We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes;
but the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice;
yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?

If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet,
and I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
and the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
but though we say mother we never say methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
but imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim.

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The Flow of Life

If the sky above seems cloudy,
And you are left out in the rain,
If you are searching for a rainbow,
But the colours bring you pain,

If your world is not revolving,
And there is no end in sight,
If you are looking for the sunshine,
But all you see is night,

If all around are smiling,
But all you can do is frown,
If you are tired of this living,
When life just brings you down,

Then look beyond your teardrops,
At the wonders of this land,
The beauty of a flower,
Like velvet in your hand,

Feel the air around you,
The smell of a new mown hay,
Laughing children in the park,
The innocence there at play,

Imagine floating with a butterfly,
As she flutters between the trees,
Or the whispers of the ocean,
On the warm hot summer’s breeze,

Think of the taste of candyfloss,
As it melts upon your tongue,
Or the melody of morning birds,
As they greet each day with song,

Remember words of beauty,
Told in your mother’s embrace,
Feel the gentleness of her touch,
As she softly kissed your face,

Seek the good within you,
Cast the clouds from your sky,
Don’t look towards the pavement,
But hold your head up high,

Think not what life owes you,
But of all you have to give,
Forget about tomorrow,
Then you can start to live,

So bless this age you are living in,
With the gifts you can bestow,
Don’t disregard the stream of life,
Go gently with the flow.

Funny scenes from the Hollywood classic My Fair Lady (1964) (based on a musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion). Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) is an eccentric professor of Phonetics who is always keen on making people cultivate ‘proper’ pronunciations, accent and tone. According to him it is the accent and tone of a person that decide his/her place and prospects in the society.  He claims to have a discerning knowledge of Phonetics. He once comes across a girl –Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) who sells flowers on London streets. She is a rustic woman who speaks ‘cockney’ English (an ‘impure’ English spoken in East London). Higgins claims that with his excellent skills as a phonetician, he can make this girl speak English like a princess. He is challenged by his friend Colonel Pickering,(Wilfrid Hyde-White) a language enthusiast,  to pass her off as a princess. Higgins accepts this challenge and Eliza is persuaded on the pretext that if she learns to speak English the ‘proper’ way, she could get a job as a sales girl in London’s big flower shops. She agrees and then begins a tough but funny and interesting exercise of cultivating ‘correct’ pronunciations. In these scenes, Higgins asks Eliza to speak a tongue-twister ‘The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain’ as a part of several pronunciation exercises that she has to do. Eliza falters a few times but makes it in the end and Higgins and Pickering are overjoyed because this is their first moment of success. At the end of the movie,Eliza successfully passes off as a princess at a party but after that she leaves Higgins because she is repelled by the rude behaviour of this eccentric professor who treats her like a machine. However, Higgins starts missing Eliza and soon discovers that he is actually in love with her. In the end, they unite and live happily ever after. In the original play, Shaw makes Eliza marry Freddy, a young man who loves her from the very beginning. This film was immensely popular and won 8 academy awards.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake!

Happy Independence Day India ! Jai Hind !!