The Teacher who was once a Student.........

The year was 1981. I was in the second year of Hr. Sec. in Delhi. Nothing much has changed when I look back to the feelings I experienced and compare them to those of the Hr. Sec students of the present. Anxiety, irritation and above all, a constant need to doze off! We were so desperate that we would invent jokes out of mundane happenings and would laugh at the slightest drop of the hat as if we’d witnessed the joke of the era!! We were on a constant quest for entertainment.

Given these conditions, it was not surprising that one day, when we had a ‘rare-free-period’, our excitement hit the ceiling. To top it, the next period was PT. …and the PT master was supposedly absent since nobody had sighted him in his den, the PT room. Like a kid holding a double sundae and eagerly wanting to do full justice to the treasure in hand, we started planning meticulously….science students that we were :P Being the ‘Pundit’ of the class, (that was the price I had to pay for being a sincere student), I suggested moving to the library to polish off the remaining adventure novels that were gathering dust in the shelves. But to my utter horror, the girls sitting next to me were longingly listening to the boys of the class. Eavesdropping was not my style…but how could I miss out on something that was seemingly tantalizing?

Without wasting precious time, we marched off in the direction of the playground with a determination akin to the crusaders of the middle ages! No…it was not for a match of basket-ball or hand-cricket…our usual PT routines….rather we had nothing to do with the play ground at all! The idea was to cross the ground and climb the steep ridge on its extreme end. …for on top of it was the mysterious, sinister Ridge Road …a road on which Sanjay and Geetha Chopra….the kidnapped siblings were found murdered in the recent past!!

I guess it was the adrenalin rush that made my classmates climb so nimble-footedly and quickly, while I lagged behind wondering whether to collect specimens of Adathoda vasica for my herbarium on the way back or immediately, for I could not suppress my passion for biology! But eventually, the bright flame colored blossoms of Beautea monosperma gained precedence over the muted flowers of Adathoda vasica…and they happened to be sprouting on trees on top of the ridge. So, gathering my might and looking more behind than in front (for the fear of being caught by a wary staff), I too joined the bandwagon.

While my fellow classmates were climbing like mountain goats, I was struggling to keep pace. The boy who was leading had made it to the top and the shout he let out to mark his victory was more like a blood curdling war-cry to my anxious ears!! And even before my shivers could subside, there came from behind us a shrill, earth-shattering whistle that almost converted my shivers to a seizure! Spine-chilling silence followed. All eyes reverted to the play ground. Standing at its entrance was the supposedly absent PT sir, somehow appearing life threateningly menacing even though the actual size we could perceive at this distance, was that of a peanut!

With neither Adathoda vasica nor Beautea monosperma in my hands, I looked back at my friends. To my utter horror, the tables had turned on me…I was to lead them back to the ground as I was the last to climb!! With knees knocking and palms sweating but my facial expression not depicting any of these, I lumbered towards …Apocalypse???!!!

Silence can be more threatening than din…I realized this when without a word, our PT instructor led us to the office of our Vice Principal, VD – the inventive nick name by which we(biology students , remember?) addressed Mr. Vikram Deva, our VP. I’m sure all belonging to the student community will agree to the universal fact that VP s are the terrors of the school. Anticipating a big tirade in Hindi (for VD being a Hindi PGT, spoke only in Hindi), we stood in a huddled group. I had this hysterical urge to giggle…such were the facial expressions of my beloved classmates…the already sobbing girls and sheepish looking boys! He threw a “Maine aap sabko suspend kiya hai, ab aaplog jaa sakthe hain!” at us. For the benefit of non-Hindi readers: this translates to :”I’ve suspended all of you. Now you people may go!”

Not having the guts or the gumption to ask for how long the suspension would last, we climbed up to our classroom in the second floor…..how different this climb was from the one we had ventured into a few minutes back!!...OMG I was getting philosophical too…a ‘Pundit’ to the core! Only philosophy could prepare us for what ensued…the classroom door was locked …and we were left outside for half-a –day..more importantly, without lunch for our lunch bags were inside the room. It was not common for us then to carry much pocket money on our selves. While the boys borrowed money for lunch from their friends in other sections, we girls decided to starve it out….self-punishment seemed to sort of soothe our pricking conscience.

Evening came, the final bell rang…the final bell stopped ringing and the evening almost went too…we were still stuck outside our classroom. Going home without our school bags was a possibility that we did not even want to imagine. Even the guys who were gloating that this incident had not affected them one bit, started looking edgy. A good one hour later, the watchman came with the keys in his hand and a condescending look on his face. He gave us all a royal sneer and opened the doors with a, “Chalo le jao, jaane kahan se aate hain, padai to karte nahin…harkat ki hadh ho gai!” (“go, take your bags, heaven knows where they come from, never study…there’s a limit to mischief!”

Rushing to the bus stop, I panicked even more because the street lights had already come on (it was winter time) and I and to take two buses to cover a distance of 16 Km to my house. That I devised another master plan to fool my mother by concocting a story for the late coming, and that it failed miserably and that I spilt the entire truth and nothing but the truth to her is something I would love to forget…but have never managed to!!

WARNING: Readers are requested not to try the above stunt even under experimental environment.

Random Rantings

It happened just like that last Friday. No heartrending BGM, no deafening thunderclaps, no flashes of lightning…not even a whimper!!! I just walked out of the school campus on the last day of my teaching service (atleast for now that’s what I think it is!). WTH!!! Man, leave alone the multimedia fx of nature’s elements…am ‘I’ feeling any different? That’s the trouble! The irony was that even I didn’t feel any different! I walked up to my car and went through the routine movements of plunking on the seat and looking out of the window..what was I hoping to see? Gray clouds and the gloomy patter of raindrops against my window? Mmmhmmm..why does reality s***? >:( Why can’t things get a bit more dramatic and give me the consolation of having covered another significant milestone in my life?

Its now five days since that fateful evening and still I don’t feel anything significantly amiss. Maybe I’d mentally prepared myself for it through the year. Teaching was so much a part of me for the past seventeen years that to be without it seemed very daunting. I won’t say that teaching in school has always been pleasurable. It does come with a fair share of irritation and fatigue..but the tradeoff has always been profitable. Sticking to the lesson plan and meeting the deadline being the major dampeners. There have been many occasions when I had wanted to freak out and do something out-of-subject as much as my students wanted to..though they must’ve been much more desperate than I ever was!! ;) :D and this desperation is what makes people like me innovate loopholes to escape boredom. For instance in the pretext of teaching Inheritance in C+ +, I could lapse into types of vehicles and spin yarns about types of cars and have the cheap thrill of mouthing fancy brands like Lamborghini, Mustang, Beetle etc etc.

Another big pain in the ****(wondering what? Naaah..its something as harmless and decent as NECK!!) is the assessment. Any teacher who is even of mediocre intelligence can easily gauge the understanding level of students..but no… our education system will not have it. The student has to be put through the hell of filling up some twenty odd pages of his so-called knowledge on the subject which happens to be the exact copy of whats in the text book and the teacher has to read through 50 odd such scripts before the much awaited( I wonder who wants them) results are out!!

All these irritants are more than compensated by innumerable blessings - the biggest one being the students themselves. Being amidst a bunch of youngsters is like experiencing youthfulness in virtual reality!! 0:) Their permanent state of euphoria gets on to you…sometimes it borders on sheer lunacy..but the experience is extremely enjoyable. Especially so with the plus 2 students who always seem to be keen on making the most of even simplest excuse to have fun. They are bent on enjoying each day as if it was their last!! A teacher’s smallest move incites laughter..so much so that she starts wondering if she is turning into a Mr. Bean clone!! So what if I’m Ms. Bean? I’m okay as far as I’m laughing too.

It is said that education is what you retain after middle age and I’m sure a good majority of the students remember not even 0.1% of what they read from the text books. The learning process is what they imbibe by observing their teachers or what comes out of the most informal moments like jokes cracked in the class or the games played or the competitions and cultural programs they attended. Surprisingly the same holds good for a teacher! I enjoyed teaching the most under the same conditions. It is the many pleasure trips that I accompanied them on or the quizzes I conducted for them or the small games that we played in the classroom that endeared them to me. Of course there’s a great deal of satisfaction when a student scores a centum or the class performs well but more gratifying is knowing that one’s students have grown up into men and women of substance!

Why have I turned all preachy, emotional and serious all of a sudden? Am I really getting that old? I realize that it is because I take teaching seriously. It is something I shall cherish forever. It is something I think of highly. Can I ever take the teacher out of me? I wonder if I’ll exist after that! A BIG THANKS to all my students for making me feel this way!!!

P.S: If the whole thing sounds like the ranting of a madwoman, that credit too goes to you students!! ;)

Statutory Warning: Reading my blogs can be fatally boring!! I write solely for my pleasure and only mine!!! And BEWARE facebook friends…I’m UNLEASHED…here I come FULL THROTTLE…and U r my TARGET!!! ;) :P :D

DIE HARD
That pedagogy is such a demanding and treacherous pursuit, sadly dawned on me only after a few pathetic disasters. The beginning of every term brings with it the energy and cheer that often inspires me to inject enthusiasm into my wards, thanks to the leisure life that comes with holidays. The model teacher that I am..!!???, I make a cheerful entry into the first session of the term with a grand display of all thirty two members of my not-so-impressive dentures.(Oooops! Here I have to confess that God Almighty has forgotten to bestow the two most important members of the clan, especially important for a teacher�the wisdom teeth!) Not to be disheartened by such trivial deprivations, I beam around all the same like a 1000 watt bulb.
And what do I receive in return? Looks. Looks that speak volumes�some that pierce through me with the intensity of a CAT scan, some that blink in apprehension, some that could kill..what I call dagger glances, some totally bored looks that couldn't be bothered by something as mundane as a teacher! My LASER speed brain searches with blinding speed in the dark labyrinths of my mind to spot the reason for such amicable response.
That is when a kind soul among the students, develops an unknown sympathy for my predicament and hints falteringly�"Ma'am ..our papers..". Oh! How forgetful can I get. Of course they are waiting to see their scores for the last term exams! As I tried to articulate and communicate effectively the message that I still had not totaled the marks in their papers, I prepared myself for the next onslaught of looks. But nothing could have prepared me for the virtual impaling on the stakes that I experienced. "How could you?" and "How Dumb!" resounded all around me ..if looks could speak, theirs were shouting! So much for my enthusiasm and zest!
Being the die hard that I am, I proceeded to convince them that the new lesson was good enough to be nominated as the "Intrigue of the Year" and that I would lead them into a zone of hi-tech prowess through the art of computer programming. A few gullibles sat up and took notice while the remaining population screamed indifference.
Since the language I proposed introducing them to was C, the mother of all languages, I tried opening the topic with a popular quip that goes (in Tamil) "edhai marandharkum job undu
Job illai C yai marandharku." (a lighter adaptation of the Thirukkural - the famous couplets rendered by the wise poet Thiruvalluvar, meaning- a person who forgets anything may land a job but the one who forgets C never will!), least knowing that in the previous period, their Tamil teacher had distributed their evaluated answer sheets and that many had fared poorly in the subject! I couldn't have timed it better! Facial contortions of a thousand kinds made me the epitome of embarrassment!
Frantically gathering the smithereens of my damaged dignity, I somehow delivered the contents of the lesson to an audience who showed as much enthusiasm in programming with C as a hungry lion would show on a withered cabbage!
It is then that it dawned on me � to be an ideal teacher it is not enough if one is cheerful and prepares well for the class, but something more important than these was acquiring the skill of feeling the pulse of the students and meeting there emotional needs. The possibility that this endeavour might prove to be another comedy of errors does not discourage me from trying once more�the DIE HARD that I am!
-Indira Kanagasabai

Wishing my class girls on children’s day :

My Dear Girls,

You may be sixteen or even seventeen,
Which by default, does not mean
That the child in you is a ‘has been’
Or slipping through your fingers, your ‘precious teens’.

You can be forty and still happily retain,
A child’s wonderment from which most refrain
Nobody can stop you from enjoying the rain
Or the little pleasures of traveling by train.

You can still gaze at the night sky, stars,
Or at the lone eagle through your window bars.
You can still admire the swirling myriad of colours
In the walkway puddle for even hours.

The thrill of opening a gift you can still claim
Or indulge in impulsive acts without an aim
Like skipping steps while coming down the stairs
Or licking a candy floss in the local fair.

In a child, there are other traits more precious
That you should strive to retain in this world, vicious
Like trust, innocence, love and forgiveness
For which your efforts may have to be relentless.

Hope each of you will cherish and nurture
These amazing traits now and in the future
Reveling in the joy that is life, sharing it too
And spreading sunshine and cheer all around you!

To nithila on her b’day

Dear Chintoo,

Why are words failing me,

Me- who can convey to the T?

This bitter-sweet feeling of knowing yet not

The transformed you, as I give it a thought.

Driven by a Narcissistic fervour

Did I want to cast you in my mould?

The free spirit that you were,

You dared to escape my hold.

Your flight then on, has been a sight

To behold and cherish forever,

Not hurting the hands you left,

But a vision the eyes would treasure.

Your presence so felt yet elusive,

Like the scent of petals held,

Seems to mock at my assumption naïve,

That your stand I could foretell.

You turned out to be a thinking person

Who would draw from life experiences,

Stereotypes and time-tested patterns,

Were not for you of consequence.

I look at you and raise in salute my hand,

Admiring your gentle and sensitive approach,

Even as you firmly keep your stand,

Leaving no room for reproach.

Is my motherly instinct working overtime,

Or is it the stubborn Taurean bull in me,

That in spite of such assurances fine,

Grudges to relinquish my responsibility?

Now that I look back on days bygone,

I realize that there has been forever,

A silent struggle to break free and hold on,

Between us daughter and mother.

Come what may, I would not trade

All that happened for any other,

For I have relished thoroughly,

And genuinely enjoyed being your mother.

May God Almighty always keep us together,

Helping us to learn more and more,

Tugging and pulling at each other

Whereby we help each other grow!

THANKING MY CLASS GIRLS ON THE DAY AFTER TEACHERS’ DAY(06.09.08)

My dear dear girls,

How can I ever express my thanks

For the heartwarming words

with which you greeted me…

How can I ever express my thanks

For the genuine affection

That you showered upon me….

All I can say is:

At a time when I was asking God,

With a sad longing in my heart,

Why, oh why did you have to take my daughter so far away?

He just smiled and sent me in exchange, not one but fifty eight!

May God bless each one of you with…

…the wisdom to learn from the book of life,

…the courage to uphold justice high,

…the energy to build a society new

and the love to light up the world around you.

Indira Kanagasabai.

Call it verbal diarrhoea or sensible reflections........here's what i feel and thats what i've tried to convey???!!!! [:)]

? THE SAVIOUR

At times when friendships fray

And blood ties betray

At times when frustrations abound

And fears of failure hound

At times when life gapes like a void

And of joys it seems devoid

At times when you are desperate to break off

And at troubles would love to scoff……..

Are the times when something from within

Keeps you from buckling and giving in

Are the times when a soft reassuring voice

Overpowers the din of pessimistic noise

Are the times when an ethereal glow

Promises to sweep off sorrow in its flow

Are the times when an unknown presence

Renders hope and makes a difference…..

What is it that holds you from within?

Whose voice is it that's so reassuring?

What light is that which makes you see?

Whose presence is that which sets you free?….

Is it God, hope, just instinct or inner strength?

Only age and wisdom will reveal at length!

-Indira Kanagasabai

Glimpses

Rolling wastelands dotted by scrawny trees,

Lush green fields dancing in the breeze,

A meandering river bed snaking its way,

Dryly through to the orange skies in May,

A tiny hamlet nestled in the horizon,

Homing birds silhouetted by the setting sun

A herd of goats that a young lad ushers

While a few stray ones still lust for grass,

A lone farmer returning to his hearth,

As the silver orb of the moon, has its birth,

Village urchins wave in delight,

As my train trundles into the night.

Indira Kanagasabai

One Languid Summer Afternoon

I sit in the white cushions of the bay windows,

As a summer afternoon slowly grows.

The distant call of a vendor of utensils,

Pink heads of verbena nodding on windowsills.

A lone eagle circling overhead,

The rustle of leaves that are long since dead.

A crow calling from a nearby perch,

The scurrying squirrel on its eternal search.

Festoons of clothes on lines dancing,

Aroma of drying spices gently wafting.

The rhythmic dripping of water from a tap,

Vying with a half-read book lying on my lap.

Strains of a ghazal, a lullaby sing,

As my lids droop in lazy musings.

Indira Kanagasabai.

Ms. Green Fingers

I grow green with envy,

When some fellows effortlessly,

Raise a garden beautiful,

With flowers bountiful.

I read from books,

And tend plants with care,

I water them by the clock,

But they smirk as if to mock.

I call them by name,

And also sing their fame,

I weed them and feed them,

But still can't woo them.

What really pampers them

And makes them grow,

Is still a secret,

I'd die to know.

Indira Kanagasabai.

IN THE STAFF ROOM….

Teachers, your attention please.. as you all know, we are planning to wish the girls on the 14^th. And as teachers, don't you think we should use our experience to advise them regarding a few life truths? I think the best way to do this would be to convey it in geographical terms - for there is no better subject than geography…

Geography Teacher:

Dear girls our love for you is deeper than the Mariana trench in the Pacific, our concern for you vaster than the Atlantic, for you are the best in this planet . Life like the earth, has many surprises, mountains of ordeal, meadows of happiness, peaks of joy and sometimes leads to depressions. Though an accurate forecast is impossible, hard work and sincerity will pay. May you experience showers of joy and reach great heights in your professional life. HAPPY CHILDREN'S DAY.

History Teacher:

I object. What better way than with the time tested subject called History…………I'd prefer it this way……………...My dear girls, you have invaded our hearts with your love and enthusiasm. Here is a piece of advice. Never become a slave of bad habits. You are the ruler of your life. All powers to control it are vested in you. Fight your personal battle with the weapons of patience and love and conquer the confidence and respect of your fellow citizens. May peace reign in your life. HAPPY CHILDREN'S DAY.

Commerce Teacher:

I don't think so..gone are the days when girls used to resort to time tested ways.., this whole business of life can get quite tricky. So, I would advice them like this: Dear girls, handle your transactions carefully. First, take an inventory of your capabilities, invest them on short term goals. Let these goals be so fashioned that cumulatively they lead you towards your long term goals. Don't let worries tax you. May God supply you all that you demand from Him lovingly. HAPPY CHILDREN'S DAY.

Ah , here comes the hi-tech lady… I'm sure she has something to say regarding this…………..

Computer Science Teacher:

I sure do…. Hey gals, it's true that for good output, one needs to give quality input. But gone are the days when people used to patiently wait for you to prove your capacity. We are in the fast track age and the processing speed is equally important. High mental configuration and higher processing speeds are much valued now. Tackle all problems logically in a stepwise manner. Draw an action plan and program your actions based on them….the human hardware becomes complete only with the software called intelligence, love and understanding. So, go ahead and show the world that you can….. HAPPY CHILDREN'S DAY.

Physics Teacher:

Hey, I don't think you realise the gravity of the situation. They need something like this… Dear girls, we know you are under great pressure. We also know that when this pressure keeps on rising, it reaches a threshold value beyond which you encounter the breaking point. Do not let negative thoughts deplete your tensile strength. May God give the energy to perform and light your path to success. . HAPPY CHILDREN'S DAY.

Chemistry Teacher:

Now… now let us give them the ultimate solution. My dear girls, life is one long experiment where through observation we draw inferences. Analysis of a situation at hand is very important. We meet different types of people and react to them differently. The bonds formed between us are sometimes strong, sometimes weak. Strong bonds precipitate into friendship. Faith and patience are the ultimate catalysts that hasten such fruitful reactions. So, let's be friends. . HAPPY CHILDREN'S DAY.

Biology Teacher:

All your advises seem to lack life. Let's make it like this. No living creature can live in isolation. We are all socially interdependent animals. Our lifecycles are entwined with one another. Though survival of the fittest is the catchword of the day, it may lead to communal disaster. We need to examine this situation in a closer manner. Instead of dissecting the problem further, let's adopt a holistic approach. Live and let live. HAPPY CHILDREN'S DAY.

Maths teacher:

Girls, the bad news is that life is one big problem. The good news, that it can be solved quite easily using the axioms of truth and hard work and the theorems of friendly relationships and determination. Keeping yourself as the centre and a large radius of kindness and love if you draw a circle, you'll find that many of your problems have been solved. Success is nothing but the intersection of hardwork and sincerity. All the best!

English Teacher:

Girls, here's some essential advice in simple language. Life is a blend of prose and poetry. Our day to day life is filled with routine and is like prose. Making it interesting is in our hands. The special days like today are the poems in our life. If you draw inspiration from these poems, life will be a song.

The rest…..is left to your rich imagination…..!

Indira Kanagasabai

"Caught in the NET"………technology's Never Ending Treat

The Inevitable NET

Mankind has come a long way from the days of StoneAge of the nomadic tribes to the "net-survey(or savvy) super humans". Computers and telecommunications have made this world a "global village". Now distance is no bar. It makes it seems as though the world is a village and its people, relatives. Why do we need air water and sunlight?......Almost for reasons of similar magnitude we need the internet !

The Omnipotent NET

Take a Dictionary of Professions, you will find that the net has relevance to every one of them from a nebulous science like astrology to a concrete one like astronomy. The giant database of information stored in super efficient servers have spanned mega, giga and tera bytes of storage and will reach zetta and yotta bytes in the near future. Want any-any kind of information? We have the ever-ready Search Engines. And the fastest of all, Google, has achieved distinction by gauging the pulse of the net surfers. So any information is just a mouse click away!

A Long Journey In A Short Time Span

The net's usage has stretched from the ARPANET community of doctors, scientists and other elite of the society to the local farmer who lives in the remotest of villages to make seed selection. Such is the invasion of the internet! It some times makes us wonder if there can be anything more than the invention of the www. But before even this thought moves out of our mind we have new developments every day. The web tv, broad band and so on.

The 'e' Tag

Now a days all commodities from personal mails to cash, from photographs to movies, from simple manipulations like games to complex ones like politics have the inevitable 'e' tag attached to it, like e-governance or e-commerce. Telecommuting has overcome the hurdles of travellin to one's job. The net is so omnipotent that it has given rise to the most intriguing oxymoron, "Virtual Reality".

The NET Democracy

From the twisted pair to the laser beam, the communication media has come a long way. If speed was not considered, a die-hard conservative might argue that an exhaustive library can provide all this information. But this has one major impediment-'Static information', while the internet is as dynamic as the universe itself, every nanosecond witnesses a million updations and modifications because there is no one creator or organiser but millions of people, be it a computer illiterate checking the train schedule in a touch screen or a computer-geek from MicroSoft ! This participation has led to the evolution of whole operating systems, like the Linux competing with the software giants like MicroSoft. Free 'blogs' allow freedom of expression. Three cheers to the democracy that prevails in the internet!

BLUE TOOTH is now here to say...."i have successfully created a fruitful matrimony between gadgets based on the chips! ".

Two Sides Of The Coin

Internet also has its not-so-good side. IDA identified by Dr.Ivan Goldberg as Internet Addiction Alcoholism(IDA) shows its negative side thus pointing that internet is a double edged knife.

A Positive Approach

The 21st century has a net that catches us all like fishes. The fishes are happy to be caught because the 'net answers their wish'. Used properly it is a boon, used badly it becomes a bane. Boon or a bane is a choice offered to everyone. Well! Like it or dislike, it we can't ignore it. So let us use it well and be, "internet caught" happily everafter !!!