We came to you as teary eyed 4 year olds with a handful of jumbled letters and you made us a meaningful word out of it. We then grew up to be a mix of jumbled words; you made us into an expressive sentence. We never knew when to stop or pause, you told us, the full stop and the comma were for that. Finally when we had learnt to put them all together we proudly showed you our prose. You weren’t impressed; you taught us ways to make it sound better. Finally, you made poetry out of us.
When the lines were skewed and the angles were not adding up, you were the angel who taught us, that variables were as important as the constants both in Mathematics and life. This lesson we carry until this day. You gave us little tricks to solve complex problems and tucked it into our sleeves and asked us to use it when the need arises. We think of you, decades later, when we pull it out of our sleeves while teaching our little ones.
When we look at a plant today we still remember the Xylem and the Phloem’s, when at the physician’s and discussing a liver ailment, we quickly ask, "Is the bile secretion ok?” We go on to have reasonably informed discussions with our physician. The gen next looks up at us with an expression "When did you google that?" We simply smile and think of you!
Even today being part of an audience in a school quiz show, when a blurred image of a cave pops up on the screen followed by the question, we put up our hand with the same childlike exuberance and shout out the answer ...stalactites and stalagmites it is!. When we are flying over the vast oceans and land forms we name them silently to ourselves, thinking of you.
At a local athletic meet, we remember the synchronized marching tips and the hop skip and jump rules in a triple jump you drilled us in. We think of you setting our bars high, be it for a high jump attempt or for the life ahead in general.
We think of you when we open a door for a lady, or when we stand up as an elderly person walks in, or each time we say please and sorry. We think about you each time we say a Thank you!
Here you are! Thank you! You put in your best to make us do our best. We hope we did.
Happy Teachers Day!!!
The Class of '88
Friday, September 4, 2015
Friday, August 14, 2015
Thoppukaranam – The Calisthenics of the Cranium
1. Place your tongue on the roof of your mouth right behind your teeth (as if you were about to say “La”). Leave it there throughout the exercise.
2. Take your left hand and cross your upper body to hold of your right earlobe with thumb and forefinger. Make sure that the thumb is in front.
3. Now take your right hand across your upper body to hold of your left earlobe. Again, make sure that the thumb is in front. At this point you’re pressing both earlobes simultaneously. Make sure your left arm is close to your chest and inside your right arm.
4. Inhale through your nose and slowly squat down to the ground.
5. Hold your breath and do not exhale until you start making your way back up to a standing position.
6. Repeat this squatting action between 15 and 21 times.
Remember to keep holding your earlobes and to keep your tongue touching the roof of your mouth throughout the entire exercise. You may not notice a change immediately, but after a few weeks an improvement in concentration should become apparent.
If the above process rings a bell, then you were well-groomed as a kid and have gone on to make a name for yourself. This puts to rest an intriguing question, why the most punished of backbenchers, are all very successful today.
Would not have known the reason, had it not been for a video forward from a good friend of mine in the UK. Did a bit of research on it and found that the world is all gaga over this.
I knew this as an act of penance among some of my Hindu friends and as a punishment in school, never knew it as an exercise until today. In fact one of my teachers would help us to the extent of sparing us the trouble of holding our ear lobes (Steps 2 & 3 above) and would do it on her own; we just had to follow 1, 4, 5 & 6. Had I known then, this was a great brain enhancement exercise I would have made all efforts to get punished every other day.
We, the world are greatly indebted to the West for having been the seat of industrial revolution pioneering many of the comforts we are enjoying today. At the same time the contribution of the East to the world was always touted as mystic and spiritual. A reversal of roles is in place today. The West is looking up to the East for spiritual and traditional revival and in the process are repackaging good old Eastern rituals and traditions.
That my friend has been the journey of the humble Thoppukaranam, a South Indian tradition of worshipping lord Ganesha holding the earlobes between your thumb and the forefinger and doing the squats which was also a form of corporal punishment in schools in the past. Apparently the earlobes are supposed to be the energy centre of the brain and this coupled with yogic squats and breathing go a long way in augmenting the benefits of the grey matter.
Well the West has rechristened our humble Thoppukaranam as calisthenics of the cranium and are quiet successful in selling it to the world. Brain Yoga and Calisthenics of the Cranium sounds more chic than Thoppukaranam. At least our folks from Pondicherry should have had the vision to rename it La Thoppukaranam to give it a global reach. They came east looking for spices, but unfortunately left centuries later unable to handle the Pyrotechnics of the Rectum as a result of the spices they came looking for.
2. Take your left hand and cross your upper body to hold of your right earlobe with thumb and forefinger. Make sure that the thumb is in front.
3. Now take your right hand across your upper body to hold of your left earlobe. Again, make sure that the thumb is in front. At this point you’re pressing both earlobes simultaneously. Make sure your left arm is close to your chest and inside your right arm.
4. Inhale through your nose and slowly squat down to the ground.
5. Hold your breath and do not exhale until you start making your way back up to a standing position.
6. Repeat this squatting action between 15 and 21 times.
Remember to keep holding your earlobes and to keep your tongue touching the roof of your mouth throughout the entire exercise. You may not notice a change immediately, but after a few weeks an improvement in concentration should become apparent.
If the above process rings a bell, then you were well-groomed as a kid and have gone on to make a name for yourself. This puts to rest an intriguing question, why the most punished of backbenchers, are all very successful today.
Would not have known the reason, had it not been for a video forward from a good friend of mine in the UK. Did a bit of research on it and found that the world is all gaga over this.
I knew this as an act of penance among some of my Hindu friends and as a punishment in school, never knew it as an exercise until today. In fact one of my teachers would help us to the extent of sparing us the trouble of holding our ear lobes (Steps 2 & 3 above) and would do it on her own; we just had to follow 1, 4, 5 & 6. Had I known then, this was a great brain enhancement exercise I would have made all efforts to get punished every other day.
We, the world are greatly indebted to the West for having been the seat of industrial revolution pioneering many of the comforts we are enjoying today. At the same time the contribution of the East to the world was always touted as mystic and spiritual. A reversal of roles is in place today. The West is looking up to the East for spiritual and traditional revival and in the process are repackaging good old Eastern rituals and traditions.
That my friend has been the journey of the humble Thoppukaranam, a South Indian tradition of worshipping lord Ganesha holding the earlobes between your thumb and the forefinger and doing the squats which was also a form of corporal punishment in schools in the past. Apparently the earlobes are supposed to be the energy centre of the brain and this coupled with yogic squats and breathing go a long way in augmenting the benefits of the grey matter.
Well the West has rechristened our humble Thoppukaranam as calisthenics of the cranium and are quiet successful in selling it to the world. Brain Yoga and Calisthenics of the Cranium sounds more chic than Thoppukaranam. At least our folks from Pondicherry should have had the vision to rename it La Thoppukaranam to give it a global reach. They came east looking for spices, but unfortunately left centuries later unable to handle the Pyrotechnics of the Rectum as a result of the spices they came looking for.
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
A Madras boy makes Chennai proud!
I sometimes wonder we in India are a selfless lot, since we take great pride in chest thumping a fellow Indian’s achievement with gay abandon. Indian media these days goes a step further and makes it a point to celebrate the occasion by giving us a byte from the tea shop from where the celebrity had his last bite.
We just don’t praise him we leave no stone unturned to claim our share of the limelight. Someone or the other knows the someone who knew someone who was close to our new found celebrity. Call this 6 Degrees of separation from fame?
The elevation of Sundar Pichai as the CEO of Google today is one such incidence that has gone berserk on the social media. Well here’s my share of claim to his fame, we were born in the same year and his birth date (12) happens to be a mirror image of mine (21), and that’s not all, we share a rare numerical connection, the squares of the birth dates are also mirror images of each other. Wow! So you see how close we were!
It is indeed commendable that a Gen X compatriot went on to head a company without whose help Gen Z would not survive today. From an Indian perspective the rise of these guys was inevitable. Thanks mainly to the institutions set up in the 50’s and 60’s; within years of gaining independence, such visionary decisions on setting up of educational institutions of quality have gone a long way in shaping the nation. Irrespective of political affiliations I believe this need to be acknowledged and appreciated. A true example of one reaps, what one sows.
The eighties and the early nineties were the coming of age of these institutions and the products of these institutions during these years were juxtaposed between an opportunity filled fast moving world and a complacent India that had lost its fire-in-the-belly post-independence.
This was essentially the pre coaching center, pre-parental aspiration era. An era when the parents were too poor to have aspirations and the kids were so full of dreams, so much so, they forced their parents to reluctantly toe the line. Toe the line, not to enrol them into the most successful of tuition / coaching centers but just to buy them an air ticket to pursue their dreams, the dream they had achieved by sheer hard work and nothing else. Unfortunately, today it’s a reversal of roles, the parents are full of aspirations and the kids are too poor in spirit to dream!
Congratulations Sundar Pichai, this is definitely not a rag to riches story, all stories of our era are Kumar shirts to Louis Phillipe. The middle class successes that we see these days are not just stories but epics that need to be well documented, the good and the bad. Otherwise why would the first Mc Namarical performer from India be behind bars now? So enjoy your moment of glory responsibly with the usual Madrasian humility.
The Madras boy, who is today in the limelight was born and brought up in Madras and left it before it became Chennai and returned to bring glory to Chennai. What Madras sowed then, Chennai reaps today.
We just don’t praise him we leave no stone unturned to claim our share of the limelight. Someone or the other knows the someone who knew someone who was close to our new found celebrity. Call this 6 Degrees of separation from fame?
The elevation of Sundar Pichai as the CEO of Google today is one such incidence that has gone berserk on the social media. Well here’s my share of claim to his fame, we were born in the same year and his birth date (12) happens to be a mirror image of mine (21), and that’s not all, we share a rare numerical connection, the squares of the birth dates are also mirror images of each other. Wow! So you see how close we were!
It is indeed commendable that a Gen X compatriot went on to head a company without whose help Gen Z would not survive today. From an Indian perspective the rise of these guys was inevitable. Thanks mainly to the institutions set up in the 50’s and 60’s; within years of gaining independence, such visionary decisions on setting up of educational institutions of quality have gone a long way in shaping the nation. Irrespective of political affiliations I believe this need to be acknowledged and appreciated. A true example of one reaps, what one sows.
The eighties and the early nineties were the coming of age of these institutions and the products of these institutions during these years were juxtaposed between an opportunity filled fast moving world and a complacent India that had lost its fire-in-the-belly post-independence.
This was essentially the pre coaching center, pre-parental aspiration era. An era when the parents were too poor to have aspirations and the kids were so full of dreams, so much so, they forced their parents to reluctantly toe the line. Toe the line, not to enrol them into the most successful of tuition / coaching centers but just to buy them an air ticket to pursue their dreams, the dream they had achieved by sheer hard work and nothing else. Unfortunately, today it’s a reversal of roles, the parents are full of aspirations and the kids are too poor in spirit to dream!
Congratulations Sundar Pichai, this is definitely not a rag to riches story, all stories of our era are Kumar shirts to Louis Phillipe. The middle class successes that we see these days are not just stories but epics that need to be well documented, the good and the bad. Otherwise why would the first Mc Namarical performer from India be behind bars now? So enjoy your moment of glory responsibly with the usual Madrasian humility.
The Madras boy, who is today in the limelight was born and brought up in Madras and left it before it became Chennai and returned to bring glory to Chennai. What Madras sowed then, Chennai reaps today.
Friday, June 5, 2015
A 2 Minute Requiem to a childhood friend.
Circa 1983, they came around to the school I was in and distributed free packets of a new delicacy. Wrapped in bright yellow coloured air tight packages, they were out to tempt our 10 year old tongues with a new taste from an intriguingly shaped object defining a new concept in cooking and eating.
Incidentally that was around the age when you first learnt about litres and millilitres in maths, Centigrade and boiling point of water in science. These were the 2 units that drew you closer to this product. You were excited to experiment at home the boiling point of 400 Ml of water into which you were advised to add the ingredients. More importantly they asked you to boil it for just 2 minutes. That was the first, Time vs. Volume vs. Temperature graph you plotted. The aroma and the satiation of hunger came free with your science experiment. We read what we understood then, we never read Taste Enhancer, MSG, protein content or the other stuff in fine print. Moreover most of the fine print read like pages out of an Organic Chemistry text book. At the age of 10 we recognised 2 Minutes, and 400ml of boiling water.
Aroma was an integral part of Indian cooking. But this aroma went on to redefine the stereotypical Indian curry smell that emanates from any Indian kitchen. An aroma that would go on to replace the smell of sambars, rasams or chicken tikka masala from an Indian kitchen on a busy weekday morning.
The shape in which it came was also quiet fascinating. They were all wormy and dried up. Growing up in a Malayalee household the closest I was familiar with this shape was the Idiyappam which was also an entangled wormy mess but soggy and boring since it was bereft of the so called taste enhancers but the interesting part was the boiled egg curry that was served along with it. The only taste enhancer was the threat from your parents that if you don’t eat it, you would end up starving rest of the day.
So the messiah in the name of Maggie had arrived to exterminate the boring Iddayappam out of my life. But my mom, being my mom and a wonderful cook was always averse and sceptical about anything that was packaged and instant. She didn’t believe 2 minutes were enough to boil anything and take the evil elements out of it. I protested then, but she is being proven right 32 years down the road. Today as a so called busy parent, I am not as paranoid as my mother but instead tell my wife to quickly stir up a pack of Maggie for my kid’s lunch since it saves time.
Maggie and I grew up together, trusting each other; she has come to my rescue many a times during my bachelor days when all you had was a kettle and a large soup bowl particularly when all restaurants had closed for the day. A man’s master chef moment was to cook Maggie in 2 Minutes and break a couple of eggs into it. Several variants of improvised taste enhancers have been tried and tested in those days; one worth a mention is emptying the last drops of Old Monk into a cooked bowl of Maggie as a taste and sense enhancer.
I’m not sure if I am right or wrong now. However, I feel that I failed to show the wisdom my mom exhibited 32 years back, not to trust anything that was packaged and instant. I might sound archaic, but aren’t we all headed the organic way these days? Our lifestyles revolve around looking up available archaic literature from Yogic postures for a better sleep to herbal medication to live healthier.
Anything instant was fretted and fumed at by my mom who was old school. To drink good filter coffee you had to brew the brew overnight, but then Bru came along and claimed that you can brew filter coffee instantly. The jury was out on Instant gratification Vs Emotional Gratification; a good Brew went through a makeover with the emotional vowel ‘E’ being replaced with ‘U’ so as to indicate that YOU made a choice to be instantly gratified at the cost of an emotionally motivated delayed gratification,that decision would prove detrimental in the long run. Well, the whole concept of instant gratification, be it for the taste buds or simple aspirations in life, was not a way of life 3 to 4 decades back. Yet we embraced Maggie whole heartedly.
I’m no food safety expert to pass judgements here but I would certainly like to see large corporations, especially in the food industry to act responsibly realising they are in the business of feeding people of the world and not just in pursuit of a statistic called market share.
Incidentally that was around the age when you first learnt about litres and millilitres in maths, Centigrade and boiling point of water in science. These were the 2 units that drew you closer to this product. You were excited to experiment at home the boiling point of 400 Ml of water into which you were advised to add the ingredients. More importantly they asked you to boil it for just 2 minutes. That was the first, Time vs. Volume vs. Temperature graph you plotted. The aroma and the satiation of hunger came free with your science experiment. We read what we understood then, we never read Taste Enhancer, MSG, protein content or the other stuff in fine print. Moreover most of the fine print read like pages out of an Organic Chemistry text book. At the age of 10 we recognised 2 Minutes, and 400ml of boiling water.
Aroma was an integral part of Indian cooking. But this aroma went on to redefine the stereotypical Indian curry smell that emanates from any Indian kitchen. An aroma that would go on to replace the smell of sambars, rasams or chicken tikka masala from an Indian kitchen on a busy weekday morning.
The shape in which it came was also quiet fascinating. They were all wormy and dried up. Growing up in a Malayalee household the closest I was familiar with this shape was the Idiyappam which was also an entangled wormy mess but soggy and boring since it was bereft of the so called taste enhancers but the interesting part was the boiled egg curry that was served along with it. The only taste enhancer was the threat from your parents that if you don’t eat it, you would end up starving rest of the day.
So the messiah in the name of Maggie had arrived to exterminate the boring Iddayappam out of my life. But my mom, being my mom and a wonderful cook was always averse and sceptical about anything that was packaged and instant. She didn’t believe 2 minutes were enough to boil anything and take the evil elements out of it. I protested then, but she is being proven right 32 years down the road. Today as a so called busy parent, I am not as paranoid as my mother but instead tell my wife to quickly stir up a pack of Maggie for my kid’s lunch since it saves time.
Maggie and I grew up together, trusting each other; she has come to my rescue many a times during my bachelor days when all you had was a kettle and a large soup bowl particularly when all restaurants had closed for the day. A man’s master chef moment was to cook Maggie in 2 Minutes and break a couple of eggs into it. Several variants of improvised taste enhancers have been tried and tested in those days; one worth a mention is emptying the last drops of Old Monk into a cooked bowl of Maggie as a taste and sense enhancer.
I’m not sure if I am right or wrong now. However, I feel that I failed to show the wisdom my mom exhibited 32 years back, not to trust anything that was packaged and instant. I might sound archaic, but aren’t we all headed the organic way these days? Our lifestyles revolve around looking up available archaic literature from Yogic postures for a better sleep to herbal medication to live healthier.
Anything instant was fretted and fumed at by my mom who was old school. To drink good filter coffee you had to brew the brew overnight, but then Bru came along and claimed that you can brew filter coffee instantly. The jury was out on Instant gratification Vs Emotional Gratification; a good Brew went through a makeover with the emotional vowel ‘E’ being replaced with ‘U’ so as to indicate that YOU made a choice to be instantly gratified at the cost of an emotionally motivated delayed gratification,that decision would prove detrimental in the long run. Well, the whole concept of instant gratification, be it for the taste buds or simple aspirations in life, was not a way of life 3 to 4 decades back. Yet we embraced Maggie whole heartedly.
I’m no food safety expert to pass judgements here but I would certainly like to see large corporations, especially in the food industry to act responsibly realising they are in the business of feeding people of the world and not just in pursuit of a statistic called market share.
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