Beaming with Contentment

Unbelievable moments of mad mischief, endless chatter, annoyed frustration and nail biting nervousness later, I've finally managed to reach the end of the session...

There were times when I wondered if I was doing anything right, especially with one rather errant group. I'm still not sure how those zozos will fare and if my track record will suffer immensely or stay intact, but I am sure that I couldn't have done too badly...and once again my complete faith in what I'm doing has been reconfirmed. The elated satisfaction and the contented pride I glean from students' performances match litte else...and I must admit there is no better self-validation I harbour so often and so hungrily at times, than the one I get from students' appreciations.

One of the two batches passing out from my "regime" gave me the hugest and cutest card today - one that has warmed every little corner of my heart and spread across the length and breadth of me, a smile that refuses to fade. A hand-made card, they've put in it every silly thing uttered by them, all their insane gaffes, all my eccentric utterances and expressions and even one sentence I uttered while unleashing my ire on one of them...of all the gestures made by my students over the last 3 years, this will go down as one of the most memorable and special ones.

Rambling Away...

Random thoughts at four in the morning, when I should have been working and trying to deliver an assignment on my own time, instead of pushing it aside to be completed on time begged and borrowed…

• It is an extremely humbling experience to know people and have friends who are so much more intelligent and accomplished than one self…
• I don’t really mind the work; just wish there weren’t deadlines to meet every week! I’d never thought I’d live to see the day I worked almost unceasingly relying on a meagre four to five hours of sleep daily!
• Drumming music into my system after years – aeons actually! I’m counting on Trilok Gurtu to get the adrenaline flowing so I can meet the deadline looming large over me!
• Inching closer and closer to realizing a dream and an experience that I’m awaiting with a curious mix of excited eagerness coupled with wary nervousness – it’s funny how the last few centimeters seem the longest and the most arduous!

Forget Me Not, For Alive I Am...

....just terribly busy and buried under an avalance of work! The days don't seem to get any less tiring and the work doesn't seem to stop pouring in...but I have no complaints really. I haven't been this much at peace since a very long time and any work that comes my way is more than welcome if it brings with it peace of mind! :-)
Blog I shall - a far more interesting post, which is lying in the drafts waiting to be edited, polished and posted. I promise thee, my dear friends...just give me some time! Patience I demand of thee...prithee forget not, that patient I too have been in the past ;-)

Impression - Le Reveillon

I have, ever since I started understanding what little I understand about art, been an ardent admirer of the Impressionists, especially Edgar Degas and Claude Monet. My joy and delight was absolutely undiluted and unbriddled when I went for the Impressionist exhibition last year at the Museum in Montpellier, so much so that at one point I had the guard following me suspiciously! Even now when I recall the moment when I walked into the hall which housed Monet's biggest works, my skin breaks into goosebumps. It is strange then, that I haven't blogged at all about Claude Monet (1840-1926) whose painting, Impression, Soleil Levant (Sunrise) gave the name to the school of artists who primarily painted in plein air, making the most of the natural light and atmosphere and allowing it to reflect in their oeuvre along with their own individual perceptions and sensations vis-à-vis the subject. Last night as I revisited some of my favourite poems and browsed through the poems archive discovering previously unknown treasures, I found myself reading Oscar Wilde's Impression - Le Reveillon, which beautifully encapsulates my very own thoughts on the sublime beauty of a sunrise, the natural and the artistic interpretation. Since I find myself incapable of expressing the beauty of Claude Monet's oeuvre in my own words, I am shamelessly borrowing Wilde's words...

The sky is laced with fitful red,
The circling mists and shadows flee,
The dawn is rising from the sea,
Like a white lady from her bed.

And jagged brazen arrows fall
Athwart the feathers of the night,
And a long wave of yellow light
Breaks silently on tower and hall,

And spreading wide across the wold
Wakes into flight some fluttering bird,
And all the chestnut tops are stirred,
And all the branches streaked with gold.

Diwali is in the Air...

There's a nip in the air and a song in my heart ever since I got back from Bombay and despite some incredibly frustratingly annoying events and people and the fact that I constantly look for Papa to fulfill certain traditions, I feel a certain content inside of me that, for me, is synonymous with Diwali :-) Sure I love getting new outfits and I enjoy buying gifts for our family and friends, but what I really treasure are the simple rituals of cleaning the house, stringing the Diwali lights and Akashdeep Kandils, making the Diwali sweets, feasting on gujiyas, kheer and malpua made by Ma, lighting the hand-made diyas for धनतेरस and नरकचौदस, preparing for the Diwali pooja and finally the pooja itself...tomorrow is Diwali. May it usher in a year filled with joys and all that is right.

Keeping Traditions Alive...

I've been writing out the Diwali cards - an annual Diwali ritual and something I did with Papa. Some of my earliest memories of Diwali involve helping him choose the cards at a card shop or in a gift expo we'd visit before Diwali, and then sitting by his side at the dinner table, licking the stamps and painstakingly sticking them on the envelopes. I soon graduated to dictating the addresses to him, then writing the addresses on the envelopes...and over the years as his handwriting got worse and he got busier, the task of writing the cards shifted to me. But I never did it without him - whenever I took it up, he was there beside me, even if he was working...

I refused to write or send cards in 2006, still furious at the cruel twist of fate that had left me without him. It was only sometime during the Diwali pooja that it struck me that he would have wanted me to continue the tradition of sending the Diwali cards and he would have been disappointed with my juvenile and selfish behaviour. So last year, for the first time I sat alone and wrote cards to the whole family. Fortunately there were some cards remaining from the 2005, the last time I'd written Diwali cards. There was no pleasure in it at all; just a mechanical process, ...and I asked Papa if I had to keep this tradition alive.

Last night, nearly a year later I had my answer. It wasn't just about keeping the tradition alive, it was about making it mine. This morning, before running other errands, I bought the Diwali cards. For the first time, alone, without Papa to discuss which designs to choose and how many cards we'd need. I started writing the cards this evening. Papa was right there with me through out...and as I ticked off the last name in our usual list and then pulled out some more cards to send to my own set of friends and colleagues, I could see him smiling in approval.

We Live and We Learn

19th November 2005
14:00 - 16:00 Patrakar Nagar, Salle 1
My first day in class - it was a cours d'enfants (kid's class). I was overwhelmed by all the tiny tots, demanding attention and talking at the same time! It used to take all my patience and energy to keep them apart, get them to do something with a pedagogic purpose and enjoy at the same time...and I used to be drained and ready to drop at the end of those 2 hours every Saturday.
4th October 2008
14:00 - 16:00 Patrakar Nagar, Salle 1
Far from my first day in class - this time around Niveau 2 (level 2), and a group of adolescents and young adults. I was overwhelmed by all the students demanding attention and talking at the same time! It took all my patience and energy keeping them apart, and getting them to do something with a pedagogic purpose and yet enjoy themselves...and I was drained and ready to drop at the end of the 2 hours this Saturday.

Moral of the Story :
There is not much difference in teaching 10 year olds and 20 year olds!

A Tale of Two Cities

Over lunch with ex-students I recently narrated the story of our fish who led a very high-drama life with evil plots, murders and suicides. Immensely amused, they were convinced I'd invented the whole story. I did add some mirch-masala I admit, but the aggressive attacks, the murders and the suicides all happened for real, as did the inter-city rivalry for space between the fish from Bombay and those from Pune. I have re-produced the tale for Literary Mosaic - do go read it if you're looking for some deliciously melodramatic nonsense!

Plainer as the Years Go By...

Cards given to me by students of the session of Sept-Dec 08

The Little Joys..

I met G yesterday - after nearly a year and a half. An ex-student, she is from my very first batch at AFP (a weekend batch) I remember focusing on her face through out the first class because it was so reassuring and calmed those butterflies in my stomach and made my legs stop trembling in the salwar. I was the youngest person in the room. Ironically, it was with that batch that I never needed to assert my authority as a teacher. Unlike J and S who have become friends, G and I don't stay in contact that regularly, making each message /email / phone call so much more special. It was such a huge pleasure to see her yesterday and it totally made my day. It's the little joys like this that reaffirm my tenacious hold on this job...

Stay

"You say I only hear what I want to.
You say I talk so all the time so.
And I thought what I felt was simple,
and I thought that I don't belong,
and now that I am leaving,
now I know that I did something wrong 'cause I missed you.
Yeah yeah, I missed you.
And you say I only hear what I want to:
I don't listen hard,
don't pay attention to the distance that you're running to anyone, anywhere,
I don't understand if you really care,
I'm only hearing negative: no, no, no.
...
-Lisa Loeb

Heard this song after the longest time yesterday and haven't stopped humming since it then...

And So Spoke The Teacher...

Starting the end of the school years, through college and university, I wondered what the fuss was about Teacher's Day, convinced that the teachers, most of them seeming jaded about their profession, couldn't really care if they were wished on the day by their students or not...the belief was made even more concrete during my post-graduate studies where teacher-student interaction hardly existed, leave alone a genuine relationship where one would feel the kind of respect, gratitude and warmth that inspire motivation to wish the professor.

Switch to 5th September 2006 - my first Teacher's Day as a teacher. The card I received still occupies a special position (as do the students from that batch) in all the cards I have ever received. Being wished on Guru Purnima (this year two students even touched my feet, much to my horror) and Teacher's Day by current and ex-students, being showered with smiles, cards, flowers and gifts is absolutely amazing! Perhaps I am already a little spoiled by the attention I have received from students in the last two years but I felt rather upset when this year, the day simply passed like any other day. Apart from the one student (from my very first batch) who calls or emails unfailingly every year to wish me on both occassions there was nothing. Nothing. Not a peep from the other students. At the risk of sounding like a spoilt child, I was a little upset - and felt like the current streak of things going wrong and being ignored and pushed back to the margins was being reinforced. Alright perhaps the last bit was an exaggeration. Nevertheless I felt upset.

Seems like this is the second time this year I'm realising the importance of a festival and am eating my words! Ha, another thing I'm doing alot this year! ;-)

Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

There are days when I question how I continue to use the sorry excuse for public transport that this city provides. The buses, apart from the completely missing schedules and sense of timing, are actually not so bad ever since we've shifted to this side of town - so what if I have to leave over an hour early despite being just 15 minutes from work? But the 6-seaters a.k.a. share-rickshaws make me feel downright misreable at times, especially considering the fact that there are never less than twice that number stuffed in the vehicle and I'm often squashed between members of the blue-collared society, making it a rather uncomfortable (and often smelly) ten minutes ride. I have to constantly remind myself not to think like a feudal mistress and to remember that they lead a difficult life and I have no right to look down my nose at them. Yet I stubbornly refuse to learn how to drive (maybe it won't hurt to learn) and add another vehicle to the roads which already can't bear the burden that has been dumped on them. I know it sounds super twisted (like most of my logic) but I see it as akin to cutting trees, or spitting or throwing trash on the road. It is the easy way out to buy a two-wheeler or a car, but it isn't the solution. Neither the roads nor the environment can sustain it...I know my silly gesture (read stubborn act) will really not amount to much but I don't see myself backing off and compromising any time soon...
Sigh...seems like I'm cursed then to suffer in this realm as well, since I refuse to compromise on my "principles." I wish I wasn't such an idealist and a stickler for principles and values. I wish I hadn't learnt to question and analyse. I wish I was a tad less intelligent (or far more, actually and thus above all this banal crap) and knew how to compromise on what seems so trivial to most people but to me becomes a question of right and wrong. I wish I wasn't....
Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

Waiting...

...interminably, adrift in the vast sea of endless disappointment with not a vestige of hope in sight, I'm exhausted and haven't the energy to row any more. There must be another way to live this life, said the wise friend. Alas, but I know not how to live it differently.

La Séparation (1994)

I specialise in depressing novels and films that subvert mainstream reality. As I confessed to a friend recently, I enjoy and thrive on depressing, subversive feminist novels. In keeping with my rather expansive statement I have been reading only highly depressing novels in the last few months and seeing wonderfully dark and depressing films.

I recently saw Christian Vincent's La Séparation starring Isabelle Huppert and Daniel Auteuil. The film is about a couple whose marriage has been dead for a while and is just coming to terms with it after the wife confesses to having a love affair with another man - a man who listens to her, pays attention to her needs and understands her. Nothing really differentiates this couple from the others in the beginning of the film, not the absence of love and mutual harmony in their relationship, nor their lack of communication. But with the confession of infidelity, the relationship changes subtly. The husband's intital reaction to her confession is quite lukewarm and neutral. Instead of reacting negatively he attempts to understand and firmly believes that she must not have been physically unfaithful to him. Life goes on as usual; they come and go, leaving their son in the care of a young girl. But the confession has created an unsurmountable chasm between them and slowly the apparent indifference turns into something violent and acrimonious and they drift further apart till they finally separate.

Extremely disturbing, there isn't much of a story to this film, the director having chosen to focus on the two main characters and their thoughts and emotions. What struck me the most was the glaring absence of warmth between the three members of the family and the obvious lack of a relationship binding them as a family. No stranger to the reality and abundance of failed relationships, the sterile and cold death of this marriage left me feeling disturbed and made firmer my conviction that there is no fate worse than having to endure failure in a relationship for after all isn't it is our emotions and relationships that define us as humans?

The acting, needless to say was brilliant - what else can be expected from Isabelle Huppert who seems to have the knack of almost effortlessly convincing the audience of her character's reality? Having seen several of her films during PIFF 2006, and been shaken to the core by La Pianiste, I knew I was seeing the oeuvre of a master. I am still amazed and floored by her flawless talent.

Definitely a film I'd recommend, despite the fact that it will leave you with many a dark thought and an irrepressible sense of hopelessness.

You can find a simulatenous review in French on Accros de Français

Happiness v/s Contentment

A fleeting remark about "happiness" brought up the following line of thought. Probably incredibly convoluted as are most of my (il) logical thoughts, but I couldn't help but question whether I'd be "happy" if I had absolute enduring happiness. Utopic, but wouldn't that be artificial and some how take away from my own levels of endurance and make me a rather bland person? So oft have I fervently wished for happiness and lamented when the fleeting moments of happiness have slipped through my fingers like loose sand, leaving behind that awful sinking feeling in my heart and endless days of dark, cold depression...

But would a life full of undiluted happiness, ideal as it sounds, have any character at all? How would I measure my state of happiness if I knew no other state of being? And how would I then, deal with a calamity if I've never seen a dark cloud shadowing my horizons?

Minutes later, I realised that it isn't enduring happiness I crave, it's enduring contentment and peace. Happiness after all is ephemeral and defined by a certain evanescence and shallowness, isn't it? What I wouldn't do to go to bed at night, my heart and mind at peace, content with my life. I can only cross my fingers that I have that some day and that it lasts...

Amen...

Rakhi...

I never gave much importance to the festival and the custom of the obligatory gift given to the sister in exchange for the Rakhi has made me frown even more on the festival. My screwed up brain sees it as a materialistic custom and questions why a gift must be given in exchange for the Rakhi...it drives me up the wall when on Rakhi and each Bhai Dooj we hunt (sometimes almost frantically) for gifts for my cousins and nieces...would they not tie a Rakhi or do tika if a gift was not given? And if so, what does that say about the relationship? I know I'm probably complicating it for nothing, but then that's me. I specialise in complicating things, especially relationships with my wierd ideas and high expectactions.
But then, this year, for the first time Rakhi took on a new meaning. It's been 3 years and 3 Rakhis since Papa has not been here...but choti Bua still sends the Rakhis for Papa (and Ma) and the tika on each Bhai Dooj. For Bua, her relationship with her Nanu is still alive, even if he is not. Just this simple gesture has changed the way I perceive the festival and the relationship between a brother and sister.

Rooted

(Taken at the University of Pune, on the way to the Main building. After having walked up to the Y-point and beyond to the main canteen, I took the shaded path that comes up right in front of the lawns of the Main building. It's a path I love, perhaps my favourite part of the University campus and brings back many fond memories and a smile to accompany the faint heart ache...)

I like Chopin - Gazebo

Remember that piano
So delightful unusual
That classic sensation
Sentimental confusion

Used to say
I like Chopin
Love me now
and again

Rainy days never say goodbye
To desire when we are together
Rainy days growing in your eyes
Tell me where's my way

Imagine your face
In a sunshine reflection
A vision of blue skies
Forever distractions
A song that has kept me company over the years, long after we lost it from our once enviable collection of music, I've waited years to hear this song again. Access to Broadband and Limewire open source and a week later it is finally playing on my laptop. The first time the song came back to me was at the airport at Berlin when I was leaving behind my main suitcase and it is the song that kept me sane and kept up my hope till I finally saw my suitcase with all its contents intact. The song, try as I might refused to play in my head last year in Barcelona and later in Paris. I remember the look of disbelief given to me by P and K when I told them this - it sounds really screwed up and illogical I know. Yet the song represents in some manner of speaking things finally working out and falling into place. I had to have it, even if just to offer me superficial comfort. Heh and I thought I wasn't superstitious!

Souvenirs...

A chapter I've been waiting to close almost as soon as it started. The souvenirs are plenty but for a change I am just waiting to lose them...this one is particular chaffed me greatly through out the duration of the class, unaccustomed as I am to have any kind of identification tag decorating my person! I would wear it at the last possible moment and be in the process of removing it as I walked out of the gate!