ERROR? RIGHT ON!

My maid, who lives with us, often mispronounces English words. With the unexpected effect of hitting the nail on the head!

For instance, she says "China" instead of "channel" (her favourite TV 'China' being STAR PLUS, with its plethora of primetime tearjerking soaps). Maybe she's just being prophetic, CHANNELS in India are about the only thing that are not being MADE IN CHINA at the moment.

She also says "Anyplane" instead of "aeroplane". Again, it is an insightful comment on the aviation sector, especially since any number of airlines are now fighting it out for their piece of the sky.

But the one I just love is "TOPIC JAM" instead of "TRAFFIC JAM". It is almost poetic in its possibilities. Check this out:

Elder daughter sitting in front of a pile of books right before exams, wondering where to begin. TOPIC JAM.

Packed Staffroom at our college. Teachers talking in loud voices across the room at cross-purposes, everybody unable to hear anybody else. TOPIC JAM.

Fourth lecture after recess. Poor students yawning away at my Communications class, head already full of Accounts and Economics and Maths. TOPIC JAM.

Me racking my brains, stumped and struggling to come up with new names/lines for pens/financial services/just-about-anything for clients who seem to be insufferingly insatiable. TOPIC JAM.

Newspapers refusing to budge beyond the misadventures and misdemeanours and misappropriations of Lalit Modi, even though the IPL is history. TOPIC JAM.

Me gazing at "still working"/"loading"/"refreshing" monitor, cursing slow Internet traffic speed. TOPIC JAM.

Lovely phrase, is it not?

BLOGGING FM - FREQUENCY MODULATED

I am visiting my blog after a long, long time.
The reason for the hiatus is WORK. Here goes the list:

• Two daughters - way too much to handle, at least for me. It is fun and frustrating and fulfilling, but it is very definitely WORK.
• Full-time job as teacher in a college - paper correction, tutorial checking, class lectures, and election-duty-whenever-there-are-elections.
• New part-time job as copywriter - now that I have to go twice a week, it is simply not leaving any free time for me. Although I am lovin' it, the deadlines, the thinking from the other point of view, the variety of products we work on...

Earlier, I used to blog about once a week, sometimes twice. I would feel restless and guilty if I did not post anything in a week. But blogging is my stressbuster, something that I love to do. So, why should I get hassled about not being able to blog?

Now, I have made peace with my inner compulsive blogger. Now, the frequency will lessen. It'll have to, if I have to manage two kids, two jobs, one spouse (as of yet) and one self (which needs some amount of sleep).

Maybe once a fortnight, or once a month. Maybe, whenever I feel like. Maybe, if and when I find time. Maybe...

HOW OFTEN DO YOU BLOG?

THE BALM OF BOOKS

Things have been rather downbeat lately.

The teachers’ strike has been called off, and we have resumed our classes, but bureaucracy has tied a thick red tape around our salaries and is refusing to release it anytime soon.

The forty days’ strike meant an enormous amount of backlog of syllabus-to-be-completed and tutorial-projects-to-be-corrected which now has to be taken up through hectic lung-busting lectures and tedious hours of red-pen-wielding.

And to top it all, all holidays have been cancelled as we have to ‘compensate’ for the strike period absenteeism. That is fair enough, but it does mean getting up early on holidays, which I absolutely abhor.

So, I definitely need a balm for my overworked brain and going-around-in-circles mind.

And for me, the best balm has always been BOOKS.

Books keep my head out of the water.
Books help me float in the mess of this world.
Books are a place I can go when everything else stresses me out.

Fo a change, this time, I put away my Crime Fiction and my Chick Lit (both are my fave escape-routes), and picked up some serious LITERATURE.

William Golding’s THE SPIRE. Toni Morrison’s TAR BABY.

Both Nobel Prize Winners. But so very different from each other. Golding, a white Brit male, very much in the centre of the world. Morrison, a black American woman, very much a marginalized entity. And they write about diverse worlds and different eras in these books.

But in their insight into and compassion about the human condition, in their moulding of language into a thing of beauty and awe, they are somehow similar.

Nothing uplifts me like good literature. Nothing makes me feel so wide-eyed and thankful and amazed. And I keep on adding to my list of great books.

WHICH BOOK/S LIFT YOU OUT OF THE MUDDLE F THIS WORLD?

SOME ‘STRIKING’ THOUGHTS

As an ‘aided’ college teacher in Maharashtra (‘aided’ means we get our salary from the state government coffers), I am ON STRIKE at the moment, along with the majority of my colleagues across the state, for the selfish-selfless cause of implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission pay-scales for teachers. To coin a slogan:

WE ARE ON INDEFINITE STRIKE
DEMANDING A DEFINITE PAY HIKE.

This has been a striking week for Mumbai. The overworked and underpaid government doctors went on an eight day strike, demanding better pay (but of course), and resumed work only after ministerial promises and some unfortunate deaths.

School and Junior College teachers went on a one-day strike demanding (guess what) implementation of revised pay-scales.

The bus-drivers and helpers and Group-D staff of my daughter’s school were on strike for a day, followed by the teachers the next day, in protest against the private management’s high-handedness.

All in all, a week of disruption, deviation and demands.

What ‘strikes’ me most, however, is the difference between Mumbai and Kolkata in the approach to strikes .

In Kolkata, we take strikes in our stride. In fact, the right to strike is regarded as the second most important fundamental right by most Bengalis (the first being the right to speak – wherever, whenever, on whatever topic whether we know about it or not, and preferably in a public platform like an adda). Whenever strikes are announced (and they are usually thoughtfully scheduled on Mondays or Fridays to give us the benefit of a long weekend) we cheerfully start making plans for the ‘forced vacation’. Everybody is happy, and a festive mood prevails, with boys playing cricket on empty streets and only the businessmen-types and newspaper-wallahs and TV channel people getting hyper about the erosion of work culture. Don’t they know that the term itself is contradictory – if you work, when will you have time for culture? Bengalis have ‘THE BEST CULTURE’ (you know Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray, and, er, Bappi Lahiri?), so, obviously, dada, we don’t need to work.

In fact, protest is second nature to us (we will always remind the rest of you how we protested against British imperialism long ago). Protest is ‘in the Bengali blood’, much more than work is.

So it was a kind of a ‘culture shock’ for me to see the reluctance of my Mumbai collegues when the teachers' union decided to go on strike. Everybody was upset and worried that the students would face problems, that the syllabus would not be completed on time. Everybody willingly agreed to give up the Diwali vacation to teach extra classes should the need arise. They accept the strike as a measure to achieve certain ends, but are eager to resume work ASAP.

What a change from Kolkata, where we accept strikes as a pleasure to achieve an extra holiday or two till the next call for another strike? And with two obliging political parties trying to break each other's record for maximum strikes and bandhs called in an year, strikes are party time. Literally.

And me? I am caught between deep admiration for Mumbai’s work-ethics and a deeper genetic laziness which is making me enjoy a few days of unemployment. Blame my Bengali blood for that.

TEA, COFFEE, OR...?

I am in the middle of the latest book by Alexander McCall Smith in his No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series, THE MIRACLE AT SPEEDY MOTORS. McCall Smith says in the book, "The telling of a story, like virtually everything in this life, was always made all the easier by a cup of tea."

This delightfully languid series features the 'traditionally-built' (oh, what a lovely excuse for obesity!) detective-of-life's-little-problems and dispenser-of-wise-wand-warm-solutions, Mma Precious Ramotswe, and her assistant,the much-more-rigid Mma Grace Makutsi. Both of them drink plentiful cups of tea throughout the day, with Mma Ramotswe preferring the red bush tea (lovely forest-y name, don't you think?).

When McCall Smith praises the virtues of tea as a nerves-soother,temper-calmer, tongue-loosener, soul-refresher,camaraderie-builder, feel-gooder, most of us in India would echo, "How true".

Tea, perhaps, unites more people than any religion does. But, just as religions divide themselves into factions and sects and whatnots, tea is also divided into a number of different categories - of colour, cut and method-of-preparation.

We grew up knowing that there were two 'best' kinds of tea - the Assam variety and the Darjeeling variety - and, being parochial, fond-of-debates-at-the-drop-of-a-hat Bengalis, we vociferously championed the Darjeeling variety (never mind if Shubhas Ghising and his Gorkhaland cronies were trying to chuck Bengalis out of Darjeeling). A good cup of tea was made by adding the aromatic leaves of Darjeeling tea to just-boiling-water, taking it off the gas/stove, letting it soak for a while, and adding sugar and/or milk only if you liked it that way. True tea connoisseurs preferred not to let anything dilute the taste and fragrance of tea, sniffing in the aroma deeply and pleasurably and closing their eyes in ecstasy before taking the first sip of the elixir.

What a culture shock when I shifted to Mumbai! Here the most-loved cuppa is the one which is boiled with large amounts of milk till possibly nothing remains of the distinctive tea-aroma. To add to the sacrilege (from the Bengali point of view), people often add things like adrak (ginger) and elaichi (cardamom) to the over-bolied concoction! And the resultant muddy, thickish liquid is gulped down with relish, either the whole cup, or half-a-cup (the cutely named 'cutting' chai).

And coffee, the hot 'South-Indian filter coffee', is a SERIOUS CONTENDER to the supremacy of tea! Coffee, for most Bengalis, is a diversion-drink, to be taken in fancy bone-china mugs (coffee MUST be served in mugs, tea in CUPS, or so we were told) when guests drop in, especially in winter. It is emphatically NOT a dozens-of-time-a-day-drink-of-sustenance, for Bengalis at least.

And as for the new-fangled entrants like green tea, and herbal tea, all true-tea-addicted Bengalis will say, "Jatto shob! (Bosh!!). We'd rather believe in ANTI-CAPITALISM than in ANTI-OXIDANTS, you see. Tea is for pure pleasure, health-issues are completely secondary.

Not to take sides on the tea-vs-coffee debate, let me confess that I am a tea-totaller. I DO NOT DRINK TEA and I DO NOT DRINK COFFEE. Not the hot varieties, anyway. I like my tea cold, with lemon, or with ice-cream (they did a great job of that at Dolly's in Dakshinapan, the tea-boutique in Kolkata). And when I go to Barista, or Cafe Coffee Day, I have my frappe or my latte ice-cold (but no chocolate, please). And if there is fresh-lime-soda (or jaljira or nimbu-paani) I'll opt for that!

I guess that makes me a FREAK in the eyes of most tea/coffee/both- addicted Indians.What's your brew?

DEEP SEA DIVING IN THE OCEAN OF ANSWER-SCRIPTS

• Hello, everybody out there in the big bright normal sunlit everyday world. I am speaking to you from some underwater hideout, floundering in a whirlpool of answer-scripts. It is that time of the year when I plunge into the ocean of correction.
  
  Deep sea diving and examination paper connection have a lot in common (apart from the fact that I have never done the former despite wishing to and that I’m forced to do the latter twice a year despite desperately not wishing to). Both give you surprisingly new perspectives on familiar things. Both can be surreal experiences. And both can leave you feeling completely bemused and out-of-depth.
  
  Let me share with you some of the pearls-of-bloopers I’ve dug out from the 400-plus ordinary-oyster scripts I am having to snorkel through.
• One student, attempting to write the agenda for a meeting, wrote, “Discussion of minutes of LUST (last?) meeting”. (Now, wouldn’t that be somewhat explicit? But then, with the younger generation, I guess so-called private things are more in the open.)
• Another fellow, writing a reminder letter to a company for collecting overdue payment, stridently warns, “If you do not pay, we will be forced to take ILLEGAL action” (Methinks students are watching too many Ram Gopal Varma mafia-films of late).
• An innovative student forgot the phrase “pair of socks” and placed a Trial Order for 100 “COUPLES OF SOCKS” (As long as we get one each for the right foot and the left foot, it is all acceptable, right?).
• An enterprising student wrote that a candidate should “BE DRESSED IN NEW AND ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS” while appearing for an interview. I guess he meant that one should wear new clothes and carry original documents for the interview, but then dressing up in documents would definitely be a NEW and ORIGINAL way of catching the interviewer’s attention.
• Interviews, obviously, are enormously important to my students. One fellow, probably feeling that the day of the interview would be an auspicious and memorable one (with the dahi-ka-tikka on forehead and the doting mother performing a puja before the great event) got all mixed-up and wrote that INTERVIEWS are SUSPICIOUS and REMINDABLE (Why? Because the distant relation of the interviewer got the job instead of the deserving candidate?).
• The most common spelling mistake is PRINCIPLE for PRINCIPAL (as in Head of the Institution). Is that a subtle warning to all Principals to be guided by the proper Principles – especially when there are so many accusations of admission-related nefarious activities?
• But the spelling mistake that really made my day was when a student wrote an entire answer on meetings and kept on writing MATINGS instead. “Mating is a form of group communication” (as in orgies?). “Matings can be formal or informal (as in marital and extra-marital?). One advantage of “matings” is “problem-solving” (how many of us have made up in that particular way after a bout of fierce quarelling with the spouse?). And one disadvantage of “matings” is that “they are time-consuming” (Well, now we know what all the corporate honchos do everytime they call up home and say, “I’ll be late for dinner”!).
  
  As I go back for another running dive into the answer-pool, I’ll leave you with a deep and inscrutable statement to ponder over:
  
  “Sinces the you or Quality pleases to the answer, to the payment will not fully. But your not problem I am paying the amount your amount in a before in my paying.”
  
  If can make out what my cryptic philosopher student is trying to communicate, do let me know. When faced with such challenging stuff, I feel as if I’m deep-sea diving without any breathing apparatus.
  

(For a more serious rant on this issue, check out my earlier/angrier post here).

REPUBLIC DAY THOUGHT

I've always felt that 15 August is a day when we celebrate our Independence from the shackles of the past, our liberation from servitude to another nation, our freedom from the imperial British bondage.

And 26 January is a day when we celebrate our founding fathers' vision for our future. The Constitution embodies the hopes and dreams of what India should be, it is a blueprint for the future and the building blocks of the present.

And so, on Republic Day, while it is all very well to garland photographs of freedom-fighters and pay homage to past leaders, it is more important to tell our students and children about the significance of our Constitution, so that we can learn and follow about our duties and rights, about how the government and citizens can together build the nation - a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic, each nomenclature lending meaning to and completing the others. It is a time to renew our pledge that in our own small way we will contribute to the making of our nation. We will stand up for justice, we will fight for liberty, ensure equality and foster fraternity. It is a time to affirm, "Yes, we can", and promise, "Yes, we will."

A MOM'S GUIDE TO A-B-C

This is January, 2009, and it’ll hopefully mark the rite of passage of my Copy-kitten (the younger daughter) from Terrible Two to Tolerable Three (the elder Lil Cat is, thank God, a Slightly-more-sensible Seven). Numerous A-B-C books scattered around the house in various states of disintegration have made me realize that I have also been forced to relearn my A-B-Cs since 2001. Life has completely changed (as in shaken up, turned upside down, gone round the bend and never come back, done cartwheels, been on a roller-coaster) ever the deceptively quiet swaddled bundle was placed in my arms by the doctor (twice over).

· A is for AMAZEMENT – that’s my usual reaction to life, post-motherhood. I’m amazed at how quickly kids grow (including nails, hair and feet) and learn (say a four-letter word in front of them and see). I’m amazed at how long they fight sleep off (when you’re dying to sleep but daren’t) and how swiftly they do fall asleep (while you are lying wide awake beside them).
· B is for BOTTLES – why do we have to sterilize them when the BUNDLE OF JOY is happily licking walls and chewing shoes without falling sick?
· C is for CRAWLING - the CHILD crawls for six months and then begins to walk; the mother is forever made to crawl under beds and tables to search for anything she needs – from CLOTHESPINS to CASSEROLE LIDS.
· D is for DIAPERS – environmental hazard; maternal help.
· E is for ENERGY, and EXCITEMENT and EXPLORATION and etc – the EXCESS of which leaves you feeling like a squeezed-out dishrag.
· F is for FIGHTS – whoever said that siblings learn caring and sharing has made a right royal FOOL of us.
· G is for GAMES – with complicated, ever-changing rules but one certain ending – an all-out fight.
· H is for HOME – which can be HELL or HEAVEN depending on whether the kids are awake or sleeping.
· I is for I-Me-Myself – that part of life which has almost been bulldozed into non-existence.
· J is for JUMPING – from beds and window-sills and chairs and other places that make your heart JUMP right into your mouth.
J is also for JUNKFOOD – the only edible thing kids eat quickly (refer L).
· K is for KISS – that slurpy, sticky, noisy ummmm-aa kiss that makes all the hassles worthwhile.
· L is for LUNCHTIME – which begins at noon and goes on till night.
L is also for LEFTOVERS – which is every mother’s main source of food.
· M is for MOTHERHOOD – what a MAD, MESSY, MIXED-UP ride it is!
· N is for NO – the most frequently used word to answer any question – “Are you hungry?” “Did you break the jam-jar?” “Did you hit your sister?” “Aren’t you mama’s good little girl?”
· O is for OTHER’S – which is OBVIOUSLY more preferable than whatever belongs to self. This includes sister’s schoolbooks, mother’s purse, dad’s cellphone and friend’s tiffins.
· P is for POTTY – that POWERFUL god whose colour, consistency and frequency (or absence) of appearance dominates your daily conciousness.
· Q is for QUIET – and peace and calm and serenity which have quite disappeared from your life.
· R is for RHYMES – don’t dare to mix up Mary with the little lamb with Mary who was contrary or the audience will fly into a RAGE.
· S is for STORIES – reading which is compulsory before the kids go to sleep. I always curse anybody who gifts the kids fat STORY-BOOKS, because they have to be read aloud from end to end (miss a page and they’ll SPOT the cheating immediately) at one sitting.

S is also for SHOUTING - which is the only way of getting kids to hear you.
· T is for TANTRUMS – those kicking-screaming-throwing-things fits that smart kids use for maximum impact.
· U is for ULCER – a side-effect of motherhood, along with migraine, hoarse throat (see S)and backaches.
· V is for VOMITING – you get used to see it all over the bed, all over your clothes, all over the place. It is another weapon in the kids’ arsenal, scold too hard and they’ll VOLUNTARILY vomit out their food which you took so much time and patience to put in them.
· W is for WHY? – that dreadful question which kids keep asking WHEN you don’t know the answer (and also WHEN you do); motherhood is all about being chased by unending WHYs.
· X is for X-TREMES – the kids are always extremely hungry, or extremely un-hungry, extremely devilish or extremely angelic (which only makes you extremely suspicious), extremely wide-awake (at bedtime) or extremely sleepy (at feeding/studying time).
· Y is for YAWN – kids can yawn and blissfully fall asleep; moms can only yawn, sigh and move on to the next chore.
· Z is for Z-Z-Z – the most precious thing for all mothers, who are all seriously sleep-deprived, all the time. Even if it is only the kids who are z-z-z-ing, it’s a welcome break, because it gives you time to get things done, like I am doing now.

CALENDAR COLLECTIBLES

This is the time for many a change, including that of changing the calendars on the walls and on desktops.

Calendars come in two basic categories, the USEFUL (use and throw) and the INTERESTING (display and then keep).

The useful ones are no-frills-only-numbers-in-bold-type (which I can see from a distance without squinting), with the holidays generously marked out in red. These are usually gifted by various publishers (being a teacher has its perks) or bought for Rs 25 (for the Hindi version of Kalnirnay – ‘time-determination’). The Kalnirnay has detailed information on moon-phases and festivals and fasting-feasting dates, all in fine print my maid loves to pore over.

I, however, love getting my hands on interesting calendars, though not of the Kingfisher lean-mean-unclothed-supermodels-variety (maybe I’m envious of the monthly parade of hourglass figures). I like calendars with interesting concepts, not just nice photos but read-worthy texts as well.

In 1997, HSBC, my then-employer then called HONGKONGBANK, brought out a calendar showcasing different traditional trades and crafts of colonized India, with authentic portraits of the craftsmen and brief write-ups. A museum-piece.

The next year, they had a calendar with photos of different instruments used to measure time, chronicling the journey of time from sun-dials to modern nanosecond-measuring digital clocks. A calendar which will definitely last the test of time.

Three years ago, the spouse got a desktop calendar from an association of Bengali book publishers, which had rare photographs of Satyajit Ray and his films. A fine display of the master’s art, for all Bengalis to cherish.

I also love the PETA calendar, which has heart-warming tales (and totally-lovable photos with cute names) of various animals and birds rescued by PETA during the previous year. Each month tells a Janus-faced story of human cruelty and human charity, reminding us of the good and the bad that make up our world.

And on that note, I would like to say HAPPY NEW YEAR in hope and prayer.

TERM’S UP!

A week or so to go, and the end of this term is in sight. Being a person of minuscule-Marathi and with my Hindi-full-of-holes, every year I face a new batch with some amount of trepidation. Yes, I know I teach Business Communication, which is supposed to be taught in English, but by public demand I have to teach bilingually, once in English which the students write down laboriously but incomprehensibly, and once again in Hindi with a lot of examples culled from movies and television which they enjoy and understand (hopefully). Wading through the syllabus with my feet in bi-lingual boats, I sometimes flounder if the batch of fish/students is too unruly/noisy/unresponsive.

This year, I am pleasantly surprised as I seem to have bonded really well with all four divisions of my students (usually I have a jinx with students of ‘B division’, as they call themselves). Of course, there are the rowdy back-benchers who sometimes hoot and hiss when my back is turned. But I’ve managed not to get ruffled even once this year.

This year, I’ve enjoyed teaching (like I enjoyed teaching Literature back in Kolkata) to a section of students who are interested (they even wait till the final lecture for my classes) and responsive (they answer, and correctly, when I quiz them). Even a handful of such students make a world of difference to a teacher, and this year has been wonderfully different so far.

It’s nearing term-end now and it’s been a term well-spent. Thank you, students. I'll cross my fingers and hope for a repeat next term.