My Favourite Things

Am I ready to blog about this week’s theme, ‘My Favourite Things’?

Who will not be ready to share details about their favourite things?

Most of us will be and I am too.

 What do you classify as favourite things?

 A very tough question indeed.  It is very subjective. And here are some of my favourite things which I can immediately recall.

My favourite games: Cricket and tennis to watch, cricket, shuttle and carrom to play. I can never forget Chetan Sharma’s hat trick in the World Cup 1987 in our college hostel where about 500 of us were watching and the atmosphere was electrifying. I was sitting in front of the television in the first row and I will never ever forget that moment.

My favourite years: Definitely college. I studied in Bangalore away from the place where my parents and uncle stay, Madras. I was so lucky that I never once felt homesick, even the first time I went to Bangalore to stay. I loved the college, my evening dance classes, then cricket till 6.30 pm, discussion about that day’s play and a game of shuttle after dinner in the night.

It brings a smile when I remember how, at 8.30 pm in the night, I would suddenly go off by bus to eat bhelpuri which was about 20 minutes away, and watching night show movies in tent houses. There were days when we would play cards. Maybe you can call it gambling but the stakes were very small. My happiest tour was to Mekkedaatu along with some of my classmates. And to top it all, I never missed Bangalore when I came to Chennai.

My favourite trips during my initial years as a lecturer: Going with a few of my colleagues on day trips. We went to Muthyala Maduvu, Shimsha and Hogenekkal. How much I enjoyed those trips and the innumerable photographs I had taken then!

My favourite restaurants: Copper Chimney, Red E-Food Court and during college days, a Punjabi restaurant in Bangalore.

Two of my favourite walking trips: Thumburu Theertham on Tirumala Hills and Edakkal Caves in Sultan Bathery (Battery), Kerala, about 25 years ago. You should do them too.

My favourite moments during the trips that I have gone along with my wife and uncle are walking to Tadiandamol in Coorg, wandering in Cabo de Rama, going to Doodhsagar waterfalls in Goa, looking at the architectural marvels of Hampi and our half-day trip to the dilapidated Alamparai fort near Chennai.

Some favourite photographs:  I thought it would be nice to make a collage of some of the photographs I like.

Clockwise from extreme left: At Alamparai fort; One of the best dance programmes I've ever seen; Coonoor tea garden; Cabo de Rama, Goa; Hampi stepped tank and Doodhsagar waterfalls, Goa

My favourite moments now: Spending time with my niece and listening to her chatter.

And finally this quote which I picked up from Facebook, “If a single teacher can’t teach us all the subjects, then how can you expect a single student to learn all subjects?”

Thank you, Aparna, for giving me this opportunity to relive some of those great moments.

Giving You Red?

Am I ready to blog about the theme for this week - “Gimme Red”?

Not at all. Just got back after spending three days with my niece which is both exhausting as well as exhilarating. Great kid, and both of us together have a great time.

About this week’s theme, “Gimme Red”.  The moment I saw the announcement, I thought it would be a great idea to request my niece to do some art work for me and I asked her to paint and give me something in red. And she asked me, why red, why can’t it be brown? And in a couple of minutes made me a tomato on paper which is the photo shown below.

When I googled about this topic, I found interesting details about red which made me smile and share with all of you.

“It was observed that red roses are a gift of love, that red cars appeal to Italian men, that the colour red is ubiquitous in weddings and married life and that red is the tilak worn by the groom, and also the color of sindoor used by the newly-wed bride. The wedding day is supposed to be a red-letter day in our lives and that many marriages unfortunately end up with both partners seeing red.” – Harish Bhat in the Times of India

            My initial impressions about “Gimme Red”, which was a popular ad for the Eveready Battery? As the color of the battery was red, and you were asking for red, it made me think that red was very powerful and the ad symbolized the craving for power.

Power, the one thing which drives people crazy, makes them do crazy things to stick onto that seat of power, disregarding morals, ethics and what not. I have seen so many such people.

 Do I want more red?  Not too sure though, as I sum up this post.

Abstract - The Theme For This Week

Am I ready to blog about the theme for this week -  “ABSTRACT”?

I don’t think so. I am not sure what abstract is. And the wonderful posts that have been put up by my friends have not made me wiser either.

Googling tells me that abstract could mean so many things: but what I chose to emphasis in this article was “Difficult to understand.”

And what more do I need to think of? Rather than the innumerable number of answer papers that I have read in my life.

Here’s a report on nuclear power stations written by a student. Can there be anything more abstract?

Nuclear power stations is important process for the power plants. This is important for the our country. This is more produced for the current. But nuclear power plant is dangerous for the people. The nuclear power station is important for all the country.

The important for the selecting site for nuclear power stations.

The nuclear power stations is dangerous power plant. This nuclear power plant is used for the atoms.

The nuclear power station is placed for not lives for people. 3 to 5 km distance for the placed for the nuclear power station.

The nuclear power station is placed for a sea. This is cooling purpose for the nuclear power plants.

The wall thickness  ... This is not laser to atom laser not outside for the atom leaser.

The works safety suits and helmet and other things used for the nuclear power station. The atoms is more power for the power plants. This is called as the nuclear power station. This is important process for the power plant.

If this is not difficult to understand, that too written by an engineering student, what is?

And do I have something really abstract?  Yes, the painting drawn by my darling niece. She is a very good artist for her age. And here is one of her paintings.

And when we asked her what was underneath the sun that looked liked a banana peel to us. Pat came the reply, “That’s sunlight,” she said, looking surprised that we could not understand.  It was modern art and abstract to me, not to her four-year-old mind. 

The First Time I ...

Am I ready to blog about the theme for this week? The theme is “My First Time.”

 It is similar to that of the childhood experiences which we did not like. This is a positive version of that post and this brings in a lot of memories. The theme was announced yesterday and many first-time experiences have been circling through my mind ever since, even during my sleep, I guess.

My first time writing, as a teenager, was for the Financial Express about a dance production group from the USSR about 28 years ago. I was very excited to see my first review in print, which was edited by my uncle to give it a professional touch. That period also marked the first time I spoke at a prestigious dance conference about dance and dance critics, which was very exciting.

Recalling my experience of my first-time public speaking at the age of ten during the felicitation of a celebrated music director of the Telugu and Tamil film industries made me feel so nice. I remember sitting along with my uncle on the dais when he informed the organisers that I would also say a few words during the felicitation function. Being the youngest, I was asked to talk first. I had prepared my speech and had mugged it. I vividly remember what I was wearing – a safari suit. As I was reciting it, somebody came up and garlanded me and I promptly forgot how to continue from thereon. I reached into my pocket, took out the speech I had prepared, referred to it, put it back in my pocket and continued, leaving hundreds of people in laughter.

The first time I went to teach in a classroom, I remember being nervous about facing students. My first time invigilation of correspondence education examinations where the students were bringing out bits and pieces of papers from nowhere was astounding. I collected a plastic bag full of bits in the hall and took it to the staff room, about 25 years ago. The first experiences of being a Principal were exciting and definitely had me on my toes.

I realise now that there are so many first-time experiences I cannot remember. For instance, I don’t remember when I started playing cricket though I remember watching the 1973 test match between India and New Zealand in Chepauk, Chennai along with my father. I remember distinctly getting the prize for reciting Florence Nightingale’s story in a school competition and don’t distinctly remember the occasions when I missed out on prizes in that year when we were in the Fifth standard.

And any regrets? There has never been poetry writing till now. I won’t be surprised if the administrators of the 52-Week group will make me do that shortly. But whether I can is a different matter altogether.

Thanks to when my soup came alive, recalling these first-time experiences will leave me feeling happy for a couple of days thinking about these and many more events which I have not written about.

Am I ready to blog about “What I DIDN'T Like About My Childhood”?

My initial reaction: I just cannot remember anything that I did not like during my childhood days. I have so many pleasant memories but to think of unpleasant ones, it is really difficult. My wife always tells me that during arguments I try to evade the subject saying that I don’t remember things and that I put on an act of forgetfulness. Well, I hope that the amount of time that I am spending to write this post should convince her that I do forget quickly about unpleasant things.

I was stuck about what childhood stood for. I had to Google it and I found that the term childhood can be used till the age of 18 in most of the countries.

What did I not like about my early childhood? Maybe studying, though I don’t remember crying about having to go to school. I may not have liked my father teaching me as he was impatient compared to my mother when it came to teaching maths, though it was only once. I distinctly remember during my adolescent age that I never liked to lose in sports (cricket, table tennis, shuttle and carom) and I did not like it when my father encouraged my elder brother when we were playing against each other.

I was really stuck at this place for quite some time, actually a few hours, wondering what I did not like during my childhood, that I could not even sleep or rest.

I then had a great idea. I asked my father what I did not like during my childhood and his immediate response was you did not like to eat bitter gourd, did not like to work in his small garden and did not like to exercise or do yoga early in the morning. My mother’s response was that I hated to wear tie and tuck my shirt neatly and go to school. That the moment I came out of the school, I would remove the tie and untuck my shirt, and that I did not like to dance in front of relatives even though I had learnt how to.

And believe it or not, even today I don’t like any of these things. I guess I have not changed much over the years.

I really thank the admins for this topic. It made me realise the childhood that God has given me. The things that I have not liked are so petty. It may sound philosophical but I think this post has made me look back at my life and appreciate what everybody around has done for me or not done to me to make me feel so nice about my childhood. Thank you, whenmysoupcamealive for this topic.

Am I ready to blog on “He was so transparent that …?

Our 52-week project admins came up with this week’s theme, “He was transparent that …..” and suggested that we write an article using that sentence. My initial reaction about this topic was that it could be male bashing as one of the fellow members pointed out but I have been observing that many of them are based on love. And here is my transparent story.

He was so transparent that it was very difficult to find fault with him. He had built his name around transparency and he thought of it as a weapon to deal with people. His transparency and simplicity would always endear him to everybody. Faculty and students could always come with their problems both personal and professional to him and he would listen patiently and try to help them. He learnt over the years that listening to their problems with sympathy would always create empathy between them.

This transparency gave him the freedom to think, to shout at them, to chide them and to mend them. And it gave him a lot of confidence, though it could be misplaced in this selfish world that we live among.

And he always thought, Oh My God, is it necessary to be nice in this selfish world where people would call him at the middle of the night and complain that there was no power in the hostel, the warden call in the night and tell him that a student had drunk a mosquito repellant because he had not prepared for the next day’s class test, a faculty call and cry that she was abused by the parents in the middle of the night since she had scolded their ward and the student had threatened to commit suicide, a single parent committed suicide because her son was not studying properly in spite of her poverty.

And because he was so transparent, it showed on him. Listening to their problems, thinking about them always, trying to solve them, and trying to understand how they would react led to a deterioration in his health.

Was this transparency necessary in the first place?

People Watching

Am I ready to blog about people watching?
It is Sunday today and the last date is Tuesday. So I thought to myself, I better be ready to blog about people watching and write impromptu. I hope you enjoy it.
I initially got confused with the title, People Watching. Is it people watching me or me watching people do curious things? And I thought of writing about both.

People watching me
There was once a girl in her late teens commenting about me when I was in my first job that ‘there goes the PM Chandrasekhar’. I used to wear a vest like the one he used to wear. I was really taken aback. This was in Brindavan Gardens and my colleagues, a couple of women staff members who overheard the comment, were also taken aback about this unknown girl pulling my leg.

Me watching people
Yesterday I went to Yelagiri hills for a retreat for a day. And as I was walking with a camera hanging around my neck along the pathway around the lake looking at the trees, the boat rides and clicking some photographs of the spouse, and nature, there was a couple sitting with a 4-year-old. That kid seeing me immediately said, “Ammi, look, there is a photographer with a camera,” and the mother was pacifying him, “No, he is not a photographer. He is only a private photographer.” I was quite amused about the kid’s enthusiasm that he could get a photo of his and the dejection when he knew about me.

I have had the great opportunity of watching students doing different things. I stand at the gate and watch them come into the college and when they are late and repeat offenders, the way they avoid my gaze is very fascinating. Some of them even start running as soon as they near me, to avoid any comments/ scolding from me. And the excuses they come up with, when they take leave or have been on long leave, have always been enlightening.

On one occasion a parent told me that his son had told him that the Principal (I) would not allow him into the campus if he did not have a laptop of his own and the father bought him one taking a big loan and that kid was using the laptop to watch movies in the hostel!

I have also observed how students write during their exams. When I am on my rounds and go near them, the way the students try to cover their answer papers if they are not writing well has always made me smile inwardly.

And then I remember one of my grandfathers commenting when a batsman got out in a test match we were both watching together in Chennai about 25 years ago, “He must be shot for playing so recklessly!” So animated was he that I can’t forget him after all these years.