Table Manners & Mannerisms - 1

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"Why did you burp before my wife?"

"Oh! I didn't l know it was her turn"

...PJ 

 "The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: ..." 

...Bernard Shaw

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Sailaja, my good daughter-in-law, is an M Sc. M Phil. in Microbiology.

A year before her marriage and a couple of years after, she was working full-time in a Clinical Research Organization till her pregnancy advanced into its seventh month when her doctor asked her to take rest from her job. The company reluctantly agreed to leave her asking her to rejoin as and when she wished. 

For a couple of years after Ishani was born, Sailaja got busy raising Ishani and tending to my wife who was laid low with cancer. After my wife passed away and Ishani started going to the nearby convent school for her Nursery Class, Sailaja was getting bored at home and was thinking of rejoining her earlier job. But she felt Ishani was too small a kid to be left without her care for most of the day. So she took up a part-time sort of a job as a teacher in Eurokids at a place about 10 km away. They welcomed her and she impressed her kid-students, their parents, and her Principal. I drop her at the bus stop at 7.30 in the morning and fetch her at 2.30 in the afternoon. By then Ishani would be home from her convent school and my son would be leaving for his job and I would be busying for my blog.

A very nice routine for all of us.

Six months after she joined Eurokids, the nearby convent to which Ishani goes advertized for lady teachers and Sailaja thought it would be swell since both mom and her daughter could go to the same school at the same time and get back together...just a kilometer away from home. So she dropped her resume' into the box and after a few days she was called to meet the Admin lady there. 

One afternoon while returning from her Eurokids in my jalopy, Sailaja asked me to wait at Ishani's school and went in to meet the Admin lady. And this is what she reported transpired:

Admin: Oh, so nice that you are interested in teaching at our school where Ishani is!

Sailaja: Yea, I am also happy

Admin: But you have to give us a Demo before we take you in

Sailaja: Demo on what?

Admin: Good Manners

Sailaja: To which class?

Admin: To the LKG students

Sailaja: But I am already teaching LKG students at Eurokids for all of six months and they are happy

Admin: No matter...you know....rules are rules for us

Sailaja: Thank you, no!...I am not interested...

Admin: (scowled as Sailaja got up and walked out)

When she reported this dialogue to me on our way back in car I got curious and asked Sailaja:

Me: Can you really give a Demo for kids on Good Manners which I can never do?

Sailaja: Why not?...it is so simple

Me: How?

Sailaja: Just go home and type: 'good manners for kids' in Google and you get a million results

Our conversation ended after I said she did well to decline their offer...'they were taking you for granted since your daughter is already in there...and one should never take even a mouse for granted...it may eat up your numb little toe when you go diabetic'

Sailaja and Ishani are now summer-vacationing in Nellore and I was reminiscing about this frightening Good Manners lesson to LKG kids. And as Sailaja suggested, I typed 'good manners for kids' in Google just now and got all those million sites. And pulled out the first one...here is its gist (videos omitted):

1. Teach your child to wait their turn to speak and not to interrupt when you are speaking.

2. Set the table for a family dinner, using good dishes and silverware.

3. Tell them the most important table manners a lot of times.

4. Teach a child to say thank you by having them hear you say it.

 

5. Always say please each time you ask your child to do something.

6. Teach them not to touch things that are on tables, either in your home or when visiting.

7. Teach your child to take compliments courteously by saying thank you at appropriate times.

8. Teach a little older child to hold a door open for others, especially when entering a store.

9. Make Sunday a family day special by wearing special clothes.

10. Teach your child to be polite and that it is not proper to point or to stare at others who might be of a different religion or color.

11. Stay calm.

12. Be aware.

13. Show love.

http://www.wikihow.com/Teach-Your-Child-Good-Manners 

And I got scared stiff...for it is well-known that a teacher must teach his student what he himself practices as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa insisted:

The story goes that a stranger came once to Ramakrishna Deb along with his kid and did pronam and said:

"This kid of mine is too very fond of sweets...he eats them by the dozen everyday. Would you please ask him to desist?"

"Oh, come back after a week and I will do it"

And during that week Ramakrishna Deb (who himself had a sweet tooth) stopped eating sweets completely and was then ready for the job.

So with me...I have none of the good manners listed above...NONE...in particular the so-called table-manners....for we never had a dining table at our home for the first 40 years of my life, and then on used it mostly as a dump for knickknacks like cell phone chargers, used batteries, toys, tissue boxes, digital b.p. kits...we eat sitting on the sofa or floor in front of our wall-mounted TV. I sit in my bean chair at right angles to the TV so that it doesn't distract me from my woolgathering.

Not that we didn't have extra-curricular lessons in our school at Muthukur where we had no tables and chairs for the first three years till we came to Fourth Form...we were just sitting on the sandy floor under a thatched shed. 

But once a week we had this class on 'Moral Science' which was 'engaged' by whichever teacher was found free in the last period. If it was our Telugu teacher, Sri Ramakrishna Reddy who had a mellifluous singing voice and used to perform Hari Kathas in his spare time in the temples, we used to insist he tell us the story of Saindhava Vadha from Mahabharat again and again and again.

If it was someone else who couldn't sing, he or she would tell us a story from Panchatantra...like this one below: 

dreamer

  

We had a story in high school from this classic (Mitra Labham...Neeti Chandrika) whose summary is as follows:

A hunter goes into the forest in search of prey. It is his lucky day and he is successful in killing a deer. As he is about to retire for the day, he comes across a wild pig and shoots at it. The enraged pig charges at the hunter and kills him before he can flee. The pig dies after a while because of the shot of the hunter. In the melee, a snake dies under the weight of the wild pig.

A fox which passes by looks at the dead bodies of the deer, wild pig, hunter, snake and is overjoyed at his luck. The fox estimates that it could live off the meat of the hunter, deer, pig for 30 days each, of the snake for a day. Its attention then falls on the bow of the hunter lying by the side. It thinks to itself that the string of a bow is made of muscle which would satisfy its hunger for now. It decides to keep the meat of all the creatures for later. In its greed, it bites at the string of the bow. The string snaps and the bow pierces into the heart of the fox killing it instantly.

Whosoever said greed is good, did not read this story.

http://srikanthburra.blogspot.in/

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