AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

CRANK'S CORNER

        You are sitting ina car and travelling around a neighbourhood in a town you have never been before. But suddenly you begin to feel as if you have encountered it all before. The entire street and the row of buildings seem all too familiar. It takes a few minutes for this experience of seen-before to be broken. You think it is a hallucination or a hangover from last night's binge. But scientists don't like to agree with such a simple explanation. They call the whole thing as deja vu and make it sound very grave.

        But what does deja vu mean? It is a French description that I have come across earlier, but don't remember now. No, this is not the meaning of deja vu. If you feel that you know the meaning of deja vu but still don't know it then that is deja vu for you. Anyway, there is an inverse to deja vu called jamais vu, wherein people who even when encountering a familiar person or place act as if they are experiencing something new and novel. Rajnikanth's fans belong to this group. That is why Muthu became such a hit in France.

        Now that we are on deja vu and jamais vu, let us as well take up je ne sais quois too. This French word is used to describe something that is indescribable. Quite simply, by definition, in case you don't know the meaning of je ne sais quois you can use je ne sais quois as a syonoym to explain your predicament.

        Sounds confusing? Well, read that paragraph again. Finished reading it? Does it sound even more confusing? That straightaway begs the question what is French for confusion. Actually, there is no separate French word for confusion. The French are apparently perfectly content with sharing their confusion with the English confusion. But when you write French confusion in English then you have to italicise it just to show it is different even though it isn't. But how do you italicise your pronunciation? You can't, and hence as a general rule of thumb when it comes to French words, you cut the last letter out and mouth the rest of the word through the nose. It will be difficult on the ear, but your asthma gets cured.

        It is only natural that the French prefer their nose for many things other than smell because the French have poor bathroom habits. It is no coincidence that the French perfumes are the best in the world. If they didn't make them that way, then half of Europe would have shifted base to Africa.

        Apart from their noses, the French are also snooty when it comes to matters of stomach. If most of the French homes don't have bathrooms as they don't prefer to take a bath, then they kind of compensate with having double dining rooms. If the French are not talking through their noses, then you can be sure they are busy eating through their mouths. So much so that the French do not have a separate dictionary and every one makes do with a menu card. But French dishes, mind you, are not easy on the tongue - no, not in taste, but in pronunciation. And some of the French eats have bigger names and hence more letters than actual ingredients that go to make them. For instance hors d'oeuvre is an appetizer. So if the appetizer itself contains a horse imagine what would the actual meal be made of. I am not hazarding a guess because I don't know what is French for hippopotamus.

        The best part of the food is usually called pièce de résistance, the resistance here may be in reference to the fight put up by the poor creature before it ended up on the plate via the oven. With such dietary habits, it is natural that only the French invented the phrase bon appétit.

        Now, that we are nearing the finis (which doubtless you would have guessed is French for finish), I want to confess that I didn't intend to write this piece at all. So how come you read what you read? Would an explanation matter? The job is already done. Or as they say, it is a fait accompli, which in case you are interested, is deja vu spelt wrongly.