Of precious friendships and relationships...

Recently when I asked my students "Can any of you tell me what is it that kills a cat?", I did receive the usual, routine, so-called right answer (mainly because of the popular idiom)! But some of the responses I received were simply mind-blowing - I couldn't stop admiring the youngsters' out-of-the-box thinking:  "Exposing the secret", "old age", "ethylene glycol smell" were some of the answers, and a couple of students questioned the very foundation of my question - "what kind of a cat is it actually?" "not easy to kill a cat..it is said that cats have nine lives."

Coming to the answer, yes, it's CURIOSITY that is a deadly weapon which kills not just the cat but anyone, if used wrongly. And I'm seeing hundreds of youngsters around me using this deadly weapon to either destroy themselves or those who're involved in their life in someway or the other.

Curiosity, especially the kind that youngsters seem to develop towards the opposite gender, is something that doesn't cease to surprise me... and yes, it does leave me exasperated. I still don't get it when everyone in the campus seems to be "in a relationship". How can anyone at such a tender age be in a relationship? And then break-up in no time too? Amazing!

I often wonder do they actually understand the meaning of the term 'relationship'? It is NOT something that one gets into just to show off... to prove that you're also part of the cool crowd! I keep telling youngsters who approach me with "relationship issues" to "just observe the adults/ couples around you and try to understand what relationships are all about." Relationship equals to companionship, compatibility, a life-long commitment, and a promise to stay together "Until death does you apart"!

This is a real serious issue that I want everyone to ponder about - because youngsters find it easy to get in and out of relationships... How can a small silly argument become a reason for breaking up? "Unless you are mature enough to understand the value of a relationship and what it brings to add value to your life, I suggest you just stay away from it," is my advice to my students.

Kids around me don't seem to realize that anger, aggressiveness, force, or threats (of suicide) can NEVER work! Students that I deal with are way too young to understand either the subtle signals or the intricacies of relationships.

These are a few pointers I insist that my students follow to understand how a relationship works:

~ 'Sacrificing the self' (which doesn't mean suicide, it means leaving the concepts of selfishness, self-centredness and ego) is the first step towards a good relationship.
~ Understanding what works for both of you, rather than just you, is very vital.
~ Freedom is the most crucial aspect too: I totally believe in the adage "If you love something, set it free (wholeheartedly, not artificially); if it comes back to you, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was."
~ Trust is the key to success - jealousy doesn't work!
~ Make sure the other person doesn't compromise a lot to just carry on a relationship with you.
~ Threats and force are definitely a No-no... commit now, love me now, marry me right now, don't do this/that or don't talk to him/ her, or else...
~ Surrendering completely to the other person is the ultimate gift you can give to your significant half - if you're really in love.
~ If you did/ sacrificed something for the other, don't expect anything in return or crib about it later - if you are the kind who would expect, then DON'T do anything for anyone.

This is just the beginning, sweethearts! There's a lot more to a relationship than what youngsters know, see, comprehend, learn and imitate! Having said all this, I'm really pained to see the loss of a beautiful relationship called friendship. It's really really sad to note that the simple relationship called friendship doesn't exist between a girl and a boy anymore.

I'm pained to see this change because I have male friends who are my best buddies. I have this best friend from my school days and we've been "best friends" for the past 25 years. He was a Math wizard and he would help me understand Trigonometry. We studied together just for an year but became friends for life. He went to IIT Madras to pursue Aeronautics Engineering, moved to the dream country for academic aspirants at that point in time - the U.S. of A - while I went ahead to pursue Humanities, majoring in English Literature.

Time, distance (spanning thousands of miles), different career paths, other new friendships/ relationships or the fact that both of us belong to extremely orthodox families never came in the way of our friendship. In fact, despite the traditional mindset of both sets of parents, our friendship was accepted very well. Neither parents entertained any kind of suspicion about our relationship.

Today, my best friend is married with two kids and I'm married with a daughter. Both our spouses know about our precious friendship and they NEVER suspected us in any way nor had a problem with our friendship. We're lucky, that way, to have understanding parents and life-partners. If his wife needs to crib about him, she knows I'm the one she can talk to. And same with S too. Both the men get together and pull my leg. I'm a bit more rebellious in nature while my friend is very calm. I'm the talkative one while he's a silent listener. That way we balance each other out. He's the simple and down-to-earth introvert while I'm the reckless and arrogant extrovert. He was a more careful and thoughtful person while I was the doer and go-getter. That way we balance(d) each other out.

Each time I fell and failed to regain my sense of balance, he would somehow materialize out of thin air and help me big time. Despite all the hurdles and ups & downs of life, our friendship just kept blossoming and growing stronger with each passing year. And what a beautiful friendship it was, it still is, and it always will be.

This is the kind of friendship I'm yet to see among youngsters today... And these youngsters don't really understand what they're missing in life! Very sad, very very sad indeed!

*****************
This post, I dedicate, to my dearest friend Ramana Rao Tamma, on his birthday (February 09)... 

And I sincerely hope that he'll forget about the fact that I never gave him any gift for his birthday but at the same time remembers that he still owes me a birthday gift... :P

Ode to the mother

Written by Tanima Ray...

Cutting the finger along with vegetables..
Burning the skin while cooking..
Breaking the long nails while making dough..
Tying the hair even if they are wet as there's no time to dry them..
Getting immersed in sweat..
Serving all and eating at the end..
At times being hungry and feeding all..
Cutting down all expenses and plans to meet the needs of others..
Being the home minister..
Every celebration's arrangement done with pomp,show and wise budget..
Being equally responsible at the workplace..
Getting a satisfactory response from the boss..
Being punctual for every task assigned..
Waking up early and sleeping lately..
Huffing and puffing in the day's tiresome routine..
This is what's gonna happen when i grow up..
And this is what my mom has been doing besides all my hot confrontations with her..
You think its an easy task?
I have seen her doing all this and m still watching her same note of dedication..
Today when i am realising things i salute her and every working lady for their contributions towards the society as well as family..
And i know i have been a total jerk at times by not understanding my own mom..But now i do understand you Maa..
And all i want is your blessings so that when my turn comes i would be as responsible as you and my kids wont fight and misunderstand unlike me... :')

Disturbed musings

Being a girl translates to leading a very tough life in India, where 5 or 50 is just a number... Truly tough life, where every girl has to learn a few life-saving tips while walking on a double-edged sharp sword - so she could live - JUST LIVE and nothing more. No expectations, no hopes, no wishes, no demands... just plain survival instinct!

If the girl gets to survive without being killed in the mother's womb, that's the first level of luck. And then starts the actual struggle - of trying to please everyone by following a checklist of tough(er,est) rules carefully! 

Here are a few Don'ts in THE checklist: 

- be humble

- look ugly (preferably)

- don't get dressed attractively

- don't laugh loudly

- don't talk a lot

- don't act smart

- don't wear jeans or skirts

- don't go out in the evening

- don't mingle with men

- don't go to pubs

- don't eat out

- don't drink/ smoke

- don't do this 

- AND don't do that.

Otherwise, you'll get raped and mutilated - so what if you're just a sweet little girl. And mind you, you actually asked for it by wearing that cute little (red???) frilly frock. Why, I wonder, are we living such brutal lives? Why is there so much of hatred around? Where is all the love and compassion gone?

I'm deeply hurt and shocked by the amount of brutality being inflicted on women, in an era that doesn't let even 5-year-old girls be spared from mind-numbing violence. I'm a woman and I'm a mother of a girl too... While my heart goes out to the little girl who is battling for her life in yet another Delhi hospital, I'm also worried sick about the scar it leaves on the little one's mind forever. 

Would she wake up every now and then in the middle of the night screaming and trying to run away? Will she ever be able to get over the harrowing traumatic brutality she was put through and lead a normal childhood? Will she play with her dolls and soft toys with the same excitement? Will she draw 8-shaped cats, asymmetric cars, balloons and rabbits, and color them in the most hideous patchy way using funny color combos? Will she sing and dance like a bindaas 5-year-old? Will she, when she's just a little girl (still), ask her mom "What will I be... Will I be handsome, will I be rich"? Above all, will she EVER trust anyone again with the same innocence as she did till a few days ago?

I very much doubt it. Life will never be the same for a child when the biggest gift of being a child - her blissful childhood - has been snatched from her. I pray that the girl be relocated and brought up elsewhere rather than in this country... where crimes against children are a seriously punishable offence, where there's a zero-tolerance-level approach to pedophiles, where child psychologists and counselors can play an extraordinary role in taking care of the little angel and re-stabilizing and rehabilitating her into a normal social set-up.

A request to all smart girls out there, and all the smart boys who are girls' best friends - stay safe and learn to say an affirmative NO at least one in a while. 

And please teach your young children, siblings, and cousins a few safety tips, and the difference between 'good touch' and 'bad touch' - and help young innocent girls avoid the brutal traumatic experience called rape!! What happened in Delhi should NOT recur anywhere again :( :(

For a little bit more...

A few students approached and thanked me for "joining Facebook"... :) Welcome my dears! But let me tell you I was on Facebook much before any of you even planned a career in engineering. You must all have been in school back then. This is a story set sometime in 2008. Here it goes:

Once upon a time, not very long ago, when I was still a Googler a new company christened Facebook was started by this young and dynamic entrepreneur called Mark Zuckerberg. Nobody in Google, not even in their dreams, thought that it might become so big some day that it'll give Orkut a run for its money. Orkut was really really big in terms of social networking - especially in Brazil and India. So when FB launched, Googlers laughed and ridiculed the site's appearance and content. Of course, some of us wanted to do a bit of social service to our company (though none at the top management had a clue about our altruistic intentions) by checking out the new venture in the social networking circles and sending unsolicited feedback to whoever wanted it. And we were happy - creating an account, taking a tour of the site, and feeling elated because it looked way below our very own Orkut. So we thought it'll also burst like all the social networking bubbles that came and went singing a zillion sad songs - MySpace, Hi5, and many others.

But somehow over the next few months, the scene changed drastically. A relatively young entrant which was started in 2007 with all its ridiculous and absurd features like Poke, Games, Feeds, Notes, Love symbols (I remember there was something similar to a Vampire's kiss), and such silly stuff was making its way into the hearts of millions of users. By the time I left my company, FB became so popular that in my Farewell Letter to friends and colleagues I had to promise that I'll be active on FB so we could keep in touch. I did keep my promise and I was totally hooked. There were umpteen attractions - Farmville, Fishville, Cityville, Forestville, X-Ville, Y-ville, this-ville, that-ville... and I had plenty of time on hand to indulge myself generously for a few hours everyday.

So, like I said earlier, I was active on FB for the past 5-6 years. I guess some students know it too. And they also knew that I was inaccessible online to students and my account was off-limits to the student community as I didn't respond to Friend requests from students earlier. There was a reason why I chose to keep it that way. I thought it was best to keep my personal life separate from my professional life.

So why am I accessible to students now? There're reasons, logical ones, as always! In the recent past I've realized how much my students have become a part of my personal life - it's very closely intertwined with my professional life at this point in time. I love them all as much as I love my own daughter, and I love being part of their world. And that happy and exciting thought made me create a world away from the rest of the world and have this little exclusive world of our own. Now this is my personal space too which is filled with not only lots of fun, laughter, and happiness but also sometimes with certain sad phases of life - the life that revolves around my children.

And to all my students - who has ever interacted with me (even once), made me learn patience, and also to lose my temper, taught me to love selflessly and generously, and how to connect with the GenNext, showed me how to enjoy life in today's world, and the joy of giving but expecting nothing in return, made me much more passionate about my profession, and smile a little more, changed my perspective about the world around, and, above all, made me a better person - for this, for everything and for a little bit more, I dedicate this post.

In memory of a mischief-maker

Originally written on November 26, 2012

Writing an obituary for a student is the worst thing that can ever happen to a teacher! Having come from a profession where we're considered above and beyond all emotions (of course with an exception of a teary-eyed and emotion-choked Arnab Goswami), I thought I'll take the shock, and the pain, without much difficulty. But that wasn't the case!

The fateful Tuesday morning (20.11.12) was like any regular one... or at least it started like one. It being a class-free day for me, we set out to get some work done at the bank. We went smiling, came out with the happy and hungry thoughts of invading the nearest dhaba for lunch before we work through the second part of the day. All was well and cheerful till we reached the dhaba when a good Samaritan colleague informed us that we're forbidden to go "there" as "a boy died there just now". Though the message was confusing and triggered a lot of questions in our minds, we turned the bike towards the office without another word.

Post lunch in the college canteen, I tried to squeeze out some more information from a senior colleague on the-boy-who-died. And what we got to know wasn't good news. A first-year student of the engineering college drowned in a nearby pond across the road. That was my first moment of shock. Seeing the expression on my face, S quickly rushed me out. First-year?! My only prayer since that moment was "I hope it's not somebody I know..." because I know quite a few first-year students personally.

The tension kept building up as nobody seemed to have a clue about the unfortunate kid. As the day passed and the evening set in, things slowly started seeing light and the name and other details got out. It was J bhai, one of our attenders, who broke the news to me. He didn't have much information except for the name of the boy who drowned. He then cross-checked the name and the spelling, along with the roll number, in my attendance register. My worst fears were confirmed. He was a student of my class... somebody who I knew - by his first name, middle name and last name - for the past 3 months and 4 days.

The moment was beyond shock, though that was the initial reaction as my brain went numb. Shock engulfed me suddenly and kept overwhelming. It felt as if all the energy drained out of my body. My feet, especially! As I dragged myself out of my room and down the stairs, the news was re-confirmed by two more colleagues. Though I saw a few of my students gathered near the dais, I had no courage to meet their eye, or talk to any of them... The bubbly me had deserted me for the moment and I just dragged on without a cheerful "Hello", "How're you?", "What're you all doing here?", "No class?" or "Good luck" for the next day's exam.

The nightmare had just begun as shock slowly gave way to pain. And pain was coming in waves. Everything around looked like a blur. I was talking, cleaning, arranging and re-arranging things mindlessly, watching TV - but nothing seemed real anymore. The only thing I was doing with focused attention was to trace the boy's FB account. I don't know what made me do it. But after over an hour's effort, I found him - smiling as mischievously as he always did - on FB. Reality striking, I started prying into his not-so-private life by checking his photographs, friends' comments - in fact trying to find out everything 'about him'. Ironical as it may sound, his favorite quote is "Life is too short. So why don't you love me before we run out of time." And then I found a comment posted by his friend, posthumously, "Miss you balli... aise bhi koi chhod ke jaata hai kya". And that really broke my heart.

The first wave of severe pain hit me just when I was about to doze off. The kid's smiling face, both on and offline, and his friend's comment kept coming back to me - depriving me of my usual sound sleep. With a heavy heart and eyes that kept welling up, we reached the college next morning to attend the condolence meeting at the institution. The garlanded photo on a stool with flowers placed in a heap in front, and the overpowering aroma of the incense kept confirming, and re-confirming, the tragedy that could have been evaded had he been a bit less reckless, and a bit more careful.

Now what can I say about Pradip? He was like any happy-go-lucky teenager - dark, thin, short, smiling, reckless, mischievous and talkative. He was neither brilliant nor studious, but he was smart. Not the kind of student teachers would take note of. With a high-pitch, and slightly feminine, voice, he used to keep yakking in one of the last rows. So he was one of the first students whose names I made it a point to know; warned him a couple of times and threatened to throw him out of the class if he "cannot stay quiet". The last I chided him was two weeks earlier when I told him he'll not be allowed to write the exam if his attendance percentage doesn't improve... :( And improve, it did not. He still bunked classes despite the warning.

He knew he wouldn't be allowed to write the exams because of his poor attendance. He knew and he came prepared... with a towel, a pack of cigarettes, the company of two friends and the thrill of swimming - in a lonely deserted pond amidst nature. The two friends who survived will certainly be scarred for life. And so will be his parents. His father (especially) who works as a security guard in one of the prestigious software companies in Bhubaneswar... who must have dreamed that his son will become an engineer, and someday will work in the same company!! The father's dreams shattered, the mother's heart broke, and the sister's hopes vanished... all in a matter of a few seconds.

Why? Why? I wonder if it's his age, his adventurous spirit or his reckless attitude that predominated and prompted him to take a swim in untested waters on that fateful day! I'm yet to get an answer, and the only person who can answer it right cannot do so - ever again! A moment of thrill cost him his precious life, nipped it in the bud and sucked the life out with ease. Serish is so right. Such is the fickleness of life!

All I can say now is - be happy, no matter where you are! And may your soul rest in peace!!