A Teacher -“Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee.”

Though not yet promoted to the status of a face book addict, I do open my account quite a few times during the day to catch up with my friends and former students. Normally I sweep my eyes over all the  statuses that are put up ! I remember in the beginning I used to be a little shocked that all of them put their emotions on exhibit but now I have got used to it. In fact I have realised that I am in touch with many more people because of this. It’s a good psychological medicine especially for people like me who are away from home and extended family. It’s good to see someone bother when you are down and there are umpteen people to cheer you up!

Yesterday while randomly doing my accounts, my g talk pinged and one of my erstwhile TTs (Now no longer a teenager!) asked me to urgently check the video that he had posted on my wall (Face book wall that is!). I of course never take anything seriously but anyway went to check it out..... It was a short video on a teacher teaching English..... I really didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and then my mind elected to go into the doldrums! I had a long conversation with this young person where I had to dodge the home truths that he flung at me! He accused me of “leading a high flying life” while the country had this standard of teaching! Where was my sense of responsibility? Where was my conscience? Where was the passion that I had? And innumerable questions and here I was not able to parry even one of them effectively!

I know that there are pages written about the noble profession of being a teacher and the responsibility and respect that it carries. Having been a teacher for a short part of my life I do know it’s extremely satisfying and it gives back a lot (in the intangible sense) more than what you give it. When I decided to give it up formally it was more due to the fact that there is a lot of politics (I hate it!) involved in this industry rather than teaching! Having shifted from  the smaller city of Hyderabad to Mumbai I realised that education in the big metropolis was more about business and less about the  teaching- learning process and thus to avoid the frustration and also due to the fact that I was not keeping too well and other family reasons I gave it up. (Escaping from my responsibilities!)

When I see my students on face book now, it’s very gratifying. Most of them are successful young adults and it adds to the feel-good factor that maybe I was responsible for five percent of their success (again maybe many will dispute this figure!) But this video really jolted me awake! I am of course aware that teaching is one of the most poorly paid professions all over the world and thus only people who are desperate for a job opt for this, especially in our country ( I am speaking of school teachers) This particular field does not attract the best candidates neither in quality nor in dedication. At the end of the day you want to be able to provide for your family! Even in big cities most teachers are bored housewives who find this a way to build up their social lives and have some pocket money besides! You will also find that the majority of school teachers are females and the small percentage of men that are there is because they could not find a better profession.

The video that I saw was pathetic! I wonder how the young lady must be feeling now when she sees herself making gaffe after gaffe in the whole film- I feel sorry for her and for the little ones that she is teaching. It’s not her fault, it’s ours! We are a democratic country yet we turn a blind eye to the procedure of recruiting teachers. I know that many people get a teachers certificate from fraudulent universities by paying a large amount of money. They have never been trained neither have they studied the subjects that they ultimately teach- as is proved by the video! The contrast in the quality of education is really really wretched! We have on one hand the IITs and the AIIMS and the IIMs all providing the best possible education and on the other hand this particular cameo of a teaching disaster!

India is a great country not because it’s successful but because it’s successful in spite of all the handicaps that beset it and teachers in the primary level are the leading reasons for this handicap! 

 I do not know the intention of the person who took the video and put it up but I do know that most people watch it to have a good laugh (this adds to the number of hits that the video gets!) but I think it’s a wakeup call for our educators to have a small revolution and weed out the corruption that besets this wonderful professions.

How, is the question? At the beginning by removing the red tapism that has wrapped and mummified this calling, then by giving it a competitive salary, then by giving it the respect that it deserves so that the best are attracted towards it. I am sure if the wise men and women put their heads together something would come out of it. India is developing very fast we have innumerable international schools springing up around the country to provide quality education. Clean air-conditioned environments and the state of art library and classrooms only serve to accentuate the cruel difference in the status between the rich and the poor!

I do not want to debate whether this should be happening or not. All parents want their children to have the best possible education they can afford and it would be hypocritical to ask them not do so and give the extra money to the government so that it can improve the quality of education! The government can if it wants to (The Kendriya Vidyalayas are a great example of this) really set up standards but........

I know I will (Like I was yesterday) be asked what I am doing about it. As yet nothing other than wallow in guilt for a period of time and then who knows I might be able to prod this lethargic brain to do something worthwhile!

The big sounding words like social responsibilities. Community service, knowledge enhancement are used by all NGOs but what actually is being done is a matter of conjecture!

Words have been powerful weapons of a revolution through the annals of history will this pitiful offering change the mind of one reader to do something? Will it make me do something? Will it make the..... Do something?

DO is the magic word here!

Perfectly Gift Wrapped

The red gauzy, netted cloth was carefully cut out from a bundle. A layer of soft white cotton was placed on it; patted with loving care into just the kind of thickness and shape; a row of spice bottles filled with different kind of coloured sparkles was brought out on its stand and one by one, first the pink then the green and then silver was sprinkled with a careful hand over the cotton bed; the little musical box was placed with infinite care on it; the gauzy cloth was gathered from all sides and pleated into a lovely little bundle and then it was tied with a silver ribbon- again carefully and with infinite patience. By now my patience was running thin! It was still not over..... A small box filled with pearls was brought out and the pearls were fixed with glue on to the gauzy frill which had earlier been trimmed to resemble open petals. The finished product was a work of art! I nodded my head with appreciation put the little gift in its carry bag and walked out of the shop.

By the time you finish reading the paragraph above you must be as impatient as I had been but the finished object was worth the wait. It is so lovely to receive a gift wrapped with such care and patience. True, many of us do not appreciate this and are intent on opening the gift to find what treasures await us. I mean, when you think of all the loving care that has gone into preparing this offering I think it does deserve a second maybe a third look before you should venture to open this up! 

The history of gift wrapping is a fascinating subject and you can get it on the internet so I will not hold forth on it! Of course the whole exercise may not be approved of by the environmentalists as a lot of non recyclable things are used (Thermocol balls, plastic beads, etc). Today of course the virtual world allows us to send gifts very prettily but it’s like eating a cake in the virtual world! 

Well, I love wrapping presents as I feel the intrinsic value of the gift is enhanced when it is presented in the right way. Like food, if presented with the right garnish tastes better then when it is dumped on the plate! Humans are so visually dependent that it is necessary that something looks good before we think of approaching it. Many a times this trait has been used to trick us- Snow white was tricked into eating the poisoned apple as it looked so delicious; Hansel and Gretel were captured by the witch with her gaily decorated gingerbread house... 

Getting back to gift wrapping – Like I said earlier I was a little impatient with the whole process as it took more time to wrap the gift then to choose it! But the finished product was so delightful that I had a mood swing and I actually understood the dictum “whatever is worth doing is worth doing well”! There were arguments about the fact that this dictum was not written for gift wrapping! After all what is the worth of the gift wrapping? It would be torn and thrown in the dustbin soon enough! Did this warrant such elaborate action or love and devotion? Well what about the lovely cakes that are iced and decorated (I take about an hour to decorate a cake!) only to be demolished in seconds! What about the lovely printed tissues that we use and throw without a thought? What about the flowers in a vase- which are ultimately thrown anyway? The question is what is the right time duration for a creation to exist that it can be called worth it? The beautiful butterfly has species which have a life span of a few days, so should we say it’s not worth it?

Time has always been relative, for us a day in our life is twenty four hours, maybe the day in an ant’s is about 0 .1 hrs but it is happy it has lived life to the fullest! When you think of it, every work of art- it could be a painting, a sculptor, or a simple piece of tapestry- has no physical value in the sense we do not use them in our daily lives to provide us with the basic necessities! But aren’t they valuable? I think I can safely say that beauty has its own worth and is so invaluable that is its worth cannot be weighed in terms of gold! “A thing of beauty is a joy forever “said Keats and even if the beauty does not exist in the physical sense its memories like Wordsworth’s daffodils give us pleasure eternally!

I do not want to sound pompous, but this is so true with life, we are in such a hurry to reach our goal that we fail to admire the little things that actually enhance the whole process. We are so busy being competitive and fulfilling duties that the small pleasures of life pass us by like the trees by the railway track.

Today just take time off to “stand and stare” and give your best to all the trivial things that give you pleasure!

Balloons, Cakes, Candles and Tabula Rasa

Here I am closer to my maker by a year and I feel like celebrating! The clear blue sky stared back at me as if to say “Hey you little one out there, someone felt happy when you were born” and I feel good (So childish- but birthdays always bring back the child in you). For me birthdays have always been my new year- time to start afresh, time to make resolutions (to be broken later of course!) and time to introspect. Normally when everyone is home the mornings are busy – with cards, cake cutting and gift unwrapping. But this time there is just me and my TT (Terrible Teenager/ Typical teenager) so I am having a lazy birthday and have lots of time to introspect!

There are three very important things in life- they are your Birthdays, Hope and Erasers. All of them allow you to start afresh! They actually let you turn a blind eye towards all the mistakes and errors you have committed and turn over a new leaf and start writing with a newly sharpened pencil. The first page of the New Year is always so clean and bright with the dark pencil etching your hopes and desires clearly. It is like your maths note book at the beginning of the school year, so clean at the beginning (I remember doing the sums on a rough piece of paper and then deigning to write on the new note book!) by the middle of the year its pages are curling, the brown paper cover patched up with cellophane tape and the pages themselves a nice light muddy colour (With all the erasing that have been done!)

The wind is blowing very hard today; sweeping away the cobwebs that have inhabited my mind for a long time. I feel clean and raring to go (where to go is another question!) for the last couple of years I had lost the ability to be within myself but like finding a lost key I have somehow retrieved this ability and it fills me with delight; it’s kind of like being reborn or starting anew or like opening a new door..... 

This time when my newbie adult left me to go back to her college and life I felt down in the dumps thinking that my TT will also soon leave me and I will be all alone. For once in my life I felt old (That’s my age- normally my mind is stuck at the age of twenty-two!) I have of course heard about the empty nest syndrome and the various side effects that it has, over the years. But like the young woman that I am!  I have never paid any attention to it. (You never think of unpleasant things happening to you until it strikes you or a loved one). I still have a few years to go before my nest is empty. When the kids were babies I always planned on things that I would do when they grow up- going on a walking trip to Europe was one major dream, learning to fly was another and write a book and so many other things. Don’t know if any of my pipe dreams will ever come true but today I feel anything is possible! 

As a child I use to look forward to birthdays- to open all the gaily coloured birthday gifts! What was inside was not important- the number, surprise and the beauty of the cover were!); as a selective teenager it was to look forward to the treats one got and the special gifts (Normally the demanded ones!); as a young adult the gifts were still important but the focus was on how well the party you gave turned out! But now the wishes alone feel good – just to be remembered is a feel good factor and nothing else matters....

Face book has of course given a whole new dimension to celebrating! When you are far away from your friends and family it lets you feel their presence and contributes to the feel good factor! So today when I am almost all alone (Except my TT) I feel as if there are balloons on the chandelier, the  candle filled cake is waiting to be cut and all my virtual gifts scattered all over the table and the most important thing is that I have plenty of good wishes to keep me company. 

I remember the days of making cards and sending them to friends – those days were good but the present day idea of sending e-cards is also good (It is more Eco friendly!) One might argue that you can cherish the cards over the years and e- cards do lapse after a month, but then... When nothing is permanent in life, why kill the poor trees to pander to your memories? 

The wind is cold and blowing hard- all my little cells are tingling and being reborn and I look forward to a fresh chapter where I can leave my creative/ non creative impressions. The sea is my favourite colour today – turquoise and splashed with green! It is a little rough today just the way I like it.......

Q.E.D. "Freedom = Discontentment?”

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The world is in turmoil, every direction you turn to, there are people fighting for the elusive thing called “Freedom”! People want political freedom; they want intellectual freedom; desire for social freedom and yearn for freedom of speech! There is of course the longing for freedom from corruption, freedom from poverty, freedom to traverse our own chosen path..... 

This sylph like figure- a little out of focus- , dressed in white (for all good is supposed to be white!) stands beckoning at the end of the dark tunnel. It is bright and golden and the energy emanating from it is blinding but filled with vigour. As I reach out my hand, it stretched out its extremities yet I am not able to touch it. Why? 
  

Am I a true lover of freedom? Do I want to be free? I love the force that binds me to my parents, to my husband, to my children and my friends.  I love the power that makes me feel hungry and I am able to indulge in gourmet delights. I love the mirror which controls my emotions. I love the shackles that chain me to my daily routine so that I have the freedom to write this blog! So where is this freedom that the whole world is fighting for?

The wind is blowing in from the sea. The small crippled figure is slouching on the wheel chair hoping someone will give him a pound so that he can have some hot tea. He is religiously at this position, I see him every day that I go for a walk. Who brings him there? Who takes care of him? He is dirty; his clothes have not been washed for a month at least, is he always there? What are the thoughts that pass through his dumb mind (He is actually dumb) Does he want to be free from the chain of disability? (Otherwise- abled! Such a euphemism!) I go by, give him two pounds against my better judgment and feel a little better. I am such a hypocrite! I think I can buy peace for two pounds! I can’t! I think about it; feel about it and curse my fetters, unable to do anything to alleviate the Man’s pain.  It’s not actually that I can’t do anything it’s just that I am fettered by my mind to even want to do anything!

Most of us are like me, we see suffering, we suffer for a moment and then other important events take over and are pasted over this, effectively erasing the small discomfort. How simple and effective! Buddha gave up his royal life to meditate on this – about life being a continuous struggle against suffering – he is believed to have attained Nirvana, is that complete freedom? Did he really win over suffering? Did he solve his problem by running away from his responsibilities?  I am not sure, are you?

Freedom is like desire. The more you fulfill it the more you want. The more you want the more discontent you become! Have you seen the contentment on a farmers face at the end of a tiring day? Whether he is just too tired to be discontent is another matter! Have you seen the contentment on a woman’s face after she has just given birth? Whether it is the thought that the pain is over that gives her peace is another matter! Have you seen the discontentment on a tycoons face? He has most probably lost out on acquiring yet another company!
 

When you are under the poverty line you desire to have three square meals a day. When you manage that, you need a good house then clothing and the list goes on increasing, for its endless! You can never fulfill all your desires; it is against the law of nature! 

The spoilt rich are never content, for they have “freedom”. They with the power of money have the freedom to do what they want; then why are they not happy? Do I say Q.E.D. “freedom = discontentment?”  If I do say so, the whole world will jump at me! For which foolish person will want to fight for discontentment!  
 

But has anyone ever tried to analyze that most freedom movements have been started by the youth?  (Except maybe the Indian freedom movement). Is it because they have a life time ahead of them and they do not want to lead it fettered? Or is it because the old have “been there-done that” and have lost the enchantment for this beauty? 

I am still wallowing in the throes of confusion that mists this terribly beautiful non-matter. I would love to have some erudite, eloquent and non euphemistic entity clarify my doubts and qualms on this subject.

The Sixth Sense

The moon was shining with all its glory. Its light slithered and filtered through the leaves of the big mango trees in the backyard. The whole scene was painted in monochrome -silver and blue. The little girl, her eyes as wide as saucers looked out of the grilled window and appreciated in a childlike way at the beauty before her. This was the first time she was sleeping away from her parents, in a room she shared with her sister. She was wide awake; her sister was sound asleep; she was thirsty; should she wake up and walk to the dining room by herself to pour herself a glass of water or holler for her mother to get it? She decided to get up, as she was wide awake anyway. Having quenched her thirst she padded up to the window barely reaching the sill. The cemented courtyard edged with beds of lovely yellow flowers (Only now they looked all silver) was beautiful and she could hear the rustle of the birds in the mango trees and the hoot of the owl before it flew off to catch a mouse and other nocturnal sounds went on being recorded in her tiny consciousness.

As if by an unseen force her eyes moved towards the abandoned rooms at the back of the courtyard and she saw a silhouette of an aged couple- the woman still erect but the man bent double over a walking stick. They started moving slowly towards the end where the mango trees were. She wasn’t afraid only very interested in what they would do! They strolled around slowly and disappeared after they reached the trees.

This is my first conscious memory of interacting with spirits, for they were that. After a week or so of watching them I asked my mother about them. She asked the maid and we found out that the parents of the owner of the house had died in the house some years ago and they were described as I had described them!

Over the next decade or so we shifted to many new houses and in many of them I have either seen or felt the presence of spirits. I have fortunately never been scared of them for they have been content ghosts. I have no direct proof of their existence so I have never discussed about them other than as a good way to spend a night when the electric supply has gone off! But I am sure they exist! As sure as I know that ice will melt if kept in the sun.

Most of them have passed me by or ignored me as they move in their own dimension. But some of them have been sad and discontented like many of us are. Once I remember a small child ghost who would love to scribble on my notes when I was in the twelfth standard and how frustrated I was (Just imagine writing your homework all over again!) it was a small child because all the Á’s were inverted and so were the ’D’s! As if the child had a learning disability! There were no children in the house at that time only I with my parents. The house was a cute cottage large and rambly with coconut trees outside and built at the foot of a small mountain.

For a long time after this I lost touch with my friends! Life was busy and though I continued moving to many different places I stopped feeling their presence. I believed that my sixth sense had died with my becoming an adult. Secretly I missed it but never spoke of it (No one believed me anyway!)

The drive was beautiful – the black tarred roads snaking through the lovely post monsoon green landscape- but we were hungry. The little Udipi restaurant in the middle of nowhere was so attractive that we took a u-turn to get some yummy snacks.  After a full stomach we decided to stretch our legs and wandered towards the river where a half constructed hotel lay in ruins. The sun was on the verge of setting; the river looked inviting and peaceful; it was silent but  we continued to move forward, suddenly there was a cacophony of caws accompanied with the fluttering of wings – I looked up at the tall Banyan trees and saw hundreds of crows trying to sit on one branch sidling away at.... then I felt them! I clutched at the child with me and shouted to the others; to come back from entering the abandoned building; the urgency in my voice made them turn back but they were puzzled. The sunlight was mild now but they fell on a wall on which thousands of snails were climbing up – the sight was the strangest and I knew we were not with my pleasant friends! These were there, hungrily looking at one of us to climb the banister less stairway. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry- my sixth sense was back!

I had developed another dimension to my sense before this happened. I always felt the presence of any relative who was on his death bed – they would say bye to me before going off to their ethereal plane- As this has happened five times with me I don’t think I could have imagined it so many times. I have told Junu about this at least twice before we have received the news of their death!

The old dilapidated building in Alexandria looked sadly up at me as I peered down my balcony into the hole in its roof. The sun was shining and it was cold and I saw this black mist swirling up and around this house and moved out of my line of vision. The children make fun of me as I wave at this presence whenever we pass the house but it is there and it is good, maybe a little apprehensive that the house may be demolished but happy nevertheless.

I was all alone. The house is huge and lovely with French windows lining one face of the apartment followed by the long balcony. There is plenty of sunlight streaming into the house. I was having a bath when I felt someone peeping through the window, we live on the tenth floor and there is nothing to stand on outside the window. I brushed aside my uneasiness and went on with the day. The maid had bunked that day so I was busy setting the house to rights. I took a small rest with a cup of tea and I saw someone in the balcony I rushed towards it and found it empty! I was in the kitchen cutting vegetables when someone peeped into the kitchen window (This is not outside the building it is to a corridor in the house!) I joked about this to Junu saying that I had been hallucinating! We avoided telling this to Mickey as she would be scared. A couple of day later Mickey told us of a similar experience. Then it was repeated with Junu who had been sitting up late one night. I have felt it twice more by now both times during the day. But it is good; I feel no sense of fear with it around!

I do not know how to explain this phenomena but I am convinced that there is another dimension to existence and there is some intangible force which is around us at all times. Like our ‘real’ world there is good and evil and maybe it’s a step towards the eighth dimension that I had read of somewhere!

Valley of Dead to the City of Living

The warmth of the sun was a welcome change from the chilly winds. Armed with dark glasses and no warm clothing we started on a guided tour of Luxor early in the morning. We were staying in the city of the living (that’s what Luxor is also known as!) and we were traveling to the valley of the dead! Having already seen the light and sound show the night before I had a general idea of the Egyptian mythology; my head was filled with all the Ramses’ (they were real pharaohs, by the way). The stories of Osiris, Isis and Seth were all trundling along in my mind along with the wheels of the mini-van we were traveling in.

 I always used to wonder as a child about a spot where there is rain on one side and it’s dry on the other and sometimes used to run in the rain hoping to find the spot, but never did! As we moved towards the Valley of the dead we were actually moving from the green banks of the Nile towards the rocky and sandy mountains and within seconds we were in the desert! It was awesome! It’s like life and death were existing side by side. The tarred black roads were actually a dividing line between these two phases.

When we alighted at the Valley of the Kings the heat was balmy, there was a gentle breeze blowing and the weather was pleasant. It was around 7.30 in the morning so the sun was not yet burning. The landscape was bleak – sand and rocks everywhere and towering mountains in the background. It was a long walk to visit the tombs. On the way we were assailed by the sellers of scarves and artifacts, being Indian and used to such things it was easy for us to circumvent all business proposals with a simple “la...a” (that’s Egyptian for NO!)

The tombs were gorgeous! Just imagine more than 3000 years ago these people made these tombs, coloured them and decorated them with precious metals and stones without the aid of any modern machinery! It’s sad that what remains is only a faded Xerox copy of the original. We visited only three tombs and it was tiring, going deep into the mountains on steep stairways and slopes. I being me, let my imagination run riot and felt sorry for all the workers who would be doing that at least twenty times a day for the tombs to be ready! 

We then moved on to valley of the queens. Unlike the valley of kings which was exclusively for the king, the valley of the queen also housed any child she had and who died young. The stories that were written in hieroglyphics on the wall of all the tombs were similar though interesting. The last thing we visited in the desert was the temple of Hatsheput a unique temple indeed, her history is story by itself!(maybe I will bore you with that soon!)

The trip back to the city of living was like the dead being dragged back to life! We were dead tired! So the Luxor temple did not get the enthusiasm it deserved simply because of the heat and the fact that too much of history had been crammed down our throats! But it was beautiful nevertheless and at least I appreciated the many legends and facts that are interwoven into the existence of this temple. The huge towering columns, the rows of sphinx that welcome you into the temple and the most fascinating thing- the temple has five signatures on it – the ancient Egyptians who built it, the Coptic Christians who came at the fall of the Egyptian civilizations, the Nubian invaders, the Greeks who came with Alexander and built the temple of Aphrodite at the entrance and the Romans who have built many pillars in the main courtyard !

The ancient Egyptians like Hindus believed in afterlife. They believed that the life we call real is actually a stopgap before moving into the real eternal life where there is no death or sorrow only happiness. The reason why there was so much preparation for afterlife; the reason why pyramids were built; the reason why the tombs were filled with every evincible comfort that a man needs!

Hindus have always believed that the life we lead now is “Maya “or illusion and the interesting fact is the water is called “Maya “in Arabic – both water and illusion are fluid and deceptive and can take any form the mind desires it to.

So the valley of dead was built in stone for permanency while the city of living was built with mud bricks for temporary shelter!