Teaching the three R’s

It’s back to school time .Children are getting into the study mode again.

Soon the excitement of new uniforms, and crisp new books will wear off and they will be facing the rigmarole of assignments, and tests. If they are in  the ‘board exams’ category added pressure of tuitions will also weigh them down.

Pressures from parents, teachers and peers will soon start piling up on those young shoulders.

My heart goes out to all those back-to-school children and the children who are facing the ordeal of CET, IITJEE COMED, ACE, BASE ,Reservation   and what not.

We definitely had it easy,while  growing up.Why aren’t we able to give that to our children.?

Let me dedicate an article, that I wrote about 4  years back, which shows the flip side of ‘Studying’ to all these children.

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Let me take you on a flash back trip to years back when I was still unmarried, and my parents were  on the look out for an eligible groom  ( bhakra?) for me.

In conservative homes arranged marriage was and still is the norm. News is spread far and near that the hunt has began. People , even strangers come up with suitable horoscopes of boys from ‘decent families’

My parents didn’t want to leave any stone unturned.

At times like these even the most honest and simple minded  people learn to lie through their teeth when it comes to marketing their product  in the marriage market.

My qualifications listed by my parents were- tall, Post graduate,  good looking(?), soft spoken(?), …I refrain from putting up the whole list   for want of space.

Some parents  add singing and dancing too. Wonder of what use that is going to be of, in a marriage. Aren’t we supposed to make him dance to our tunes?

The qualification that landed  me a highly educated ‘boy’ with a cushy job in the software industry , i:e: my Msc in Mathematics, proved to be a bane in disguise in practical life as you will soon see……

When children grew up and started going to schools, I got stuck with the responsibility of honing their 3 R’s ‘cause either their father wasn’t around at home all the time, or just didn’t have the patience to sit with their homework.

Let’s start with basic English-

Why couldn’t English be a straightforwardly designed language like many Indian languages?

Explaining the words were a letter or two are silent ( eg: pneumatic), or explaining the absence   of an  letter in the spelling but that figures in the pronunciation (leiutanant-which has a ‘ef’ sound after ‘le’) when said in the British -English way.

Try explaining the logic of pronouncing ‘cut’ and ‘put’ to a small boy who eagerly is waiting to learn a new language and trying to ask smart questions.

I gave up on English saying if you do not understand my way of teaching you are welcome to  go to your father. My son took that as an ultimatum, because he did not want to have ‘dangerous liaisons’ with his father as a teacher.

Next comes Maths.That can’t be difficult because its my subject, afterall.

My son once came to be asking”How to find the Antilog of .1254”

I frantically tried to go through the whole chapter, understood it myself and tried to do that problem .I cursed myself for not  concentrating properly  when I was a student. Finding a solution to Antilog was making me frustrated, angry and slowly turning me into an antisocial.After about 10-15 minutes I excitedly screamed,”Eureka” and ran to him with the answer proudly only to get a luke warm reply,”O! that ? I already got it ,Amma. Don’t worry”

As though it were not enough that you tackle the studies  of your children you have friends sending there kids to you to “clear doubts from aunty”.

My neighbour’s daughter once wanted me to explain “co-ordinate geometry”.

One look at that chapter is enough to break the co-ordination between your brain and  your senses.

Hindi……Try asking a south Indian to explain why a table is a masculine gender , while few others are femine or even neutral genders ?

Chemistry…Tried  teaching ‘balancing equations’ in a scientific way….and finally ended up saying “ Yeah, well just mug it up.”

What do you do  when you are asked “Why is gravity different in different planets.I tried saying it was created by God like that  and my son didn’t think it was a scientific reply. Where is Newton when we need him.

Finally all that matters is my son passed with flying colours ( school topper in 10^th ) inspite  of my teaching.

My second son is now in  class 10 but I don’t have to worry because I have learnt to tackle the situation well from the “Guru” himself ( my husband)  I have now learnt to say,” Go and ask your brother , he was a topper not me.”

What my elder  son goes through is de ja vu for me. My sympathies are with him.

As for me –all I tackle are the dosas and potato curry off the so called-nonstick kadais!!...!!

My Valentine

         It was that time of the year again. It was yet another Valentine’s day and there are candles, beautiful red roses, chocolates, orchids, and love notes galore every where. This is also the time I think about my Valentine of 20 years, my hubby, and reminisce about our romantic rendezvous.

  In an arranged marriage there is not much scope for ‘dating’ and ‘courting’. Our first meeting in the “girl’s place” was anything but romantic, because we had company that day- my parents, his parents, my inquisitive sisters, his sister and her wailing one-and –a- half- year old son, my loud mouthed grandmother, my smiling grandfather, my uncle and my aunt. Amidst this crowd it is a miracle that we even ‘saw’ each other.

   My father graciously allowed us to go to the other room and have a heart to heart talk for 5 minutes. My uncle took his position at the door, blatantly eves dropping and exactly on the dot, the 5^th minute my grandmother barged  into the room and popped the inevitable question to the ‘boy’-“Did you like the girl?” The look on his face had to be seen to be believed. My grandmother had not taken any course in discretion and sophistication and that showed.

     To this day the joke my husband likes to keep repeating is that he was conned into saying yes by my grandmother and he is still paying the price for the delicious ‘kajar ka halwa’ my mother served that day. And I had all the while been thinking that it was my stunning good looks that had floored him.

      That was just a preamble to what Valentine’s day in the oncoming years would be. It was one such day. I had left subtle and discreet hints for him in the morning, so that he could surprise me with a bouquet of red roses in the evening! He comes home as usual and does not seem to have taken the hint at all. I wonder if he is really so dumb or he is feigning it just to escape the task of taking me out for dinner?

    Years have rolled by and this time my hubby remembered the Valentine’s day. He called in the evening and asked me to be ready to go out for dinner. He breezes in at 8pm  . I am ready, dressed for the occasion. We reach Taj Residency in style (he  would not have anything less for his Valentine, you know) and wait to be shown to our table. The usher politely asks if we have made prior reservations. I lovingly looked up at my husband’s face only to see an embarrassed and sheepish look. Then we began restaurant-hopping but no one would have us. We finally found a deserted  place and had our Valentine’s dinner there.

   When we returned to pick our children from my friend’s place she took one look at my face that was seething with fury and fell off her seat laughing!

    I have finally accepted that Valentine’s days are not for us. Valentine’s day comes and goes  year after year but I have learnt to accept my Valentine for what he is and not what he  is expected to be.

“

My new car

A person can be judged by the car he drives ,it’s said.

Different people buy cars for different reasons:

For some it is just a mode of transport

For some it is a passion

Yet for some it is to flaunt their money.

For a few car gives them an attitude….it makes a fashion statement.

Well we also got carried away and booked the latest Sonata Ember With this started all our problems. Our driver(will be referred as O.D hereon) realized we were considering a new car and subtly told us that we should buy a bright blue or bright green (fluorescent,maybe?) We had the audacity to displease him and drive home a crystal white embera.

Soon we saw a clear shift of  O.D’s loyalty from the car owner to the car.Our car was guarded by him like a hawk over his prey. The first morning he was at our door step earlier than usual- bright and hyper. He reeled off a small list of cleaning paraphernalia –best detergent, new napkin and four door mats. He did not want the insides of his car to be stained by our filthy feet. So he wanted to take extra precaution and cover up the whole area with newspaper when I decided that door mats would clash with the leather upholstery.

Then came our   ride in the new car. The usual rash driver turned into a snail pace driver. Who wouldn’t want to go on long fast rides in a new car? But that was not to be-he was concerned about adding on so..oooo many miles on the first day.

I of course wanted to show off my car whenever I went for vegetable market and gym.On a festival eve, I had bags and bags of fruits, veggies and two extra long sugarcanes weighing me down when I turned around to my find that my car was not parked in its usual spot-right beside the vegetable cart and in the middle of the road.I started walking with my luggage to find my car.I had walked for a considerable distance huffin’ and puffin’ when I saw O.D approaching. He said he had parked the car in a safe place away from all the violent and crude shoppers who might cause a ‘kratch’ or two on the car with their wrist watch or bangle. ”Can’t trust anyone these days “,he summed up. That started our long walk to the car-in-the-safe-place. When I finally returned home I was completely worn out, sweaty and irritated. So much for a luxurious ride in an A/C car.

One Monday morning our intercom blared away off its hook. It was O.D curtly asking my son to come down to the car park area Wondering what the matter was my son scuttled down to find O.D peering at the car shaking his head from side to side. He finally showed the small ‘kratch’ on the rim of the left hind wheel. The time of the crime was the previous day (his off day), suspects being-myself or my husband or our son.He said he had a watchman has a witness and we did not have any alibi. It was a lost case for us.

That incident worsened the situation with the car.He refused to take busy roads. Narrow streets were definitely a no…no.At signals he would invariably open his door,  hang half his body out and scream out choicest expletives in kannada at all the two wheelers that dared to come precariously too close for comfort. We started living in a perennial state of paranoia.

O.D is now toying with the idea of hanging a huge pumpkin with a gory face drawn with black paint on the front bumper after few of our friends cast evil eyes by complimenting it.

So friends, if you see a crystal white ‘Embera’ with a huge pumpkin in the front and a small scratch on the rim of the left hind wheel on the streets of Bangalore stay clear of it.

………..vasuda.

Modern art???

My cousin,  who was in India on  a vacation,  was visiting us . Her little four year old daughter –a ‘Kool’, ever-smiling and cute girl decided to do a drawing and gift it to her aunt  (that is me).

     So here I was- anxiously waiting for my gift watching her little hands moving up and down the paper vigorously and her face sporting a serious and artistic look. And then …the time had come to feast our eyes on the finished product and there she was –standing right in front of us with an eager and upright face to accept all the accolades that were going to come her way, graciously.

    Well, I’m usually a generous person and do not mind being lavish with my praises for little children but what can I say- the cat seemed to have got my tongue at that moment.. Try as I may, I could not figure our what the picture was. I looked at my cousin for help thinking, probably a mother could understand her child the best. But no, not this mother! She gave a wicked smile at me that said,”It’s your gift so you figure it out all by yourself”.

  I came down on my knees, to the little artist’s height and told her it was a very beautiful piece of art but I had no clue as to what it was. “ Don’t you see it aunt? It is a washing machine.” Finally after clarifying as to which was the right side up and having got it autographed by the artist I put it up on the pin board. That painting still adorns one of the walls on our boys’ room.

    Maybe she had the makings of a bright and creative artist. When she grows up and creates her sculptures and paintings ‘classy’ people would throng the art gallery and go around in silence, viewing her work with meaningful nods, interspersed with artistic  jargon. 

      I was once watching a T.V program in which the heroine,  who seemed to be of my breed-the unsophisticated and non- classy  type, goes to an art gallery with her ‘yuppy’ boy friend. She hangs her polyester coat on the huge coat hanger she sees in the middle of the room and joins the rest of the crowd and gets ready to do what the crowd was doing, to  impress her boyfriend. She is later embarrassed when the artist comes up to her and kindly,but coldly asks her to remove her coat from his master piece sculpture!

So much for modern art! Why do we adults feel we have to try to  appreciate things we do not understand? Does any of us have the guts to enter an art gallery and ask somebody, “What in the God’s name does it depict?” We wouldn’t dare to- lest we should be shunned by the people we are desperately trying to impress.

In yet another program they showed these elephants spraying water  colours with their trunks on a canvas. These paintings were sold for anything between  $10,000 and $30,000! If my son had done that on my walls I would have promptly taken him to a specialist to correct his compulsive clumsiness!

  I for one  have decided to keep away from things I cannot comprehend. But as far as my little niece’s paintings are concerned I would gladly cover my wall with them.

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