Star Track

On the young girl’s birthday, I went to track. I was a bit late but that turned out to be okay. When I reached, the wonderful Suryansh was limbering up.

Main bhi late aaya, he said. While we ran the warm up rounds, he proceeded to tell me that his bicycle broke down and that he waited for an auto for an hour, nearly going home, and then it showed up.

Le, aa hi gayi, he said. I laughed at that telling myself that I would check how well ‘le’ would translate through Google and ChatGPT.

Neither Google translate nor Google did so well. But ChatGPT got it after a couple of prompts.

Me: It can also be used to express surprise.

ChatGPT: Yes, exactly! “Le” can also be used to express surprise or shock in casual slang, especially when something unexpected happens. In such cases, it’s similar to saying “Oh, wow!” or “Seriously?” in English. The tone of voice plays a key role in conveying this meaning.

For example:

• “Le! Aisa kaise ho gaya?” (“Oh! How did this happen?”)
• “Le! Tu yahan kya kar raha hai?” (“Oh! What are you doing here?”)

Here, “le” is used to highlight surprise or disbelief about a situation.

Nearly quite so. The way Suryansh leaned on the word when he told me his morning adventure makes me laugh and think about use of language.

He did every other interval with me. A relatively new kid, Raju, did all the one kilometre long intervals. It was brutal training but thankfully I felt strong.

This was exactly what I had written about yesterday – feeling the effort – yet the training and strength backing you up.

On the young girl’s birthday, I thought of her, especially on the last interval, imagined her calling out to me, and I raced down to the finish line for a best time.