Guru

I took a .Net training session for a batch of fresh graduates in my organization. And they gifted me a key chain. It has a lovely quotation inscribed on it, “Blessed is he who receives education and thrice blessed is he who educates”. I don’t know if I am thrice blessed because I don’t think imparting some mumbo-jumbo on .Net framework makes me worthy of that ( and since I am doubtful even if 2% of them will end up working on .Net technology :| ). But I would say I have been blessed in my life with some wonderful teachers who have – though it may sound clichéd- made me who I am today.

My first love is English- I am simply in love with the language. And it was my teacher in school who instilled this love. Miss Sharda Chadha- she epitomized perfection- be it her vocabulary, her diction, her thoughts, even her wardrobe! My best friend, Sameepa and I literally used to drool over her. English classes could not have been more interesting than Miss Chadha made them. She not only used to give some invaluable insights to the works we used to study, but what was more innovative was her logical bisection of scenarios. I still remember when she was teaching the poem “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes. (For those interested, here is the link to the poem http://www.teachersfirst.com/share/highwayman/st1.html )

At the end of the discourse, she posed a simple question,” Do you think the Highwayman was true in his love”. This led to a pretty animated debate, but I was impressed because she questioned an unstated assumption. She drove logic into literature - and nothing can be more engrossing.

My professional education career hardly had any “educators” making a scratch.

As I moved on to work, I enrolled for coaching classes for MBA. Life was totally changed after that! When I was at home I used to plan how to get the job done at office and when I was in office, I felt like a prisoner. Every passing second made me feel like leave the very chair and rush home to DI, Quant and Verbal Ability. I was worse than a junkie experiencing withdrawal symptoms.

And to make matters worse, I had some pretty ungodly elements at work to completely upset the apple cart. I went to my mentor at the coaching centre Sajal Mitra. He had the élan of a celebrity, but the intellect of a sage. At a stage when I was unable to cope with the pressure, he made me see the daunting task as a challenge. He literally made me feel like a phoenix and pushed me to push myself to the levels where I had never dared. He told me,”You will have troubles, but you will fight. You will show yourself and the world that you won’t crack. You will give CAT your best so that at the end of the exam you don’t regret not having put in your best.” He even went on to draw my plan of action. He made me pull in 18 solid hours from the 24 hour day and helped me allocate time to every aspect of the preparation. It was really amazing to see that so much can be achieved within the time we got also. I did not manage to get any calls from IIMs but I did not get an ignoble score as well. In spite of the trials I can say that I managed a decent 89 percentile; more important than that- I gave CAT my very best. Nothing can be more fulfilling. I still have the spark that he instilled in me and intend to attempt to “bell the CAT” this year. Hope this time I can convert my efforts into results.

The next person to cause pedagogical ripples in my life is Giri Sir. He is my swimming instructor. (Yes I am taking swimming classes :)) The sheer patience of this man amazes me! Swimming is a very tough thing to teach. But he has the utter patience to go on and on. I get frustrated with my lack of control on my breath and inability to move my left hand while swimming, or lack of coordination between legs and hands, but Giri Sir just does not give up. On one hand he is full of advice and on the other with encouragement. And not only for me, he coaches a 50 year old lady and 5 year old kids with the same dedication and determination. I can’t stop eulogizing the spirit of the man who is so true to his profession and an inspiration to so many.

It’s said a teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. Truer words have not been said.

Never say GoodBye....

I was tempted to name this blog Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna. But it being the movie people love to hate, I did not want this blog to turn out the same. Though I feel even people who love me are gonna hate me for having written this.

KANK is movie that has received a lot of brick bats. KJo managed to get good reviews for the movie though it was lampooned by the general public. I am not a KJo fan and I feel he degraded love by making a movie as crass as Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. I am also not a believer in the concept of soul mates which he touted in KANK. In spite of all this, I liked KANK.

I can hear some say what? Come again. Well I liked Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna.

I found it the first and the most mature movie made by KJo.

Be it the highly uppity Preity Zinta or the self deprecating Rani Mukherjee, the child-man Abhisekh Bachchan or the utterly bloated and repulsive Shahrukh Khan - I found each character real. The fact that the audience found SRK irritating or Rani Mukherjee a schmalz I think just proves that they delivered the character they were supposed to. But in KANK we had stark reality.

The couples in the plot were the most ill matched ones personality vise, but I think that’s how life is very often. It’s a different matter that we rarely see them in candy floss cinemas.
In Indian marriages we have an unwritten code of honor “Adjust”. But the characters in the movie were not taught that I suppose. And that made them jarring and aberrant. And that made sense to me.

The audience sympathy was with Preity Zinta and Abhisekh Bachchan, because they had not erred. They were the ones wronged against. Again I felt that’s a very human trait to cling to the first support one finds. And that’s the characters of Rani Mukherjee and Shahrukh Khan did. They found support in each other and broke the sacred vows. I am also an Indian to the core and don’t corroborate what they did, but on a logical after thought, I would say what they did was attuned to the concept of one making relationships rather than having relationships thrust upon oneself.

I simply loved Shahrukh Khan in the movie. Being an ardent admirer of his, I hated his character; which just proves how very convincing he was. Usually as one of my friends says, “his performance has layers”. It’s not a simple one track depiction of a character. He makes it realistic and puts a lot of zeal and feel into the depiction. So every time you see his work, it’s like a different and new perspective of the character being unraveled each time. And KANK I feel had the multi dimensional SRK at his very best. The first time I watched the movie, I detested him. He seemed as a term goes – an MCP (Male Chauvinist Pig – for the uninitiated). I found him weak and loathsome. But the second time I saw, I was hit by the pathos in his character. And the third time around I was gaga about his perfect timing of comedy. He just gets better at reinventing himself with each movie :).

[I know when my friend Ashma (an Aamir Khan fan) reads this, at the above line she would have the best frown a girl can put on her face.]

Some characters were redundant and not so well etched out like that of Amitabh Bachchan. And the ending could of course have been a bit sleeker. But I think KANK would have been much better received with out the prevalent multiplex culture. Because I feel in a multiplex one is too affected by group behavior. You see one person letting out a yawn and fidgeting and your attention level drops. It’s so easy to get influenced by the person seated beside you. And matters just get worse if you have a big group along with you. Under those circumstances the movie has to fight for an equal footing with the pop corns and colas moving between the chairs. KANK on the other hand deserves ones undivided attention else or none at all. I being one who watches and not sees movies, felt the small screen does more justice to the script of this movie.

I hope with this blog I might have opened a lot of debate gates :). I also hope some will give KANK a dekko again.

Gandhigiri

As a student of history in school my heart went out for the militant nationalists. Because for me they were men of action. And I held a very strong dis-enchantment and antagonism for the Nehru Gandhi family.(I still do :) )
But yesterday I was taking my monthly pass at the railway station. A burly man brushed past me to get the ticket. I did not flinch though my natural response would have been a harsh "EXCUSE ME!!". Maybe I was plain lazy to respond. So I let him go ahead.
As he was getting his ticket done, he looked back and said,"I am sorry". I nodded.
Once his ticket was done, he turned back and said,"I am really sorry, I was getting late so I barged in." I told him it was OK.
He moved on.
But I think what I was in his eyes was compunction.
My first trial at Gandhigiri (inadvertently though) and it was a success!

Shantaram

Yesterday I asked a friend of mine not to post reviews of books and movies on her blogs. But here I am writing my next blog about a book which is occupying most of the hours that I am awake.

Well I won’t write a review on “Shantaram”, because I think there will be ample number of people who would have done the same.

What I want to voice is the influence the book has had over me.

The novel is set in Mumbai. And each page is seeped in the atmosphere of Aamchi Mumbai.

As I sit in the platform and read through the pages of the novel, it’s as if I am tele-ported to Bombay. Most novels have this effect on me since I have a vivid imagination. I construct the places and people in the novels in detail. But this novel seamlessly throws me into the lives of the characters. It’s never like I read 2-3 lines and then I get into the flow of things. On the contrary it’s more like even as I am walking on the streets of Hyderabad, I have the sights and sounds of Mumbai zipping past me. From the slums of Bombay, to the crowded trains, to the swank hotels – there has been not a single instance where I had to read a line twice to get the picture. Rather there are umpteen instances when I re-read the lines to re-live the incident.

The incidents that have been mentioned in this novel are not earth shattering events. But the way the nuances have been outlined and the way the sheer indomitableness of the human spirit that has been described-it leaves me speechless and eloquent at the same time.

Simplicity is said to have an intangible charm. After reading Shantaram I know the worth of this saying. The author has down played many events and gone on an even pace as if he is writing a diary. There is no embellishment and no hype in any page. In spite of that I am all agog to read. I can feel a taut wire of suspense; I can feel an undercurrent of mystery as if I am reading a thriller.

Each sentence in the novel is a full of wisdom. I am tempted to underline each and every printed letter. I read some sentences again and again so that I can commit them to memory. But each time I remember one sentence of profound wisdom, I stumble upon another, some sentences down the line. And I wish I had some supernatural memory to have the whole book in my head. But Alas! God has given me limited capacities to learn. : (

The book is replete with examples which show the author’s keen sense of observation. And many a times I mouth the words “exactly” and “how true” when he makes a comment on a certain situation. He uses just the right words to convey the message. And that ensures the message makes the impact.

I am said to have a very transparent face. It’s easy for people to decipher my feelings from my expressions. I am sure while reading my face must be a kaleidoscope of expressions. Many times I have caught myself cringe my nose in disgust or raise my eyebrows in astonishment or release a gasp of breath in relief.

Well, the novel is like surreal force on me. I wonder when I might be able to come out of the enchantment of Shantaram.

My God!

It was a bad day. Work was mundane in the office. There were awful traffic jams. I was forced to walk for quite a long distance and was getting irritated with the whole affair. I wanted to get home ASAP. That’s when I just thought I might as well start thinking of my next blog. So I thought I would write about the traffic in Hyderabad. I walked on forming the rough draft of the blog mentally. Then I stumbled on a mound of earth and fell down. I scratched my palm and feet. I got a bit irritated and sent a complaint to the heavens. I screamed within,”Oh God! Why such a pathetic day?”

That’s when I thought hey! I can write about my God.

My belief in God is strange (others say so, though I find it logical). I am always reminded of a story when I think of him.

When I was in school our Moral Science teacher once narrated this story.

She said, once there was a man sitting on the banks of a river and thinking about God.

He saw a small child dig a hole in the bank. The child then ran to the river to get some water and poured it in the hole. He went on doing this for quite some time. Curious, the man called the child and asked him what he was doing. The child replied that he was trying to empty the river and put all the water in the hole he had dug. The man started laughing and said it was impossible. The child was a bit crest-fallen. But then he asked the man what he was doing. The man replied that he was trying to understand God.

The child laughed hard and said that it might be possible to that he would empty the river into his hole, but it is impossible to understand God. Because God is limitless and unfathomable.

This is the crux of my belief in God.

When I go to temples, my friends say I should put some amount of money when I take the Aarti. It is like we offer some thing in return for his blessings. I comply with their wishes; because I don’t want to show case my debating prowess in a temple. But in my heart of hearts I am like, come on God would not want these change coins.

And my daily interactions with Him are pretty casual.

On the way to my office there is a Ganesh temple. It is a very small temple on the street. But India being the land of the devout, it is usually crowded for the good part of the day. And every day I make it a point to say hi to Him. But some days down the line, the journey to office started getting a bit frustrating as trains got too delayed from their schedule and got too crowded. So one day I shot a prayer to the deity, “Give me a safe and comfortable journey today”. And that day the train was bang on time and I traveled like a queen, with very few people standing in the train.

After that day every day I say the same prayer to him. It’s not that every day I get a seat and the train is never delayed. But usually I have some company to entertain me if the train is too much off the schedule. The days I don’t get a seat, the weather is so nice that I forget about the standing completely. Other days I end up meeting some one interesting if I am standing and making new friends. So each day He answers my prayer in his own sweet way.

And some days He answers my prayers just at the nick of time. I see the “hand of God” when the electricity comes back when I ask Him. Or when He sends the bus after I have stood for no longer than 10 minutes at the bus-stop; because He knows that my patience threshold is low. Or when He stops the rain when I am about to go for shopping : ). Really I can’t think of the zillions of times when He has done the right thing at the right time.

I don’t believe in fasting and performing rituals for appeasement of deities. I am also not a temple freak because I feel closer and more in sync with God in my own small room. My belief in Him is too informal and for some borders on being profane.

But one of my friends says, my belief in God makes her believe in Him.

Amen. : )

My daddy Strongest :)

Well this is one of my favorite anecdotes and I thought I might as well put it in my blog.

The incident happened when I was in standard 12^th and was preparing for my board exams. Like any other diligent student I used to waste the whole day and burn the midnight oil.

It was one such day when it was well past 2 A.M in the morning and I was studying. My study table used to be right in the center of the room. And from the place where I was seated, I faced a window.

All of a sudden there was a creak! I was like, yeah things do go bump in the night but where did that creak come from? I continued to study when the creak steadied and increased in decibel level. I looked up and saw two eyes staring at me from the window. I was petrified.

There was a person staring at me from the window! From his dark face two alert eyes peered at me, the whites of his eyes scaring the living day lights out of me.

Suddenly I sprang to my feet and ran to my father’s room and woke him. Poor thing he was fast asleep. I told him breathlessly, “Dad there is some one staring from my room’s windows.” My dad was woken from a real deep sleep.

(He is a very sound sleeper like me : ) and he too loves sleeping like me : ) )

He was like why, what where. I repeated my self.

Then he got onto his feet as if I had hit him with a hot iron and ran to my room.

There he screamed at the top of his voice.

(He has a very loud voice. Even his yawns can reach people in the ground floor from our first floor house :)),”Where is my GUN? Come on Cherrie BRING MY GUNNNNNNN”. At that point there was the sound of some one scurrying through our garden.

Then my dad ran out to the house to scare the trespasser in case he was still there.

After we had made sure there was no one he came into the house. I was still shivering. Then he told me that it must have been a petty thief and told me to go to sleep ASAP.

Well the next morning we came to know that in each and every house in the colony there had been a theft the previous night. Some ones coat had been stolen, someone’s slippers and still some one else’s cycle. It was only our house which was spared because of the diligent night watchwoman :)

But I am all gaga about the way my father handled the situation. Woken in the middle of the night, he had the presence of mind to handle the situation in the best possible way. My daddy strongestttttttttt :)

Write Right

I was pondering for quite a long time what to write next. And I decided to write on my love for writing :). Simple, yeah?

I have been writing since I was three. Ok ok that was a joke. (I know some of the readers who know me will comment there she goes displaying her gift of gaff and spurts another of her atrocious jokes. But this is my space so I will spew as many poor jokes as I want.)

Factually, I have been writing since I was in standard 5 I think. That time I used to hang around with a girl called Lipsa. Now we both used to compose poems and write stories and tell each other. I remember having written poems like “My Dear Carmel School”, “My Mom”, “My Dad” and many other interesting and captivating topics. Now some of you might be wondering why did I spare my sister and not write an ode to her. Well I did write a poem for her too. It was called “Meri Behna”. Yes I used to write poems in Hindi also. Lipsa and I used to write on myriad topics and then correct the grammar and punctuations of each others works. We were pretty careful about the alliterations, the rhyming, and proper use of all the concepts that we learnt in the poetry classes.

In standard 8 I think Lipsa left the school because her father got transferred to some other town. But my tryst with writing continued. Now I had matured into topics such as “Kashmir-Valley of Silence” (that’s one of my personal favorites),”Why so much greed” (this was inspired from the “Hawala” and other scams which had rocked the nation during late 90s), etc.

My proficiency at churning literary master pieces continued till I reached Class10. This is the time where each and ever student is forced to concentrate on studies and sideline all other interesting engagements. So after 10^th I was completely out of touch with writing.

Then suddenly I got a chance to wake up the creator within when I saw a call for essays in Times of India. This was an all India contest organized by Indian Institute of Agricultural Research. The topic was “Industrialization of Agriculture”. I pored over the Economic and Political Weekly journals (which my mother supplied at a blinding rate, she being an economist) and wrote the essay. My dad was also “inspired” and put on his thinking cap and sent an entry to the contest.

And 4 months down the line on an august day in September, we got a letter from Delhi. I had won the 3^rd prize in the contest. And surprise, dad had come first. It was an epoch making moment in my life.

After that I used to literally re-read Times of India to get hold of any essay contest that was organized by any one. So I ended up writing for contests organized by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Cottage Industry, Government of Maharashtra, Ministry of Tourism, Government of Meghalaya and any god forsaken institute you can think of. I never struck gold again, but, I learnt a lot, because I had to do a lot of research to compose my works (Seriously).

After my graduation, I contributed to contests organized by Competition Success Review and some of my essays were found worthy enough to be published. :)

Once I started working, I hardly got time to write any thing. So I used to channel my creative energies into writing mails. They came to be termed as “long mails”. The recipients were friends and the contents included everything concerning me from what I did the last day, my ethical, moral and professional dilemmas, the cold wars at home with my room mates, the deluge of problems I faced at office and all and sundry topics.

Some days down the line I learnt of the concept of blogging. And when a friend of mine whom I least expected to write, joined the bandwagon of bloggers I was seriously incited. But then one well wisher suggested, that blogging was too public. It would be better if I restricted myself to “long mails” to put forth my thoughts.

But then, who can put a stop on the resurgent tides of writing. So finally on 24^th of April, 2007, I claimed my space on the web. So here I am, this is me, and no one can stop me from blogging.

(Ahem the last line is so nice)