While researching the history of the Stuarts, I discovered some delightful pieces of information.Elizabeth I did not trust tobacco - it made her sick. But she was also intrigued by it. Once, she bet Raleigh that he would be unable to tell her the weight of the smoke.Raleigh was, always, a performer. He weighed an ounce of tobacco and cheerfully smoked it. When he had finished, he weighed the ashes. The difference between the two weights was, he declared, the weight of the smoke.Laughing, Elizabeth acknowledged defeat, paid up and commented that she had often seen men turn gold into smoke, but this was the first time she'd seen a man turn smoke into gold.The rational James I disapproved of smoking too, but there's a reason why he's called the 'wisest fool of Christendom'.He published an anonymous pamphlet titled Counterblast to Tobacco, where he said that tobacco was 'loathsome … [Read more...]
Picnic!
I insist that the way I left school in the morning set my mood. People (read 'teachers and students') hate duty that takes them out of school into the hot sunshine. I exclaimed, "Picnic!" Other teachers laughed at me. I replied, "In the afternoon, I can complain; now at least, I'll go happy!"But even now, I'm not complaining. I went with a group of girls that was reasonably cheerful, willing to work and complained just a little. We were at a sericulture unit, learning about mulberry, lac and azolla. I found a mulberry leaf far bigger than my whole hand! I learned that azolla (which existed only in geography text books for me) can cause a cow to produce 1.5 times the regular amount of milk!We cut, pruned and planted. We dug, sieved the mud and laid the azolla beds. And I ate a one-rupee pepsicola.We played dumb charades and antakshari. What a lovely picnic it was! … [Read more...]
Board Exam
Ought I to be nervous? Concerned? Stressed?My students are writing their board exams. I wished them luck, gave them a pep talk and some last minute 'tips'.One student asked me for a vocabulary list he can use. I wanted to tell him 'a', 'an', 'the'. Instead, I told him not to use 'hi-fi' language. They laughed because I once ranted about how inappropriate the term 'hi-fi' is.Another student wanted to write the words 'discursive' and 'argumentative' on a piece of paper and take it into the exam hall. Another student succinctly said, "Arre! That will be on your question paper only! What you're writing?" Essentially, his point, as I understood it was that if he wanted to cheat, he should do something useful. The point was taken and understood.A student wrote an essay for me yesterday and left it on my desk with a note. The essay was Tron Legacy rewritten.Students don't seem to … [Read more...]
My Camera Journey
Somehow, digital cameras have turned me away from photography. It is, somehow, I don't know... Too technical? Too easy to get a good shot? Or perhaps a part of me loved the exclusivity of photography that no longer exists.I remember the first camera my father gave me when I was ten years old. A Hot Shot camera that had a cartridge, not a regular reel of film. How gloriously exciting it was! I photographed my family and my teddy-bears. One particularly interesting photo on the balcony shows how hasty ten-year-old Varsha was too excited about photography to notice a highly unpicturesque pair of bathroom slippers in the same frame as her dolls.Around that time, my grandfather also gave me a camera - one that I could not use because film was no longer available for that one. You sling the camera around the neck and look down into it to see what's ahead. Truly fascinating - particularly … [Read more...]
Invigilator
Right through school, I enjoyed exams. People found that odd, so I often did not confess that I loved exams. I loved the excited anticipation just before exams. I loved that clean, fresh uniform. (Somehow, the exam uniform stays cleaner than a regular day's uniform.) I loved the light bag with barely any books in it. I loved the last-minute discussion of all those tiny little doubts. I loved the hurried revision one second before the examiner walked in.And in college, I loved the feeling of finishing early and walking out - sometimes an hour before my friends. Freedom!Today, I was invigilator. I felt all those familiar feelings and then, like a stone sinking within me, I grew bored.I miss being on the other side of the table. Watching an exam is nowhere near as inspiring as writing it. … [Read more...]
Non-Cooperation
Leela Samson, in her book Rukmini Devi writes:'Mrs Besant disagreed with Gandhi on the issue of non-cooperation. Her opinion was that mass civil disobedience was fraught with dangerous possibilities. She was apprehensive of the nation's integrity being weakened as a result. She repeatedly warned that if and when India attained swaraj, it should be careful not to 'find itself in a condition of anarchy, resistant of all discipline, defiant of all authority, where everyone was a law unto himself, enforcing his will by mobs, or trampled on by superior force'. The wisdom of the statement she made then rings frighteningly true today.'Later, India forgot its resentment against Mrs Besant and embraced her as one of those who worked for its independence. I wonder, could things have worked differently? … [Read more...]
Dysfunctional Internet
I remember when internet did not exist.I remember when internet at home was unheard of and we always had to go to a Cyber Cafe. I remember when internet at home was the standard dial up connection with loud trrrrrrrr-tiktiktiktiktiktiktik-peeeeeep-peeeeep-khrrrr-peeeeee-khrrrr I remember when the flashing modem constantly made me squirm and count how many minutes I'd already been online.Then came broadband, which was, wow, silent and fast! Not so many awful minutes of waiting for pages to load and thinking of high telephone bills.Then came unlimited broadband. Silent, fast and inexpensive.When I remember all of this, why do I feel so uncomfortable when the internet is not working? … [Read more...]
Naughty Boys
Everyday at school, I learn something new. Yesterday, the boys in my class did something that I can't help laughing at, even though I know that the joke is on me.I don't like wearing a watch and haven't worn one for several years now. In school, though, I do wear a watch because I don't find it very ethical to carry a cell phone everywhere when the students aren't allowed to do that. Since I'm not used to it, I take off my watch at the first opportunity I get.I did it as usual when I was in class yesterday. The class was smooth, not one of the bad ones. When I finished what I was talking about, there were just five minutes left for the class to end, so I let them off early instead of starting something new."What's the time?" one of the students asked, innocently."4:10," I replied, putting my books together.We left the classroom and another student asked, "Ma'am, what's the … [Read more...]
Classes at School
I had an awful class yesterday. A teacher was absent, so her class was clubbed with mine. I was not particularly sceptical; I did not think I needed to be. How wrong I was! I did not know what to do with sixteen-year-old children determined to take advantage of a new teacher. There was a whole bunch of them, shouting across the class, drinking and spilling water, sitting in couples, professing to headaches... The works. I had planned seven points of discussion that I thought we would not even begin to finish discussing - beauty, marriage, alcoholism, prostitution, feminism, madness and racism. I wanted to discuss these ideas (or at least some of them) and then relate them to the texts we had.I began with beauty. It disintegrated into commenting on the beauty of several girls in class.I talked about marriage. It disintegrated into ideas of celebrities and marriages, and then into how … [Read more...]
Another School, Another Life
I began another life today. I am to teach English at MIT Pune's Vishwashanti Gurukul.I felt awkward listening to staff room gossip.How funny it is that I had to open yet another bank account in the same bank.What a beautiful campus!What an awful bus journey.What a lovely library! (I want to see my book there very soon.)I'm excited. … [Read more...]