Abdul Kalam - Indian People's First Choice

                                             First Citizen : By law or by peoples' choice



Ask any teacher in India if she can confidently teach her students," that's a true Indian you can be proud of ." And most probably she'll come up with the same answer, 'Abdul Kalam'.

Because other exemplary humans lived in the freedom struggle times and it's difficult to ask youngsters to follow examples of long ago.So I as a teacher rejoiced to hear that a museum is to be built in Delhi in Dr.Abdul Kalam's memory. I wanted to share my joy immediately but meanwhile got caught up in discussing Chennai's recent floods.

Though he was a brainy and most successful scientist, the whole of India remembers him because of his humility and the  goodwill he had towards others.Where else will you find a person so dedicated to inspiring youth? Who else travelled endlessly just to pass on his success to others?


Here are some contrasting situations

 that endeared  President A.P.J Abdul Kalam to the masses-

·        Abdul Kalam’s father was a muslim imam of a local mosque. But he owned a ferry which took Hindu pilgrims to and fro between Rameswaram and Dhanushkodi(Hindu places of pilgrimage).

·        The family was poor when Abdul was a boy and he sold newspapers to help. Yet he ended up as the President of India.

·        He missed achieving his dream of becoming a fighter pilot.

But he travelled all over India inspiring the youth to follow their dreams.
Though he majored in Physics and Mathematics and became India’s  missile man, he collaborated with Dr.Soma Raju to              

                         develop a low cost coronary stent named the Kalam Raju stent.             

·           These two again collaborated to develop a tablet computer  known   as the Kalam Raju tablet for   health care in rural areas.

·        Though the BJP can hardly tolerate Muslims, the Kalam-BJP reign went on very smoothly. (President-Prime Minister)

·        Though he had served as the President of India, he went about humbly and almost unnoticed, teaching the youth at different IITs,

inspiring them  to do their best.

He maintained this humility to thank all the teachers who inspired him, including his primary teachers.

·            He was a pure vegetarian.

·                Though he died at the age of 83, he was most followed by the youth of  India all over the world!

May the museum inspire still more youth  by his words and writings.                                         

                                                                                                 Photos : Google images

Coping with Natural Disasters in Future - Will being 'Swach Bharat' help?

We need  to learn from our experiences and put our  hands and heads together to bring about a permanent solution.

                                         TO err is human, but to learn from it is development.

It was a life time's achievement! To get land at the crowded city of Chennai this cheap and to build a house. A few handfuls of  'under the table' deals settled all the necessary legal matters. Nobody was being harmed, it seemed at the time.

And then those plastics.They told us, time and again to segregate the plastics  and use it for road laying and the like. But where was the time for the voice of the environmentalists then? It was so neat and convenient to wrap up all the bin's contents in a plastic cover and toss it across the road. Whether it blocked the street dogs' or straying cows' stomachs was their own concern.

But now it is different. The recent experiences cannot be wiped out from our minds so easily.The close shave with loss and even death. The feeling of being trapped and separated from the outer world. The darkness. The power cut.The fear of snakes swimming into our houses. The thirst when our water supply was cut off . The starvation.

Now we know and understand. We will clear the way for the  excess water to flow into the sea, if need be after all our rain water harvesting schemes have been used to the full.  We will keep our city clean. We will segregate our wastes. And don't forget to tell the Corporation to do its part too.To provide the necessary bins and trucks and man power to clear the waste in time.

We Tamilians can do anything once we make up our minds. 'Swach Bharat? Okay, fine. Just see if we don't follow the rules. The biodegradable waste should end up in manure pits and covered with soil for some 3 months or more, right?

And the non-biodegradable should be collected all the more carefully and taken either for recycling or better still for direct use elsewhere where it will not in any case block water's flow: neither in roadside drains nor in other water bodies, irrespective of whether they are in use or not.

Tamilnadu's recent floods  might  have finally brought about a general awareness among the public. Awareness regarding the preventive measures we ought to take to avoid the stench of death and loss, the fear of resulting diseases, the unexpected displacement of our regular livelihood. The unknown potholes and manholes that cause so many accidents.

Disasters have visited us in the past. And we rose above them. Warned our children about them. And taught them to manage, to live 'humanely' and to respect lives. We shall do it again and this time it will be different. Because we learnt so much from the media. About people all across the world, their disasters and how they rose above them.

                                                          Photos : Google images

How They Met ...and Married

Jessie pulled her sari tjghter about her in an involuntary gesture of self protection. Something about the man in turban sitting opposite her in the train compartment disturbed her. The newspaper he held was all a pretence. She was sure of that. Now and then he was casting furtive glances at her with a sly smile on his lips.

She was a teacher at a reputed school and was going back home for her quarterly holidays. Her father would be waiting for her at the station. This Christmas would be special for her. She would be allowed to wear a new necklace that they had got her. And that beautiful pink silk sari.

 A veterinary doctor had come to 'see' her some ten days back. The family seemed pleased enough with whatever they had seen and heard of her.The doctor himself seemed to be a skinny guy. She couldn't catch a glimpse of him properly as he was far away and girls were not supposed to stare. So they might fix the engagement in the holidays and then the marriage between Christmas and New Year. That was the time the church would be fully decorated and everybody would be in a festive mood.

The train slowed down at her station and she got up to pull her suitcase out from the shelf above. The man opposite her immediately got it for her.She felt like telling him to mind his own business but just pulled it from him with a rough 'thank you' and turned away. Her brother had also come to the station. She showed him the man and said, "looks like he's been following me." The brother immediately turned his cycle and went after the man.

"You'd better leave my sister alone."he warned.
."I don't think that's possible, brother-in-law," the man replied, pulling off his turban and false beard."I wanted to have a closer look at my bride, you know, and now hurry and start the wedding preparations."

The bride was my maternal aunt and that was how I got my fun loving uncle.


                                       *                                       *                                    *

Satish was a handsome and enterprising engineer working abroad. So the next natural step was to search for a suitable bride for him. An elderly well wisher had found just the right bride for him. Well educated, wise, patient and caring, the  well wisher  was fully sure that the bride's temperament would be ideal for the modern, impatient engineer. Satish contacted the girl via the net and found her to be indeed the ideal match for him.In the meantime  he found a new company with better opportunities and decided to switch jobs.

The date for the wedding had been fixed but the new company was in no mood to release their new employee even to attend his own wedding  at India. Cards were printed and the guests were invited.
But no one knew when the bridegroom would actually arrive. As the possibility of his arriving for his wedding grew dim, he began assuring his bride that even if he couldn't arrive in person at the appointed time, they'd complete the rituals via the net and be declared Man and wife at the appointed time.

Yet Mala, the bride still hoped. Eleven hours before the wedding the company gave the groom permission to leave and five hours before the wedding he arrived to find his decked up bride sleeping out of sheer exhaustion. He whisked her into a car at midnight and took her to the beach only to be threatened by the police who suspected some foul behaviour. Luckily some relatives came to his rescue and he and his bride had a chance to meet each other before their wedding.

This young couple are my house owners and are blessed with two beautiful children.

                                         *                                                  *


A freedom fighter who had been in jail for a long time was shown the door by the fathers of all the prospective brides.

 In those days relatives competed  with one another in booking bridegrooms for their daughters. So this fatherless bridegroom was very downcast. He confided this to a friend who promised to get him a good bride. The friend went to his sister's hostel, lied to her and the staff that their father was ill and brought the poor unsuspecting girl out. Took her straight to a registrar's office and made her sign the marriage register.
The girl's  mother-in- law was a warm and broadminded person. She immediately welcomed  the bride and did everything to make her feel at home.The student- suddenly- turned bride found herself  to be the head of a long line of brothers and sisters-in-law. Yet she too soon fit into her role.

This (her adjustment) happens to be good for me because the bride turned out to be my mother-in-law.

That Encouraging Word

                                            Statue of the founder, GTN College, Dindigul


"I KNEW it all along, I could feel the sense of gratitude and the looks of admiration from my classmates, both boys and girls. Yet it felt good and truly boosted my spirits to hear it from my master when he told you about me the other day," my friend's daughter told her mother Nandini (my friend) recently.

'And hearing her say it the day after she graduated from her College boosted my spirits in turn because we really had reason to fear for her', Nandini explained.

'Her two years of Higher Secondary at a new school hadn't been good. How she landed there, hostel and all I still can't say.Some suggestion from her friends, some from mine and off she went. Her idea was to listen well in class and  then open her books now and then to understand a concept. Just before tests and the exams she'd refresh what was in her mind.But it didn't work out there.

The authorities there who had produced some toppers believed in making the students reproduce the textbook, word for word. This would ensure full marks for the students and a name for the school. When my daughter produced the answer in her own words, she was hardly given a decent mark. Overcome by shame and guilt, she lost her reasoning and logic. In spite of our assurances that we only wanted her to be happy and confident, she showed symptoms of stress, depression and inferiority.

Then to our surprise she passed with a 1st class and in fact with marks above 70%. But with every College expecting students with top marks, we had a tough time during admission. Anyway she was admitted  to the GTN College and it proved to be a healing therapy for her.The positive and encouraging atmosphere there did her a world of good.

. Most of her classmates being from villages, my daughter who had lived in towns through out had lots to learn from them : like sharing in the chores at home,being independent,etc.

And they in turn came to know of their rights,learnt to think and reason with their lecturers, etc.from her.She had even arranged a trip to Kerala for them-all on her own.

 Once I got to meet a lecturer by chance.He was surprised how so active a girl could remain humble and helpful too.This was the lecturer she was referring to, Meena",Nandini told me obviously relieved.                                                                                                                                                                    A trip to Kerala                                                                                      

Creating a Samacheer (uniform) Class for Children

It's been around four years now since the introduction of the Samacheer  or uniform system of education for all children in Tamilnadu. And both students and teachers have found a way to crack even this system, generally speaking.
 Logically, it sounds right. Creating equal opportunities by giving all the children: rich and poor, city and slum area, equal education. Yet if  we hold the lens close enough, we notice that there  still are differences. Differences in background  knowledge, scope and capacity. And perhaps we haven't really lifted the level of the village children. Perhaps we have only brought down the level of the city and town children.

But of course just as a human cell takes at least 3-4 months to grow, perhaps a human brain must also be expected to take its time to show  the benefit of growth. So perhaps like all team work, the 'slow and backward' so far might get a chance of being either uplifted or shoved up.That's as far as academics is concerned.
 But as for as the real problem, teachers still have to grind their teeth. The behaviour of the downtrodden children. Perhaps in the tough competition for their basic needs, man automatically turns into a beast,when it comes to survival of the fittest. Like we see 'decent' middle class people when their water pipes are broken or blocked and they have to depend on 'water trucks' or lorries.

So it could be either the hunger in these children or anger. Physical hunger because his overworked mother doesn't have the strength or time, sometimes even money to provide for him. Naturally, hunger for attention also ensues. Anger that the parents/society/fate did not provide them their basic needs or spend enough time with them. The pity is that they are not even aware of their anger or hunger. So they don't know that they can try for a solution. Instead, they smile their sadist smile and vent their anger with fowl words. Words that a self respecting teacher would blush to hear. Or they mercilessly bully a weak child.

The media with its introduction of violence and sexually stimulating scenes and words hasn't helped at all. Socially, the stess on honour and values have been replaced by marks/grades with the idea that it'll convert to money some day. Neither do we find many children with a value based book in hand or sitting at the library.

At school,the teacher tries to correct the child with kindness, even love - and finds herself made a fool of. And practically, we can't expect most of the teachers to pursue after that. Sometimes the child has simply grown up with that kind of behaviour in that kind of class  and imbibes it without thinking. ( the lower classes have to live in a particular place so that they may not cross over to or walk or even collect water from where the higher classes live,though stray pigs can do that).

 If his father is a drunkard and hits his wife, a boy thinks that the 'man' thing to do would be to drink himself and look at girls without respect. Small, common rooms for parents and children make them observe their parents in their private moments and may  stimulate him to try out his ability. Any different kind of advice makes him think that this person doesn't  have the kind of experience he has.

Where then lies the answer?Social workers and teachers have to exercise their wisdom, patience and  prayers for these children till a common class of thinking and well behaved children arises.Will it?

                                                                  Photos : free digital photos.net

High Above the Maddening Crowd

            THOUGH it may not come under any ‘Heritage’ or ‘wonder of the world’ title, Dindigul’s  Balaji  Bhavan,Tamilnadu is surely a haven above the ground  for any local resident or visitor.

     We escaped from the crowded Bus Stand to Balaji Bhavan  one evening,  went past the crowd already eating/waiting for their parcels to be packed and took the lift to the roof top.

       It was my son’s birthday. And my daughter wanted to celebrate it in style.  We stepped out into the cool fresh air and took a few steps ahead. We were greeted by the sound of light romantic music. The dim lighting helped relieve the tension off my eyes(I became aware of it only after entering there).I was looking  at the young bamboo shoots and flowering plants and shrubs when we had to cross a small bridge. As I watched my step I saw fish pass just below my feet as water flowed under the bridge.

       Four or five young couples with small children were already seated around small tables.  A smiling waiter took us to an empty table towards the inside. Water jugs and small sauce pots were already placed on the table. Table mats of chart paper with quiz and puzzles for children were laid on the empty table. As we were relishing all these, the waiter served us the menu card. We asked for both mushroom soup as well as the usual tomato soup. Strangely though, the mushroom soup was not as good as the tomato soup. As we were ordering these, another waiter served the neighbouring table with something that was burning and smoking but  in a raw cabbage leaf. I held my daughter’s arm and pointed to the dish but my daughter whispered that it was a sizzler and that was the way it should be served. By the time we finished our soup, curiosity overtook my fear and I wanted a sizzler too.

  The children ordered spring rolls(tortillas), naan,( something like a big bun) and rumalli roti as the main dishes.These were mostly made of maida(white flour), which  had no nutritional value. But on seeing the children’s faces and comforting myself that it was only once a year, I kept quiet. The mushroom gravy topped with cottage cheese and cauliflower curry with mayonnaise were sumptous and  appetizing.

    We felt full but what is a celebration without a dessert? Each of us
had a milk shake of a different flavour with a generous topping of icecream. All these came within a surprising low bill. And to re-live the sweet memories we sure took a lot of photos in the funniest of poses you could think of!

A Lady's Sense of Justice

free digital photos.net

I had heard so much about her that I was waiting for the day I could see her in person. Plump and caring but authoritative with the final word  and an innate sense of justice.

She entered the reserved compartment and walking straight towards a seat that seemed empty, she sat down. It was actually a two seater but a thin couple occupied only half the space provided.The man reminded her that it was a reserved compartment but she replied that she was harming no one.

Her husband had served in the railways for many years and died 'in harness'. The job was given to her son. She was called to help with her daughter's second delivery and while there,she had yet another call from a relative who was having serious health problems. Wasn't it her duty to go there immediately and help? Should she be delayed searching for Identity proofs and the lot?

Vendors selling fresh murukkus (a crisp rice snack) passed by. She called them and bought a good lot of murukkus. The relative had children, you know. Presently she took out the day's newspaper and offered a sheet to each of the passengers to read.In half an hour the men began talking politics. The lady too joined in. Right from the politics of her local area to State politics to National politics, she was well informed and well opinionated about everything.                                                                                                                                           free digital photos.net

She could look above the cracks and loopholes of the abiding law that so many took unfair advantage of. She reminded me of the old time grannies who managed joint families with their intuitive love and wisdom. An explanation of the Tamilian custom of worshiping women goddesses.

                                                                         free digital photos.net