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Talking of mannerisms, I am reminded of the many we had as kids in our School in the early 1950s...some inherited, some inherent and others acquired mostly from townsfolk in Nellore on a visit to our Village Muthukur. We didn't have a permanent movie theater in our village so the latest fads had to be imported from film aficionados residing in Nellore and visiting us.
Quite a few urchins at school had this charming mannerism...as soon as they put their pencil to paper, their tongues would hang out from about half an inch to a full inch. Not like the one that our Doctor commanded to be flung out, but one that was clamped by the upper lip, and the writing would be accompanied by bending the head this side or that depending on I couldn't figure out what . Naturally this invited a hit on the head by the teacher's round ruler which would at once make the tongue retract like that of the frog...only to protrude again almost like a mouse from its hole in the wall. I have seen this mannerism persist in some adults even when they became teachers by and by and were off-guard.
Talking of writing styles, the most amazing is that of some left-handers who turn their khata almost 45 deg and their left arm embraces it fully from the top and the writing felt like Urdu. They too invited the wrath of their teachers, but I am told the enlightened thought is that left-handers should be left alone and not forced to conform with the rest of the world. Our neighbor in the NRI township told me that he instructed the teachers and the principal not to force his daughter to write or play with her right hand...makes eminent sense...imagine what would happen to normal kids if they were to be forced to write with their left hand. But of course if one of the hands, God forbid, is injured too badly, the kid can very well acquire the skill to write with the other hand; not to speak of foot in the rarest of the rare cases.
One day someone showed us how to make and blow bubbles of saliva off our tongues, and it caught like wildfire...all of us practiced the art at school, at home, at play and in sleep till we mastered it. Of course this wonderful show-stopper was sacrilege just because it was odd or maybe our teachers tried and failed to master it...you can't teach new tricks to old foggies. But it vanished one day as suddenly as it broke out much like allergic rash.
Then there was this girlie mannerism that boys too aped...cracking the knuckles of the fingers when unable to answer teacher's questions...Stand up on the bench!
And when we graduated from slate pencils to graphite ones embedded in wood we had another stress-buster...push the other end into the mouth and chew the wood. None of our pencils had their butts unmutilated...some chewed right down to the bone.
The girls had an advantage over boys...they were permitted to carry hankies...when boys carried them they were laughed at....almost as if they held their plackets together with safety pins which were the prerogative of girls...boys had their buttons. The tricks girls did with their hankies were almost magical...they twisted them round their fingers, wrists, ears and necks....they hid them in their fists...they chewed them...did everything except use them for the purpose for which they were carried...wiping their running noses.
A new math teacher, Harihara Sharma, was appointed at our school. He was young, ebullient, and mixed with students like none else before. He was just out of college and did his BA at Nellore. He had a keyring with a long and stylish keychain. And when he was not teaching, he would take his keyring out of his pocket into his hand and twirl its chain clockwise fast around his forefinger and back again counterclockwise. And again and again for hours at a stretch whenever he was speaking, except to my Father, the HM. All of us were mesmerized by this mannerism and begged our moms to buy us keyrings with keychains...but of course with no keys.
And then we graduated to pens. Someone taught us to take the pen and hold it between thumb and forefinger and twirl it fast this way and that till it felt no longer rigid but elastic as if made out of rubber. And we practiced it day in and day out till we got the thing right. And it was great fun. I guess it is a nervous illusion.
Talking of tricks with pens I used to watch students at IIT KGP in their exam halls. Several of them had mastered this other art...when they were not writing but thinking what to write, they would hold their pen between thumb and forefinger and make it go round and round and round fast expertly...a cute mannerism that I tried and failed to master...new tricks and old foggies again...
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Talking of mannerisms, I am reminded of the many we had as kids in our School in the early 1950s...some inherited, some inherent and others acquired mostly from townsfolk in Nellore on a visit to our Village Muthukur. We didn't have a permanent movie theater in our village so the latest fads had to be imported from film aficionados residing in Nellore and visiting us.
Quite a few urchins at school had this charming mannerism...as soon as they put their pencil to paper, their tongues would hang out from about half an inch to a full inch. Not like the one that our Doctor commanded to be flung out, but one that was clamped by the upper lip, and the writing would be accompanied by bending the head this side or that depending on I couldn't figure out what . Naturally this invited a hit on the head by the teacher's round ruler which would at once make the tongue retract like that of the frog...only to protrude again almost like a mouse from its hole in the wall. I have seen this mannerism persist in some adults even when they became teachers by and by and were off-guard.
Talking of writing styles, the most amazing is that of some left-handers who turn their khata almost 45 deg and their left arm embraces it fully from the top and the writing felt like Urdu. They too invited the wrath of their teachers, but I am told the enlightened thought is that left-handers should be left alone and not forced to conform with the rest of the world. Our neighbor in the NRI township told me that he instructed the teachers and the principal not to force his daughter to write or play with her right hand...makes eminent sense...imagine what would happen to normal kids if they were to be forced to write with their left hand. But of course if one of the hands, God forbid, is injured too badly, the kid can very well acquire the skill to write with the other hand; not to speak of foot in the rarest of the rare cases.
One day someone showed us how to make and blow bubbles of saliva off our tongues, and it caught like wildfire...all of us practiced the art at school, at home, at play and in sleep till we mastered it. Of course this wonderful show-stopper was sacrilege just because it was odd or maybe our teachers tried and failed to master it...you can't teach new tricks to old foggies. But it vanished one day as suddenly as it broke out much like allergic rash.
Then there was this girlie mannerism that boys too aped...cracking the knuckles of the fingers when unable to answer teacher's questions...Stand up on the bench!
And when we graduated from slate pencils to graphite ones embedded in wood we had another stress-buster...push the other end into the mouth and chew the wood. None of our pencils had their butts unmutilated...some chewed right down to the bone.
The girls had an advantage over boys...they were permitted to carry hankies...when boys carried them they were laughed at....almost as if they held their plackets together with safety pins which were the prerogative of girls...boys had their buttons. The tricks girls did with their hankies were almost magical...they twisted them round their fingers, wrists, ears and necks....they hid them in their fists...they chewed them...did everything except use them for the purpose for which they were carried...wiping their running noses.
A new math teacher, Harihara Sharma, was appointed at our school. He was young, ebullient, and mixed with students like none else before. He was just out of college and did his BA at Nellore. He had a keyring with a long and stylish keychain. And when he was not teaching, he would take his keyring out of his pocket into his hand and twirl its chain clockwise fast around his forefinger and back again counterclockwise. And again and again for hours at a stretch whenever he was speaking, except to my Father, the HM. All of us were mesmerized by this mannerism and begged our moms to buy us keyrings with keychains...but of course with no keys.
And then we graduated to pens. Someone taught us to take the pen and hold it between thumb and forefinger and twirl it fast this way and that till it felt no longer rigid but elastic as if made out of rubber. And we practiced it day in and day out till we got the thing right. And it was great fun. I guess it is a nervous illusion.
Talking of tricks with pens I used to watch students at IIT KGP in their exam halls. Several of them had mastered this other art...when they were not writing but thinking what to write, they would hold their pen between thumb and forefinger and make it go round and round and round fast expertly...a cute mannerism that I tried and failed to master...new tricks and old foggies again...
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