Time Machine - Part 2

Thanks to my wife, I got stung by this urge to purge out my memories of annual summer holidays back in school days.

After finishing morning chores and locking up the house, 9 out of 10 times my bicycle automatically pedals itself to my grandparents house. In that house kids of all ages and sizes gather, including those from my own family to the street kids. Most of the time before lunch is spent on chit chatting and plotting the side to be picked for evening cricket match. The time Mr. Sun starts burning my top head my stomach will start pinching for lunch. Even though it was my grandparents house, my parents made it a point to push me to either take lunch in lunchbox or come home and eat. Either way, after heavy lunch its time to rest and hit the sack for an afternoon siesta. After few hours of deep sleep, I for sure would be awakened either by some nice nice bhakshanams coming out of patti's kitchen or my stomach hinting for some more food. Bhakshanams ranged from normal vadams to exotic murruku. Tiffin was always top notch. It was either moor koozh or dosai or adai or uppuma. Some days when patti does not have the mood to cook, there is always pazhaya sadham. Cooked nicely the day before and soaking cooly in chill water, the rice will be ready to be combined with nice mooor. To go with pazhaya sadham will be either mavadu or fresh fresh mangai broken in half delicately using doors. After taking care of the small tummy, hit the streets to start cricket matches. Such was the frenzy that we even had a doctor living in our street come and play with us. For allowing him to play with us, he reciprocated by paying for the window glasses and septic tank pipes which we broke routinely. Playing normally went all the way till the cows came home or till patti/thatha started yelling at top pitch saying "better go home and wash before appa reaches home. Its already late". That last call from thatha was duly obliged to reach home before parents come back from work. :)

Time Machine - Part 1

Just a while back, I was reading one of leading Tamil writers, Era Murugan's blog - http://vembanattukkaayal.blogspot.com/ (btw, he happens to be my dad's relative too. Have not met him though :( ). One of his last posts titled "Sivgangaiyil oru chinna payyan" insitigated me to write my memoirs about my school life. Given that I do not have much to do over this week, writing this blog seems to be the apt thing to do.

My memories of my school life is predominantly characterized by a structure. Early morning - homework (which was replaced by tuition from 7th grade), 7 am - getting ready to school, 8 am - Walking to school, 8:05 to 8:50 am playing some random games in school, 9am - 4pm school time, 4-4:30 pm some time to play, 4:30pm head back home, 4:50-5:45 some eating 6 - run for either Hindi tuition or mridangam class.

God only know where did i have that enthu to learn mridangam or hindi, and how did i learn when my parents did not have any inkling whatsoever about what I learnt. Nowadays, I see parents totting behind their kids for whatever they do and take a keen interest in what their kids do. For sure my parents were off beat then. Well, thats a different story for a different time. All through my schooling life, my parents were busy with their office work. Both left for work around 8 am and were back only after 7:00pm. Which means that they were busy through the morning prepping for their work and busy late in the evenings getting their strain off. Leaving, yours truly either with grand parents (till 6th grade) and then off to himself. By the mighty grace of some celestial bodies or due to lack of that much porruki influence in the area i grew, I turned ok. Now, whenever i try to remember of things during my childhood days, my parents rarely come into the picture. It is either dad's side grand pa, or mom's side grand pa/grand mom, or teachers, or friends.

School teachers have always been fun, that too when the teachers live nearby your house (as they were in SRDFVV, Chromepet) and the teachers' kids study with you. Few of indelible teachers are follows:
- Rama: Maths taught by her has been the best thing happened in my life. She taught without actually feeling that learning that stuff would be tough. She encouraged students to challenge her. Some of the students, including me, went to tuition and learnt many different ways of solving a single problem. Rama ma'am always appreciated when we challenged her with new solutions. To top it off, I have hardly heard her raise her voice. Pretty sweet eh!
- Rajalakshmi: When I think of Tamil, I think of Rajalakshmi ma'am. Whatever fervor i have for this archaic language, i owe it to her. The way she taught those numerous thirukural's that we have to memorize was awesome.
- Mangalam ji: As pointed out by the name, she was the school hindi teacher. Tall lean lady, who never missed a minute to use her cane.
- Sethubhai: A great history teacher. While i dont remember the history she taught, i sure do remember her antics of hitting at students. The way she would twist our ears, say erumai madu and give a wack at our back. OOOOO.. sends chills even now. The best thing is that, this teacher is now related to my friend's wife.

In addition to these teachers, there were always some characters who seem to live past the definition of TIME. Like the ayah, who I remember right from my kinder garden days. Last year I saw her near the school. Or the attendant, who made copies of the exam papers as well as ringing the school bell.

Some other activities which remains in my memory are the weekly monday routine of doing Yoga at 3:00 pm. Almost the whole school lined up in front of auditorium, doing yoga postures for instructions from that shorty Sir. The worst idea of this lot is making us do Yoga in hot sun, wearing spotless white dress in red sand. The next activity i remember is an annual activity that the school called cultural day. It started as a single day activity, then ballooned to 3 day activity with expensive tickets. It went to a level that even the students have to get tickets to see those plays. The best thing happened for us, for that teachers were busy for the best part of 3 months prepping for those 3 days. And if you are in the play, an additional incentive to not be worried about studies. Talking about plays, one big envy for me in my school days was not being part of the school band team. They had lots of fun (or seem to) during the Arts class. Playing the thalapathi tune. Had they known the james bond tune or the Austin powers tune, they would have played that too.

Just a walk down the school road is enough to rekindle these memories. The last time I was in India, I just had time to quickly drive past the school. The rush of memories it gave was enough to put a smile on my face for a while.

Scary Dreams

Kutti thookam or afternoon siesta or looong snoring REM sleep, some dreams hop back in again and again to scare the bejeezus outta me.
- Snakes: As like any normal human, i am also have a sense of respect and fear for snakes. But that cannot be the only explanation for snakes in my dream. I often get this dream of snakes in a big field and I have to meander through those. The settings change every time. Last night, it was in a bus stand, the other day it was in my grand parent's house in Madras.
- Thatha in his funeral procession: I loved my thatha a lot and he has been dead for more than half a decade now. I miss him too. I was not able to be there when he died nor attend his funeral. Probably that might be the reason behind this dream of mine. Anyways, it scares.

And for some reason, all my scary dreams happen between 4:30 am and 7:00 am. Any thoughts why?

Niceties and Critiquing

Through out the day, I have been torn in this torturous routine of reviewing others work. You find the work really boring, but have to review it. You would find the work crappy, but still have to review it. The worst part is if you are a very nice person (like me. hehehehe) to start with it becomes hard to be harsh in your critic of the work. If you are blunt, it becomes painless to review the work. Plus, if the work has nothing much other than crap, it becomes one hell of a work to put together your thoughts for the review. It does not stop to just say what is wrong, but we have to also say how to improve it. The crappy the paper is, the longer time it would take and more nicer you have to be. Huh!!!

Tranquility


Some take a ride to deep sea to feel tranquility. Others listen to music to feel that. Still others hike up mountains to experience that. For me, taking a ride through country roads in a cold but clear night, with nothing but the headlights and the starry skies gives a sense of clarity which nothing else could match.. Last night, while driving from Houston to Austin, I consciously took country road for 1 hour instead of freeway. Man, I should tell you. After the ride, I experienced such a level of tranquility which I for long been yearning for. A best song which came to my mind during the ride was the oldie "Amaithiyana nadhiyinile oodam". Pure heaven!