Sunday, March 25, 2007
WOOLMER’S DEATH
Somewhere far in Indies, in Central America, the first to be found by Columbus the explorer has just exposed what many call a mafia, meaning an organised group of crime doers with explicit economic ends. Poor simple game that was cricket! It was usually paid in the lawns of early imperials and their Indian vassals and schools and later in a flash bloomed into an international craze Oh! Not to play sir, but to watch. Watch in between dazzling ads and sizzling commentaries. Ads brought jingles in cash and it turned into a game of extreme interest, yes, the vested ones. The rules of the new game were of not cricket. Certainly not of the descent game played with imperial British etiquettes. Enterprising Amir Khan made the best of it. The film opened with a coin tossed and spiralled into a momentous tension, spilling energy which circled around and fell flat on the simple choice of heads or tails. Betting was royal. Horse racing is a prime example. Cricket racing just followed. Maybe the earliest was in the mammoth coloseum, which is often depicted as a place to visit. Like a casino. Gaming was an ancient industry and it meant mass betting had grown with history. The element of luck or skills or fate or what we call it as the unknown, the fear of the next, manifested in the excitement, the force to play on by any means to win, to snatch whatever it is the wealth, the power, the women and all other possessions. Gods and demons fought for it in children’s fantasies. Also where they very profound in classics and the folktales where Devas and Asuras and their progenies like the Gods and the Demons fought each other. This simplistic view had no place for the many dimensions which, like ripples generated from the bad evils. Like, My Lord, up to this extent of killing a trainer. A teacher by definition. So it amounts to Guruhatya, the killing of a teacher which was considered a heinous crime both in Greek and Indian traditions. How can it be? Any teacher would ask. Didn’t he teach these boys how to handle the ball? Didn’t they, like school boys, throw a ball at each other to catch as he whistled? Didn’t he share the joys and sorrows of the team? Didn’t he know the under currents? Then why didn’t he leave the job and quit the country? No he can’t. How will a responsible teacher leave his wards in such a time of turmoil? That makes Mr. Woolmer, a martyr of the game. Pranams to him. Pranams to a teacher.
Friday, March 23, 2007
BACK AGAIN [BA 1]
After an evening bath on the second day of Chaitram, the fifth by thithi, 2-1-1929 by date, I decide to put this in a website. The great immediacy which the modern methods of communication brought into the field made old school masters out. Only the young blooded ones could cope. I had to say bye to that generation which climbed up the hill leaving us old on the wayside to sit and watch the clouds munching groundnuts. I just had ended up an intensive phase of blogging, by my humble standards indenting to put up a few sample pieces called RW, random writing. An old boy, one among our first few batches commented he had seen me with all those oils and balms and now should see me climbing up. The younger ones who started a group in my name said it is moving and I had to excuse myself saying it was just the tiger hill and I had simply stayed back to test my Yashica FX-3 during the turn of the century. Don’t worry, I am online, my dears. Just now in the middle of an oil bath , I decide to put these all in a web site and keep the blog-spot alive and post reactions to something contemporary like Woolmer’s death.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
WITH THIS I STOP
[RW -7. [Random Writings. Book .Part 38. Pages 27.to. 30]
An old schoolmaster will be there
sitting aside an upward curve
Eating groundnuts, feeding monkeys
Adjusting field glasses to see you all
Up in the top.
You will all win
Shiv Khera told you can!
Vivekananda told you should.
Arise, Awake and
Prapyavaran nibhodita..
…Look in a dictionary
and find the meaning.
I’m only a schoolmaster
With this I stop this
And wait for comments to continue.
resting half way
hiking to the hilltop.
You go up my boys
[And girls, too]
Then just look down
And wait for comments to continue.
resting half way
hiking to the hilltop.
You go up my boys
[And girls, too]
Then just look down
An old schoolmaster will be there
sitting aside an upward curve
Eating groundnuts, feeding monkeys
Adjusting field glasses to see you all
Up in the top.
You will all win
Shiv Khera told you can!
Vivekananda told you should.
Arise, Awake and
Prapyavaran nibhodita..
…Look in a dictionary
and find the meaning.
I’m only a schoolmaster
sitting aside an upward curve
Bye till the next.
Thank You
My respected reader,
The sahrudaya,
Means ‘with a heart’
Bye till the next
With a heart
Thank You.
Bye till the next.
Thank You
My respected reader,
The sahrudaya,
Means ‘with a heart’
Bye till the next
With a heart
Thank You.
MORNING RHYMES
[RW -6. [Random Writings. Book 7.Part 38. Pages 21.to. 24]
1.
5.30 a.m. Time to pray,
calls the mosque.
Thou art thou alone.
Church bells ring.
Wake up time.
Come, get ready.
Greet The Light.
‘I am the light’ said the Lord.
Come, follow me.
I get ready for church.
2.
It is nearing six.
Some cock is restlessly calling
The magpie-robin is relentless.
Like a China bird in golden cage
‘You think you are the only one?’
I ask her and she replies
Something, black and white
A koel echoes it far
And it is six o’clock.
3.
I get ready by 6.15.
‘Mens Active’ I use
Times changed yaar!
Consciousness didn’t.
Time is that thing.
Does not it change?
Does it? Said the teacher.
Time shrinks, Know?
Yes, Sir, I said
That too is Maya.
We laughed.
4.
After slicing a tender mango,
With a gangrened onion
I sneak out and
Sit in the sit out and
Feel happy
The world is the same.
5.
Do not I see the changes?
Certainly, like a mask
Photoshop tool
Then there are layers
And also my Lord
The stable background
Which can’t be deleted
6.
You delete it and it appears
Purnasya Purnamadaya…
∞ - ∞ = ∞
Confusing is it?
No. It isn’t, is it?
Yes, Madams,
It is isn’t it?
IT. IS. IS’NT. IT.
It is both isn’t and is
Being and nothingness
The single one alone
I bow to You, The Lord
of all and infinity
represented by
pranavam.
………….
AFTER THE DAY OF SORROW
[RW -5. [Random Writings. Book 7.Part 38. Pages 19to. 24]
1
After the day of sorrow
The sun again arrives
Arrival is the word
Which the trains established
in India, A tradition
of management
in which, you know
Loyalty Counted
With British precision.
Each arrival was a celebrated
Like ‘The Gateway of India’
Fan fare….ceremonies
Bells, cronch-shells, pop-guns,
THE SUN
The arrival of the sun
The day begins.
2.
After a day of sorrow
Which ended up amma reciting
Byhearted Psalm No.91,
Marked wrongly in a prayer book
Said strongly by-heart
But it is mother
Who has the knowledge
And in born DNA trait
Of guarding its young like the birds
The fish
In my pond
And all other ponds
3.
After a day of sorrow
Which ended like
‘Do you really feel lost’, I asked
‘not a bit’ she said
‘I too’ said I
‘I trust you’. So many ‘I’s
that made it silly
all ‘I’s entered and You prevailed
like the Sun, The Lord,
of all and all energy,
Arriving stately
And The New Day
Starts.
1
After the day of sorrow
The sun again arrives
Arrival is the word
Which the trains established
in India, A tradition
of management
in which, you know
Loyalty Counted
With British precision.
Each arrival was a celebrated
Like ‘The Gateway of India’
Fan fare….ceremonies
Bells, cronch-shells, pop-guns,
THE SUN
The arrival of the sun
The day begins.
2.
After a day of sorrow
Which ended up amma reciting
Byhearted Psalm No.91,
Marked wrongly in a prayer book
Said strongly by-heart
But it is mother
Who has the knowledge
And in born DNA trait
Of guarding its young like the birds
The fish
In my pond
And all other ponds
3.
After a day of sorrow
Which ended like
‘Do you really feel lost’, I asked
‘not a bit’ she said
‘I too’ said I
‘I trust you’. So many ‘I’s
that made it silly
all ‘I’s entered and You prevailed
like the Sun, The Lord,
of all and all energy,
Arriving stately
And The New Day
Starts.
Monday, March 12, 2007
BACK IN SCHOOL
[RW -4. [Random Writings. Book 7.Part 38. Pages 08.to. 16]
At 10.00 am, I sit in a corner, the moola, an angle, a star, simply a corner of my staff room and write. The school is deserted except for The Principal, The AO, the Office staff and a lone tractor ploughing the ancient pond. They had filled it with laterite soil which carried little vipers of the land. Traditionally there were many water snakes around. I mentioned a little past which detailed the boy’s relation with the school and asked the Principal ‘ Sir, who will represent the school at the last rites?’ It was not thought about yet. So I explain that like the last rites among Christians, the people of all other religions also had the rites and it is good to have someone responsible there at the announced time.
The President of the PTA looked at his watch, a common sign of discomfiture with time. He said if some one had already kept a wreath, then should he …?
I said ‘No, Sir’, knowing fully well how some one could easily call some other one and get a wreath placed there earlier to save time. But, Mr. President seemed concerned and I show him the way and return saying, ’Now you can’t lose the way’. I had planned to go with the CS [Campus Supervisor], because I was CD and know the job well.
00.30 hours to go. So I sit in staff room. No other teacher, no supervisors, no others except The Principal, all alone, I sit under the fan with tube light on and write. Writing, an academic exercise like other physical and mental exercises which the MAX man told, is indeed a tedious thing. What Sankara tells is impossible to follow, the Professor agrees. What the western liberal educationists followed was just copied with alterations here this schooling system. I sip the tea I earned carrying a sachet of milk in the morning.
10.30, the CS reminds me and I go with him. The young priest said the mantras very clearly, knowingly, saying the name over thrice causing a tear as pranavam could never die. The songs the ladies sang were very good. The HM, our tall and fair lady with an AS and a few more lady teachers stood attending the rites. About 40 students, half of them girls, were also there. I asked Sanjay the one who could not pass about his future plans. ‘Any school’ he said. I said him to concentrate on his two papers still left. Then I left.
I left the CS in the campus to tend to his ploughing machine and reported to The Principal and said I was going to the crematorium. ‘Anybody coming, my pillion is free’- I said. None came. So I rode alone. The younger brother did the last rites and Pranav was confined to fire wood flames. Then I ride back and report to Principal that it is all over and sit outside sorting my texts.
At 10.00 am, I sit in a corner, the moola, an angle, a star, simply a corner of my staff room and write. The school is deserted except for The Principal, The AO, the Office staff and a lone tractor ploughing the ancient pond. They had filled it with laterite soil which carried little vipers of the land. Traditionally there were many water snakes around. I mentioned a little past which detailed the boy’s relation with the school and asked the Principal ‘ Sir, who will represent the school at the last rites?’ It was not thought about yet. So I explain that like the last rites among Christians, the people of all other religions also had the rites and it is good to have someone responsible there at the announced time.
The President of the PTA looked at his watch, a common sign of discomfiture with time. He said if some one had already kept a wreath, then should he …?
I said ‘No, Sir’, knowing fully well how some one could easily call some other one and get a wreath placed there earlier to save time. But, Mr. President seemed concerned and I show him the way and return saying, ’Now you can’t lose the way’. I had planned to go with the CS [Campus Supervisor], because I was CD and know the job well.
00.30 hours to go. So I sit in staff room. No other teacher, no supervisors, no others except The Principal, all alone, I sit under the fan with tube light on and write. Writing, an academic exercise like other physical and mental exercises which the MAX man told, is indeed a tedious thing. What Sankara tells is impossible to follow, the Professor agrees. What the western liberal educationists followed was just copied with alterations here this schooling system. I sip the tea I earned carrying a sachet of milk in the morning.
10.30, the CS reminds me and I go with him. The young priest said the mantras very clearly, knowingly, saying the name over thrice causing a tear as pranavam could never die. The songs the ladies sang were very good. The HM, our tall and fair lady with an AS and a few more lady teachers stood attending the rites. About 40 students, half of them girls, were also there. I asked Sanjay the one who could not pass about his future plans. ‘Any school’ he said. I said him to concentrate on his two papers still left. Then I left.
I left the CS in the campus to tend to his ploughing machine and reported to The Principal and said I was going to the crematorium. ‘Anybody coming, my pillion is free’- I said. None came. So I rode alone. The younger brother did the last rites and Pranav was confined to fire wood flames. Then I ride back and report to Principal that it is all over and sit outside sorting my texts.
DEATH OF PRANAV A STUDENT
RW -2. [Random Writings. Book 7.Part 38. Pages 01.to.7.]
My God, kind thou art, Be kind, I prostrate.
Pranav, meaning aum, the sound that is played as a permanent reveb, so softly in the background like a faint tempura, turned so strong at times to be heard in the roaring winds of March in Mysore and even the tsunami of tears which engulfed many at times.
Pranavam, the echoing of an eternal process of making, keeping and destroying all these analysed at the macro, micro nano, pico and still minute, My Lord, and more deeper where truth prevailed and love filled like a lake echoing the Pramavam, the greatest of all mantras, reverberated in light tones, I prostrate before that the devata.
Praramathma devata, I say it holding folded fingers in my chest, the cage of bones which cover my heart. Yes, the pumping instrumentwhich echoed the seconds ding dong, dub lub. It went on echoing thus in the heart where like light it shined.
Also I prostrate before Pranav, this Xth Std. boy, an excellent example of a student turning teacher. My young shy boy, you grew up in front of me, and grew old and wrinkled and lost interests. No, Sir, no TV, he said. Music? No. Don’t you go out and sit and see nature? This he said ‘Yes’ and looked at me. Ms. Mercy, his class teacher promised to pass him. And in those eyes I saw the retirement, aging, being in bed, the sudden growth of the self and the soul – something that happens to all, the drawing oneself into oneself stage, when like an ‘exhausted falcon, directs itself towards its nest only, even so the infinite entity hasten to the state where, falling asleep’ it takes no desire and sees no dream’ [BU 4.3.19]. I saw him growing, so fast, faster than me, an aging schoolmaster and I prostate before the boy who went ahead, looked in my eyes and taught how the rhythms elaborated in calendars, the time as we call it, stretching and shrinking and in a sudden flash made him grow into the ultimate of all growth and in that twist of the moment changed him into a teacher like UC. [Dr. Chandrasekharayya], my teacher. Pranams to him. Pranams to Pranav, my boy, you go with my son and be happy there doing errands in heaven.
My God, kind thou art, Be kind, I prostrate.
Pranav, meaning aum, the sound that is played as a permanent reveb, so softly in the background like a faint tempura, turned so strong at times to be heard in the roaring winds of March in Mysore and even the tsunami of tears which engulfed many at times.
Pranavam, the echoing of an eternal process of making, keeping and destroying all these analysed at the macro, micro nano, pico and still minute, My Lord, and more deeper where truth prevailed and love filled like a lake echoing the Pramavam, the greatest of all mantras, reverberated in light tones, I prostrate before that the devata.
Praramathma devata, I say it holding folded fingers in my chest, the cage of bones which cover my heart. Yes, the pumping instrumentwhich echoed the seconds ding dong, dub lub. It went on echoing thus in the heart where like light it shined.
Also I prostrate before Pranav, this Xth Std. boy, an excellent example of a student turning teacher. My young shy boy, you grew up in front of me, and grew old and wrinkled and lost interests. No, Sir, no TV, he said. Music? No. Don’t you go out and sit and see nature? This he said ‘Yes’ and looked at me. Ms. Mercy, his class teacher promised to pass him. And in those eyes I saw the retirement, aging, being in bed, the sudden growth of the self and the soul – something that happens to all, the drawing oneself into oneself stage, when like an ‘exhausted falcon, directs itself towards its nest only, even so the infinite entity hasten to the state where, falling asleep’ it takes no desire and sees no dream’ [BU 4.3.19]. I saw him growing, so fast, faster than me, an aging schoolmaster and I prostate before the boy who went ahead, looked in my eyes and taught how the rhythms elaborated in calendars, the time as we call it, stretching and shrinking and in a sudden flash made him grow into the ultimate of all growth and in that twist of the moment changed him into a teacher like UC. [Dr. Chandrasekharayya], my teacher. Pranams to him. Pranams to Pranav, my boy, you go with my son and be happy there doing errands in heaven.
KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS
RW -2. [Random Writings. Book 7.Part 37. Pages 07to12.]
I had been waiting for Pradeep’s SIMC results – the machine open, web site up, refreshed after every few minutes when Jwala calls from NUALS. Excited she is. ‘It is over, Pappa,’ she tells, ‘the arguments’. 23 minutes the Moot Honourables argued her down and still she bubbled and jiggled and seemed to keep her cool. I say her to count the minutes each of the five courts takes to dispose a competitor and make a study which can be used in organising such an event later. I do not elaborate. After all what an old schoolmaster has to do with with legals, a class which Jesus cursed and infuriated and His disciple, St. Paul shred to shambles by arguments which, sorry, I am ignorant to follow.
At 11.30 night I try typing in a piece but soon I find parts of my shrinking brain refuses to function in a dual mode. I cannot type and think together, they both being s different. Knowledge and skill.
Skills are acquired through practice - intense, disciplined, methodical and whatever other means of regimentation practiced in early centres of learning, mostly the seminaries, some f which cherished the traditions. How else could Dr. Illich propagate deschooling? OK. Skills meant the disciplines, including the one aimed at acquiring knowledge, the academic skills.
Then there is knowledge which involves inaction like meditation and tapas and all. One who actually imbibes knowledge did not do anything except a little teaching and spend a lot of time thinking. Knowledge meant that which enlightens the person, the surroundings, the persons he meets and so on. The light, the path, the lighted pathway. Both of its sides have the stations of cross. Such suffering. Every one suffers if everything is a suffering. That is not it. Instead suffering preceded salvation, the goal, My Lord, You set and demonstrated by resurrection, the happy ending of an exciting real-time drama which climaxed in a trial and execution. The divine twist makes it great.
So the typing skill doesn’t go with the enlightening knowledge. Means when typing, current failing, machine offing… That is India. No, Kerala, or say Kochi or just my place a suburb where current, meaning Current Thoma, a VKN character, caricatured on the fashion of great Mundassery master’s own son who published so many major titles in Trichur the cultural capital once. Then the town lost it out to Kottayam, pronounced as kottaayam, double stressed in the middle by Dr. URA, who, later, was Vice Chancellor there. There are about six of us his students in Kochi. Three of us plan to meet in a new house built by dear NC, Shri Sasidharan, retd. Principal, Govt H S School. Prof. Thomaskutty Mukkatt [TK, my room-mate] waits there.
By the time I get ready for my bath, with all these oils over my balding head, the SIMC puts up the results and Pradeep fails to make it up in spite of Prof. Choudhari pumping in all hopes and I bathe and get ready smearing Men’s Active on my drying face to go to Sasi’s new house. TK waited for me there. Both of them were my batch-mates at Mysore, doing a four year course of education. We share a lot of hearty nostalgia and break up for the next rendezvous at a Professor K. P. Sankaran’s place on 25th.
I had been waiting for Pradeep’s SIMC results – the machine open, web site up, refreshed after every few minutes when Jwala calls from NUALS. Excited she is. ‘It is over, Pappa,’ she tells, ‘the arguments’. 23 minutes the Moot Honourables argued her down and still she bubbled and jiggled and seemed to keep her cool. I say her to count the minutes each of the five courts takes to dispose a competitor and make a study which can be used in organising such an event later. I do not elaborate. After all what an old schoolmaster has to do with with legals, a class which Jesus cursed and infuriated and His disciple, St. Paul shred to shambles by arguments which, sorry, I am ignorant to follow.
At 11.30 night I try typing in a piece but soon I find parts of my shrinking brain refuses to function in a dual mode. I cannot type and think together, they both being s different. Knowledge and skill.
Skills are acquired through practice - intense, disciplined, methodical and whatever other means of regimentation practiced in early centres of learning, mostly the seminaries, some f which cherished the traditions. How else could Dr. Illich propagate deschooling? OK. Skills meant the disciplines, including the one aimed at acquiring knowledge, the academic skills.
Then there is knowledge which involves inaction like meditation and tapas and all. One who actually imbibes knowledge did not do anything except a little teaching and spend a lot of time thinking. Knowledge meant that which enlightens the person, the surroundings, the persons he meets and so on. The light, the path, the lighted pathway. Both of its sides have the stations of cross. Such suffering. Every one suffers if everything is a suffering. That is not it. Instead suffering preceded salvation, the goal, My Lord, You set and demonstrated by resurrection, the happy ending of an exciting real-time drama which climaxed in a trial and execution. The divine twist makes it great.
So the typing skill doesn’t go with the enlightening knowledge. Means when typing, current failing, machine offing… That is India. No, Kerala, or say Kochi or just my place a suburb where current, meaning Current Thoma, a VKN character, caricatured on the fashion of great Mundassery master’s own son who published so many major titles in Trichur the cultural capital once. Then the town lost it out to Kottayam, pronounced as kottaayam, double stressed in the middle by Dr. URA, who, later, was Vice Chancellor there. There are about six of us his students in Kochi. Three of us plan to meet in a new house built by dear NC, Shri Sasidharan, retd. Principal, Govt H S School. Prof. Thomaskutty Mukkatt [TK, my room-mate] waits there.
By the time I get ready for my bath, with all these oils over my balding head, the SIMC puts up the results and Pradeep fails to make it up in spite of Prof. Choudhari pumping in all hopes and I bathe and get ready smearing Men’s Active on my drying face to go to Sasi’s new house. TK waited for me there. Both of them were my batch-mates at Mysore, doing a four year course of education. We share a lot of hearty nostalgia and break up for the next rendezvous at a Professor K. P. Sankaran’s place on 25th.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
RW-1
RW -1. [Random Writings. Book 7.Part 37. Pages 01to06.]
6.3.07. After many days, My Lord I return to writing. It is my B’Day, today. Nothing much to celebrate. Just that I turn 55, the age of retirement by Kerala Standards. But being in a CBSE school, I got 3 more years of routine signing in the morning and spending the rest of the day in the school for a monthly replenishment of my meagre account.
The routine was broken today when I went to visit a ninth standard boy, Pranav at his home.He felt a pain in his stomach a couple of months ago. Doctors opened his abdomen to find out the stage of malignancy and recommended chemo. No, said his parents and tried Ayurveda without any long improvement. The boy, mostly on liquid diet lost lots of his 81 Kg, turned thin and old, and lost interest in the TV, music and other pastimes. So they switched to Homeo, administering drugs every hour. Tomorrow he goes.
10.3.07 And he went to Palakkad.
Palakkad is so different. So different that I wash my pen, and fill it anew with Your flowing Grace that I can at least pray for Pranav, distantly my boy, like Manik, Prakash and Kamma who did this sort of writing for me. I was the chronicler and R. N [Rajashekhar Narayanarao] Kamma was the editor. We just exchanged the jobs. Then I migrated to the hills and then the plains, first to the east cost and then to the west. Here my brief was to start a school under the greats like EAG [ E. A. George] Moses and Dr. J. D. Johnson. And then the management changed and I like a distant imitation of Harry, not Potter but Miller, chose to stay put in the suburb of Kochi, painting, writing, gazing stars and guarding a few guppies in a garden pond with walls of a famous fort above which encircled a coloured kingfisher who scooped in a flash and carried the young ones.
I laid a net over the pond, [ not to trap and catch, of course] with a Chinese pot protruding over its centre. Or is it an amphora or even may be Keats that urn, by the way, did he drown in it?
Well, lets be back. At last after Pradeep’s projects and Jwala’s memorials, I was feeling a little free. Last night by 12, I had got the last things printed in Jerry’s colour Lab where young Suraaj charged me less than half the normal rates that too smiling so. My heart melt in gratitude. Now, by 12 noon the girl has finished arguing 23 minutes in the moot court with a set of black blazers in a caricature of Hogwarts.
Having experienced in the hills where blazers and jackets and sweaters were part of the uniform, I didn’t feel it strange but sometimes thought like a muggle master, who just spent some time among the pure bloods which happily my daughter never felt. So simply prepared all those 84 pages and did it OK. Results are awaited. More awaited are the results of my son, Pradeep who carried a 5-in-one project folio for an interview in SIMC, where the Prof. Director said the lad seemed serious about things, a trait he liked. He was also kind enough to allow the boy go out and come in twice, filling him with hopes – hopes of getting one out of the twenty seats and indeed, more so the simple and pure hope, a four letter word, purified like Miller’s four lettered man, which propelled life. Yes, life as an aggregate of all that dared to live.
For the rest, see RW 2
6.3.07. After many days, My Lord I return to writing. It is my B’Day, today. Nothing much to celebrate. Just that I turn 55, the age of retirement by Kerala Standards. But being in a CBSE school, I got 3 more years of routine signing in the morning and spending the rest of the day in the school for a monthly replenishment of my meagre account.
The routine was broken today when I went to visit a ninth standard boy, Pranav at his home.He felt a pain in his stomach a couple of months ago. Doctors opened his abdomen to find out the stage of malignancy and recommended chemo. No, said his parents and tried Ayurveda without any long improvement. The boy, mostly on liquid diet lost lots of his 81 Kg, turned thin and old, and lost interest in the TV, music and other pastimes. So they switched to Homeo, administering drugs every hour. Tomorrow he goes.
10.3.07 And he went to Palakkad.
Palakkad is so different. So different that I wash my pen, and fill it anew with Your flowing Grace that I can at least pray for Pranav, distantly my boy, like Manik, Prakash and Kamma who did this sort of writing for me. I was the chronicler and R. N [Rajashekhar Narayanarao] Kamma was the editor. We just exchanged the jobs. Then I migrated to the hills and then the plains, first to the east cost and then to the west. Here my brief was to start a school under the greats like EAG [ E. A. George] Moses and Dr. J. D. Johnson. And then the management changed and I like a distant imitation of Harry, not Potter but Miller, chose to stay put in the suburb of Kochi, painting, writing, gazing stars and guarding a few guppies in a garden pond with walls of a famous fort above which encircled a coloured kingfisher who scooped in a flash and carried the young ones.
I laid a net over the pond, [ not to trap and catch, of course] with a Chinese pot protruding over its centre. Or is it an amphora or even may be Keats that urn, by the way, did he drown in it?
Well, lets be back. At last after Pradeep’s projects and Jwala’s memorials, I was feeling a little free. Last night by 12, I had got the last things printed in Jerry’s colour Lab where young Suraaj charged me less than half the normal rates that too smiling so. My heart melt in gratitude. Now, by 12 noon the girl has finished arguing 23 minutes in the moot court with a set of black blazers in a caricature of Hogwarts.
Having experienced in the hills where blazers and jackets and sweaters were part of the uniform, I didn’t feel it strange but sometimes thought like a muggle master, who just spent some time among the pure bloods which happily my daughter never felt. So simply prepared all those 84 pages and did it OK. Results are awaited. More awaited are the results of my son, Pradeep who carried a 5-in-one project folio for an interview in SIMC, where the Prof. Director said the lad seemed serious about things, a trait he liked. He was also kind enough to allow the boy go out and come in twice, filling him with hopes – hopes of getting one out of the twenty seats and indeed, more so the simple and pure hope, a four letter word, purified like Miller’s four lettered man, which propelled life. Yes, life as an aggregate of all that dared to live.
For the rest, see RW 2
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