The English Professor

Parameswara Iyer was a professor of English.  He was famous for his command over the language, especially his vocabulary.  He knew many such English words, which were not in common parlance.  He was known as ‘Walking Dictionary’ among his colleagues and students.  Iyer passed away in 1990 and went to heaven.  Impressed by his knowledge, the God agreed to grant him a wish.  Iyer said, ‘Oh, God, I would like to go back to earth and live for another month with my family’.  God said, ‘You can do that, but you must know that 30 years have passed on earth since you died.  Would you still like to go?’.  Iyer said ‘Yes’, and he was back with his family! He found two new members in the family, Raghu and Ramya, his great grandchildren.  Raghu was studying in ninth grade and Ramya in the third.

Next morning on the breakfast table.

Raghu: Dadaji, I want to take a selfie with you and post it on Instagram.  I am sure, it will become viral.

Iyer: Selfie? What is that?

Raghu:  Dadaji, it is a picture clicked with phone.

Iyer: How can one click pictures with a phone?!! By the way, what is Instagram?

Raghu: It is a place where you can store your pictures, which all your friends and relatives can see.

Iyer: Oh, we used to call it Album! And what did you say, ‘it will become viral’?

(Iyer could see that Raghu was getting annoyed)

Raghu: Dadaji, you just google it, and you will get all answers.

Saying this, Raghu left for his school.  Iyer was wondering, what ‘google it’ meant!

After breakfast, Iyer moved to the courtyard to read the day’s newspaper.  Ramya came rushing and jumped on to his lap.

Ramya: Dadaji, you did not come to my school yesterday for the annual event.

Iyer: Oh, sorry Beta, I could not come. Tell me, what did you perform in the event?

Ramya: I performed a dance with my friend.  It was live on Facebook; you could have watched.

Iyer: Facebook? What kind of a book is that?

Ramya: It is not a book.  It is a website, where you can post pictures, videos etc.

Iyer: Website?

Ramya: Dadaji, you don’t know what a website is?  It is a site on the internet with a specific web address.  Anyway, Dadaji, I will WhatsApp the YouTube link to you.  You can watch it at your convenience.

Iyer: Beta, I don’t understand what you are saying.

Ramya: Oh Dadaji, don’t you understand English?!

 

Thoroughly confused, Iyer took that day’s newspaper.  The first headline read ‘Twitter fails to comply with the privacy policy guidelines issued by the government’.  The second headline was ‘Government bans Chinese Apps including Tik Tok, Pub G and We Chat’.

Iyer was thoroughly confused.  He was feeling bad that he could not make sense of most of what was spoken by the current generation.  He lamented ‘what happened to the English that I knew’.  He quietly got up and went to his pooja room. With a smiling face the God asked ‘What happened Iyer? Why are you looking so despondent?’  Iyer said, ‘Oh, God, please take me back to the heaven, I don’t know English!’