Proud to be an Indian!

I am a big fan of Thomas Friedman, one of the elitist writer of the present generation. His books, 'The Lexus and the Olive tree' and 'World is Flat', are really impressive and I savored them 'to the T'. He is also a columnist with The New York Times. This is what he had to say in a recent article...

When we were young kids growing up in America , we were told to eat our vegetables at dinner and not leave them. Mothers said, 'think of the starving children in India and finish the dinner.' And now I tell my children: 'Finish your homework. Think of the children in India who would make you starve, if you don't finish.'

Aren't you proud to be an INDIAN?

Du Hast Mich

By the time I write this blog, I believe love would still be in air (post-valentine effect) and all those lovey-dovey couple would still be figuring out the cryptic riddles of love. It (V-day) was not really special for me because I am not seeing anybody right now, so my only date was my studies. Anyways, I thought this would be the right time to write about something which I wanted to write for a long time, but couldn’t write because I was busy writing something else. Haah…too many writings, don’t worry, later part of my writing is not as confusing as the first one!

Often people would come and ask me “What the heck is this ‘Du hast Mich’, apparently some kind of a German dish which you like, isn’t Chintan?” I tell them that if you like music, you should know it! But probably very few people hear to this fiery band ‘Rammstein’ and even fewer who would make an effort to listen to German music. So read on to find out!

‘Du hast’ is the song by the German rock band Rammstein and it is one of the best known tracks of the band, more so as the soundtrack of The Matrix. It has also been featured in other films such as ‘CKY2K’ and ‘How High’. There are two versions to this song, one with first three verses in English and another completely in German. And as many say the English version is not the translation of the lyrics in German. It goes like this…

* Du - You

* Du hast - You have (you hate)

* Du hast mich - You have me (you hate me)

* Du hast mich gefragt - You have asked me

* Du hast mich gefragt und ich hab nichts gesagt - You have asked me and I've said nothing

So precisely it means two things in this verse, one is “You hate me but still want to marry me” and the other being “You want to marry me but I don’t want to”. The whole song looks more of German wedding vows. The refrain "Willst du, bis der Tod euch scheidet, treu ihr sein für alle Tage?" roughly translates to "Do you want to remain faithful to her for all days, until death separates you?" and the singer ends up saying “No”. The literal meaning in english is not what actually it comes in German version! "Hast" is a conjugation of the base form "haben" which means "to have." To hate, would be the verb "hassen" which would be conjugated as "Du hasst mich" (you hate me) and not “Du hast Mich” (you have asked me).

So this Valentines if you proposed your crush and she said nothing, you rather listen to this song!

Du Hast Mich….

'C'