The Argument Against Marriage

I am an underpaid PostGraduate, soon to be married.

I saw an advertisement in the local paper about a grant fund, that was tailored made for me.

No Kidding.

"Welfare Fund for Employed but Underpaid PostGraduates, Soon to be Married" (WFfEbUP,StbM)

I applied, gleefully.

And got a disturbing reply.

I publish it here in full.


"We can not release any funding as of now. Upon inspection of your marriage site by a gazetted officer, to ensure you are really poor, very poor, we may deem fit to release funds anywhere between 6 months and 2 years from your marriage date. We can arrange to make the payment in your kid's name. Thanks for the application,"

Quite understandably, I was crestfallen.

Just when I was losing hope, I saw a column in the National newspaper (From Local to National. Growth.)A famous Agony Aunt column.

So I wrote to the column, but too shy to quote my real name, I wrote under a pseudonym.

Not being too creative at these things, I borrowed the name available closest in my memory. The girl who was haunting me day and night, ever since I set eyes on her.

Yeah, no prizes for guessing.

My best friend's wife.

I publish here in full the reply I got from the columnist.


-----------[Begin Column Quote]
"No. There is no such fund for soon-to-be-married people.

Because if after all the astoundingly clear evidence (global warming) and historical precedent (dinosaurs disappearing) stacked against the institution of marriage, you still believe in it, then God alone can save you.

Have you heard of Lemmings? They just go mad and in groups of hundreds jump into a river and commit suicide. Just like that. On the spur of a moment.

Not unlike getting married.

What Grant can save a Lemming?

There is one way out of this icky situation though, and lemme tell you this before you get married and get turned into an extinct dinosaur, or extremely warm lemming:

(And this is girl to girl talk, don't tell your man.)

The only way to escape from the tyranny of marriage:

Every single day, appreciate the guy for his brilliance, and tell him that He is the Messiah the world was waiting for. Shortly after, (say, after 15 years of keeping this up) when he finally believes he is Jehovah himself - tell him the world needs him more than you do, and this hardest of hard sacrifices (of giving up Lord's Messenger to the service of mankind) is really a hard sacrifice for you to sacrifice.

And then find the next meat loaf hunk that comes your way and romp your way to extra marital bliss.

PS 1: By the way, you are a girl. Why do you need a grant? The guy needs to earn for you, child. I mean, this Feminism and Equal Rights are ruining it for women, I say!

PS 2 (Not the game, he he) : It is true that dinosaurs disappeared because they got married. What's the evidence, you ask?

Well, well, you think Agony Aunt says things without scientific rigour?

Watch Jurassic Park.

Keenly. You will find three very clear evidences for the dinosaurs being married:

1)The dinosaur who chops off the poor guy in the commode - if you look at her (yes its a her) paws, you will see that she is wearing an engagement ring.

2) The scene where the dinosaurs run across the field in hordes, you will find some really fat ones there with beer bellies. Those are married men.

3) If you are clever, you will ask : "In point 2, why would a beer bellied Husband Velociraptor (or what ever Dino that was) run? Shouldn't he be sitting in couch watching football?" That's clever, but not clever enough. My answer: "Where the heck do u think these guys are running to?" In the deleted scenes of the movie (not yet released, but may be seen very soon in the blu-ray edition) Steven Spielberg shows where they are headed: "There's a dinosaur Superbowl happening down hill, and Shakira was performing live"

------------------[End of Column]


Weel, as you can see, I was left even more confused than before.

I mean, I understand the column had a lot of scientific reasons against marriage, but theres one nagging point.

Yes, the video may clearly show that the dinosaurs are married.

But I am no fool am I?

I can clearly see they are not extinct!

Help.

Please.

Prasanna Nose All

[From a diary I wrote of my experience after my Nose-Throat surgery - 13 August 2006]

Operation

To this day I am a very obedient patient. I was one too, even on the first day. That’s why when I fainted people wondered.

First things first. I had a Laser surgery done to my throat (to remove the tonsils) simultaneously with a corrective Endoscopic surgery through my Nose, to correct my sinusitis problems.

The fascinating experience starts with the anesthesia (General Anesthesia).

I was wheeled in. I smiled at the anesthesiologist, who greeted me with a “Welcome Boss, go to sleep.” He strapped a mask on me.

Then I heard him say, “By God! He sleeps quick.” Then I heard snatches of conversation, felt once a whirring motor pushing painlessly up my right nose, and even an “Idiot!”

Seemed like two minutes, and I was back in my room, surgery a success.

My family had had to wait an hour extra to see me, I was told then. It had taken two hours – one hour for the surgery, and another one for me to naturally come out of ‘sleep’.

By God! I sleep long!

Ice Scream

I remember my proudest creation in the demanding field of humour was a pun I discovered in my sixth standard. Ice cream. I scream.

Prophetic.

I was an obedient patient. In one valiant effort, I gulped cup after cup of vanilla ice cream, though my throat hurt. And my nose seemed to gorge with every gulp.

My brother Prasad, who was one phenomenal support for me that day, quipped that I looked like a Red-Nosed clown.

My nose was gift-wrapped. The wrapper color kept becoming redder with the hour, of course.

Not to panic, that was “normal”.

Some hours later, after meeting and taking the warmth of my family visiting me, including my sister-in-law and her mother, I was beginning to feel alive.

That’s when I indicated to my brother that I wanted a special something.

Did I mention, I could not speak?

My brother and I had advanced so much in sign language in such a short time that it took just a second for him to act on what I wanted.

I puked into the bed-pan he gave me.

The Fuelled Engine

Our body is an engine.

Two hours after the throwing up (“It’s normal,” ) I was more relaxed.

I wanted to piss.

I signaled to my brother. He came to get me up on my feet.

I felt all air leaving my body, I gasped.

My head spinned. My dying mind was not yet giving up.

It seemed, as my mind clung on its last fingernail to the receding cliff, that it’s only good would be to actually let go.

And what a relief, that descent into black!

The five second swooning act was a warning from the governors of the engine – “Your body’s been without food for too long”

Glucose solution entering me through my veins, brought the engine revving up again.

Everyone around me held me and reassured me that I was fine.

I needed it.

I was scared I had had a relapse of my childhood feberal fits, and I enquired if that was the case. It was not.

I cried.

One cries when one is a child.

A child is one who seems something unfathomable.

The dip to black that moment, signaled the first of those “realizations” that has peppered my path to recovery – Life and its intricate mechanisms is huge; it is true; it exists.

Life is bigger.

Than me. Than my thoughts. Than any of my will.

Life is a mechanism.

Its engines need fuel.

"The Long Wait" - Excerpt from 'The Fountainhead'

Roark sat at the desk in his office, waiting. The telephone had rung once, that morning, but it had been only Peter Keating asking for an appointment. He had forgotten now that Keating was coming. He was waiting for the telephone. He had become dependent on that telephone in the last few weeks. He was to hear at any moment about his drawings for the Manhattan Bank Company.
His rent on the office was long since overdue. So was the rent on the room where he lived. He did not care about the room; he could tell the landlord to wait; the landlord waited; it would not have mattered greatly if he had stopped waiting. But it mattered at the office. He told the rental agent that he would have to wait; he did not ask for the delay; he only said flatly, quietly, that there would be a delay, which was all he knew how to do. But his knowledge that he needed his alms from the rental agent, that too much depended on it, and made it sound like begging in his own mind. That was torture. All right, he thought, it's torture. What of it?
The telephone bill was overdue for two months. He had received the final warning. The telephone was to be disconnected in a few days. He had to wait. So much could happen in a few days.
The answer of the bank board, which Weidler had promised him long ago, had been postponed from week to week. The board could reach no decision; there had been objectors and there had been violent supporters; there had been conferences; Weidler told him eloquently little, but he could guess much; there had been days of silence, of silence in the office, of silence in the whole city, of silence within him. He waited.
He sat, slumped across the desk, his face on his arm, his fingers on the stand of the telephone. He thought dimly that he should not sit like that; but he felt very tired today. He thought that he should take his hand off that phone; but he did not move it. Well, yes, he depended on that phone, he could smash it, but he would still depend on it; he and every breath in him and every bit of him. His fingers rested on the stand without moving. It was this and the mail; he had lied to himself also about the mail; he had lied when he had forced himself not to leap, as a rare letter fell through the slot in the door, not to run forward, but to wait, to stand looking at me white envelope on the floor, then to walk to it slowly and pick it up. The slot in the door and the telephone--there was nothing else left to him of the world.
He raised his head, as he thought of it, to look down at the door, at the foot of the door. There was nothing. It was late in the afternoon, probably past the time of the last delivery. He raised his wrist to glance at his watch; he saw his bare wrist; the watch had been pawned. He turned to the window; there was a clock he could distinguish on a distant tower; it was half past four; there would be no other delivery today.
He saw that his hand was lifting the telephone receiver. His fingers were dialing the number.
"No, not yet," Weidler's voice told him over the wire. "We had that meeting scheduled for yesterday, but it had to be called off....I'm keeping after them like a bulldog....I can promise you that we'll have a definite answer tomorrow. I can almost promise you. If not tomorrow, then it will have to wait over the week end, but by Monday I promise it for certain....You've been wonderfully patient with us, Mr. Roark. We appreciate it." Roark dropped the receiver. He closed his eyes. He thought he would allow himself to rest, just to rest blankly like this for a few minutes, before he would begin to think of what the date on the telephone notice had been and in what way he could manage to last until Monday.

-----------------------

The telephone rang late on Monday afternoon.
"Mr. Roark?" said Weidler. "Can you come right over? I don't want to say anything over the phone, but get here at once." The voice sounded clear, gay, radiantly premonitory.
Roark looked at the window, at the clock on the distant tower. He sat laughing at that clock, as at a friendly old enemy; he would not need it any longer, he would have a watch of his own again. He threw his head back in defiance to that pale gray dial hanging high over the city.
He rose and reached for his coat. He threw his shoulders back, slipping the coat on; he felt pleasure in the jolt of his muscles.
In the street outside, he took a taxi which he could not afford.
The chairman of the board was waiting for him in his office, with Weidler and with the vice-president of the Manhattan Bank Company. There was a long conference table in the room, and Roark's drawings were spread upon it. Weidler rose when he entered and walked to meet him, his hand outstretched. It was in the air of the room, like an overture to the words Weidler uttered, and Roark was not certain of the moment when he heard them, because he thought he had heard them the instant he entered.
"Well, Mr. Roark, the commission's yours," said Weidler.
Roark bowed. It was best not to trust his voice for a few minutes.
----------------------------
[They want Roark to make a change in the facade of the building - which waould defeat the whole purpose of the buidling, according to Roark. they ask him to make what they clearly see as a 'minor' change, and Roark explains in detail why he cannot make the change. Finally...]


"I'm sorry, Mr. Roark, but the board will not re-open the question for further debate. It was final. I can only ask you to state whether you agree to accept the commission on our terms or not. I must admit that the board has considered the possibility of your refusal. In which case, the name of another architect, one Gordon L. Prescott, has been mentioned most favorably as an alternative. But I told the board that I felt certain you would accept."
He waited. Roark said nothing.
"You understand the situation, Mr. Roark?"
"Yes," said Roark. His eyes were lowered. He was looking down at the drawings.
"Well?"
Roark did not answer.
"Yes or no, Mr. Roark?"
Roark's head leaned back. He closed his eyes.
"No," said Roark.
After a while the chairman asked:
"Do you realize what you're doing?"
"Quite," said Roark.
"Good God!" Weidler cried suddenly. "Don't you know how big a commission this is? You're a young man, you won't get another chance like this. And...all right, damn it, I'll say it! You need this! I know how badly you need it!"
Roark gathered the drawings from the table, rolled them together and put them under his arm.
"It's sheer insanity!" Weidler moaned. "I want you. We want your building. You need the commission. Do you have to be quite so fanatical and selfless about it?"
"What?" Roark asked incredulously.
"Fanatical and selfless."
Roark smiled. He looked down at his drawings. His elbow moved a little, pressing them to his body. He said:
"That was the most selfish thing you've ever seen a man do."
He walked back to his office. He gathered his drawing instruments and the few things he had there. It made one package and he carried it under his arm. He locked the door and gave the key to the rental agent. He told the agent that he was closing his office. He walked home and left the package there. Then he went to Mike Donnigan's house.
"No?" Mike asked, after one look at him.
"No," said Roark.
"What happened?"
"I'll tell you some other time."
"The bastards!"
"Never mind that, Mike."
"How about the office now?"
"I've closed the office."
"For good?"
"For the time being."
"God damn them all, Red! God damn them!"
"Shut up. I need a job, Mike. Can you help me?"
"Me?"
"I don't know anyone in those trades here. Not anyone that would want me. You know them all."
"In what trades? What are you talking about?"
"In the building trades. Structural work. As I've done before."
"You mean--a plain workman's job?"
"I mean a plain workman's job."
"You're crazy, you God-damn fool!"
"Cut it, Mike. Will you get me a job?"
"But why in hell? You can get a decent job in an architect's office. You know you can."
"I won't, Mike. Not ever again."
"Why?"
"I don't want to touch it. I don't want to see it. I don't want to help them do what they're doing."
"You can get a nice clean job in some other line."
"I would have to think on a nice clean job. I don't want to think. Not their way. It will have to be their way, no matter where I go. I want a job where I won't have to think."
"Architects don't take workmen's jobs."
"That's all this architect can do."
"You can learn something in no time."
"I don't want to learn anything."
"You mean you want me to get you into a construction gang, here, in town?"
"That's what I mean."
"No, God damn you! I can't! I won't! I won't do it!"
"Why?"
"Red, to be putting yourself up like a show for all the bastards in this town to see? For all the sons of bitches to know they brought you down like this? For all of them to gloat?"
Roark laughed.
"I don't give a damn about that, Mike. Why should you?"
"Well, I'm not letting you. I'm not giving the sons of bitches that kinda treat."
"Mike," Roark said softly, "there's nothing else for me to do."
"Hell, yes, there is. I told you before. You'll be listening to reason now. I got all the dough you need until..."
"I'll tell you what I've told Austen Heller: If you ever offer me money again, that'll be the end between us."
"But why?"
"Don't argue, Mike."
"But..."
"I'm asking you to do me a bigger favor. I want that job. You don't have to feel sorry for me. I don't."
"But...but what'll happen to you, Red?"
"Where?"
"I mean...your future?"
"I'll save enough money and I'll come back. Or maybe someone will send for me before then."
Mike looked at him. He saw something in Roark's eyes which he knew Roark did not want to be there.
"Okay, Red," said Mike softly.

==========================================

The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand

My Interview in the New Indian Express (22nd March 2009)

A promising engineering graduate, R S Prasanna ended up doing what he loves most — make short films, says Ranjitha Gunasekaran With handicams available now, many youngsters are taking to filmmaking and learning its techniques. This is the breeding ground for the next generation of disciplined filmmakers
t here are some people who could see an opportunity and walk right past it, and then there are some like R S Prasanna who will create opportunities whenever he can. Take for instance how the 24-year old engineering graduate translated an ordinary film school assignment into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity . “We were supposed to do a 10-minute documentary and get it reviewed. I decided to interview Balu Mahendra about his filmmaking techniques. Why study only (Akira) Kurosawa and (Martin) Scorsese when we have a genius as our visiting faculty,” he recalled. The ace director agreed and Prasanna crossed his time limit, but no one cared. “It’s the first documentary made on the legend,” he points out.

“He was so helpful and he trusted me. I spent one-and-a-half hours with him shooting the video and my faculty and school were very supportive of this,” he says, explaining that otherwise, all references taught on filmmaking tended to be foreign. Prasanna, always had this passion for films and though he deviated into engineering studies, he eventually ended up exactly where he belonged. “My father loves theatre and acting and I was always on the stage through school. But my whole family is into management so I took up engineering. There I started making short films with a digital camera. One such film won an award and I received it from the famous film editor Lenin,” he explained.

After completing his studies, Prasanna enrolled in film school with his parents blessings and there he quickly realised that not everyone who gets in, makes it. “I took my assignments seriously and always aimed for film festivals,” he recalls. “The stage was my training ground. I have acted and directed stage productions while at school and that experience definitely helped in my filmmaking,” he says.

One such film of his called Art, took him to the Gateway reality show, a talent contest for young filmmakers which also led to opportunities and inputs from Hollywood. “It was a wonderful opportunity and experience. In fact, I keep in touch with many participants,” he grins.

This year another honour came his way when he was selected by the Goethe Institute to attend the Berlin Film Festival. “I wanted to meet as many business people as possible and make them aware of the short film movement that is sweeping India. With handicams, many youngsters are taking to filmmaking and learning its techniques. This is the breeding ground for the next generation of disciplined filmmakers,” he says.

“My father always told me, that even if you want to be a toilet cleaner, you should always be the best in that. They are very supportive and proud of the recognition that I have got,” he says. At present, Prasanna is a writer with Abode, a company which he says, aims at making honest and sensitive films. “I am working on developing my own film right now. Something with a Ruskin Bond story . I would love to make a children’s film because there are so few films like Makdee out there for kids to watch,” he explains.

— ranjithagunasekaran@epmltd.com

The Job Hunt and the Hunted

Who's to blame, brother?

When it is known that there is no free lunch, no easy way to earn our money?

Who's to blame when we took the cushy Software job which we hated to the core? We joked about how all we ever did was paste codes googled from the godown of the Internet while our pay packets ballooned faster than the poisonous fat around our waists?

'Who cares for tomorrow, I have a Life now,' i remember sayin, guzzling the wines of heaven, for a few thousand bucks at the dingiest bar in the most uppity up restaurant in the stinking night of the dark City.

Who's to blame brother? We rejoiced hard, didn't we?

Maybe we should have worked hard too.

Obama has come, not to worry. he will take care of us all.

Ha ha.

We still haven't grown up, have we, brother?

Obama's milk will once run dry. Let's stop suckling and take to finding food ourself, for a change, eh, brother?

But then, who's to blame?

I know who's to blame, brother.

I didn't know till yesterday. But I know now.

There's no free lunch brother.

Maybe we should have stuck to drawing.

We were good at it, weren't we?

Business NOT as usual

There used to be a time when business was based on one cardinal principle: provide great value in exchange for money.

Some where down the line the world seems to have lost track of that good old principle, and thus the recession.

Money is always created. Not in imaginary profit sheets or inflated housing estimates - in hard gold coin.

I don't know how big this recession is anyway. But that's beside the point. i suspect most companies are using recsession as a threat to simply cut down costs, sure in the knowledge that no emplyee will prtest. 'No jobs anywhere; better stick to my company and take the pay cut. Where else will you go?' I am pretty sure not many would actually think fo calling the bluff - and actually GO!

Look at TV to understand why the recession is happening. Like I said, it may not be as widely spread as yet - but surely we have got the principle wrong, so it is gonna happen sooner or later.

Look at TV. The other day i was watchign an extremely mind-numbingly dumb show on Hungama channel, meant for kids. There was NOTHING happening on screen. NOTHING. The episode went on and aon. and in between came the long ads.

Now, I wonder how many kids actually watch this programme. The TRPs may be high - but who the heck still thinks those TRPs are for real? I mean some 2000 sets taken as a sample size for a nationa TV chnnel's viewership? Come on, who are they kidding?

They are kidding the AD agencies and Media buyers that's what. The con job Phase One has begun.

The ad guys then siphon off money from their clients showing them the Truth - "The TRPSs sir, the TRPs are high for this show!'

The Gospel truth is paraded from one node of the food chain to the other. And money is pumped out like out of festering sewer. And it lamnds in the pockets of everyone, but brings no returns to the guy who actually puts in the money.

reason? the con job of the TRP.

The show sucks. Period.

How do you expect to make money out of a faulty product?

Is this the new age business philosophy? I don;t even want to call this a philosophy and attribute intelligence where none exists. It's just a wide-eyed, gleeful, salivating bunch of idiots who think, 'Come on let's make Money - to hell with how we will do it!!! Or How the hell we will make the money inflow sustain fro the long term"

For many years I have seen a visual barometer for what I think is the health of the business philosophy (or ill health)

It is a most common barometer, very humble, and some would even say quite silly for being bestowed such a huge honour.

It's the good old Ruffles Lays Chips. And the Balaji Chips (for the low income group), and the other Waferspackets that hang from any small, neaighbourhood shop.

Just see how the packets are gettign bigger, and the content smaller and smaller.

I actually counted 8 wafer pieces inside a packet that cost me 10 bucks!

This is what is causing the recession, you fools! Whoever you are!

No content. No value. Only a huge bloated, gas-filled con job.

Now go and look for jobs.

To hell with the world.

Absolute Truth

No he said
Yes said she

Black or white
Right or Wrong

Absolute Truth
Is all they want

God watched on
Shaving his stubble

'Kids, don't fight
Mama, take care of them'

'Oh your kids
Fight just like you'

Mama said from celestial kitchen
'You bought them the toys, didnt you?'

'But you gotta disipline them,'
God said, splashing Old Spice

'After all, they are you kids!'
'Hah' said Mother, 'Gods will be Men!'

Mama went and gave the kids
One sound thrashing, smack on their buns

'Give that toy back to papa,
Even he does not know how to use it.'

And thus the Earth
Was wanked from child's hands
And it bounced and rolled
And rested on the left ankle
Of God's hairy foot

Aadhe Adhure

jaage hain dher tak
hamen kuch dher sone do
thodi se raat aur hai
subah to hone do
aadhe adhure khwaab jo
pure na ho sake
ek baar phir se neend mein
woh khwaab bone do
Gulzar, in the movie 'Guru'

An attempt at translating only the content, as nothing in my ability can match the craft or spirit of the original.

"I have worked all night
Please let me sleep a while
There's still some darkness left
The Sun is asleep, afar

And all those little dreams of mine
That could never come true
Once again let me take them with me
And sow them back again"

I came across this song in its original Hindi version, after having liked the music of the Tamil one.

Gulzar is brilliant. I loved his movies and always thought he was way ahead of his times (and the audience showed they were, too, by making his movies hits). I am a great fan of his.

Oh, and btw, this has NOTHING to do with his Oscar, or the most-abused Jai ho.

I swear the timing of this post is a genuine coincidence.

Operation, Operation, Operation Just Now

The irony of it all!

I started acting when I was in my kindergarten. I still remember playing the doctor in the musical, 'Operation, Operation, Operation just now!' in Jessie Moses, Chennai, and i still have the photo preserved.

I am standing there checking the non-existent heart beat of a baby doll with a real stethoscope I borrowed from my real uncle (who is a real doctor). For some reason, I thought I needed to wear the blue cap that I saw another uncle wear, and that completed my look: a roly poly lil doc, with a blue cap, branded 'TVS'! Talk about endorsements coming in early.

I used to love the movie 'Karnan' by Shivaji Ganeshan, and my reenactment of the climax of the film used to be a regular fixture at my house, if you happened to drop in to my house during 1991-92.

My mom would serve lime juice, bring in a tray full of knick knacks, and I would act out "Karnan's Death" - this was the welcome package you got if you were a guest at my house!

I used to prop myself up, imagining a hundred arrows sticking out of my bleeding chest, my face contorted in pain, my voice straining as it tried imitating the Tiger growl of the thespian-god Shivaji Ganeshan.

Then came the madness of Guna, and with it the circumambulation of my living room, saying in a Kamalesque pleading voice that would tug at my parents hearts... "Abiarami, Abirami!"

That mad actor is not dead, ladies and gentlemen.

He is very much alive.

The irony is, as I grew up, I realised that there was more behind the acting in a film. And I realised I did not know anything about them.

I did not know what a director does. So, I became a director.

Then I saw that there was a writer behind the director, who did something I had no clue of.

So I became a writer.

In this whirlwind of learning, the actor in me willingly took the backseat. He was good at back seat driving though, ever ready to spring into a 'Hey, cut to the right fast!!!" or "Hit the breaks, you fool!" whenever he saw the young driver err.

The back seat driver hated driving over the years, as he saw that the roads he used to play in as a kid, were actually beginning to be spewed with muck. He saw the Shivajis and Kamals of his childhood suffer in these garbage-strewn roads.

Thus he willingly gave up - if only for a while - the steering wheel, and let the other drivers take over.

But it seems now that he has begun stirring in his seat.

The actor prepares.

The Bad Poetry of an essentially Poetic Man

Poetry is to make the inane interesting,
The mundane beautiful
And the arcane understood.

How else does one justify
Inventing cupid's arrow
For something
That is essentially hormonal?

Or bringing in mountains
Plains and the canyons
Just to say hey, he's my pal?

Why metre and rhyme
When plain words are what one thinks?

So much of poetry
Is masking the blandness of life

My problem is thus
Uniquely different
You see.

I am a poet
I think poetic
I feel poetry
Every sight I see is a poem
What hormones do to my brain
Is poetry at a level
Not understood by man!

So how do I
Convey Poetry
In a poem?

I cannot.

Thus my inane lines
Mundane structuring
And arcane thought process.

Forgive me, men.

My Teacher

(Posted in my alma mater's web community. Thought this deserves a blog post. My shcool was Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Anna Nagar, Chennai)

Not many of you would have heard of this teacher. But she shaped my life, and left an indelible impression in most of the 'year 2000' batch. She was Jyoti Ramdass. Incidentally she taught Social Science, a subject supposedly dealing with History, Geography and Civics. But instead she taught me and the other lucky few who had sense enough to learn from her the real social science. She made me a leader. I wish i could contact her some how. I have wished all along, ever since I left CVA. But each time I had the urge to reach out to her, I stopped myself, saying 'not yet.' I wanted to meet her, after achieving something truly incredible. It is perhaps in the nature of achievement, that once you achieve something, it loses its sheen. Or is that in the nature of the achiever? Either ways, I moved for one achievement to another, feeling each was not Big enough for me to call out to her. I am still waiting. I will soon meet her. Some time.