Flight of Time of Innocence

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Sometime back I posted this photo of our 1960 batch when we were in our Second Year of BSc (Hons) at the hallowed Andhra University in the seaside city of Vizagh.

It received quite a few hits from my students since I asked them to spot the master-blogger gps. Few did it.

I am the kid (without mustache) standing in the second row, second from left...opposite to the girls. 

Ever since I posted my photo I have been looking at it quite a few times.

And every time I look at it, I feel sorry for that poor kid gps...he was not following what went on in their classroom.

I wonder if any others feel like me when he (or she) looks at their teenage photos...this weird sense of hapless sympathy.


...Posted by Ishani

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Simplified Rituals - 10

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http://lowres.jantoo.com/animal-kingdom-carrots-directions-short_cuts-donkey-rabbits-08336483_low.jpg

...The first variety were very old and shrinking and shriveling and smiling and shining retiree granpas who traveled home to home seeking to teach kids of tender age for a princely monthly pay of Rs 2 (Father's take-home was all of Rs 30 then of which another Rs 2 went for house-rent)...


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I soon graduated, as an unwilling accomplice to my didi, to the second variety of home tutors. 

These were youthful unemployed pass-outs from Father's high school waiting to be absorbed as 'contract' teachers anon. They had none of the charm of the old and retired teachers and they were prone to be abrupt with their wards.

The one I remember with awe was named Gundu Dikshitulu (again a South Indian Brahmin lad) of 16 or so. He replaced our lovable Laxmi Narasaiah Sir and I was forlorn. He didn't teach us any memorable Telugu poems...he started us with counting numbers:

"okati (one), rendu (two), upto vanda (hundred)". And asked us to repeat them then and there...he thought we were Sakuntala Devis in budding, and whenever we made mistakes, didn't take kindly to us unlike our good old teacher who just used to smile.

And there were unwritten rules that he couldn't touch my didi who was all of 5 by then. So he used to show me up as her example by awarding me exemplary punishment...no, not by beating me since I would then shoot my head off and his beating would be heard by my mom. He would simply pinch my thigh and I would start howling. And if my mom came out to find out, he would smile at her showing me up as an actor and he the innocent victim of my acting. Mom would get back into her kitchen and would tease me later on as a lout. And didi was of no help since she enjoyed my discomfiture...Didis can be pretty heartless ;)

Fortunately for me Gundu Dikshitulu got his job in a far-off village pretty soon and left us in peace.

Then we were enrolled in what was called a Veedhi Badi (Street Corner School). There were only four streets in our village and each of them had a Veedhi Badi.

If you thought they were regular schools with a midday-meal scheme and toilets and classrooms and periodic inspections by government officials to extend their grants for one more year (after pocketing bribes from headmasters), you would be surprised.

Each Veedhi Badi was housed in the verandah of an old man who could afford to seat about a dozen kids in it and equip it with an excuse for a blackboard. 

We would all troop in as per our whims after our ablutions and our early morning milk or coffee. And take an empty seat on the mud-caked floor. There was no segregation of sexes. And the old bespectacled man would come out into his verandah after his ablutions and tiffin and ask us to open our bags. These contained just our slate and a box of slate pencils.

Our slates were not flimsy like the modern ones. They were hefty and enclosed in heavy wooden frames and were practically indestructible...we used to fight with them as our weapons after the class was over and nothing happened to them or us.

Our slate pencils however were as delicate as our morals and used to break every once in a while...they were designed to do so like the pantographs and overhead traction lines...the pantographs are designed to wear out faster than the traction wires which are expensive to replace.

The slates were very efficient absorbents of the dried up clay the pencils were made of and left white patches on the slate. And after a week the slate became useless...you can't overwrite white on white. And so they had to be periodically cleaned. Water was of no use...it couldn't tease out the clay from the slate.

So the school kids discovered a remedy. They found a wayside plant that grew like a weed in our jungles. Its leaves were juicy and when rubbed on the slates they yielded enough juice that slid into the pores of the slates and stayed there sticking to the clay residing there. All we had to do then was to take a piece of wayside cotton and rub it off on the slate...the cotton absorbed the juice and the clay sticking to it...miracle...we called the leaf:


'Balapala Aku' (Slate Pencil Leaf)


And felt as if we were in the Indus Valley Civilization we learned of later on.

Our surrounding hamlets didn't have streets or street corner schools. So the parents of their rustic kids used to send them to our Veedhi Badi whose old man used to charge them at a subsidized rate of Rs 1 a month. These poor chaps had to get up an hour earlier than us and run to our posh village. 

I made friends with one of them, Pentaiah (not a highbrow brahmin like me), but who stayed with me all through our high school and became a Block Development Officer (lots of 'extra-income' there).

One day after we became fast friends he invited me to his village, Nellaturu, three miles way. And my mom agreed for a day's outing for me.

I then found that there were no roads to Nellaturu...we had to walk by the famed rice fields of our Nellore District. And he was an expert and I a novice. We had to walk on the precarious nano-dams that separated one field from the neighboring one. These were a foot high and were wet, and reversible...when the field on the right had had enough of water, the farmer would take his spade and break the bund at a strategic place and the water would flow down to the neighbor's farm on the left, all of which were half an acre at most.

It was on that trip that I saw a memorable sight that has vanished now. There was this ditch in which rain water was let in and stored...rainwater-harvesting of the olden times. And a kid would stand by it with his bucket while his father would be walking to and fro on a makeshift water lifter. It had a column and a cross bow both made of dried up palm trunks. And a lever mechanism. 

Folks found out that legs were sturdier than hands, and waking to and fro is simpler and aids woolgathering more than bending and lifting...a thing I discovered half a century later.

Here is the cute contrivance:      

http://practicalaction.org/practicalanswers/images/HumanWaterLift_3.gif

...Posted by Ishani


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Simplified Rituals - 9

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I was talking (randomly as usual) of the education system of my childhood (in the 1940s and 50s).

Often, when I talk about those times, I feel like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner:

http://www.mels-place.com/Contents/ABCs_and_Goodies/Ancient_Mariner/ancient-mariner.jpg

We didn't have play-school, nursery, LKG (PP1 fancifully) and UKG (PP2) like Ishani has. 

No Baa Baa Black Sheep for us.

It didn't mean we had no pre-schooling at all. We had lots of it. Lots.

First there were these home tutors. 

They came in two varieties to teach us from our age of 3 (or a bit less as was with me as soon as I started lisping). All of them were South Indian Brahmins (I regret to say). 

The first variety were very old and shrinking and shriveling and smiling and shining retiree granpas who traveled home to home seeking to teach kids of tender age for a princely monthly pay of Rs 2 (Father's take-home was all of Rs 30 then of which another Rs 2 went for house-rent). 

I guess they were either pretty hard up or didn't know what to do with their ample leisure (since they couldn't blog...some of them wrote books but). But they were simply loved by the kids they taught...they had a kindly way with them unlike the strict parents of these devils.

My first home tutor was the dhoti-clad Sri Laxmi Narasaiah (I forget his surname). He was extremely fair and graying. He had lovely hands on the back of which I used to watch bulging greenish veins crisscrossing the entire hand. I was charmed by the sight and used to peer at my own hands and secretly wished mine would turn like his soon. I happened to be his early student because I was the second-born with a didi 2 years older to me. She was very naughty, like Ishani now, and Father thought that a home tutor would drill some sense of discipline into her. So he agreed to the daily evening visits of LN Sir to our home.

All homes those days in South India had pyols:

http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/00854/op-ed4_854812f.jpg

   
As soon as Sir came and took his seat on his stone-throne, Father would call me and didi out to stop doing whatever we were doing and sit in front of Sir with folded legs. And I obeyed forthwith since I loved the old man. Didi would dodge and dawdle and grumble and groan and had to be teased out to attend the class. And as neither of could read, the old man would ask us to repeat aloud, starting with the invocation to Lord Raama:

Sri Ramuni daya chetanu

Naroodhiga sakala janulu nauraa yanagaa

Dharaala maina neetulu 

Noruraga javulu butta nudiveda sumatee!

This is the opening verse of a lovely Telugu collection called Sumati Shatakam (100 verses for Good Kids). And we would chant the poem in unison and in no time didi would skip the class and run away to the backyard, the entry for which was denied to our tutor. And then I would be all alone (I was a good boy till I enrolled as a Research Scholar...CSIR JRF in 1963).

But the old man wasn't bothered too much about disciplining girls since it was understood that their schooling would be terminated as soon as they started 'adult-eration' when they reached 12 years or so of age.

But Father wouldn't agree and would go hunting for his 4-year-old daughter and find her plucking flowers by the backyard wall and chatting with the neighbor girl. And would drag her back to the pyol. 

By then Sir would be teaching me (asking me to repeat) the poem from Krishna Shatakam:

Neeve tallivi tandrivi

Neeve naa todu needa neeve sakhudau

Neeve gurudavu daivamu 

Neeve na patiyu gatiyu nijamuga Krishna!

which is a Surrender to Lord Krishna body and soul.

Didi being two years older to me and much better at rote-learning (since she was destined to do her MD later on which was not known to her or our tutor), she would repeat it at one go and disappear once again, this time into the kitchen where mom would protect her from Father.

My recitations would go on till mom brought a steaming glass of coffee to the old man for whom, I guess, it was a superior attraction to the Rs 2 a month.

As he would be sipping his coffee, didi would return since she knew he would quit as soon as he drained his cup. And the old man, with infinite patience, would repeat all the poems she missed...Father would ask the old man the progress of the day and then examine both of his kids if they learned anything new that evening.

And Sir would hunt for his worn-out chappals that the lurking stray dogs would by then have lugged here and there; and take leave of Father for the day.

...I wonder what happened to Laxmi Narasaiah Sir and his kids and grandkids and great-grandkids, if any....


...Posted by Ishani

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Simplified Rituals - 8

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http://eunabellacitta.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/study-comic-3.jpg

Over my 70 odd years of life I find the thing that has been constantly screwed up is what was simply called Education in my school years.

First it was enlarged to Education & Sports, not a very sportive thing to do...I mean, we in our school took to sports and games after our education was through every evening. 

Then it became Education & Youth Affairs...again a monstrosity for village kids like me for whom any Youth Affair then meant a Love Affair, which was frowned upon.

The latest label, I believe, deletes Education altogether and the ministry dealing with it is called Human Resource Development (to separate it from Animal Husbandry). I was perplexed with this MHRD because in my son's IT firm there is a post called HRDM (M standing for Manager this time) and the lady who usually deals with it has nothing to do with Education as we knew it:

Sample Job Description HR Manager

Summary

Develops policy and directs and coordinates human resources activities, such as employment, compensation, labor relations, benefits, training, and employee services by performing the following duties:

http://www.workforce.com/articles/sample-job-description-hr-manager


Father who is remembered even today as the best Headmaster and English teacher in our entire Nellore District would be shocked at this job description if he were to apply for it.

And successive ministers who dealt with Education thought he (or she) was an expert at it and tried to change it wholesale during their short stints, to the detriment of their entire posterity...till they were soon shifted to the Ministry of Civil Aviation or Shipping as the case maybe...and tried to change them too.

When I entered high school in 1951 in our village, Muthukur, all high schools in the district were government schools except for a few in our Nellore town which were deemed Convents.

And all of us (like RKN's father) had what would now be called the (11 + 2 + 2 + 2) system. And if you lived through all those 17 years luckily you would get 2 degrees, BA (BSc) and MA (MSc), and were deemed fit for fruitful white-collared employment, and retirement with a grudging pension that would assure you 2 round meals a day (+ no 'health care') so you would die peacefully at 56, a year after you retired, before the government spent too much money on your pension which was dubbed unproductive...Father beat the system and lived to 80... 

I never heard of PhD...there were no PhDs in our Nellore District...at least Father never talked of such weird things.

There was a BEd alright if you wished to discontinue after (11 + 2 + 2) and not end up as a Master but just as a Bachelor (of Arts as RKN wrote). This BEd would assure you a teaching position in a high school, like Father. 

By when I completed my (11), the new minister thought I was in an obsolete system and changed it to (11 + 1 + 3 + 2). But I felt no different except that I came first in our university after (11 + 1) in my science group (with English added) and was admitted to (11 + 1 + 4 +1) and ended up with 2 degrees BSc (Hons) and MSc.

I didn't feel vastly superior to my seniors...if your arithmetic is ok you will tote it all up and find the same answer.

And then the minister was changed again and thought that 11 was too much and changed it to: (10 + 2 + 3 + 2)...again, the total remained the same.

The latest controversy has been that some of our prestigious colleges in the Capital thought that they had to be different from the hoi polloi. So they tried to copy the American System since anything American is Dreamy. And changed it to: (10 + 2 + 4 + 1). And they were snubbed rudely by our latest minister and they had to tuck their tails and follow the Rules:


  
Delhi University's Four Year Undergraduate Programme is history now, with 57 of its 64 affiliated colleges ready to admit students into traditional three-year courses.

This dramatic end to the snowballing FYUP controversy came on a day of hectic meetings and intense politicking, including a resignation-that-wasn't of Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Dinesh Singh. 

A press release issued on Tuesday by the University Grants Commission (UGC), after six hours of deliberations with Human Resource Development ministry officials, said a communication has been sent to DU directing it to write to colleges immediately and tell them to admit students to three-year undergraduate programmes. 

The release also listed colleges which have agreed to implement the three-year programme. 

The list includes Hindu College, Jesus and Mary College, St. Stephen's College, Miranda House, Sri Venkateswara College, Lady Shri Ram College and Shri Ram College of Commerce.

www.dailymail.co.uk/.../FYUP-dead-buried-57-Delhi-Universitys-64-colleg..




Father would be turning in his grave were he buried instead of cremated...not following what the ruckus is all about...he still remains my best English Teacher (a la RKN)...


...Posted by Ishani



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Simplified Rituals - 7

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http://www.seowebmarketing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Albert-Einstein-Google-Doodle-funny-cartoon-300x296.jpg

Got busy!

See you tomorrow!

...Posted by Ishani

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Simplified Rituals - 6

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http://willblogforfood.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341cca9453ef0168e8ccd438970c-pi

I was talking of fasts and superfasts.

I lived in Bengal all my adult life and loved it, although I didn't exactly take to hilsa and shandesh...it is tough to overcome childhood imprinting:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2010/03/fish-n-chips.html

IIT KGP, where I stayed for all of 40 years from 21 to 62, was not altogether an integral part of Bengal like Midnapore 6 miles away...ours was a centrally-funded walled campus with an all-India mix in its student and faculty. But Calcutta was just 70 miles away and touched us in every way. 

Enlightenment started in Bengal along with its Renaissance in the 18th century. Just walk into the vaults of the lovely Victoria Memorial and read the letters of the period hanging on its walls. Bengal's fight against the British Rule was peaceful to start with but took a violent turn in the 20th century. Gandhiji was not the role model of Bengal...Netaji was. Armed struggle had been part of the Bengali revolution. 

Bengal didn't take kindly to hunger strikes as a weapon against injustice till Didi came along with her admixture of political armory. But the longest of hunger strikes that ended in death (unlike Gandhiji's) was by a Bengali youth:

Jatindra Nath Das (27 October 1904 – 13 September 1929), also known as Jatin Das, was an Indian freedom fighter and revolutionary. He died in Lahore jail after a continuous hunger strike for 63 days and it shocked the whole of India.



JN Das was not a believer in non-violent satyagraha...he was a revolutionary. His hunger strike was against the treatment of prisoners by our British Rulers.

Gandhiji didn't take kindly to JN Das's hunger strike and its aftermath...

Like celibacy and virtue, hunger resents competition.

Gandhiji used his weapon of Satyagraha that included hunger strikes against the white rulers of South Africa. He fought for the immigrant Indian community there, most of them indentured laborers from South India (coolies).  He didn't fight for the native blacks against the apartheid of the white regime...that was left to Nelson Mandela who wasn't exactly a Gandhian in his fights.

Anyway, during a large part of my stay in Bengal we were ruled by Jyoti Basu who never went on hungers strikes, I believe. Nor did Charu Mazumdar nor Kanu Sanyal who were the bywords of our Maoist movement. Nor did Mao himself who believed that power flows from the barrel of the gun rather than the growls of empty bowels. Nor did Marx who is there in Jyoti-da's party's name.

As a consequence we never went on huger strikes against the Directors of our IIT KGP for their misrule like not giving us undue promotions...except once.

Suddenly one day our IITTA (Teachers Association) thought that we should start hunger strikes as a last resort.

And decided to conduct a One Day Relay Hunger Strike.

I didn't take part in it since I felt shy.

But my colleague and roommate and close friend, DB, did. He wanted to watch the Relay Hunger Strike as a matter of scientific curiosity.

And he reported it to me the next day.

Apparently, he had his full breakfast (loochis and aloor-dam) and filled his pockets with two packets of Charminars and joined the strikers who were assembled in the Foyer of the Main Building right below the Director's Office. There were all sorts of banners and posters. And a huge carpet was laid out on the floor that could seat 20 hungry faculty members. 

As he walked in, he was warmly welcomed by the Secretary because of his popularity with the students and stature as a theoretical physicist publishing in the prestigious Journal of Mathematical Physics (one hefty paper a year).

And as soon as he took his seat among the hungry at the right end, the one at the left end stood up and walked away...there were only 20 seats on the carpet and, as you know, it was a Relay Thing...everyone has to be given a chance.

Pretty soon, he told me, the boy from Harry's arrived with his kettle of strong chai, and every gent on the war-floor was incentivized  to continue his hungry fight against injustice. 

And within a few minutes, Dileep-da arrived smoking his Charminar and took a seat beside DB who moved one step to his left; and the man leftmost stood up and left, to make place for the new revolutionaries. And the Relay went on. And in about a couple of hours, DB found himself at the leftmost end and was soon eased out by the latest arrival at the right end.

DB's fight lasted all of 2 hours after which he went home, had his lunch, and relaxed for the rest of the day resting after his labors in the morning in the Foyer whose foundation stone was laid by none other than our Nehruji who doesn't seem to have undertaken too many hunger strikes...just now I Googled for:

"jawaharlal nehru's hunger strikes"

And the lead item turned out to be:

Stray dogs in Jawaharlal Nehru University

...Posted by Ishani

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Simplified Rituals - 5

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http://www.consumercourt.in/attachments/railways/5638d1336972813-unvailbilittty-food-duronto-express-duronto-express.jpg

I was talking of the social and political hunger strikes of my generation.

No fast can be more real for RKN fans (and Dev Anand) than the fast undertaken willy-nilly by our Railway Raju to please the rain gods. It lasted for all of 12 hungry days and nights. At the end of it all, it did rain on the hills; and Raju sagged down:

...He got up to his feet. He had to be held by Velan and another on each side. In the profoundest silence the crowd followed him down. Everyone followed at a solemn, silent pace. The eastern sky was red. Many in the camp were still sleeping. Raju could not walk, but he insisted upon pulling himself along all the same. He panted with the effort. He went down the steps of the river, halting for breath on each step, and finally reached his basin of water. He stepped into it, shut his eyes, and turned towards the mountain, his lips muttering the prayer. Velan and another held him each by an arm. The morning sun was out by now; a great shaft of light illuminated the surroundings. It was difficult to hold Raju on his feet, as he had a tendency to flop down. They held him as if he were a baby. Raju opened his eyes, looked about, and said, "Velan, it's raining in the hills. I can feel it coming up under my feet, up my legs --" He sagged down.   



We now come to fasts undertaken by our ladies. 

Medhaji undertook several fasts. The one that almost took her life lasted for 22 days. It was against the Sardar Sarovar Dam across Narmada. She was of course joined by many film personae and authoresses and socialites in what could be called 'sympathetic' protests. She also traveled all the way to Singur to fast against the Tatas' Nano Project.

Apparently these two fasts met with Pyrrhic victories. The Center has recently decided to raise the height of the dam and the matter is back in the law courts. And her bete noir whom she referred to as the biggest liar ('not seen a bigger liar', to be precise) is now the Ruler of the Destiny of not only Gujerat but India itself (Bharata Bhagya Vidhata). 

And the Nano has been grabbed by the same gent. Although, as a matter of consolation, I didn't see many Nanos on the roads of my Muthukur when I revisited the place after more than half a century...the peoples' car is not altogether the rage it was designed to be, it looks.  

I thought our fiery Didi didn't believe in fasts. And I thought when I Googled for Didi's fasts I would merely end up with Duronto.

But I was wrong. It was she who initiated the Singur fasts and Medhaji was a winger along with other famous men and women. Her fast lasted for all of 25 days. 

And she achieved all her aims...she drove Tata away from Bengal, the Reds into hiding, and herself into the Writers Buildings.

Wow! Gandhiji would be green with envy, were he not a Mahatma. 

And then there are what came to be called Token Hunger Strikes.

The one that elicited one of a hundred limericks from me happened more than 5 years ago during the last but one general elections. This rather opulent lady went on a 'day-long fast'...from breakfast to dinner at a public place. 

Here is the limerick:

Mummy's instincts are always right;

To fight for her voters' basic rights;

What's a days' fast?

It can't last;

She can more than make it up at night!

I had blogged it along with my other limericks and light verses. My B-i-L who was residing in the concerned province warned me that I would have been thrashed black and blue had I too been its resident. But nothing happened. And then, 4 years later, strict laws were enacted against political limericks and cartoons and jibes, and a couple of girls were jailed and a professor in Cal assaulted before he was arrested.

I then got scared and deleted about 50 of my famous limericks. For,

Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,

Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.

...William Congreve

...Posted by Ishani

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