Friday 27 September 2013

Mirror,Mirror - my Companion (poem)

Mirror, mirror in my washroom
my first  companion
in the morning
to greet me,
to look into my eyes-
and tell me
all that I need to know
and  be reassured
about myself.






Mirror, mirror in my room
Whom I look at
Every  morning
While dressing
Preparing to face the world
To send them a message
Loud and clear
What I feel
About myself
And the world
.


Mirror,mirror my companion
With whom I grew
all these years
Do you love me
So much that
You didn't want me hurt?
Only the photos
Revealed the truth
Of my age
And the bulges.



Yet, mirror, mirror
My companion :
In place of
The original tale
Of mother vs daughter where
 The mother burned in anger
 I shall,on seeing
Photos of my clone
 Beside me
Glow with pride
N.B- In the famous fairy tale,Snow White and the seven dwarfs, the step-mother was so jealous of Snow White that she ordered her killed. Only the kindness of others, particularly that of 7 dwarfs (little men) helps her.


                                   photos : google 

Saturday 21 September 2013

To stand out like the lotus



                                                                                                                   All free  download.com


Right from my school days I remember the usual rivalry dialogue, 'my school, the lotus - your  school, dabba school.'
'

The lotus stands out in a pond - tall and brave and imposing, challenging its very background - dangerous slush and dirty, stagnant water.
It's refreshing to see people like that in real life: standing out for their values in the face of opposition and contradictory tradition.
An example
I know of a village where their tradition regarding women differs from what we normally find in more developed areas.Why talk of villages- if we were to rewind our own dialogues, we'd find some gender bias that sounds the natural thing  to do. Maybe that's what ultimately works out in society; maybe we're made that way ( or brought up that way).Perhaps the male hormones have some place for ego and the female ones have some kind for service.
Whether its scientific or not, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.


Well, back to our village, I was surprised to find a man give his wife a week's rest. He let her go to her mom's place just like that.The only son in the midst of many daughters - a place conducive to developing fully male chauvinistic ideas.Maybe I should salute him for his act.
Earlier
Only a few months earlier his wife had come home for her delivery.Hardly was the child a few months old when he called her to join him.He had got used to her cooking which was far preferable to his mother's and hence the hurry.


Equal brains, equal work, equal respect? All free  download.com

But now perhaps caring for and watching the little one grow gave him a more protective and mature attitude.Whatever the stimulus may  have been, not all respond so positively.A growth is a growth and is to be appreciated.
Explanation for his present behaviour 
 When he wanted to take some major decisions in the family contrary to his mother's wishes, she wrongly thought them to be suggested by his wife. When there was no other way of convincing his mother of his wife's uninvolvement in the matter, he felt that she would be convinced more easily if the wife were away and so  gave his wife a much needed holiday( from the nagging ma-in -law) .
 Even ordinarily it would have been great but you know what? This holiday included their wedding anniversary and which man would forgo his special briyani? 
This hero did. And instead, celebrated  his wife's return in style, free from the hassles of  a possessive  mother-in-law (possessive about her son) .

NB-dabba- ordinary, hollow

       briyani-a special dish made by cooking rice and meat together

                                                                                                                                                  All free  download.com


   

Friday 13 September 2013

A tribute to my special teachers - care to join me ?


Yuvaraj shows the symptoms - looks blankly at me, closes his eyelids and then his eyeballs  turn away. "No,no,Yuva, don't think like that," I said.

"I too used to fear grammar just like you - but see now I am teaching you English." I called him to stand beside me.I gave him my book and made him read out some sentences, either acting them out myself or making other students act them out substituting Yuvaraj's name for textual ones.
Years ago my teacher did the same thing to me : identified my fear,gave me special attention and treated me like I was a genius.I would  fail to pay         Miss Mary Rose a tribute if I didn't  follow her example.

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(Teachers day and its celebrations may have come and gone but what some of my teachers did for me still works in my life.I'd like to pay some special ones a tribute.
You may join me by paying a tribute to any of your special teachers.)



Then there was Mr Moorthy for Physics.His explanations were practical and jovial. "If 4 of you wanted to travel on a bike on a narrow road,"he would explain.
The police would be the resistance.You would be the current.Which would be easier to escape - a narrow road or a broader road ? So it is with a thin wire and a thick wire.



My chem master, Mr Zavier was humility personified. He was a great giver of gifts and scholarships though he dressed very humbly himself.Whether in the lab or in the classroom,he forever had beakers and flasks in hand, doing what seemed to me 'magical'.Adding two colourless solutions to get a coloured one or making   a coloured one become colourless just like that.Apart from this he'd  give us low cost soap fresh from  the lab.

My Bio M'am, Mrs. Mari Gopinathan made  us see the human body working  out its different systems right through her diagrams and models.

I think what made these teachers stand out is that they didn't place themselves or any student on a pedestal  while making the others look on. Like an elephant lifting a stranded person by the trunk, these teachers lifted the lower level students to a higher level by whatever  lively method they could.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  All free download.com