Thithi

I've never heard him express a desire or wish for anything. At least I don't remember. The only thing I ever remember my father wish for and openly express is - death. Death at a very special moment. I remember at least one occasion when his entire family was around him - wife, son, daughterinlaw, daughter, soninlaw and grandchildren - laughing, talking, and he lay there in his bed, eyes closed, smiling, with such a look of supreme bliss, and said, "Now, now, this moment, I wish I could die." As if he could freeze that supremely blissful moment eternally if he passed away just then. Unfortunately this was not to be, and he died a torturous, slow, painful death, strapped to machines, blind, suffering and lonely in a hospital bed, four years back. I hope wherever he is today, he is at peace and will find the happiness that was the only thing he ever craved.

I love visiting temples. Specially the lovely sprawling old temples of Tamil Nadu. I love touching the intricately carved pillars and adoring the perfect figurines of gods, goddesses and demi-gods carved everywhere. I marvel at the mind that conceptualized and designed the space. I admire the mind that structured and meticulously planned the temples to near perfection.

I respect the hands that shared the dreams of the temple's designers and helped make them come true, hands and minds that could translate what was a hazy vision in a few people's minds into rock and sandstone and carved space.

I wonder at the magnanimous hearts that poured wealth into the realization of a dream, who tossed nets far and wide in search of talent and style that could make their dreams come true. When I look at a pillar or lean against it, I love the thought that Raja Raja Chola too might have rested his broad shoulders against it many centuries back.

I love the fragrance of fresh flowers and herbs, sandalwood and camphor, ghee and oil, the smoke of incense and burnt samith wood, the smell of swiftly- charring cotton wicks. I love the riotous colours of flowers and garlands, the glint of gold, the sparkle of gem stones and the sheen of silver, signs of a temple's well-being.

I love the taste of the puliyodurai, thayir saadam, chakkarai pongal, and even of the tulsi theertham. I love the sounds of music, molam, chanting and mumble of slokas, and the ringing voices of head priests rising over the general din of swarming humanity. And I love the sound of temple bells and brass gongs, and even the little tinkle-bells tied around the necks of temple elephants and cows.

I love looking at the old gnarled roots and branches of temple trees, and observing the little cribs and threads and cloth tied all over them, each symbolizing a devotee's prayerful wish, a yearning, or a desperate desire.

But there are things that I don't like about our temples. One is the swagger, the contempt and the measuring glances of [mostly young] priests, their smug smiles and undignified chatter. And I don't like the rows of beggars outside the temples, preying on the guilt and emotions of visiting devotees and forcing them to part with money in the name of 'dharmam'.

And I don't like the mess and squalor, the slush and garbage all over the temples. I don't like to see the outer prakarams of our heritage temples taken over by pedlars and hawkers of tawdry trinkets. I don't like the loud music blaring in the outer prakarams and the shark-like touts looking to feed on the minds of guileless devotees, promising a close darshan,or special blessings in return for monetary favours.

And above everything else I don't like to see milk and honey and ghee and fruits, tender coconut and curds poured in great quantities over the stone idols all in the name of abhishekam.

How can we allow this colossal wastage of good food when right outside the temples sit rows and rows of beggars who may never in their lives have drunk a full glass of milk or eaten ghee-spiced rice? If the idol of stone had but a voice, would it not have protested this injustice or stopped this wastage? They say service to man is service to God. Can't we feed our countrymen and enable them to earn their next meal before we pour milk and ghee and curds and honey over stone idols?

Mice have nine lives

Some of life’s strangest but most poignant moments descend on one suddenly, when one is least expecting them. They catch one by surprise and take one's breath away. So it was today. This happened at work. A couple of white mice had been procured for dissection two days back. One of them was pregnant. They were kept in a tiny cage in a storeroom. The dissection was scheduled for yesterday, but it was postponed for some reason. This morning, the pregnant female gave birth. She delivered six tiny babies.

We actually saw the mother mouse go through her delivery slowly through the day. In the morning, there was just one baby out, later by noon, there were two, by afternoon, there were six. I didn’t check before I left, I assumed that mama was done for the season. We marveled, how could six tiny lives actually exist within that one little white mouse? We wondered, when and how would those little yucky pink babies grow into handsome white mice?

Pink, skinny, slimy, hairless, and fragile babies. Their button eyes closed, they lay in a heap against their mother’s body, occasionally sliding and slithering over one another to get closer to her or reach for her teats. [The male looked the other way all the while, unblinkingly indifferent to the great and moving sight of a mother struggling to bring forth life. But what does one expect of males anyway?]

They did not know, the mother or her babies, that they had missed death [at least temporarily] by a mouse’s whiskers. The dissection may well have happened on schedule. Or the mice might have been bought by someone else and they might have been cut up even earlier. As I looked at the tiny, ugly little creatures that didn’t look one bit like mice, I couldn’t help asking myself, what this was if not destiny? It seemed to me that the little fellows were meant to breathe and live and feel like us, at least for some time. And so they were here. Life has a strong urge to be expressed, to be manifest. It will not be easily thwarted.

And what was it that drew us to the drama? The mice had been in office for two days, and except for those directly involved, none of the rest of us had felt the urge to drop by and visit them. But today, in ones and twos and threes, women and men popped in and out of the storeroom. Some ran around organizing food for the little survivors. A group even celebrated the births with chocolates. Even men were drawn. Young men.

What is it that draws us to life and brings a smile on our faces when we see life triumph over difficult circumstances? What is the kinship and connectedness that draws us to another creature at such times? What part of ourselves do we see reflected in another creature that makes us empathize with it, participate in its life, and feel the need to respect its strong self-expression, protect it and celebrate its existence?

High Time

Increasingly I get this intense sense of urgency. There's not much time left, I tell myself almost every day. More than 50% of my life is surely over. Maybe much more, who knows. So, I tell myself, do, do, do all that you want to do. And do it fast. Don't postpone.

And to think of all those people who 'kill' time. To think of the millions who grope to find ways to 'pass time.' Just bored. Don't know what to do. Aimlessly slouch. Throw pebbles into water. Munch peanuts. Watch a lousy movie knowing it is lousy. A long phone chat. Cover oneself up to the eyes and try to sleep. Kill time. Somehow kill it. Mercilessly.

Funny. The thought - that every second we kill is a bit of our lives chipped off. All by ourselves. A second given to one but kicked away because one did not know what to do with it. A second that will never come back, even if one were to beg it to.

Are we all really so very ready for death? Ready as we are to give up chips and chunks of our lives, I doubt that we are prepared to move on. We have just not got round to associating the time that we kill with OUR LIFESPAN. But maybe it is time we did. It will give an entirely new spin to life. Add a new dimension to our thoughts. And most of us sure could do with a jolt or two!

Changes - outside and inside

There was a time when I was young when children read. They read and read. And read. People said we were book worms. People said so much reading can't be good for the eyes. What we needed was a bit of physical activity.

Then when my daughter was growing up, it was the age of the television. I cannot forget how sick I would feel when I saw my daughter watching the same silly Popeye cartoon day after day after day. Then we said all that television couldn't be good for the children. It made them passive. It did not allow their imagination to grow. It was bad for their eyes. What they needed was a bit of physical activity and reading.

Then my little nephews came into being. We saw them grow, handling the mouse and the computer almost as if they were born with computers tied to them. They played games on the computer. They learnt on the computer - first from CD ROMs and then the internet. Then we all said so much computer can't be good for children. It spoilt not only their eyes, but also their hearing. It messed up their little wrists. It made them sedentary. Above everything else, it made them unsocial. What they needed was a bit of physical activity, some reading and some company.

Then the children grew up and found Facebook. They found orkut and various other social networking platforms. They also discovered telephones and specially mobiles. They spent hours chatting - over the internet, over mobiles and landlines - by texting - to known and unknown people, sometimes at great risks. Then we said so much socialising cannot be good for them. Social media and communication technology made them obsessive and egotistic. Social media tended to trivialise relationships. There was great risk from strangers. What they needed was a bit of physical activity, some reading and responsibility and discrimination in relationships, and a return to committed formal education, from which they were gradually straying.

Now we have the ipads and smartphone devices, adding a new addictively attractive dimension to technology tools, bringing back the excitement of touch and feel to life - the kinaesthetic sensation that had occupied the backseat in the early years of communication technology advancement. Now what will this do? What will happen to the next crop of children with their little hands exploring the world through the touchpad technology? What faculties of theirs will their new toy heighten? And what faculties will it atrophize? What will we say of this new tool ten years from today?

Women, women, women

Who said the world was progressive? Who said our women were liberated? Sometimes I can't help thinking not much has changed.

Look at USA. The most advanced nation in the world is yet to have a woman President. Look at us. We have a woman President, but she has not come through as a symbol of emancipated womanhood, for whatever reasons.

Why are we still getting it wrong?

Everybody must have watched the soccer world cup. And before that the IPL cricket tamasha. Everybody must have seen crappily dressed cheerleaders wildly gyrating to some silly music (I cringe to call it that). Why must they be women? Why not men? Why can't we have ridiculously clad men shaking their bellies and rolling their hips to drums and bagpipes or whatever? If we must have cheerleaders at sporting events, that is - now that would call for another blog post.

Don't let's forget the Stone Age Cave Woman following her He Man into the World Wrestling Fed's wrestling rings. Big brutish male hunks followed by growling shrieking women.

You must have seen ads where women come, leaning on and clinging to men - like some prized jewel, a possession that one showed off. Why, for god's sake, can't they stand and walk straight?

God, and we talk of the progress we have made.

I recently attended some functions - some weddings, and some other social gatherings.
At every function, there was a reception committee to welcome guests. A reception Committee made entirely of women. Heavily decked and dolled up they draped the doorways. The bouquets and prizes were brought in by women, but not necessarily given away by them. They were just the fetchers and carriers.

The food arrangements and anchoring was always the women.

The accounts and operations, the men. Why? Why don't we reverse roles? What is so unmanly about receiving guests that it must be relegated to the realm of the woman? Isn't pleasantness and warmth a thing of the mind. Why shouldn't men be pleasant and warm and man the reception committees?

And then again - why must the women who receive guests be the most presentable females round the place? And why must they be gorgeously dressed. Isn't this a bit like putting out your best china or silverware to impress the guests?

Obviously attitudes have not changed. Not here in India. Not anywhere in the world. we have a long way to go. And it would help all around if women put their foot down where it belongs - on the ground - and refused to play ball. Most of the changes that have happened seem facile when one thinks that the change in the mind without which no change would be effective - has not yet happened.

Working with children -1

The different essay contest - 2007

We often hear it said that children have not learnt to think, to apply knowledge, they can only memorize and recall facts, that they are not creative any more, that they do not have the reading habit, that they lack the moral timbre to take positive and sound decisions. And so on and so forth.

I believe however that every child has it in her to do all this and more. We just do not give them the opportunity to explore their world and to discover themselves.

My work has taught me this about children: that they are willing and waiting.

The onus actually is on us.

Three years back I was part of a team that designed an essay-writing contest for children of classes 5 to 12 in a Chennai school. The children were divided into four groups. Each group was given different writing tasks, tasks that were carefully designed to appeal to them.

But everyone knows that most kids don't enjoy essay writing. Few children look forward to it, specially because most times the task requires them to write about a visit to a zoo or a letter to the Municipal Chairman about leaky drain pipes. We decided that we would be different. We would make the task interesting for them. My colleague Rohini and I brainstormed and came up with topics that ranged from the fantastic for the Class 5-6 kids to deeply introspective and reflective topics for the adolescents of Classes 11 and 12.

We topped it by addressing them in the school assembly before the contest. I addressed classes 5-8 and Rohini, the older group. She appealed to their more matured thinking by asking them to learn to plan and organize their thinking and writing. I appealed to the imagination of my younger audience by telling them that there was a Harry Potter ready to burst out of their brains if only they paid attention to him. The children listened intently and nodded.

Then we asked them how their essays should be evaluated - what they think we should look for in an essay. What was a good piece of writing? The children responded by giving us a list of parameters which defined what they thought was a good piece of writing. A fifteen-odd point checklist for evaluating their essays came entirely from them.

When the essays came - and how, there were some 600 essays to evaluate - we were stunned. Stunned because not one essay was a perfunctory or an obligatory bored attempt. Each one - even the worst - was earnest and sincere. We could sense effort in every word. In most of the essays, we could hear a struggling voice trying to catch and express furiously-tumbling thoughts and ideas.

Of course there were poorly written essays. And of course, there were some essays that showed poor thinking or a paucity of ideas. There were some that were politically correct and made all the right noises. But even these were not written grudgingly. Every essay showed that the writer had engaged in the task to her best capacity or as she deemed right. The active engagement showed.

One of our evaluators remarked that it seemed as if the children had been waiting for an opportunity to write. Indeed, that's how it seemed.

Which brings me back to my point. The children are willing and waiting. What are we doing to engage them? And more importantly, are we actively engaging with them at all?

Cognition and language

It's one more of those eternal mysteries: language and thinking. Do we need language to think? Does thinking happen only in a language? After all, we all know language is a medium.

I have always wondered whether we actually needed a language for thinking. But some language teacher-friends of mine have always argued that thinking involves a language. After all, they say, our inner dialogues are always in some recognizable language or the other. True. But the dialogue is still a dialogue - internal or external to us. Is it the same as the process of thinking? A dialogue still expresses an outcome of the process. That's been my contention.

Recently, a colleague talked about a friend's two-year-old child who did not speak but could communicate his needs and desires very well. The child, she said, could also associate articles with their owners, and sort steel dishes from china ones. There it was. Obviously here was evidence of cognitive activity that did not have the scaffold of any language.

After all, how do babies learn to speak. They learn by associating sounds (words) with objects they represent or symbolize. The association, the memory, the recall and retrieval are intuitive cognitive processes stimulated by sensory perceptions. And it is this cognitive activity that generates this beautiful thing called language. [And which baby ever started learning his mother tongue with a,b,c? - but that calls for another post.] The child is not thinking in a language.

So also with the hearing impaired. They cannot hear a language but that is not to say they are not thinking. Obviously their sensory impulses are transcribed into some other internal language that helps to identify perceptions and associate them with others, to interpret an experience and understand a context. Their engagement with the world is through non-linguistic means.

And yet most of us think we cannot make do without a language. The problem is we have become so dependent on language that we have gradually reduced usage of all the other media of communication open to us: music, rhythm, touch, feel, movement, stillness and even silence.

The glow of pride, the glower of irritation, the beam of happiness, the sudden flicker of an eyebrow, the puckering of the lips - even slight motions can convey messages. Body language is a great communicator, indeed a great revealer.

Silence is a very powerful tool. In this instant response world, silence can be a great tormentor. Even an innocuous, unintended silence can be interpreted in a hundred obnoxious ways to drive away one's peace of mind. Lack of communication is itself a message, a communication.

Neither thinking nor communication actually need a language.

Raavanan's perspective?? Huh?

In his old age Mani Ratnam decides to have a go at ole’ Valmiki’s tale, finds Anil Ambani to sink some loose change into its production and ropes in big names to act. Vikram plays his favourite role – perhaps the only role that he knows – that of a demented masculine brute leftover from prehistoric times, and Aishwarya, plays the role of the beautiful damsel in distress and establishes convincingly that incredibly beautiful damsels can be incredibly dumb too. And lo, Raavanan is born.

But before the movie is deservedly consigned to wilderness, a couple of million suckers in India will readily have shelled out a couple of hundred rupees each to watch it in elite movie halls, (not to mention ruin their health with tubs of buttery popcorn and all that) and swell Anil Ambani’s bank balance.

While most of Ramayan’s main characters are recognizable in Raavanan, not one has been convincingly etched or completely developed. The story could have been better exploited to study how characters are shaped by circumstances and experiences. But neither are the characters drawn out nor is the plot clearly worked out.

Till the intermission nobody knows why the things that are happening are happening and after intermission, one begins to wish they just would cease happening. Lots of loose ends are never tied up and at the end of the show, one is left wondering what the team was trying to say or show.


Till the end we are never told why Veera, the demented brute with the golden heart (the heart is more a surmise, even that isn’t clearly established) is in the bad books of the police, and what made him the bad guy that he is said to be. Veera’s act of kidnapping the DSP (protagonist)’s wife seems to be mere personal vendetta – taking revenge for the rape and death of his sister in the hands of the police who gatecrash into and make a mess of her wedding though only goodness and Maniratnam know why. The DSP in chasing Veera and using state machinery to recover his wife also seems to have acted more out of selfish interest than general interest.

And though the final twist in the end is good, we never really know how to respond to it, because nowhere in the movie have the characters been established convincingly. And through it all, poor Aishwarya tries to look brave and smart and good and virtuous and sympathetic and helpless and a lot of other things besides but the last scene clearly establishes her as the stereotypical dumb damsel. The policemen, convoy, sniffer dogs and all – as always – come across as being slow, stupid and senseless.

I am tempted to borrow Veera's eloquent vocabulary to describe the movie: much buk-buk about nothing.

Denial and Self denial

I am not a masochist. Nor a renunciate. But looking back at the last decade and half of my life, I can't help asking myself whether we have forgotten the virtue of denial and self-denial. The newspaper recently carried a report on children who insisted on admission to elite colleges whose fees were beyond their parents' means only because their friends had gone there. This, although they had already obtained admission in good colleges with subsidized fees. Callous insensitivity, I thought.

I often - too often - hear of children who refuse to visit relatives whose houses are not air-conditioned.

We see young school girls precociously splashing money in beauty parlours and shopping malls. In supermarkets and shopping malls, children heaping carts with junk food and other 'goodies' is a common sight.

How many of our middle class children have used public transport like buses or travelled sleeper class in our trains? How many of our young upper middle class children get fresh air or play outdoor games regularly? [Playing games the way we did when we were young is of course different from cricket coaching or tennis coaching - which of course is a very fashionable and desirable activity today.]

The clothes that our school and college girls and young office goers are wearing are unrecognizable.
Their hair styles would have been unthought-of just a decade ago.
Young children of upper middle class families have grown podgy and fleshy. Their very body structures have changed.


And here are two critical differences:
We were taught to help others, to oblige when some one made a request. Our children do not hesitate to say, 'Sorry but no," when asked for help.
This is the change I find completely unacceptable.

Brought up in a culture where one is trained not to wait to be asked but try to anticipate a need, I find it shocking that children can say, "So boring. I don't want to do this."

Equally shocking is seeing children doing things just for themselves when they could well have done the same things for others. Small things such as serving/passing food at the dinner table, setting plates and fetching water. "I have helped myself. Why should I do it for you?" is often implicit and sometimes explicit. I never fail to ask a child that does this, "Do your parents earn only for themselves? Do your parents cook only for themselves?"

Eating out was a rare treat when we were young. It was a family outing to mark an occasion or celebrate an event. Today when we are not eating out, we are ordering home delivery. We eat out when we are bored, tired of home food, just too tired to cook, or just plain lazy - which means every week almost.

Why these changes?
Perhaps we have indulged our children a lot more than we were ever indulged.

Consider these.
We used to share crayons with our siblings as children. But now we buy each of our children a box.
Our toys, books and clothes were often hand me downs from older siblings and cousins. Our kids have never seen hand me downs.
We swept and cleaned, ran errands, fetched and carried, and had regular chores to do. Very few children today do any of these.
We went to school by walk, bike or public bus. Our children mostly cycle or go by car.

Our lifestyles have changed beyond recognition. But who is to blame? We have allowed a slew of products and brands to dazzle us, suspend our sense of discrimination, and change our spending habits and consumption patterns to the point of loosening the grip that foundational values had on us. We have slowly but surely gravitated towards a lifestyle that is not only un-Indian but also unhealthy and unsustainable.

What then can we expect of our children? With us as role models, can they be any different?

Suddenly after indulging their every whim, and often even before it was even expressed,we expect them as they grow into adolescence to become serious students, hard working, disciplined and diligent. None of which we tried to cultivate when they were younger. We cannot deny them cable tv, mobile phones and pc games after having given them these ourselves.

What we could have done but did not do was to spell out ground rules and strictly adhered to them. We could have denied our children a few of the luxuries we pampered them with. We should have used that magical word 'no' a bit more often than we did. We could have denied them a few of those expensive cravings, or made them work really hard for them.

But to be able to practice denial one needs guts. If you do not want your child to unblinkingly ask you why you denied her things while you indulged your every whim, you have to practise what you advocate. And you have to be seen to practise it. You have to deny yourself stuff you badly want, you have to sacrifice your comfort before those of others, and you have to put others before you. Before denial must come self-denial. At least to the point of getting back on the track of disciplined living. Because you know in your heart of hearts, notwithstanding the shopping sprees, the festive bashes, and the parties, that it was self denial, strict parenting and disciplining that got you where you are. And if you want your children to get there too, the formula cannot be much different.

What good food means to me

After a long layoff, I re-entered the kitchen recently and picked up the ladle and pan. Shamelessly speaking, I was truly delighted to find that I had not lost the touch. The golden touch for which I shall be ever grateful to my mother and grandmother. I had not forgotten those old lessons in cooking that my grandmother and mother had given me. But I will come back to those later. First, I must acknowledge and appreciate the women in my life who taught me the value of food. And at the same time, satisfy my urge to salivate at the thought of all the yummy food that I had grown up on.

Food for nostalgia
My grandmother was a fantastic cook. Even today, many years after her death, people talk of her cooking. I still remember some of those mouth-watering dishes I grew up on: the paruppu urundai rasam, vazhaipoo paruppu usli, vendha paruppu thuvail, the mysore rasam, the koottu, not to mention the melting mysore pak, buttery murukkus and cheedais. Oh, and I must not forget the red roast potato curry my grandmother used to make. I have never had anything the like of it, before or after her.

Let me not omit some of those fantabulous ‘tiffin’ items that I have not had elsewhere – that were so typically my family specialities – thavala vadai, thavala adai, thavala dosai, Kanchipuram idli, rava pongal…

Mother was - and is – a great experimenter. She served up slurpy kurmas and chole and spongy puddings, feathery cakes and whatnot. We grew up on delicious fare, my brother and I. Syrups and squashes, jams and pies and cookies – nothing daunted or flummoxed her.

Even father cooked – he would add a dash of jaggery to his rasam and sambhar that would give an indescribable zing to the dishes.

Fattened to be slaughtered at the altar of life – that was what we were - no, just joking. (Actually, we weren't fat. Both of us were fairly thin.)

And I haven’t yet paid homage to the payasams, the halwas, the burfis and the podis and pickles, the bajjis and bondas, the kozhukottais and polis.

And of course, the most amazing decoction coffee ever.

But I guess the drift is clear. We were a ‘food’ family, I mean a FOOD family.

My first lessons
So how could I go wrong? When I was in Class 8 or 9 – I can’t remember rightly – my mother took it upon her to teach me to cook. It started with making tea. And I still remember the unfortunate afternoon when I first lit the gas stove. I used about eight matchsticks to get that right. Mother was gnashing her teeth at me by the time the gas was lit. (In spite of all the gnashing she did when my brother and I were growing up, I must say her teeth have kept well: at 67, she has not lost a single one, nor seems likely to for the next two decades. Needless to say, she is still gnashing them.)

And then slowly we proceeded. Tea, then rice, then vegetables and other everyday dishes - and varieties in each.

What cooking meant to grandmother
I don't recall lessons from my grandmother - but she had set the bars - and pretty high at that. In fact, years later, I recall mother telling me that grandmother had never overtly taught her her secret recipes. That indeed she would shoo every one off before she settled in front of the stove to prepare the hot favourites like polis, kozhukottai, or the bakshanam because she felt that the magic would not work when many prying eyes were on her.

Perhaps it was just that old evil eye superstition. Perhaps there was an unwillingness to share a precious skill - one of the few things she could call her own, one of the few things that established her identity in her society, and gave her a sense of self-pride and self-esteem.Perhaps she had not wanted her daughter-in-law to learn and do better and eclipse her. We shall never know. Mother learnt her secrets by observing grandmother discreetly and from the background, whenever she was called to help with the preparations or the packing and clearing up.

Cooking is not just about cooking
To come back to my cooking lessons. They went way beyond learning to identify ingredients, following the cooking process, getting the proportion and mix of ingredients right, or recognising when a dish was done.

I learnt to tell just by looking whether the boiling rasam lacked salt. I learnt to tell just by the aroma filling the kitchen while cooking whether the proportion of spices blended into a dish was correct. I learnt to estimate just by looking whether the quantity of salt that I held in my hand was right for the dish that was waiting for it.

Looking at and smelling food while it cooked played a more important role than tasting because traditionally food had to be offered to the family deities before it touched our lips. This meant that while cooking I was using every one of my senses keenly and also that I had to be on red alert all the time to find the false note before others sat to eat.

But by far the most important lesson I learnt in the kitchen was that to be acknowledged a good cook one had to do more than just cook well. To be called a good cook by the seasoned ladies, one needed to be efficient and not only effective.

In my early days of cooking, while I was still in school and college, we did not use gas lighters. The good old match stick ruled the kitchen. My sage mentors taught me that real cooking was all about efficient fuel consumption. Could I complete the entire cooking session by striking just one match stick? That meant a minimum of four dishes and a maximum of god knows how many (during festivals and feasts).

According to the women in my life, the number of match sticks I used was a sure fire indicator of my kitchen skills.It was not just about spending match sticks, it was also about how well one planned and prepared for the cooking session. It was about paying attention to details and to the actual process.

The number of vessels used in cooking was also an indicator of kitchen skills. Using fewer vessels on the stove meant effective planning, and less time and energy spent on post-cooking clean up. Spillage,wastage, energy consumption, cutting down the steps in cooking - were all considered very important for the good cook. So also the introduction of ingredients in just the right stages in the process: the garnish on the rasam was done differently and at a different stage in the cooking than the garnish on the sambhar - though the ingredients of both were the same. And if you got it wrong, your error would be sniffed out by disdainful mentors.

Decades after those first lessons in kitchen skills were creased into my brain, today when I look at them in the light of global concerns of sustainable lifestyles and consumption patterns, I am tempted to ask myself: were those ladies in my life fiendishly rigid and conservative old fuddy-duddies or wise and visionary management gurus?

Eco-friendly Indians?

So the world thinks Indians are the most eco-friendly nation in the world. [See http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Indians_most_ecofriendly_consumers_Survey-nid-68569-cid-3.html] It better think again. Because if Indians are eco-friendly, it is not because they have made wise, conscious, conscientious ethical choices to adopt eco-friendly ways. Because their eco-friendly behaviour is not an index of their environment awareness.

It is rather an index of their lack of means. If Indians are the most eco-friendly nation of people in the world, then it is because their consumption patterns and habits are dictated more by the size of their wallets than by their environment consciousness.

Whether in the matter of energy use, transportation choices, food sources, use of green products or any other critical environment issues, most Indians still make choices based on their economic or financial conditions, and not based on their attitude towards the environment and understanding of notions of sustainability.

And because the number of Indians making such choices is so huge, it has managed to swing Indian consumers into the No. 1 position in the Consumer Greendex compiled by National Geographic recently. More than anything else, this ranking is more a reflection of the actual state of economic conditions in small town and rural India, which is the biggest part of the country, than it is of our habits and attitudes towards the environment. Let’s face it.

Money matters in Samacheer Kalvi times

Many Matriculation schools have not yet re-opened. Even those that have, are in a miff. Thanks to the common fee structure heralded under the Samacheer Kalvi programme. Fee structures have suddenly been lowered quite drastically - and schools have been strictly told not to charge their students more than the stipulated fee. One common refrain from schools is 'how can we pay our teachers good salaries if we take less fees from our students?' The quality of teaching in schools will come down, say school managements, in what appears to me to be a veiled threat.

I don't want to debate this stand. I don't know enough about it. I don't know on what basis the government agencies have structured fees. I don't know how schools have been so far structuring their fees. I also don't know where all the revenue of the school goes, nor how much of it is actually disbursed as teacher or staff salaries. All I know is, teachers have never been getting good salaries. Not even in the era of unregulated fee collection.


And that leads to several questions:

So where has all the money been going all along?

If teacher salaries are so directly related to teaching quality, why have they not been paying good salaries and hiring good teachers so long?

What's the point in threatening to lower teacher salaries as a reciprocal measure? Or of making an emotional issue intended to touch a raw nerve in the parent community? Or of taking an aggressive anti-government stand and refusing to lower fees (as some schools have done.) Or of threatening to go to court for a stay?

Why can't our schools adopt a more positive problem-solving approach? Why can't our committees and associations of Principals or Correspondents or Managing trustees analyse a spectrum of school balance sheets and show how much of school revenues goes towards teacher salaries, or infrastructure maintenance or development? How will their budgets be hit by this new restriction? By how much will they fall short?

Can they transparently share their figures and then make a case out of it? Will that not be a more convincing and reasonable approach? Will that not raise their stock in the eyes of the public?

And again, can't we look at alternative solutions? Can't school managements be practical and business-like and explore alternative revenue streams?

Now to take a closer look at school infrastructure.

Every school - even those with terrible infrastructure - have, at the very least, a school building, a computer lab, a library and a central courtyard. The best of schools have big playgrounds, play pens, audio visual rooms, mathematics and science labs, bigger and better libraries. After 3 or 4 pm when schools close shop for the day, none of these facilities are open for use. But can't these amenities and infrastructure be put to more productive use after school hours?

1. Can a school not open up its library as a reading room for the local community after school hours?

2. Can the school not throw open its school rooms to the local community to hold classes (music, dance, just plain tuitions)? Or allow a local debating society or a club to conduct its meetings for a small fee?

3. Can it not invite local children to play in its ground every evening for a fee?
Or the local women to collect for group chanting, or tea party sessions?

4. Can it not let out its av room for small conferences, meetings, training programmes?

5. Can a school management not tie up with a local enterprise ready to take on the responsibility of providing after-school care for school students?

Of course, it is not as easy as it appears. Of course there will be operational issues to consider. Property to be protected. Security to be ensured. Lots of debating and brainstorming to be done. But it seems to me that a lot of valuable resources are being serious underutilized. Perhaps the time is ripe to take a closer look.

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. And its twin, innovation. If our schools will not display innovation, enterprise, and creative problem-solving in this dire hour of need, where will our students ever learn these qualities?

A name can make a difference

When driving down Bangalore-Highway from Chennai, a turn to the right after the Porur junction takes you to Thiruvallur town, just past the tiny wayside hamlet of Thirumazhisai. As you drive past Thirumazhisai, you cannot miss an old ramshackle Shiva Temple right on the road. It is called the Othandeeswarar temple, and it is believed that Shiva himself helped in establishing the temple at this spot.

Nothing about the temple will make you stop by. It looks like just another roadside temple. But what I love about this temple is the name of the consort of Shiva in this temple, the presiding amman. She is called Kulurnthanayaki.

Crudely translated the name means, the Cool Leader. And though the translation is crude, and sounds western pop-ish, it is actually literal and quite classic Tamil. Kulurthanayaki. I wonder who thought of the name? A cool leader in a land that is wilting and sweltering throughout the year, in the midst of the grime and dust of a wayside hamlet? Not to mention the added discomfort of profuse sweating. A cool leader? Whoever thought of such a name?

Was he a poet, a romantic, or a philosopher? What could have inspired the name? Was it just a whim or a wishful thought of the creator? Was it desperate hope? Was it an attempt to bring down the heat by reflecting on coolness? Perhaps there is some record of the temple’s presiding deities and their origins, and then again, perhaps there are none. I do not know of any, nor may I ever discover them.

But the name has fired my imagination and enchanted me like very few other things have done. I find myself often marveling at the lovely name. I bring it up in conversations. And whenever I drive past the temple, it never fails to bring a smile to my face.

If something draws me to innocuous Thirumazhisai, it is not the temple, not the architecture, not the associated myths and heritage, not even devotion to the God. It is just a name. Kulurthanayaki. A sweet name. A name that has created an oasis of coolness and serenity in my mind in the midst of the unremitting summer of Tamil Nadu.

Half-savage-half-saint

To those who think India lives in her gloriously shining malls and multiplexes, I say: make a trip to Tirupati. India occupies every inch of her villages and small towns, jostling, tugging, nudging, shoving, pushing, pulling all the time.

Speaking different languages, following different traditions and customs, but uncannily understanding other languages and recognizing other cultures, Indians are still mild and patient, yet tough, rugged and enduring, sloppy and uncouth yet sophisticated in their warmth and values…

India is still small town, and half-savage-half-saint…

Struggle on!

“You don’t know what a struggle this is, ma. You’ve never taken so much stress when you were in school!” How often have I heard this moan at home. And I’m sure I am not the only mother to have heard this. Mothers of all students facing exit examinations must be familiar with this refrain.


“Too much pressure,” “Too much stress.” Heavy syllabus, heavier competition. Sure, child, it is a struggle. But do not for a minute imagine that you are the only group of strugglers in this world. Or that nobody else could be suffering like you do. That all was hoity-toity in times gone by when I was young or your grand dad.


Child, all of us have struggled, and all of us will struggle till we come to terms with ourselves and the world. And even then, we still struggle. There may be differences in the degree of one's struggle, differences in the way one reacts to one's circumstances, and differences in the kinds of struggles. But to think that there was a time and a place and a people who did not struggle – is a misconception.


When I was young and a student in Kolkata, yes, we did not have to cope with a heavy syllabus, or pressure from home or peers. But we did struggle. Struggle to study in the face of long powercuts. Stewing in our own perspiration in the sweltering heat of summer, often with not even a pifling ceiling fan to cool us. Poring over our notes in the light of a kerosene-lit lantern, the kerosene being bought at a ration shop after hours of standing in a long queue unmindful of the summer heat. Air-conditioners did not exist in our vocabulary. No ice creams and milkshakes to cheer us on a hot day - those were rare treats.


We would walk long distances to xerox papers. Only a few of us had phones at home, which we could use but sparingly to connect with friends. And mobiles - whoever had heard of them then?


Struggle to find resources - there was no internet then, and not even the computer. We did not get information at the click of the mouse. No copy-paste to help us through our projects. Our parents did not explore opportunities on behalf of us, like we do for you. No one taught us study skills, or learning techniques or stress busting strategies.


We don’t know how we drifted, how we learnt of opportunities, how we learnt how to learn and study. Which were the best institutes, what should one aspire for, how does one face competition, what was the best examination strategy to adopt. We stumbled and faltered, fell and recovered, and moved on.


There were fewer tuition centres then, and they were less organized than they are now. And those of us who prepared for the JEE and other competitive examinations mostly took up distance learning and had to wait for their study packages to arrive by ordinary post. There was no courier those days. And when one answered a question paper, one had to post it, and wait for weeks for the corrected sheets.


Have you even seen post boxes? Well, there are few of them today, and we mostly do not use them, preferring to use the courier, but there was a time, when we were younger when these post boxes were our very lifeline, our windows to the world.


But we didn’t think of them as struggles, they were …well, our life, that’s all. Tell me, child, what would you do if you had to lead a life like mine? Would you then call your current life a struggle?


Your dad, sweetheart, went through much the same. He had to study in the same room as the television and if you only knew that a roomful of neighbours gathered in those days in houses that had the television (which was a rare possession, those days) you would understand how difficult it must have been for your father and his brother to study during telecasts.


I also remember, sweetheart, my father and mother talking about their student days. Those were worse. Mother travelled to a town from her village every day just to pursue studies - this in days when girls were not sent to schools, leave alone go out of the house, unescorted. She even chose to take up residence in a hostel for a whole year to complete her studies. Residence in a hostel run by Christian missionaries, who put pressure, subtle and overt, on her to convert. Not easy, as you can imagine, for a seventeen year old.


My father: child, your grandfather was the son of a poor schoolteacher. They lived in a one-roomed house: five families shared a toilet and bathroom. Father could not afford paper or even a slate (I don’t suppose you know what a slate is) to practice sums on. He used chalk pieces to write and scrub and write again – on the red cement floor of their house. Now, tell me, is that not struggle?


Child, we struggle in different ways in different times, but we all struggle. Life is about struggling – and struggling cheerfully. Your ordeals and torments - if you must think of them as that - will build your mental sinews and emotional muscle – which will help you face the challenges you will meet in the course of your life.


At every corner, and every nook, you will find a surprise, sometimes pleasant, sometimes not. And to move on from there will always involve struggle. If you learn to accept challenges, and develop the fire and energy to take them on, you will grow into a stronger, more positive and robust individual. If you allow yourself to cave in, to be intimidated, if you feel victimized and threatened all the time, life will seem a gargantuan insurmountable hurdle.


Therefore, my child, face every struggle consciously, gamely and confidently. He who sends us challenges has also given us the strength and endurance to take them on. He is confident that you will shine through - that is why he has piled it on you. Why, then, this timidity, this diffidence, this fear, this negativity in you?


Child, you did not ask to come into this world. But having come, you need certain qualities to see you through life. Take every opportunity to struggle cheerfully. Learn to meet life head on. You will, then, not feel stressed. Indeed, you will begin to enjoy life.

A system gone rotten

While Matriculation schools fight over fee structures, mull over teacher salaries, infrastructure, common syllabus and whatnot, there is another side to the whole issue that nobody seems to be talking about: the evaluation system. Reams can be written about the lacunae in this system. I shall leave the field to educationists, pedagogues and policy makers who are better qualified and more experienced than I am. I’d just like to document some practices and incidents that have come to my notice in recent times.



These practices and incidents center around the examination/evaluation system existent in Tamil Nadu. Some are based on first-hand experiences – my observations of students and talks with teachers. The most serious and shocking one is an incident narrated by the victim. A couple are mere hearsay, but in the light of my personal experiences, I am quite convinced that these are not exaggerations, and they are not only likely to be real, but even quite widespread. All of them made me feel embarrassed, ashamed and very very upset to have to say that I belong here, to this state and to this system.



We all know how much importance we give to examinations and scores. The following will show just how the obsession with examinations when carried to a hysterical pitch can defeat the very purpose of education, and very often, the knowledge or skill the examination seeks to evaluate does not exist at all, although the mark sheet sings a different song. So here we go:



* Students I know who have appeared for the Matriculation Class X examination say that their preparation centred more around the examination blueprint and design than around the content or substance they were tested on. To explain, the blueprint lists out the weightages given in the question paper to every chapter/lesson in every subject. The design states which chapters will have long descriptive questions and which will have objective type questions. It stipulates how many questions from each chapter can be expected in the question paper. A quick analysis of the blueprint helps our students plan their preparation. They zero down on which chapters to ignore, and which to focus on.



* An analysis of the last few question papers is also fairly revealing. It throws up patterns that help our students guess even the actual questions that are likely to figure in this year’s paper. A list of probable questions is also circulated by teachers and coaching centers based on a study of earlier papers. This helps students zero down on which questions to study and memorize and which to ignore. Remember also, that about 80% of questions in the Matriculation examination and Higher Secondary examinations come from the end of the lesson in the textbooks. Don’t be surprised to come across hordes of students who only read up prepared answers for questions and not the lessons at all.



* Did you know that one can get by in the Chemistry paper of the Higher Secondary State Board Examination by studying only Volume 1 of the course book? The coursebook comprises 2 books and 22 lessons, but just Volume 1 will get a student ‘average’ marks. A tuition teacher told me this. He also claimed that he could accurately predict most of the questions that will figure in the current Board examination basing it simply on an analysis of previous years’ papers. I believe him.



* Students from well-known, fairly big Matric schools have told me that their teachers have told them to “just read the notes well” in order to do well in the examination, a confidence that comes from the predictability of the paper.



* If that’s bad, here’s worse news: teachers tell me that there are schools where the Class 11 textbooks are not touched at all, that even in Class 11, students are put through Class 12 lessons so that a two-year drill and practice of the content will ensure decent performance in the Board examinations. Where is the question of understanding if the fundamentals are given the go by?



* Now here’s the cherry on the cake, and the rottenest one possible: cheating in the hall, often with invigilators looking the other way. A student recounted how her partner in the examination hall in the heart of Chennai was a private candidate who kept disturbing her with questions, and she had no option but to help with answers because he would not stop.



Worse, during the maths exam, the private candidate openly sought the invigilator’s help with a graph problem. The invigilator, on her part, took away the partner’s worked out graph sheet and gave it to the private candidate!

When her graph sheet was not handed back to her even when it was time to hand in the answer sheets, the student asked for it. She was told that her partner had attached it to his answer sheet and so could she please hand over her answer sheet without it.

This student did so, but made a complaint with a representative from her school present at the centre, who took it up immediately with the examination centre in charge. The result: the student was given a fresh graph sheet and an extra ten minutes to complete it.

And the private candidate? Take a guess!

The student who talked about it later said that cheating was rampant in the hall. While some students asked each other, some even asked the invigilators who were obliging.

Obviously, there's a lot to be fixed there before we talk of fee structures.

A life to remember and celebrate

Today my mother went visiting her old aunts and uncles. I want to write about one of these couples. The grand uncle is 98 years old. The grand aunt, 90 or thereabouts. Weak, shriveled, their memories fading, disease-ridden, almost immobile and wheelchair bound, the couple is still very special to us.

They belong two generations back. Their life speaks of a time that has gone by, a lifestyle that just lives in the fading memories of a handful of old-timers. In a few years, these memories too will be completely lost. A generation would have passed on, taking with them, a whole culture, a lifestyle, and a value system. A culture we cannot afford to forget. Let me explain.

This grand old couple got married all of 80 years back. He was 12 then, she, eight.

They belonged to a generation that believed in getting their children married even before they matured, physically or mentally. I don’t want to argue the merits and demerits of the child marriage system. Much has been written about it. I have no new thought or fact to contribute. But evil or wrong as it might have been, the child marriage system in the hands of a few wise and benign people, did lay (and strengthen) the foundation of our family values. It moulded that living entity that we proudly call the Indian family.

I remember my grand aunt fondly recollecting those by-gone days. ‘Our marriage was a five-day affair,” she said, and the thought made my head swim. “We were children, playing together and with other children around us. We had to be dragged to the stage for the various functions!”

In keeping with the tradition of her times, she went back to her parents’ house after her wedding, awaiting the onset of puberty and an auspicious time to be ceremonially sent to her marital home. Her father-in-law, a distant relative, would drop in every month.

“I would run to hug him when I saw him at the gate,” she laughed as she recounted. “He would stoop and pick me up in his arms. I would sit only in his lap. I was too young to know how a daughter-in-law should treat her a father-in-law.”

The spontaneous love of a child-bride and the magnanimous and wise response of her in-laws set the tone for a loving relationship where family developed as the fulcrum around which life revolved.

Later in life, it was her father-in-law whom she credits with having put her through school. “He insisted that I appear for my SSLC examination,” she said one day. “Very few women did so those days. I was the mother of a child then.”

“I spent just ten or twelve years of my life with my parents,” reminisced grandaunt on another occasion. “And the rest of it in my marital home. Naturally, I was more attached to my marital home than even to my parental home. I knew the traditions and tastes of my marital home better. I cooked more like my mother-in-law than like my mother.”

The distinction between the two homes and the two cultures had blurred, making it easy for the child bride to adapt and adjust to a new way of life, accept it as hers, and build strong bonds. Did she mind? She does not seem to mind. “I could see no difference,” she said simply. “I was happy.”

Simple yet profound. When you accept something as your own, all differences cease to matter. She seemed to say that giving up and accepting, acceding and conforming were not signs of weakness. Nor did one lose stature, dignity or personality by following this path. It put her on a pedestal and gave her a stature and dignity that came very naturally – a stature that only givers can hope to attain, and not possessors.

So did she lose herself, her personhood, her very special identity – did she give up her rights and sacrifice her desires? Not more, not less than other women today. In spite of her all-consuming commitments and responsibilities, grandaunt did lead a full life, studying, socializing, developing her creative talents in crafts and arts of many kinds, and holding her own in her household and society. She learnt languages, did embroidery and handicrafts of different kinds, painted, cooked, read newspapers, wrote stories, translated literature, sang and composed songs, played with children, planned memorable holidays and picnics, threw herself with great enthusiasm into celebrations of all kinds, and readily taught others all that she knew.

A woman whose wisdom and affection drew all to her, who was much sought after, whose presence at a gathering added life and spark to it. A woman whose multiple skills and whose multidimensional personality shone distinctly and uniquely all the time. A woman who did not stint herself, did not shy away from her commitments, who did not hesitate to lose herself in her family, and yet found time and energy to explore her values, adopt new ways of thinking and stretch herself to see how far she could go. A woman who is living proof that by giving and accepting one does not lose, but only gain. That it is possible to be oneself and be recognized for what one stands, and yet be wholly committed to one’s family. That the two are not mutually exclusive.

At a time when women deliberately limit their commitments, hold back from responsibilities, define the boundaries of their relationships, keep themselves distant and not give of themselves wholly, grand aunt’s life is a reassurance that security and confidence come from within, that strength and support come from within, that you can be yourself and lose yourself at the same time.

Unlearn, ungrow - possible?

'Unlearn' - a much-used word today. It is fashionable today to say that there is much for one to unlearn, before one learns something new. So is learning like a ziplock on a dress that one drags down in a flash, wriggles out of and discards?

Only yesterday, a good friend said that one could only learn, not unlearn. I agree.

One can unlearn only as much as one can ungrow, unborn or undie oneself. Like these other processes, real learning too is an irreversible process, too deeply and integrally embedded in one's self to be detached at will.

Learning is not only growth and development, it is also a kind of experience, that shapes our selfhood and decides who we are and what we think. Newly learnt knowledge anchors itself to existing knowledge and transmutes itself into new understanding.

It is not a thing of the flesh, but a matter of the spirit: elusive, intangible, unquantifiable...

At best, we can learn to set aside a way of thinking or doing that we have been following, and learn and take to a new way.

Learning is too entrenched, too enmeshed, too well-blended a part of the self to be given up at will. Learning determines our persona, our self-hood, our very identity.

Let us not try to unlearn. Let us not try to quantify 'unlearning' or evaluate whether we have successfully 'unlearnt'! Let us not even think of unlearning.

Death knoll for Kasab, not terrorism

Should Kasab be hanged? Seventeen months after the heinous crime against humanity committed by Kasab and his associates,the man has been sentenced to death.

Actually Ajmal Kasab ceased to exist, morally and spiritually,when he took on the task of taking innocent lives.

And he was sentenced to death even earlier. Certainly not today, the sixth of May, 2010. He sentenced himself to death on the day he allowed himself to turn terrorist.

When he landed in Mumbai, he was already a dead man. If he had not died during the shootout, he would have, by training, committed suicide, or been killed by his own masters or his opponents.

Then the seventeen months in prison in India. He must have died a thousand deaths in anticipation of the real one that was inevitable and imminent.

So what will his physical death mean? That terrorism has been severely dealt with? That the Establishment will not tolerate attacks on its people?

Or is this just another meaningless move on the chessboard of international polity? While the diabolical masterminds that spearheaded and planned the attack remain at large, a small-time operator, a mere pawn is to be hanged. Perhaps a sacrifice at the altar of political exigency?

Blood will have been drawn in return for blood. A strong message would have been sent. The government would be seen to have done its duty to its people: a terrorist was caught with a lot of fanfare, and after due noises were made, was predictably sentenced to death.

But will Kasab's death by hanging de-fang terrorism? Will it help hound out the master rats from their hellholes? Will it prevent other impoverished, uneducated desperate and vulnerable young men and women from turning Kasabs? What is anyone doing to address these more important, more serious issues?

Ha, more evidence

Saw an ad for a Tamil movie called Goripalayam today. Pic shows some of the stone age types flexing muscles and all ready for action while a couple of women take a frightened peek at the world from behind the protective backs of their muscular companions. The eternal 'pomblai pullai' image - when will we shrug it off?

Say 'no' to movies

Ten days back, I saw the Tamil movie 'Shivaji' played on video. Two girls - both very dear to me - giggled through scenes of Rajni and his 'mama' Vivek 'girl-hunting.'To see two bright and sensible young teenaged girls watching two ragamuffins catcalling girls, commenting on their looks, classifying them as 'bulldozers' or 'figures' drove me crazy. How can one possibly sit through this nonsense and watch women being insulted and humiliated so grossly?

To watch women being identified and classified merely by their physical attributes, to listen to them being referred to again and again as 'figures', almost stripping them off their personhood was pretty revolting.

While they toy with women, and incessantly spout sexually-loaded innuendoes, our 'heroes' have no qualms about seeking female companions soaked in 'Tamil culture and tradition'. In our Tamil movies, women are expected to be imbued with culture, modesty and traditional virtues and values, even as men retain the privilege and right to be uncultured boorish stone age types. The more uncultured and unshaven, the more macho a man is supposed to be - the more his capacity to charm the cultured 'figure'.

How much longer must we take this tripe?
How much longer will half the population be insulted just to entertain the other half?
How many more decades will pass before our movies portray our women differently, giving them the respect due to a fellow being?
And how can our bright young women actually go to the movies, watch femalehood insulted in every scene and come away unaffected?
How much more time before our young women refuse to watch movies that commodify women? How much longer before our actresses refuse to play commodities?
When can we hope to instate the intellect and cognition as attributes of females, never mind whether their uncultured stone age companions possess these attributes?
Must the words 'mindless' and 'entertainment' always go together in our country? Can't entertainment be mindful of intelligent, sensitive and cultured audiences?

Turbulent Times

Trapped in some dingy police cell and disowned by family and state, terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab must be wondering what he had done to deserve his lot. And perhaps he is, in a sense, a victim of his circumstances. His is the story of a poverty stricken runaway who walked into the trap of fundamentalists, got indoctrinated and hardened with the use of arms, and sent on a vile suicide mission. And the lesson from the story: that terrorism feeds and thrives on a diet of poverty and illiteracy. Let us remember - 70% of India still lives in her villages, where life is dictated by monsoons and caste lords.

If values get easily tossed out of the lives of the economically disadvantaged among us, the story is not very different at the other end of the spectrum. The middle and upper middle classes, dazzled by the glamour of a globalized free-spending economy, have found their value systems subtly changing. The aggressive cultivation of the ‘what’s-in-it-for-me’ and ‘learn-to-say-no’ attitudes has led to self-absorption and self-indulgence, the likes of which has never been seen before. Malls, multiplexes and money have become the focal points of our lives.

The other side of India – poverty-stricken, caste-ridden, unemployed, illiterate – seems to be falling out of the purview of the radar of our uppity middle class urban youth. It took a tsunami to open Urban India’s eyes to the social alienation and economic backwardness of our invisible masses.

And now the recession. Young Urban India, in spite of all its slick comfortable life, has been going through troubled times. The recession is in the process of snatching the money out of the hands of our free-spending youth, and showing up the weak foundation of our economic and social systems. The Satyam fiasco suddenly showed up respectable captains of industry as having feet of clay. To watch iconic industrial houses and entire economic systems crumbling like a pack of cards can be a mind-blowing experience.

Obviously all is not well in India, rural or urban. Do we have the courage, the strength, endurance and resilience to take these momentous and disturbing changes in our stride? Do we have the resourcefulness to think, plan and act for the entire population of the country and not just our small peer groups? Do we have the compassion and sensitivity to take our entire population under our protective wings? Does our education system equip our children and youth to meet the challenges posed by this strange new globalized world, with its disturbing attractions and even more disturbing swings in fortunes? Does it help us contend with the economic divide and give us the vision to think of ways to bridge it?

The yardstick of time

Some days ago when I worked my way into a sari, I felt – rather unusually - comfortable. Gone was that familiar puffed out, wriggly, stuck-to-something feeling which I have for many years associated with the sari. A frightening doubt gnawed its way like canker into my mind…

Time was when draping a sari seemed a terrible ritual. It needed time and space besides a load of safety pins. The air conditioner, too, to help me keep cool, while the six yards of cloth went round and round me and got tucked and stuck into all the right places (and held there with pins- a substitute for self-confidence and the social graces.)

Pins! How many I would need to hold my sari in place! The pleats needed them, the pallu, the waist even. And often at functions, a vicious pin would decide to open up and prick me just when I would not be in a position to do anything about it. Painful memories!

Saris for occasions, I would fume. Only under unavoidable circumstances. Like other people’s weddings. And your own ,of course. You couldn’t get married in a churidar, or jeans, not on your life, not even today, ten years into the twenty-first century.
And that instrument of torture, that symbol of the trappings of feminity that no Indian woman has ever escaped, that weapon of soul destruction that programmes one to be constantly conscious of oneself, that diabolical invention that keeps women entangled and preoccupied in their own clothing – why do I now feel so comfortable in it?

And why, to continue the introspection, do I find it so easy to wear one these days? The time between two rings of the telephone is all I need now, to drape a sari around myself. As for pins, why it must be some years since I even saw one.
“Just experience,” my husband says, in a voice that sounds most insincerely comforting. I look at his face probingly, but he is inscrutable. All those years of domesticity have bounced off on him, I observe to myself, and realize with shock that it is now nearly two decades since we came together in holy matrimony. That’s a lot of time, I think slowly. (How did we ever manage?)The canker grows insidiously.

As I bustle out of the room, ready for the outing, my daughter gives me the onceover, as only a brattish, overconfident, self-opinionated teenager can. “You look like a..a…a..a…” I wait hopefully as she searches for the right word – and there it comes: “a school teacher… with your glasses, you hair done up in a bun, and this crisp cotton sari.” The canker spreads fast. What could she mean? Did she mean I was - well, you know, not so young any more?

Of course, I don’t let my hair down – literally I mean – any more. It irks me when wisps break free and tickle my neck and ears. I gather it all up into one big bun and try to forget about it.

Besides, in a bun, those streaks of gray and silver don’t show. Anyway, there were just a couple of them. They didn’t mean a thing. Even teenagers have them. Bad water, pollution, and all that. But you wouldn’t want them to show, right?

The glasses – the doctor did suggest contact lens, but the thought of a foreign body inside my eye makes me uncomfortable. He also suggested refractive surgery, but all this new-fangled technology cuts no ice with me. I can’t believe that short sight can be cured – no matter what the experts say, no mater what the internet says. The doc said I didn’t need bifocals – of course not, what could he mean? Young people don’t need bifocals.

“You don’t wear those synthetic clingy saris any more, don’t you?” my daughter’s voice breaks through my reverie, as she goes to the mirror and starts adjusting her hair. “What are you going to do with them? You have about a dozen of them, don’t you?” I consider.

Yes, she was right. Why did not wear my synthetic saris anymore? My chiffons and georgettes. I shook my head. They kept sliding off one’s waist and shoulders. “Sliding off?” my daughter gave a bellow of most-unladylike laughter. “maybe they did then. Surely not now?”

The canker reared its ugly head gleefully. Now? Yes, it was different now, let me face it square on, I sighed. The waist and shoulders were amply rounded: no sari, no matter what its mettle, could slide off any more. I felt uncomfortable.
Even three layers of the stuff couldn’t effectively conceal the folds of flab. I really must start doing yoga. I had learnt yoga while at school. What was that asana which won me a prize …how could I forget? Was I getting old? Old? Me? Surely not? Laughable thought! Or was it?

The Family Dimension

Instant food, instant status updates, instant communication, instant information, instant whatnot…in the age of the instant everything, one thing has remained constant – there can be no instant family. Raising a family has required and will continue to require enormous patience, endurance, time, effort, care and concern.

There are no short cuts to building a family. It involves not just a personal relationship and a birth or two. It involves creating a web of relationships and more importantly maintaining it. It involves supporting the family economically to make it independent and strong.

It involves anchoring it to a value system for sustainability. It requires imbuing the family with the qualities of honesty, compassion, sensitivity, respect, love and the thousand and one other values without which the human race would not have survived so long.

It calls for establishing a cultural climate at home to give members the comfort of an individual and a collective identity. It means constantly educating and orienting members of the family to ensure that they grow intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. It requires ensuring justice and fairness in all transactions between members of the family, and between family and the community outside. It is empowering every member of the family to support, nurture and care for the family, to feel responsible for the family and accountable to it.

Above all, it involves empowering yourself with new skills and strengths that can help you meet all the requirements and challenges that come with being a family person. For who among us know the full import and significance and implication when we set out to start a family?

The Family Dimension

Instant food, instant status updates, instant communication, instant information, instant whatnot…in the age of the instant everything, one thing has remained constant – there can be no instant family. Raising a family has required and will continue to require enormous patience, endurance, time, effort, care and concern.

There are no short cuts to building a family. It involves not just a personal relationship and a birth or two. It involves creating a web of relationships and more importantly maintaining it. It involves supporting the family economically to make it independent and strong.

It involves anchoring it to a value system for sustainability. It requires imbuing the family with the qualities of honesty, compassion, sensitivity, respect, love and the thousand and one other values without which the human race would not have survived so long.

It calls for establishing a cultural climate at home to give members the comfort of an individual and a collective identity. It means constantly educating and orienting members of the family to ensure that they grow intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. It is ensuring justice and fairness in all transaction between members of the family, and between family and the community outside. It is empowering every member of the family to support, nurture and care for the family, to feel responsible for the family and accountable to it.

Above all, it involves empowering yourself with new skills and strengths that can help you meet all the requirements and challenges that come with being a family person. For who among us know the full import and significance and implication when we set out to start a family?

Reflections

Flipping through an old diary I found these entries from Year 2004. Those were days when I regularly attended Bhagwad Gita Classes with my husband. My father's illness and my mother's struggles perhaps led us to a more contemplative, reflective frame of mind. Swami Paramarthananda's weekly Gita lectures led to some jottings in my diary. Here is one extract:

26.09.04
Bhagwad Gita - Preamble
Three principles to follow:
1. I am responsible for my life and actions.
2. I derive confidence for carrying out my responsibilities from the God within - the perennial spring of faith and strength. I have faith.
3. I must live a life of values always. Values are psychological hygiene and as important as physical hygiene.

Three changing lifestyles to follow in one's lifetime:
1. Life of Action, or Productive Life: Here you contribute to family, society, world. Here one's face is turned outward into the world.
2. Life of Re-orientation: Here one turns one's face from the world without to the world within. This time of one's life involves a re-adjustment of one's vision and attitude.
3. Life of inquiry, or Life of Wisdom: Here one inquires into the world within. One tries to understand the many worlds within one. One begins by asking questions and seeking answers to them - who am I, why am I here.

Three lessons to be learnt:
1. Truth about Life, Jeeva, Oneself. The truth about the microcosm, or the God within.
2. Truth about Creation, World, God. The truth about the macrocosm.
3. Aikyam, or the Truth about Oneness. The truth that Life within and Life beyond are one. God is One.

Epiphany

Epiphany. A unique moment. Climactic moments, flashes of special significance. Moments difficult to describe. Sudden and unexpected, opening up a wide world in a trillionth of a second. No one knows when or why, if ever.
Does everyone experience epiphanic moments? I don't know. I certainly do. Regularly so. And yet, every time, I have found them equally unexpected, equally revealing. Not earth shattering. Never so far. Not a mind blowing nirvana experience. Nor a peek into the world of spirits. Just an opening of the mind. A moment that makes a simmering undercurrent visible and self-evident, draws a connection or association, establishes a link and points to a solution. A moment that is a sort of a clincher. A tremendous energizer that not only shows me the truth and the way forward, but also gives me the strength and confidence to believe in myself and follow it.
Again, I must confess these epiphanic moments have never been earth shattering. They have happened during mundane conversations, desultory discussions with the most unlikely people, when a sentence, a phrase, even a word, or a subtle pause suddenly threw open a world of meaning. When the whole situation or the personality and character of the person suddenly assumed new significance. Moments of intuitive understanding that are compelling and believable. Moments that show linkages with other experiences or moments or people from another age and place, linkages that are seemingly impossible.
And when such moments 'flash upon the inward eye' they not only bring bliss, but also energize the self and illuminate the way.
And yet, in spite of many such experiences, every time they occur, they have caught me by surprise and left me marvelling. And looking forward to the next surprise round the next corner. Only I know, when it happens next time, I will still be surprised, and again overwhelmed.
And I live in the hope that some day sometime, there will be an epiphany that will throw new light, light of greater significance than any so far, an experience to surpass all experiences, which words cannot describe....

Differentiation versus standardization

Differentiated learning is about differentiating and individualizing learning for every student in order to enable him to grow at his own pace. But learn what? Learn the same things. The things considered suitable and necessary for everyone. How differentiated is differentiated learning that is based on a standard curriculum?
Originally, differentiated learning meant allowing a student to learn what suited him, to pursue studies according to his aptitude, propensities, temperament and skills. So some could study to be scholars, others to be craftsmen, traders and professionals of different kinds. Sounds good, democratic, fair and square? Wait a minute. Many millennia back, it was this differentiation that led to the old much dreaded caste system, an obnoxious system that began by differentiating and ended up discriminating, a system which we haven’t been able to completely shrug off many millennia and much heartburn and hurt later. It all began with harmless and well-intended differentiated learning.
So what’s the alternative? Standardization. A western concept. Everyone moves together, learns what is universally thought and recommended to be good for everyone, whatever their background, skills and temperament and interests. Equity in education to promote equity in society and equality of opportunities. Again democratic, well-intentioned. But what has it led to?
The leveling of the different intelligences and skills latent in every individual has led to repression or atrophy from which the victims never recover. The stuffing of knowledge and information deemed suitable and necessary, the emphasis on verbal and logical intelligence almost to the exclusion of many others, the insistence that everyone know the same, think alike, follow the same principles, and recognize and conform to the same standards of behaviour – though these originated from a seeming democratic philosophy are almost Machiavellian in their frightening implications for the freedom of the individual. Ironical.
Where do we go from here? What is right for our students? How can we ensure equity in education while still encouraging our students to follow their talents and skills, and find fruitful livelihood and joyful self fulfillment blend and fuse seamlessly?

Three Idiots - A Parent's Eye View

Dear child,

I’m glad you liked Three Idiots. Sure, I did too. Sure, Aamir and Madhavan looked oh-so-cuuu…te…., notwithstanding their baggy under-eyes. Sure, parents are myopic, self-seeking, insensitive ogres, who thrust their aspirations, fears, and problems on their children. Sure, it is idiotic to expect every child to become an engineer. As if becoming one could resolve all issues in life. Of course, it won’t.

But do you really expect parents tell their children, hey it’s ok for you to go ahead and get that banjo, streak your hair pink or whatever, and become the rock star that you think you were born to be? Sorry. Think again.

Not because parents are bigger idiots than Aamir Khan supposed, but because they know that the kind of solutions offered by the movie were pretty idiotic. Child, take it from me, no Brazilian wildlife photographer, nor French fashion designer, or even a Japanese sumo wrestler or Chinese gourmet chef is going to send up tickets for every starry-eyed teenager in middle class India who thinks he has it in him.

No, child, I’m not trying to discourage you. Just telling you like it is. Those things happen only in movies. In reel life, as our smart-alec media would say.

Every child who goes cricket coaching and dreams of a century on debut does not get there. Every player who plays league cricket or Ranji Trophy cannot hope to make a living out of cricket. He needs to get into the national eleven to be able to do so. In real life, baby, just 11 people out of the 1.2 billion Indians can make a living out of cricket at any given time.

When it is time for hard decisions, you need to put away the gloves and pads, pack up the bats and chest guards, and turn to books to see you through examinations and a job. That’s the truth, call it bitter if you wish, but swallow it you must.

Sweetheart, please understand that only in some avocations can a lot of people make enough money to keep their homefires burning and their tummies cheerfully full. In the arts and in the sports, success depends not on an acquired skill or qualification but on an individual’s exceptional talent and the right opportunity. Naturally, the chances of success are fewer. More people can successfully bring home the bacon with a professional qualification, be it a scientist, or an engineer, or a doctor or banker, than by taking to the arts, crafts or sports.

Child, no, I’m not trying to discourage or demotivate you. Nor indeed am I decrying the arts and sports. Just stating cold facts. You can go back to your passion - art and music, dance and sports - once you have secured a ‘career’. And then you can cultivate them with enthusiasm, throw yourself wholeheartedly into them, and derive the pleasure and satisfaction you deserve. But do not mix up the two.

Remember always darling, no parent is dying to see his child become an engineer. But every parent will die to see his child happy and comfortable. If you can convert your passion into a vocation and be as comfortable as you want to be, that would be perfect. But as this seems just too good to be true, too idealistic and romantic, we believe that as a standby you must arm yourself with a skill and a qualification that will help you make both ends meet. Because, sweetheart, mark my words, neither Aamir Khan or Chetan Bhagat will divert a few of those crores they have made through ‘Three Idiots’ to create a fund to support unemployed wildlife photographers, artists and cricketers. They are not such idiots.

With lots of love
Your anxious amma

Gloriously sunwatching

Jan.15 was boring. I wasn’t in the mood for work. Just 3 of our 8-member team were working that day. The others had sailed off on Pongal holidays. I buried my nose in my system grimly. I must get into work mood. Then Elumalai showed me something that changed my day. Elumalai is one of the three of us who were working that day, the third being Mohana. He flashed a pair of funny-looking glasses under my nose. "To watch the eclipse," he said. "From the Science Forum people."

The eclipse. The total solar eclipse. The longest in this millennium! And here was a chance to actually watch it? Wow.

Our sales head RK came in worrying about train tickets and got excited by the glasses. He dashed off downstairs with Elumalai trailing anxiously behind. Ten minutes later they were back. “Fantastic sight. It has started,” RK announced. It was about 11.30. More excitement! Mohana and I ran down with the glasses.

Incredible! The sight of the sun, with a small portion nibbled off. As if it were just there, at arm’s reach. We see this on television every eclipse, but to see it with the naked eye is something else. To see the sun is awesome enough, to watch it hide behind a shadowy moon is incredible. To feel the palpable presence of the sun and the moon at the same time in our skies in daylight – how strange.

Elumalai saw our excitement. “I’ll try to get more glasses,” he said. Wow again.
“I’d like to send one home for my daughter,” I begged. My daughter was at home, and my husband who was at a meeting was close enough to my office to pick up the glasses and carry them home. I worked out the logistics and called him. He was loath to leave work, but he didn’t stand a chance. “Ok,” he resigned himself. “I will be there in about 20 minutes.”

Meanwhile Elumalai dashed off to get more glasses. “Let’s invite everyone in the office to watch this,” suggested Mohana. Yes, yes. She was right. This was for everybody. I scampered off to find the Software Team Lead whose team sits right ahead. And then a couple of calls to other Team Leads in the other floors. “Please spread the word,” I begged everyone. “Around 12.30 downstairs, in the courtyard in front of the building.”

Elumalai got back with five more pairs of glasses and some leaflets on the eclipse. My husband arrived. “You know the deal I’ve been talking off, “ he began with a broad smile, winding down the window pane on the driver’s side. “It’s finally…”

“Yes, sure,” I interrupted. “Now here are the glasses and this is how they must be used. And if you don’t get home in the next half an hour, Tara will miss the most glorious bit.” A baleful glare, and the car zipped up and zoomed off, bearing the precious glasses and an angry husband.

“Deals happen every day, total eclipses don’t,” I rationalized to myself, turning away.

It was close to 12.30 and restless colleagues from around the hall were glancing in our direction. Mohana, Elumalai and I trotted downstairs followed by various people from various departments. It was exciting to see so many people curious – who did not mind leaving behind deadlines for a dekko at the sun. What drew them to the courtyard, I wondered.

Their reactions and expressions were delightful to watch. A quizzical look up into the sky changing slowly into a look of incredible wonder, their jaws falling open and their lips forming a broad beautiful smile as they met mine. As if recognizing a sister, a co-participant with whom something precious has been shared.

Some of them were puzzled. “Is that the sun or the moon?” some wanted to know, upon seeing the fast growing crescent. “And if that is the sun, then where is the moon?”


We explained as best we could, and hovered around the little groups that borrowed the glasses, making sure to keep the glasses in view, recovering them from groups that had finished with them. About 500 people must have seen the eclipse at various times that day: many came back once or twice later to see it progress.

Besides our colleagues from other departments, there were employees of other companies in the complex, the security guards, some shop boys and delivery boys from nearby restaurants, some visitors and pedestrians who walked in out of curiosity seeing the crowd.

There were even three transgenders, who strolled in for a dekko and tried to make away with the glasses, only I caught them near the gate. It was delicate but I had to retrieve the glasses without creating a scene. I invited them to join us. That stopped them, “Look through the glasses,” I told the one who had it, and then insisted that the others follow. “Is that the sun?” one of them asked. “Will it disappear completely?” asked another. I explained that in about half an hour, the sun was expected to be completely hidden, but this would not be visible in Chennai. But it would definitely get darker than it was.

“Can we please take the glasses,” begged one of the trio.
“No, no,” I was agitated. Lots of people would assemble there soon and I had very few glasses, I explained. “You may come back again for another look.” The threesome gave up the glasses regretfully, but thanked us warmly before leaving.

It was a good two hours before we returned to our work stations, tired but happy. There was a feeling of having been privy to something momentous, of witnessing a cosmic phenomenon of significance, indeed of participating in the phenomenon, for were we not part of the earth ourselves? A sense of connectedness, of belonging to this cosmos – to the earth and the sun and the moon. No words can describe it.