I remember the first day she entered the class—her long saree rippling behind her, her face lively and utter pleasantness etched on her face…ah, you should have seen her then. She looked like the teacher. Meera mam—lovely memories of my best school year cloud my mind when I speak of her. That was in fifth standard, and I still haven’t forgotten her. Obviously, we don’t forget our best teachers. There was initial reluctance, you see—she was new, and she taught boring science, and she was our class teacher. No one knew her, and everyone thought ‘new’ teacher meant an outsider. But her winning smile and her passion for teaching won us over. She was something apart from a teacher—she was someone who understood. She was someone who taught the joy of sharing, of the values of friendship….she was different, and all of us loved her.
Meera Mam had strange ways. For example, if you didn’t finish your lunch, she would sit with you, with your spoon in her hand, and feed you the old curd rice your mom had packed!
“You should not waste what your parents send you,” she used to say. Now, if Meera Mam fed you, she would do it in front of the entire class, and it was something of an embarrassment to be fed, so we used to finish our entire lunch. That was a clever plan of hers, so ingeniously designed, yet so simple.
Did I mention she had the greatest handwriting on earth? I have tried to imitate her long slender l’s and curvy g’s but it was never possible to get it right. I remember one day when she was particularly strained, and she arrived to class quite late and started off on something. Now, the backbenches were creating quite a racket, yelling and shouting and she repeatedly asked them to stop. I was a backbencher then too---but I was the meekest girl in class, you wouldn’t find me talking for anything. Finally, Meera mam decided to punish us.
“The last two benches will stand up and remain standing until the end of the period.”
Others obliged quite cheerfully, but I was shocked. I had never been punished before—I was the perfect student. I stood up on wobbly legs, tears clouding my eyes—I had not talked, I had not done anything wrong.
“Keep quiet, Lakshmi, don’t be such a cry-baby,” Sharanya jabbed me, which made me cry further. By then, Meera Mam was staring at me, “ It’s all right, dear. That was my mistake. You haven’t done anything wrong, you can sit down.”
I sat down gratefully, I remember how regretful Meera Mam seemed that day.
Two years later, Meera Mam left school to care for her newly adopted son. I just felt like I should dedicate this blog to her on teacher’s day, to my best teacher. To meera mam with love. …
And if there are any teachers here today, I would like to wish them a Happy Teacher’s Day too, including my mom. My mom is a commerce lecturer, and although I have heard she is one of the greatest teachers at PES, I don’t really know how she teaches, I have never attended her class, sometimes I wish I could. But at home, mom has been a great teacher, tenderly teaching life-lessons, and I realize I ought not to be angry with her, for her lessons will ultimately help me in life.
(I would like it if some of you could talk of your favorite teachers—teachers day, after all is for honoring and respecting them)
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Teenage English
(Having analysed my previous post, I realized I have glorified teenagers a little too much...of course, I do not wish to take back anything I have said, but I think I should devote this blog to what's wrong with teenagers. We also have some drawbacks...we cannot be perfect.)
Here is the sort of conversation you might come across if you dropped by a college these days.
“ Hey, waadiiupp, dude?”
“Nothin’, everything’s groovy,”
“Whacha doin’ man?”
“Nothin, chillin,’”
“Awesome, Where’s MJ and gang?”
“Dey were hangin at that funky and totally hapenning mall and hoggin’ some chips, like, whatever, man, who knows? They were, like, bunkin’ class, you know, like, dey were bugged to the core, chem.was totally freakish today, so Dey took a break and decided to hang!”
“What’s she do in chem?’
“You bunked class too?”
“Me bunked class, mate ”
“Cool! She did aldehydes and ketones,”
“The What-sits?”
“Some boring organic stuff dude, chill, don’t go cracking,”
“Was she mad, da?”
“Totally Burnin’!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,”
“She’s such a bull-crusher!”
“Totally,”
“Alrigh’ buddy, gottago, me mom’ll toast me if I don’t turn up! Catchya!”
“Adios, Amigo!”
“Hastalavista!”
Now, if you understood half of that conversation, very good, it means you are fully updated with the modern trends of English Langauge, if you haven’t, you are someone like me, who prefers not to understand at all, because it hardly makes sense. The present day youth are largely responsible for brutally disfiguring the English Language. Seriously, I thought my grammar was bad! English, firstly, is not English because teenagers mix it with Kannada, Malayali, Spanish, French, American English or anything that sounds barbaric to the tongue. What is most irritating and common habit among school children is adding a ‘da’ at the end of every sentence! I’m not trying to degrade any language, but English is rapidly deteriorating into a mass of misspelled words and utter gibberish, and people change it according to their fancy. The funny thing is deteriorating English has become a necessity among us! Inferior English is ‘cool’ to put in the right terms. They try to associate even the language with fashion, new words are ‘in’ and others are ‘out’. For me, it’s illogical and highly nonsensical, and I have to make a deliberate effort to ignore slangs, because I have the fear my writing will decay with them, if I catch up to it. What a pity! Shakesphere would have drowned himself if he was alive!
Another annoying habit is to use shrt frms (short forms) every other day, which is more common with the girls. The ‘SMS’ language is creeping into daily usage.
“I’ll be back, A.S.A.P.” (as soon as possible) and "OMG OMG OMG!" (Oh my gosh!) somehow annoy me. Drooling with words too, like “Coooooooool!” is most common. And whenever you don’t find the right words, just insert ‘whatever’ or ‘like’ and it makes a fabulous sentence, filling in all the blanks! Words like ‘snazzy’ ‘hip-hop’ ‘chic’ have replaced ‘different’ ‘nice’ and ‘fashionable’. If you speak like this,
“It was such a nice day, yesterday, that I decided to have a long walk, and I took some cream biscuits along, just to munch along the way. And then there was such a cool breeze, I was happy, and contented,” people would stare and think you are exotic, because only a few speak like that anymore. That would translate into something like this in the ‘teenage’ English:
“ It was a cool day yesterday, man, so, I like, decided to chill, and I chucked myself out, got somethin’ to hog on, and de wing was like, whatever, you know? Made me feel sort of gud,”
If this continues, I fear the entire world would be divided into normal and abnormal English speakers, and in the course of literary evolution, who knows? This might become a new language(although a primitive and an inferior one, no doubt)and we might require a translator in the future! Teenagers, are you listening?
Here is the sort of conversation you might come across if you dropped by a college these days.
“ Hey, waadiiupp, dude?”
“Nothin’, everything’s groovy,”
“Whacha doin’ man?”
“Nothin, chillin,’”
“Awesome, Where’s MJ and gang?”
“Dey were hangin at that funky and totally hapenning mall and hoggin’ some chips, like, whatever, man, who knows? They were, like, bunkin’ class, you know, like, dey were bugged to the core, chem.was totally freakish today, so Dey took a break and decided to hang!”
“What’s she do in chem?’
“You bunked class too?”
“Me bunked class, mate ”
“Cool! She did aldehydes and ketones,”
“The What-sits?”
“Some boring organic stuff dude, chill, don’t go cracking,”
“Was she mad, da?”
“Totally Burnin’!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,”
“She’s such a bull-crusher!”
“Totally,”
“Alrigh’ buddy, gottago, me mom’ll toast me if I don’t turn up! Catchya!”
“Adios, Amigo!”
“Hastalavista!”
Now, if you understood half of that conversation, very good, it means you are fully updated with the modern trends of English Langauge, if you haven’t, you are someone like me, who prefers not to understand at all, because it hardly makes sense. The present day youth are largely responsible for brutally disfiguring the English Language. Seriously, I thought my grammar was bad! English, firstly, is not English because teenagers mix it with Kannada, Malayali, Spanish, French, American English or anything that sounds barbaric to the tongue. What is most irritating and common habit among school children is adding a ‘da’ at the end of every sentence! I’m not trying to degrade any language, but English is rapidly deteriorating into a mass of misspelled words and utter gibberish, and people change it according to their fancy. The funny thing is deteriorating English has become a necessity among us! Inferior English is ‘cool’ to put in the right terms. They try to associate even the language with fashion, new words are ‘in’ and others are ‘out’. For me, it’s illogical and highly nonsensical, and I have to make a deliberate effort to ignore slangs, because I have the fear my writing will decay with them, if I catch up to it. What a pity! Shakesphere would have drowned himself if he was alive!
Another annoying habit is to use shrt frms (short forms) every other day, which is more common with the girls. The ‘SMS’ language is creeping into daily usage.
“I’ll be back, A.S.A.P.” (as soon as possible) and "OMG OMG OMG!" (Oh my gosh!) somehow annoy me. Drooling with words too, like “Coooooooool!” is most common. And whenever you don’t find the right words, just insert ‘whatever’ or ‘like’ and it makes a fabulous sentence, filling in all the blanks! Words like ‘snazzy’ ‘hip-hop’ ‘chic’ have replaced ‘different’ ‘nice’ and ‘fashionable’. If you speak like this,
“It was such a nice day, yesterday, that I decided to have a long walk, and I took some cream biscuits along, just to munch along the way. And then there was such a cool breeze, I was happy, and contented,” people would stare and think you are exotic, because only a few speak like that anymore. That would translate into something like this in the ‘teenage’ English:
“ It was a cool day yesterday, man, so, I like, decided to chill, and I chucked myself out, got somethin’ to hog on, and de wing was like, whatever, you know? Made me feel sort of gud,”
If this continues, I fear the entire world would be divided into normal and abnormal English speakers, and in the course of literary evolution, who knows? This might become a new language(although a primitive and an inferior one, no doubt)and we might require a translator in the future! Teenagers, are you listening?
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
A visit to Gorur
Ok, after one of those ‘mood swings’ of mine, I’m back to being normal, healthy and happy. It’s just wonderful I have a day off today, so I thought I’d blog something exciting. My recent trip to Hassan and Gorur was interesting, and I was waiting for time to document it. It was the week before last that we left for Hassan—it was an ideal family outing, with cousins with whom you can endlessly talk with perfect confidence because they are the sort of people who will really understand why academics is boring and why movies deserve to be discussed. We were cramped in a single car, all the seven of us, but that did not matter, what mattered was feeling the wind on your face, gossiping, and listening to the music blaring as the car sped past on the highway. I must say I was the most excited of all, because I would be visiting Gorur for the second time.
Anyone who is well into Kannada literature would have heard the name of Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar, a man who had a wonderful way with the pen. I call him the RK Narayan of Kannada literature….his writing is realistically captivating, and leaves a powerful imprint on the mind. This man was from the village of Gorur, which is about 22 kilometers from Hassan. Just like Narayan, who describes Malgudi in his imaginative detail, Ramaswamy too writes usually about his village with great fondness and natural pride. His writings were so powerful that they beckoned me to Gorur, and I somehow made sure I visited the place I had read about so often, last year. When I finished reading a marvelous novel written by him ( Namma Oorina Rasikaru), I just couldn’t stand the urge to visit the place. The same way RKN’s fans would feel if someone told them Malgudi existed, or Harry Potter fans were invited into the Hogwarts school of witchcraft. The place had changed over the years, as I observed from the car window. The book written by Ramaswamy Iyengar is half-a-century old, and the vivid description of the village and it’s people stayed in the depths of my mind as I made a quick comparison between the old and new faces of the village and I realized that the little village nestled in between the refreshing greens of the Malnad region of Karnataka was on it’s way to change---with modern bus-stands, trendy new buildings, this was not the village I had read about. But still, the visit was not all that disappointing. We did visit the temple on the banks of the river Hemavathi---it was one structure which remained unaffected by the constant changes and even didn’t forget to peek into Mr. Ramaswamy’s house!
This time, there was in additional bonus—we visited the Hemavathi dam, the waters were surging because the river was overflowing with water this monsoon. The Hemavathi Dam, I think is one of the best places to visit in Northern Karnataka, especially during the monsoons. The atmosphere of the Malnad region is truly magical. The cold winds will heal and revive you, the unpredictable sun who plays hide and seek in between the clouds can mesmerize you and the breathtaking view of the turbulent and vigorous waters of the Hemavathi river will numb your senses. The silent beauty of Hassan and surrounding regions will command respect and you’ll find yourself falling in love with this region, it feels better than home. This region is characterized by Abundance, and even the weather suits people like me who prefer the cold and wet kind of a climate. It is a stark contrast to Bangalore, and you can lose yourself in nature, all the elements here are free and strong, with nothing to arrest them---the winds, the water, the thick emerald forest cover….you will not see meekness, even Hemavathi river is a ferocious, you cannot swim in it when it’s overflowing, she will drag you away. For all those dare-devils, a visit to the Dam can invoke a rush of tingling excitement. Just stand around looking at the water, and there will be an unexpected surge of cold water, and before you know it, you are drenched to the skin, shivering, and waiting for more of it. It’s better than the fun rides at GRS! I got really wet, and to top it all off, it started raining the next moment, which made it all the better, of course. I am secretly proud I have no fear of water or the rains, I welcome it, (I think I could still go get drenched once more, even after falling sick, because I stayed out in the rains too long on Thusday!) Hey, and I forgot to mention! I did a bit of bird-watching too! Malnad is a bird-watcher’s paradise! I spotted the Indain Roller once more, the blue-tailed bee-eater (One of my favorites—I haden’t seen one in a long time), the common tailor bird, cormorants and plenty of cattle egrets. I was dancing around, trying to get pictures, which the adults did not appereciatet too much. The photos too did not come out properly, because it was raining outside, or I would have surely posted them. That ended a memorable weekend, a weekend that I am sure not to forget.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
More on the Book Binder
In one of my previous posts named 'THE BOOK BINDER' (Sorry, I don't know how to link to previous posts, perhaps, a little help here?), I had talked about my favorite book-binding shop down Ghandi Bazaar road which will be closed down in the near future, and the cause for it all, is the rapid urbanization of my city. I finally suceeded in getting the pictures of this book-binding shop, the temple, and Ghandi Bazaar road, as I felt it necessary to give you the complete picture of the scenario. For those of you who have read that post of mine, this will be an additional delight (or I hope so), for those of you who haven't, I request you to go through it in your spare time.
Quick note: What's happening?
This is a very old book binding shop, opened in the 1960's in NR colony, Bangalore,and quality book binding is undertaken here. This is the place, faithfully, where I give my tinkle comic books for binding every year. But now, the shop has to close down. The Reasons?
Who is the man?
That man there, in the photograph, is my book-binder. He is a faithful, devoted man. He has long years of expereince, and is very talented because, he learnt the art of book-binding long ago from the last of the Bristish before they left our country. He has been working every since, elsewhere in Bangalore, and then he moved over to NR colony in the 1960's. He has witnessed the independence movement too, and he is in Bangalore for a long long time. He can tell me how my city was, fifty years ago! The man says, even his workers have stopped showing up for work, because they get better salary somewhere else...he is now forced to do everything alone, and he is distressed, and unhappy. I have observed of late, his reflexes have slowed, and he speaks with a slight stutter. This man is in a real predicament, and I don't know how to help him, I don't know what a small teenager like me can do...what an aweful waste of talent, if he closes down! I really don't want that to happen. I need advise. Any suggestions?
Quick note: What's happening?
This is a very old book binding shop, opened in the 1960's in NR colony, Bangalore,and quality book binding is undertaken here. This is the place, faithfully, where I give my tinkle comic books for binding every year. But now, the shop has to close down. The Reasons?
A supermarket has come up next to this old shop
The supermarket wants more space, and the owner of the shop, who has rented the place to the binder is preassurizing him to close down
The man has agreed, because he is not doing good buisness of late
Who is the man?
That man there, in the photograph, is my book-binder. He is a faithful, devoted man. He has long years of expereince, and is very talented because, he learnt the art of book-binding long ago from the last of the Bristish before they left our country. He has been working every since, elsewhere in Bangalore, and then he moved over to NR colony in the 1960's. He has witnessed the independence movement too, and he is in Bangalore for a long long time. He can tell me how my city was, fifty years ago! The man says, even his workers have stopped showing up for work, because they get better salary somewhere else...he is now forced to do everything alone, and he is distressed, and unhappy. I have observed of late, his reflexes have slowed, and he speaks with a slight stutter. This man is in a real predicament, and I don't know how to help him, I don't know what a small teenager like me can do...what an aweful waste of talent, if he closes down! I really don't want that to happen. I need advise. Any suggestions?
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Science Practicals
Science, they say, is all about ‘experimenting’. Well, thank my lucky stars that the colleges don’t think so, or I would be failing. Somehow, experimenting is not my cup of tea, and things tend to go horribly wrong when I experiment with stuff. I am extremely careful, and I try not to experiment at all (who cares what happens to potassium carbonate when you add concentrated sulphuric acid to it?), but if I am forced to…well, my teacher has to bear the consequences.
My greatest achievement is that I managed to survive without breaking a test tube last year. That is pretty difficult to manage…usually; I end up with something very different from what is considered ‘normal’. For example, the day when my chem. Experiment when horribly wrong, and only my test tube turned motty-green, emitting a horrible, green coloured gas, with my teacher screaming, “Not the test for Ist group acid Radicals, my girl, try with Hydrogen Sulphide!” Everyone else’s had the required “Curdy white precipitate”, and people were closing their noses…well, you get the picture.
The worst and the most boring of all practicals is physics….I almost never get the values right. It’s gives a dose of frustration, really…it makes me tear my hair out. It’s wonderful that Hemavathi, my classmate is by my side, saying, “That’s not right,” “That’s not how you should do it!” Well, the circuit connections go wrong when I try, and I can’t time the number of oscillations of the pendulum (we calculated the acceleration due to gravity on earth to be 11.8 when it has to be 9.8 meters per second) The so called ‘Scientific temperament’, blah..blah…blah…it lacking. Hmm…I wonder how Thomas Alva Edison experimented with nearly a hundred substituents of carbon for the bulb, before he got it right. If I were him, the world would still be dark at night.
Coming to Bio…my favorite. I was a good artist in school and there is nearly no experimenting, so it’s fun. I can sit for long hours, sketching the cross-section of the liver’s hepatic cells until I reach perfection. But there are yucky parts too…Cockroach dissection! I nearly vomited when they did that. They pair up 2 people, and I never even touched the cockroach, let alone dissect it! My friend Thunga was perfectly happy doing it, and I totally freaked out when I observed that the ‘unconscious’ or the ‘dead’ cockroach (It’s hard to make out with cockroaches, actually) was either regaining consciousness, or coming back to life while she was dissecting it. Somebody actually scared me we would have to dissect a toad this year, until I learnt that there were joking.
Well, that’s practicals for you. In my next blog, I wish to continue on what went wrong in practicals, and how I coped with it.
My greatest achievement is that I managed to survive without breaking a test tube last year. That is pretty difficult to manage…usually; I end up with something very different from what is considered ‘normal’. For example, the day when my chem. Experiment when horribly wrong, and only my test tube turned motty-green, emitting a horrible, green coloured gas, with my teacher screaming, “Not the test for Ist group acid Radicals, my girl, try with Hydrogen Sulphide!” Everyone else’s had the required “Curdy white precipitate”, and people were closing their noses…well, you get the picture.
The worst and the most boring of all practicals is physics….I almost never get the values right. It’s gives a dose of frustration, really…it makes me tear my hair out. It’s wonderful that Hemavathi, my classmate is by my side, saying, “That’s not right,” “That’s not how you should do it!” Well, the circuit connections go wrong when I try, and I can’t time the number of oscillations of the pendulum (we calculated the acceleration due to gravity on earth to be 11.8 when it has to be 9.8 meters per second) The so called ‘Scientific temperament’, blah..blah…blah…it lacking. Hmm…I wonder how Thomas Alva Edison experimented with nearly a hundred substituents of carbon for the bulb, before he got it right. If I were him, the world would still be dark at night.
Coming to Bio…my favorite. I was a good artist in school and there is nearly no experimenting, so it’s fun. I can sit for long hours, sketching the cross-section of the liver’s hepatic cells until I reach perfection. But there are yucky parts too…Cockroach dissection! I nearly vomited when they did that. They pair up 2 people, and I never even touched the cockroach, let alone dissect it! My friend Thunga was perfectly happy doing it, and I totally freaked out when I observed that the ‘unconscious’ or the ‘dead’ cockroach (It’s hard to make out with cockroaches, actually) was either regaining consciousness, or coming back to life while she was dissecting it. Somebody actually scared me we would have to dissect a toad this year, until I learnt that there were joking.
Well, that’s practicals for you. In my next blog, I wish to continue on what went wrong in practicals, and how I coped with it.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
It’s Independence day! Well, there will be a surge of patriotism today as we remember long dead heroes of the country and pay our tributes to them. They are interviewing some of the Kannada freedom fighters on TV today, and looking at all this, it makes me wonder, why do we ignore our freedom fighters until it is August 15th? Nobody bothers about the old chap down the filthy lane, ninety-five and barely able to survive on his income, until it is Independence day. Well, on 15th August, we put a shawl around his neck, keep a mike near his mouth, and fire questions at him.
Our freedom fighters—the remaining ones are living in pathetic conditions. I think, atleast, one ought to be practical when honoring such noble, poverty-stricken people. We give them a shawl, a memento painted in the tricolors or a certificate…well, what will an old man do with a hundred shawls? The certificates are useless, and the memento or trophy just becomes a showpiece. We could pay for his food, instead, or even provide him with a comfortable home. These men are grieving deeply—they are grieving to know that they did not fight for the country to be treated like this. They want to live with dignity, they trusted the government to provide them with homes and comfort for the great sacrifices they have made in the past. To me, Independence day is not about walking around in the streets, waving our tricolour flag madly, it’s about seeing the smile on the faces of these fighters again, it’s about the faith in the country returning to their hearts…that’s when I’ll say the struggle for independence fulfilled it’s own causes, and that we are truly happy and free, because India, then, has turned out to be what the original leaders once dreamt of.
Our freedom fighters—the remaining ones are living in pathetic conditions. I think, atleast, one ought to be practical when honoring such noble, poverty-stricken people. We give them a shawl, a memento painted in the tricolors or a certificate…well, what will an old man do with a hundred shawls? The certificates are useless, and the memento or trophy just becomes a showpiece. We could pay for his food, instead, or even provide him with a comfortable home. These men are grieving deeply—they are grieving to know that they did not fight for the country to be treated like this. They want to live with dignity, they trusted the government to provide them with homes and comfort for the great sacrifices they have made in the past. To me, Independence day is not about walking around in the streets, waving our tricolour flag madly, it’s about seeing the smile on the faces of these fighters again, it’s about the faith in the country returning to their hearts…that’s when I’ll say the struggle for independence fulfilled it’s own causes, and that we are truly happy and free, because India, then, has turned out to be what the original leaders once dreamt of.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Are you forgetting to have fun?
Remember the first day you learnt to ride a cycle? And the way you took your new bike to school to show it off to classmates? And long, leisurely schooldays when you returned home with a bunch of friends, riding your cycle through green by-lanes, on the roads, and explored everything possible, prodded in every nook and corner with your good old cycle? There will be a ‘Tcah! What days!” on your tongue right now, as you slip into the memories of the ‘good old days’.
But that’s the funny thing about our old men and adults. We just live on memories, thinking, always reminiscing. For instance, you might sit and brood on the way you had fun on your cycle as a lad, when you ought to realize that you are still living, your bones are still strong (perhaps even a little stiff due to meager exercise), and it is still possible to go out there, into the beautiful open, and ride a cycle again, and enjoy the feel of the wind on your face. But the sad things about Indians is that we stare a lot (Look at that old man, he still rides a cycle!), and even if you want to do the things you want to do, people will stare, point and comment. We have established well-defined rules as to what a kid ought to be like, and what an adult should do with his or her life. That’s really sad, we should abandon the system, because everyone should be allowed to enjoy their lives, no matter what.
My ‘Indianness’ always intruded when I saw strange things in America.
“Old women swim?”
“Oh my gosh! Look at that man! He watches kid’s movies!”
“Man! That women is sixty and she drives a car everyday?”
“ Is it really an old man who just trekked a mile into the forest?”
You see, our old men don’t do that. Our old men sit and home and sleep, think of their ‘good old days’ or read philosophy. I see very few exceptions who are still working. Admit it, most of us love ice-cream and chocolates, but some shy away from ice-cream, because ice-cream is ‘for kids.’ Our adults don’t read comics, don’t watch Disney, don’t swim, don’t cycle (for high school kids, you know), don’t go for the roller coaster ride with their son at the fair…but some just pretend to be serious men, when there heart craves to have fun, just like they did when they were kids.
I firmly believe that life is always beautiful when we view things through a child’s eyes. Life should be utilized to the fullest, and people just forget to have fun as they grow up. Well, you can be sure, that, in this nation’s teeming millions, there is a girl who will grow up to become a fun-loving adult. And that’s me….you can be sure.
But that’s the funny thing about our old men and adults. We just live on memories, thinking, always reminiscing. For instance, you might sit and brood on the way you had fun on your cycle as a lad, when you ought to realize that you are still living, your bones are still strong (perhaps even a little stiff due to meager exercise), and it is still possible to go out there, into the beautiful open, and ride a cycle again, and enjoy the feel of the wind on your face. But the sad things about Indians is that we stare a lot (Look at that old man, he still rides a cycle!), and even if you want to do the things you want to do, people will stare, point and comment. We have established well-defined rules as to what a kid ought to be like, and what an adult should do with his or her life. That’s really sad, we should abandon the system, because everyone should be allowed to enjoy their lives, no matter what.
My ‘Indianness’ always intruded when I saw strange things in America.
“Old women swim?”
“Oh my gosh! Look at that man! He watches kid’s movies!”
“Man! That women is sixty and she drives a car everyday?”
“ Is it really an old man who just trekked a mile into the forest?”
You see, our old men don’t do that. Our old men sit and home and sleep, think of their ‘good old days’ or read philosophy. I see very few exceptions who are still working. Admit it, most of us love ice-cream and chocolates, but some shy away from ice-cream, because ice-cream is ‘for kids.’ Our adults don’t read comics, don’t watch Disney, don’t swim, don’t cycle (for high school kids, you know), don’t go for the roller coaster ride with their son at the fair…but some just pretend to be serious men, when there heart craves to have fun, just like they did when they were kids.
I firmly believe that life is always beautiful when we view things through a child’s eyes. Life should be utilized to the fullest, and people just forget to have fun as they grow up. Well, you can be sure, that, in this nation’s teeming millions, there is a girl who will grow up to become a fun-loving adult. And that’s me….you can be sure.
