out and customizing the size of the map in the iframe etc, you simply copy the code in the box and integrate it in your web page. However you might run into this error:

The access is forbidden although the code directly comes from the Google page. In my opinion this is a bug and just now I figured out a work around. Have a look on an example code:

<iframe width="620" height="480" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0"
marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=de&geocode=&
q=oberforstbacher+stra%C3%9Fe+71,+kornelim%C3%BCnster,+germany&
sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.374125,113.818359&ie=UTF8&ll=50.732435,6.166763&
spn=0.038028,0.111151&z=14&iwloc=addr&output=embed"></iframe>
<br /><small><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=de&
amp;geocode=&q=oberforstbacher+stra%C3%9Fe+71,+kornelim%C3%BCnster,
+germany&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.374125,113.818359&
ie=UTF8&ll=50.73526,6.170626&spn=0.026075,0.053215&z=14&
g=oberforstbacher+stra%C3%9Fe+71,+kornelim%C3%BCnster,germany&
iwloc=addr&source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">
Größere Kartenansicht</a></small>

I had much success in changing the language of the shown section of the map. The language is defined by the hl=de parameter shown in red in the code above (here German). Switching it over to English by replacing hl=de by hl=en in the iframe section did the trick.

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The Germans are world champions to see the negative points of an issue first and to complain about it. If a German tells you about how he/she enjoyed his/her vacation, many times you can hear something like: “Oh, it was very nice and the landscape very beautiful, but <placeholder>”

The <placeholder> can be replaced by anything such as “the weather was to rainy, wet, cold, hot, humid, sunny etc” or “the food was too bad, less, cold, hot, spicy, etc”. Usually the negative aspects are mentioned together with an overall overview in the very first sentence and gives the audience an impression that the vacation was just a waste of time. If the vacation was so bad, why did not the German come back or change the hotel? Instead he/she stayed there to continue the complains? Does complaining make so much fun or is it just an exaggeration?

Another situation occurred often when I went to lectures by train. The train started somewhere 400km away and my place was near the other terminal. So many times the speakers at the platform announced something like: “Ladies and Gentlemen! The train from Siegen to Aachen has a delay of 5 minutes. Any inconvenience is regretted.” 5 minutes means, that at maximum the train will be late by 5 minutes. Usually it is less than that. Anyway how much worth is a exact arrival prediction, if the train already traveled such a long distance? Many prospective passengers complained heavily and said something like: “Yesterday it was 5 minutes, day before yesterday also and now it is again. Who do they think they are? Unbelievable!” I mean, if the train is always late, why not coming to the train station a little bit later? So did I and it worked for a few months till the management decided that 5 minutes are too much and suddenly the train came on time so that I missed it regularly.

Also Indians complain (which nationality does not?). But it is interesting to see, how they do it. Lately many times the citizens of Bangalore complain about the pollution and traffic situation in the city. So it is said: “The traffic in Bangalore is worst <placeholder>.”

Now, what is inserted into the <placeholder>? Most of the time it is filled with “and the government does not do anything about it! They promised and nothing happens.” The major difference between German and Indian complains is that the Germans will definitely complain about something that is not under their control such as the weather or the arrival time of a train. The Indians however complain more about what is caused by others and they love to blame the government for that. If the traffic situation is worst, why is it the fault of the government? Does it force the protester to buy a car, to violate traffic rules or to avoid public transportation system whenever possible? Many commuters take the car for a distance of around 3 to 6km to work. Is this distance not manageable by cycle? So instead of thinking, how the situation can be improved, many Indians sitting in the car complain about the government. The current traffic jam is certainly not caused by them, but by all others. And the government should widen and improve the roads so that even more cars fit onto them. A t-shirt for cyclists would be nice saying on the back: “I am improving the traffic situation and do exercise at the same time. Do you sit comfortably?” (Actually nice idea, maybe the same meaning with a pointy sentence would be a hit. I will let you know…)

Another example are the daily power cuts. So far I did not understand, why someone in a room whose temperature is controlled by AC complains about power cuts and blames the government. Especially in winter where opening the windows could help a lot. Oh, I forgot, sometimes that is not possible due to the pollution caused by the traffic.

Definitely these few examples cannot cover all possible options about the different complaining styles of the Germans and Indians and many times it might not be the case that the government is blamed or the German literally hate his/her vacation. I did not want to give the impression that both nationalities always complain about each and everything either. It was just an interesting point for me to see and I experienced it quite often.

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Near the IISc are the Palace Grounds. Basically these grounds are wide fields where several functions like rock concerts, fairs or private parties by companies can be held. Whenever there is an event going on the roads surrounding the Palace Grounds are usually heavily affected result in a slow moving traffic and longer waiting periods. Affected passers are used to it and somewhat even expect it.

However on Monday a political party called Janata Dal organized a major political convention on the Palace Grounds resulting in a huge traffic jams and gridlocks even in distances of several kilometers around the grounds. In Malleshwaram, Mathikere and Yeshvanthpur (parts of Bangalore surrounding the IISc) absolutely nothing moved anymore. Employees and school children could not reach their destinations or sometimes reached home after midnight. Since the Indian drivers do not follow traffic rules, buses, cars, two wheelers etc. got stuck in a zig-zag pattern on intersections worsening the whole situation.

Radio Indigo followed its usual fashion: If something went wrong in the city, ask listeners to call in for an interview to air some complains. They did the same on Tuesday and wanted to know from the audience the thoughts about the political rally. As expected everybody was not very happy on what happened.

Also another constant to be observed: The people in charge in organizing the rally blame the people in charge in organizing the traffic. The first say that traffic jam has been caused by the police which allegedly took money to coordinate the traffic. The latter group says, there is a misunderstanding and the crowd joining the rally has been underestimated by the rally organizers. So as usual everybody in charge blames others in charge for the situation. And in the end? The party got its publicity at the expense of uneffected people. But more important: Nothing will be learned and especially nothing will change until it happens again. In that case the discussion will start all over again, maybe with some different groups about a different topic.

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After my earlier experience with the Foreign Registration Office (FRO/FRRO) in Bangalore, I again visited it recently to help some friends with the registration and to gather information on how to extend my Residential Permit. I also figured out that a new web page has been launched with traffic information and also with a section, from which the necessary registration forms can be downloaded. Most probably the part of “How to register?” is the most interesting and the one you are probably searching for.

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