After reading my last blog post "The End of Global warming", my friends lambasted me. Murali even wanted it to be deleted immediately because he believed it was causing a lot of damage. So what do we call it? 'Global Harming'? In spite of protests from my best friends, I have kept the post on because I never wanted it to be taken seriously. If it evoked a wry or a dry smile; that is what it was meant for. If it irritated you, we must remember people smoking in A/C halls! This post can't be that offensive!!!
This streak of irresponsible nature was always there in me. I remember the day when I was attending my Forensic Medicine practical examination. Most of my mates were trying to mug up whatever they could during the waiting period. I was my usual self, playing pranks and pulling legs. This was not because I was some kind of a nerveless Genius. My reaction to anxiety, tension and stress has always been to crack a joke. The joke might sound banal some times, but it has helped me to fight the escalating stress.
So one of my irritated classmates asked, "Shenoy, when are you going to become serious?". This girl was obviously pissed off and wanted me to stop the nonsense. So I shot back, "Whenever that happens, I don't want you to be treating me. Tense people make bad Doctors!". She gave it back, "You'll never prosper in life". I was wrong on that day, she too was. Today, she is a pretty successful Pediatrician and I am making a decent living too!
My Banner, my Motto and my blog are the same: Live, Love and Laugh!. I love to watch comedies and very often again and again. I can easily break down if I see someone crying; live or in movies. This weakness has made me more determined to stay off some acclaimed movies due to the 'Rona-Dhona' content. I avoid talking to women relatives of seriously ill patients simply because they can cry easily. You can't be having a spectacle of the Doctor weeping along with the relatives of the patient. There have been times when I had to rush out to the rest room to avoid this embarrassing situation!
This my friends is my problem! Pardon me for my ways that may appear imbecile to you. But I just am not strong enough upstairs, so I try to diffuse the situation with humor. 20 April was one of the hottest days out here and I was really frustrated by the heat. So I had to take the heat out on something. That is when I stumbled upon the Rakhi Sawant interview. In spite of there hardly being anything she has left for us male folks to 'Imagine'; Rakhi was threatening us with 'No Show'! That is why I felt the chill! Take it or leave it, but I mean no Global Harming! Thank you and love you all!
Sab Theek Ho Jayega !
- Govind Raj
- Kochi / Ernakulam, Kerala, India
- A Doctor who loves to Live, Love and Laugh with the World! Absolutely crazy about Cricket ! Other Qualifications: A Tired Bathroom Singer, Retired Gully Cricketer and Satire Writer !
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
The End of Global Warming !
As I was buzzing on my Gmail page about the intolerable heat, I suddenly started to feel really cold in my cabin. Well, the 16 Degree Celsius temperatures offered by the Air-conditioners never really made me feel so cold; even during winter. I thought I was going to catch a fever. But my temperature was normal and I had no other symptom associated with Viral Fever.
I was really wondering and decided to look on the net for the meteorology reports and see what I got! The reason for the sudden cooling of Mother Earth is THIS!
To this date, we were blaming wrong policies, man's greed and atrocity against nature, rapid urbanization and even George W Bush and Narendra Modi for Global Warming. But now we know the reason! All these days we didn't realize this. This will come as a big shock for the Environmentalists.
Rakhi Sawant came on Indian entertainment industry like a whiff of hot air from a giant sized dryer. Just Imagine, she managed to lift the fortunes of a Channel single-handed and then got a career for her boyfriend before discarding him. She even managed to raise the old man from the dead!
All this while the signs were there for all to see, but we failed to see them. But now all of a sudden the truth is out. This will be a big shock for her fans. The masculine force of India will never be the same again! But what Rakhi has done is in the larger interest of the planet. It is now evident that she realized Eyjafjallajökull happened because of her and hence this sacrifice.
So far she sacrificed her clothes to warm up the globe and most of the men stopped wearing anything due to the heat. Now she will start wearing some clothes at last and the gents apparel industry is bound to grow. Let us all stand up and applaud this noble act of a Diva who has realized the truth about her prowess!
Now we can live on a cooler earth minus the one piece, two piece or three piece postures of Rakhi Sawant! Peace be upon Earth!
I was really wondering and decided to look on the net for the meteorology reports and see what I got! The reason for the sudden cooling of Mother Earth is THIS!
To this date, we were blaming wrong policies, man's greed and atrocity against nature, rapid urbanization and even George W Bush and Narendra Modi for Global Warming. But now we know the reason! All these days we didn't realize this. This will come as a big shock for the Environmentalists.
Rakhi Sawant came on Indian entertainment industry like a whiff of hot air from a giant sized dryer. Just Imagine, she managed to lift the fortunes of a Channel single-handed and then got a career for her boyfriend before discarding him. She even managed to raise the old man from the dead!
All this while the signs were there for all to see, but we failed to see them. But now all of a sudden the truth is out. This will be a big shock for her fans. The masculine force of India will never be the same again! But what Rakhi has done is in the larger interest of the planet. It is now evident that she realized Eyjafjallajökull happened because of her and hence this sacrifice.
So far she sacrificed her clothes to warm up the globe and most of the men stopped wearing anything due to the heat. Now she will start wearing some clothes at last and the gents apparel industry is bound to grow. Let us all stand up and applaud this noble act of a Diva who has realized the truth about her prowess!
Now we can live on a cooler earth minus the one piece, two piece or three piece postures of Rakhi Sawant! Peace be upon Earth!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Clash of the Twitans!
Shashi Tharoor is an honorable man. He is Sonia Gandhi's poster-boy and he believes in RTI-Right To Information Act. So he goes on Twitter, Tweet Tweet about anything and everything from 'Holy Cows' to 'Cattle Class' to 'Interlocutors'. We all know how this innocent act of Tharoor almost brought the Nation to a screeching halt.
Lalit Modi is an honorable man too. He believes in RTI too. He too believes 'People' have the right to know everything, including the 'Individual Stakes' of each partner in the Kochi IPL Franchise'. So he too goes 'Tweet Tweet'.
Now this innocent tweeting has caused a huge commotion with people claiming Modi's dislike for Shashi Tharoor and his 'Karbonn Kamaal ka Catch' Ms. Sunanda Pushkar. Ours is a 'Nation' that runs high on 'ImagiNation'! Two perfectly honorable men who are just going about their business with the sweet sound of 'Tweet Tweet' and the whole country is abuzz with rumors that can be labeled "Clash of the Twitans"!
So if there indeed is a clash as the incorrigible media people are claiming, I have only one set of doubts. At the end of it all, will Tharoor be a 'Modi-fied' man or will he borrow the Mongoose from Hayden?
Who will enjoy the 'Citi Moment of Success' and who will be clobbered for a 'DLF Maximum'? Friends, Malayalees and Countrymen, don't go anywhere; keep your lines on. Let us just take a Maxx Mobile Strategic Timeout and wait...
Lalit Modi is an honorable man too. He believes in RTI too. He too believes 'People' have the right to know everything, including the 'Individual Stakes' of each partner in the Kochi IPL Franchise'. So he too goes 'Tweet Tweet'.
Now this innocent tweeting has caused a huge commotion with people claiming Modi's dislike for Shashi Tharoor and his 'Karbonn Kamaal ka Catch' Ms. Sunanda Pushkar. Ours is a 'Nation' that runs high on 'ImagiNation'! Two perfectly honorable men who are just going about their business with the sweet sound of 'Tweet Tweet' and the whole country is abuzz with rumors that can be labeled "Clash of the Twitans"!
So if there indeed is a clash as the incorrigible media people are claiming, I have only one set of doubts. At the end of it all, will Tharoor be a 'Modi-fied' man or will he borrow the Mongoose from Hayden?
Who will enjoy the 'Citi Moment of Success' and who will be clobbered for a 'DLF Maximum'? Friends, Malayalees and Countrymen, don't go anywhere; keep your lines on. Let us just take a Maxx Mobile Strategic Timeout and wait...
Monday, March 22, 2010
Yaadein; Bees Saal Baad...
My friend Murali wanted me to start an Orkut group for our Class of 1988 from Medical College Bellary; now known as Vijayanagar Institute of Medical Sciences Bellary [VIMS, Bellary]. That was about 2 years ago. I did that, but it has moved at the pace Saurav Ganguly scores his runs these days.
The intention was to get all the guys and gals together for a grand reunion for celebrating 20 years of the beginning of our journey. It made no progress whatsoever. But finally a girl from our batch took the lead to organize the event and it is almost certain that we will be seeing ourselves on Saturday, 3 April 2010 at Bangalore! Am I thrilled?
What was it about Bellary that makes so many of us yearn for a reunion? The first time I saw on Indian Express that I was allotted a Medical seat in Bellary, I felt a deep chill down the spine. For the people from Coastal Karnataka, the rain-less Bellary was an equivalent of Andaman in those days. My uncle even joked about me getting exiled to Kaala-Paani!
Due to some Technical faults committed by the Directorate of Technical Education, I ended up a month too late in Bellary. I must say, those were the most difficult days of my life. The unknown world, unknown people, unknown food and above all the ‘Anatomy Hall’!
I told myself, “It is just a matter of how many days I will survive this ‘Concentration Camp’. I will never be a Doctor!” I never told this to anyone, but I was readying to return home and go back to native place and try my hands at business!
Some seniors were ‘Good’, some were ‘Bad’ and some were ‘Ugly’. From what I heard from other classmates, I had escaped the worst of ragging. My heart went out to my mates who had endured much worse.
I will shun the bad and the ugly because they in the end were like us when it came to life. But some of the good ones must be remembered. My room-mate Subba, Lokesh, Shailesh, Mallya, Sripad and many more from the fifteenth block were really nice and they made life more tolerable.
Some more seniors like Leslie Lewis, Aron Fernandez, Prashanth Raj, Maxim, Shankar Mallya, Dennis, Lakshmish Shetty, Jayaram Shetty and Monappa too were really helpful. I might have overlooked a few names because there were too many nice people and this post might end up looking like a Bellary Alumny Logbook if I go on enumerating all the names!
But there were two other things I was more scared than the seniors and the Anatomy hall; and that was ‘Vangi Baath’ and 'Chau Chou Baath'. The first one was a rice-based dish peppered with brinjal. The second one was a combined sweet and salted preparation of rava served together. Both these were served on almost alternative days in our hostel mess. I knew why they called the place ‘Mess’. Vangi Baath delicacy was nicknamed ‘Concrete’ by seniors. Soon we came to know why it was so; obviously because it stayed in the stomach longer than most of the other foods!
But gradually the life started to get its color back. The confusion over ‘Scapula’ and ‘Scalpel’ was solved and the Mnemonics for the carpal bones started to look ‘pretty’. “She looks too pretty, try to catch her”! This was the first ever Mnemonic I remember. And then it became a business!
It reached such a rage, one of our classmates reached the highest altitudes in forming Mnemonics. During our phase-2 exams, he came to my room one night and told, “Hey I have now studied everything and formed Mnemonics for each and every topic. Classifications will never bother anyone in medical college in future. But there is only one problem now”. My room-mate, “What’s that?” Our man, the Head of the Department of Mnemonic-ology quipped, “There are so many of these, that I have totally forgotten which Mnemonic is for which topic”!
We had classes, practical classes, the labs, the dissection sessions and then the library. I was so overwhelmed by the volumes of those voluminous books; I started to hate the library. Till the end I stepped into the library only to write exams or to pull out some guys who were reading or were pretending!
This was the same guy who had actually run out of books in the public library at my native place! I was such a voracious reader and here I was totally damned by these books. But I had to read them. Survival was a necessity; I realized going back home was neigh say impossible. It would break my parents and make me a butt of ridicule in town.
Gradually even these books and all the studies became commonplace. So I realized one truth, “Every mountain looks enormous and insurmountable only till you actually climb it”. So terms became phases and we phased into third phase and then it was all over! There were failures, success, heartbreaks, victories and a lot of fun!
Cricket, Cinema, Caroms and Chums formed the entire universe. We had a huge advantage of having a single and secluded campus. All the hostels were within the campus. Many of our teachers too stayed close by. The College, the OPD or the Hospital too was only at a stones throw. Some of the huge shots played by my senior room-mate Partha had allegedly landed at the OPD! But that unfortunately happened long before we landed in Bellary. And then there were Parijatha, Kiran Bakery and other small hotels!
Those movies, those songs and those days are still vivid in memory. Mani Ratnam became an Icon and Ram Gopal Varma revolutionized the way fights were shown in movies. 'Chinna Chinna Aasai' still gives me the same fresh feeling we had twenty years ago. I have that song on my Corby and that is my ring tone for my friends! Life after all is all about Small small wishes! Times have changed, we all have metamorphosed but the inner core of those days remains fresh even today!
Some of the friends made a deep impression on me and the impressions have stayed with me to-date and perhaps will stay till end. D. N. Manjunath taught me what endurance is. Srinivas Reddy taught me to laugh; at myself. G. T. Sreenivas was all about determination. My friend Murali was just that; a friend any person on earth can hope for. The politeness of Vineeth [Dabba], the cool attitude of Chandrasekhar [C], the brilliance of Madhu, Devendra Reddy and Satya and the meticulousness of Vishwanath Nayak; I have learned from them all!
Again there are so many of them, I will be really hard pressed to name them all. But I will go to hell if I don’t mention the hardships faced by Jagan and the way he has conquered them! Hats off to all of my friends! I am what I am today because of a lot of help, inspiration and the friendship of these chaps.
Since we had a single campus, there were the inevitable love stories. So a lot of boys started of as ‘Rakhi’ brothers, but ended up as lovers. In some cases, the love story ended with the ‘Rakhi’! I too had my own share of crushes, but was too shy to ever disclose it! And I was really mortified by the thought of a ‘Rakhi’ being tied by ‘the girls’!
I can go on and on with the story and it may end up as a novel for another movie like ‘3 Idiots’. That will be another thing I don’t mind doing! But for now, I have to cut this short somewhere.
So here I am 22 years later, retaining the same vigor with which I landed in Bellary on a rainy-day in 1988. Why do I love Bellary? Or do I love Bellary at all? The answer is, simple. It is not Bellary or the college that I loved. It is the “Friends”! It is those cherished bitter-sweet moments! It is those heartaches and nostalgia! We all yearn to relive those momentous moments. And that is why we all want to meet again and see ‘Ourselves’!
With a huge thanks to Pushpalatha for taking the lead in arranging this; I am counting every moment of these days for the moment to meet up all of you guys and gals! Can’t wait to say, “That indeed was a beautiful life and thanks to you all!”
The intention was to get all the guys and gals together for a grand reunion for celebrating 20 years of the beginning of our journey. It made no progress whatsoever. But finally a girl from our batch took the lead to organize the event and it is almost certain that we will be seeing ourselves on Saturday, 3 April 2010 at Bangalore! Am I thrilled?
What was it about Bellary that makes so many of us yearn for a reunion? The first time I saw on Indian Express that I was allotted a Medical seat in Bellary, I felt a deep chill down the spine. For the people from Coastal Karnataka, the rain-less Bellary was an equivalent of Andaman in those days. My uncle even joked about me getting exiled to Kaala-Paani!
Due to some Technical faults committed by the Directorate of Technical Education, I ended up a month too late in Bellary. I must say, those were the most difficult days of my life. The unknown world, unknown people, unknown food and above all the ‘Anatomy Hall’!
I told myself, “It is just a matter of how many days I will survive this ‘Concentration Camp’. I will never be a Doctor!” I never told this to anyone, but I was readying to return home and go back to native place and try my hands at business!
Some seniors were ‘Good’, some were ‘Bad’ and some were ‘Ugly’. From what I heard from other classmates, I had escaped the worst of ragging. My heart went out to my mates who had endured much worse.
I will shun the bad and the ugly because they in the end were like us when it came to life. But some of the good ones must be remembered. My room-mate Subba, Lokesh, Shailesh, Mallya, Sripad and many more from the fifteenth block were really nice and they made life more tolerable.
Some more seniors like Leslie Lewis, Aron Fernandez, Prashanth Raj, Maxim, Shankar Mallya, Dennis, Lakshmish Shetty, Jayaram Shetty and Monappa too were really helpful. I might have overlooked a few names because there were too many nice people and this post might end up looking like a Bellary Alumny Logbook if I go on enumerating all the names!
But there were two other things I was more scared than the seniors and the Anatomy hall; and that was ‘Vangi Baath’ and 'Chau Chou Baath'. The first one was a rice-based dish peppered with brinjal. The second one was a combined sweet and salted preparation of rava served together. Both these were served on almost alternative days in our hostel mess. I knew why they called the place ‘Mess’. Vangi Baath delicacy was nicknamed ‘Concrete’ by seniors. Soon we came to know why it was so; obviously because it stayed in the stomach longer than most of the other foods!
But gradually the life started to get its color back. The confusion over ‘Scapula’ and ‘Scalpel’ was solved and the Mnemonics for the carpal bones started to look ‘pretty’. “She looks too pretty, try to catch her”! This was the first ever Mnemonic I remember. And then it became a business!
It reached such a rage, one of our classmates reached the highest altitudes in forming Mnemonics. During our phase-2 exams, he came to my room one night and told, “Hey I have now studied everything and formed Mnemonics for each and every topic. Classifications will never bother anyone in medical college in future. But there is only one problem now”. My room-mate, “What’s that?” Our man, the Head of the Department of Mnemonic-ology quipped, “There are so many of these, that I have totally forgotten which Mnemonic is for which topic”!
We had classes, practical classes, the labs, the dissection sessions and then the library. I was so overwhelmed by the volumes of those voluminous books; I started to hate the library. Till the end I stepped into the library only to write exams or to pull out some guys who were reading or were pretending!
This was the same guy who had actually run out of books in the public library at my native place! I was such a voracious reader and here I was totally damned by these books. But I had to read them. Survival was a necessity; I realized going back home was neigh say impossible. It would break my parents and make me a butt of ridicule in town.
Gradually even these books and all the studies became commonplace. So I realized one truth, “Every mountain looks enormous and insurmountable only till you actually climb it”. So terms became phases and we phased into third phase and then it was all over! There were failures, success, heartbreaks, victories and a lot of fun!
Cricket, Cinema, Caroms and Chums formed the entire universe. We had a huge advantage of having a single and secluded campus. All the hostels were within the campus. Many of our teachers too stayed close by. The College, the OPD or the Hospital too was only at a stones throw. Some of the huge shots played by my senior room-mate Partha had allegedly landed at the OPD! But that unfortunately happened long before we landed in Bellary. And then there were Parijatha, Kiran Bakery and other small hotels!
Those movies, those songs and those days are still vivid in memory. Mani Ratnam became an Icon and Ram Gopal Varma revolutionized the way fights were shown in movies. 'Chinna Chinna Aasai' still gives me the same fresh feeling we had twenty years ago. I have that song on my Corby and that is my ring tone for my friends! Life after all is all about Small small wishes! Times have changed, we all have metamorphosed but the inner core of those days remains fresh even today!
Some of the friends made a deep impression on me and the impressions have stayed with me to-date and perhaps will stay till end. D. N. Manjunath taught me what endurance is. Srinivas Reddy taught me to laugh; at myself. G. T. Sreenivas was all about determination. My friend Murali was just that; a friend any person on earth can hope for. The politeness of Vineeth [Dabba], the cool attitude of Chandrasekhar [C], the brilliance of Madhu, Devendra Reddy and Satya and the meticulousness of Vishwanath Nayak; I have learned from them all!
Again there are so many of them, I will be really hard pressed to name them all. But I will go to hell if I don’t mention the hardships faced by Jagan and the way he has conquered them! Hats off to all of my friends! I am what I am today because of a lot of help, inspiration and the friendship of these chaps.
Since we had a single campus, there were the inevitable love stories. So a lot of boys started of as ‘Rakhi’ brothers, but ended up as lovers. In some cases, the love story ended with the ‘Rakhi’! I too had my own share of crushes, but was too shy to ever disclose it! And I was really mortified by the thought of a ‘Rakhi’ being tied by ‘the girls’!
I can go on and on with the story and it may end up as a novel for another movie like ‘3 Idiots’. That will be another thing I don’t mind doing! But for now, I have to cut this short somewhere.
So here I am 22 years later, retaining the same vigor with which I landed in Bellary on a rainy-day in 1988. Why do I love Bellary? Or do I love Bellary at all? The answer is, simple. It is not Bellary or the college that I loved. It is the “Friends”! It is those cherished bitter-sweet moments! It is those heartaches and nostalgia! We all yearn to relive those momentous moments. And that is why we all want to meet again and see ‘Ourselves’!
With a huge thanks to Pushpalatha for taking the lead in arranging this; I am counting every moment of these days for the moment to meet up all of you guys and gals! Can’t wait to say, “That indeed was a beautiful life and thanks to you all!”
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
A World full of Celebrities!
Shah Rukh Khan once told, "People often tell me about my inability to move out of house without getting mobbed and sympathize for that. They say, so sad and how difficult it is! But I know these guys are ready to give the right hand to be in my shoes". This could easily be construed as arrogance of a Superstar. But this is not! This is plain truth and nothing but truth.
Almost an entire generation of this nation will be willing to be in SRK's shoes. What about me? I am not ready to give my right or left hand or any limbs or any other part of my anatomy. That will further lessen my chances of attaining stardom. But, I will be bluffing if I say, "I don't want to be as rich and as famous as Khan". You love him or hate him, but the fact is SRK is perhaps the second most popular Indian today!
My daughter is going through her sixth standard exams. On the last day of school, she came with her autograph book. Her friends had written the routine kid stuff. Then she showed me a white paper with an indecipherable thing that looked like a signature. Against character, she had preserved it well and hence I was curious to know what it was! She told me that was an autograph of a 'famous' singer. I had never heard that name and I still can't remember it, but for my daughter, that was a Celebrity.
My mother often wonders if there are any 'Normal People' in Mumbai at all. Looking at the surplus of entertainment channels overflowing with serials infested by hosts of actors, even I think she has a point. Look at any Cinema or television awards ceremony and we can see an entire auditorium or sometimes even a stadium full of stars and celebrities! Every channel will have an awards ceremony and there are millions of awards given away to thousands of people. It seems as if the world is brimming with celebrities!
It is neigh say impossible today to step out of your house without bumping into some celebrity. They are there, everywhere; be it Cinema, Super market, Hospital, Restaurant or even Railway-station. During a single Sunday evening outing, I came to know of the celebrity status of four young people thanks to my daughter. She seems to know them all.
Other problem we face is an offshoot of this "Celebrity syndrome". Everyone resembles one or the other celebrity today, and sometimes more than one! Facebook has an application that helps you to find out your celebrity look alike. This magnificent program even gives you the accurate percentage of your resemblance to a celebrity. Since long, I have heard people talk about my resemblance to Kannada actor Ananth Nag and later Ramesh Aravind. But the Facebook application says I resemble Sharman Joshi up-to 87.3%! What an exact excess of information, thanks to the Information era!
The Celebrities are people like 'You, Me and Hum!'. They too have likes, dislikes, moods, emotions, problems and then menstrual periods. It often never occurs to us that the stars too can have "Bad hair days" or "Off Color days". One small event of show of emotions from a star and the people and the media go to town and even to jungle with the story. They will do exclusive 'Breaking News' of Star Tantrums! I can relate to a certain extent to Amitabh Bachchan's anger towards those people who had written some nasty things about Aishwariya Rai, his beloved daughter-in-law.
I have met some celebrities purely out of accident. Kannada actor Late Vishnu Vardhan and Malayalam actor Late Cochin Haneefa were two among them. Both were fabulous persons and I really admire them for their down to earth nature. I have also met Jagathi Sreekumar, Manoj K. Jayan, Navya Nair, Urmila Unni, Director Lal of 'Harihar Nagar' fame and Director Rafi of 'Punjabi House' fame. All these people were perfectly normal human beings. Late Lohitha Das was another celebrity who was absolutely charming. He was forced to do a stress-test twice due to some technical snag. Forget about tantrums, he didn't even complain. Sanjay Dutt was another chap without much of 'Star Airs'!
In the final analysis, the celebrities are people just like us with some additional gift and a lot more name, fame and of course money! So on the verge of forty, yours truly still wants a share of the star-dust if it comes without having to struggle! That is the key-word, "Struggle". We all envy the stars and celebrities, but never look at the struggles they would have endured to reach where they have.
So I believe we have to give it to the celebrities; the small, the medium, the big and the all time greats! We have to respect them and leave them alone to live their own life; because like us, they too live only once! So live and let live!
Almost an entire generation of this nation will be willing to be in SRK's shoes. What about me? I am not ready to give my right or left hand or any limbs or any other part of my anatomy. That will further lessen my chances of attaining stardom. But, I will be bluffing if I say, "I don't want to be as rich and as famous as Khan". You love him or hate him, but the fact is SRK is perhaps the second most popular Indian today!
My daughter is going through her sixth standard exams. On the last day of school, she came with her autograph book. Her friends had written the routine kid stuff. Then she showed me a white paper with an indecipherable thing that looked like a signature. Against character, she had preserved it well and hence I was curious to know what it was! She told me that was an autograph of a 'famous' singer. I had never heard that name and I still can't remember it, but for my daughter, that was a Celebrity.
My mother often wonders if there are any 'Normal People' in Mumbai at all. Looking at the surplus of entertainment channels overflowing with serials infested by hosts of actors, even I think she has a point. Look at any Cinema or television awards ceremony and we can see an entire auditorium or sometimes even a stadium full of stars and celebrities! Every channel will have an awards ceremony and there are millions of awards given away to thousands of people. It seems as if the world is brimming with celebrities!
It is neigh say impossible today to step out of your house without bumping into some celebrity. They are there, everywhere; be it Cinema, Super market, Hospital, Restaurant or even Railway-station. During a single Sunday evening outing, I came to know of the celebrity status of four young people thanks to my daughter. She seems to know them all.
Other problem we face is an offshoot of this "Celebrity syndrome". Everyone resembles one or the other celebrity today, and sometimes more than one! Facebook has an application that helps you to find out your celebrity look alike. This magnificent program even gives you the accurate percentage of your resemblance to a celebrity. Since long, I have heard people talk about my resemblance to Kannada actor Ananth Nag and later Ramesh Aravind. But the Facebook application says I resemble Sharman Joshi up-to 87.3%! What an exact excess of information, thanks to the Information era!
The Celebrities are people like 'You, Me and Hum!'. They too have likes, dislikes, moods, emotions, problems and then menstrual periods. It often never occurs to us that the stars too can have "Bad hair days" or "Off Color days". One small event of show of emotions from a star and the people and the media go to town and even to jungle with the story. They will do exclusive 'Breaking News' of Star Tantrums! I can relate to a certain extent to Amitabh Bachchan's anger towards those people who had written some nasty things about Aishwariya Rai, his beloved daughter-in-law.
I have met some celebrities purely out of accident. Kannada actor Late Vishnu Vardhan and Malayalam actor Late Cochin Haneefa were two among them. Both were fabulous persons and I really admire them for their down to earth nature. I have also met Jagathi Sreekumar, Manoj K. Jayan, Navya Nair, Urmila Unni, Director Lal of 'Harihar Nagar' fame and Director Rafi of 'Punjabi House' fame. All these people were perfectly normal human beings. Late Lohitha Das was another celebrity who was absolutely charming. He was forced to do a stress-test twice due to some technical snag. Forget about tantrums, he didn't even complain. Sanjay Dutt was another chap without much of 'Star Airs'!
In the final analysis, the celebrities are people just like us with some additional gift and a lot more name, fame and of course money! So on the verge of forty, yours truly still wants a share of the star-dust if it comes without having to struggle! That is the key-word, "Struggle". We all envy the stars and celebrities, but never look at the struggles they would have endured to reach where they have.
So I believe we have to give it to the celebrities; the small, the medium, the big and the all time greats! We have to respect them and leave them alone to live their own life; because like us, they too live only once! So live and let live!
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Learning is Living !
"Getting better is a process that never stops. It's the reason why I get up every morning and head out there for training" Said Sachin Tendulkar after his historical 200 in ODI ! That is definitely a topic to think, mull over and ruminate and then "Learn from it" !
Think of it, a man with most number of runs, centuries, records and awards in the history of Cricket talks about getting better. And he has proved he means every word of it. He has got better and better and then BETTER! The reason for his name, game and fame is this... Getting Better !
Learning is a process as vital as life itself. I just love the word 'Learning'. While at school, I always wondered why the word 'Studying' was used at all. That to me sounded like a punishment. "I am studying in sixth standard". Most of the kids look so solemn and so lost; there never was any fun in it.
I realized 'Learning' was a better word and 'Studying' was a poor cousin. You study something when circumstances force you to; but you learn something because you want to ! This is what I feel about these two words.
My English and vocabulary aren't as good as those of Shashi Tharoor and neither am I as smart as him. So let me be pardoned if my version is not acceptable to someone.
Learning starts with life, that is from the womb; and it continues till death and ends in the tomb! A newborn baby has to learn every bit about life from the moment it is born. It starts with the 'Cry'. The cry is vital to life, because that is when the hitherto unacclimatized lungs learn to breathe. The cry then helps the baby to communicate with the mother; hunger, thirst, discomfort and everything.
Then comes the sucking of breast-milk. The sleep, the smile and all the milestones. The milestones of a baby's growth that make the parents happy and proud are but a continued process of learning. Why do we all enjoy this ? Because we are 'Learning' and NOT Studying !
Even as the baby is learning to grow up, the parents too are learning. Learning about parenting and about the responsibilities of parenthood. At any socioeconomic level, in any society, country or religion; growing up of a baby is a special feeling and nothing can better it.
Every baby is born special and smart. Perhaps our education that demands studying rather than learning makes us dumb. I have discussed in an earlier post "Mathematics: Cutting the Diamond simplified" how vision in teaching can turn the dull and drab studying into an enjoyable learning process!
As we progress, a lot of people think we have learned everything. Well, to be precise, 'Studied everything'. This feeling is the beginning of the end of progress. I remember a very talented pace-bowler from Karnataka who shot to fame during the boom-time of Karnataka Cricket in the 90s.
His name was David Johnson. He was quick and he swung the ball both ways and bowled a good bouncer. The BCCI sent him to the Dennis Lillee Pace Academy in Chennai to train better. He left the Academy within a short span claiming, "I have learned EVERYTHING". This attitude irked T. A. Shekar the Coach and he was disappointed. Just look at David Johnson's career stats. Well, no need actually. He hardly had any career at all! The importance of Sachin Tendulkar's words become evident here !
Lack of opportunities is a common refrain used by lazy people. I love the quotable quote, "You are unlucky if you are born poor, but you are a fool if you die one". The urge to improve oneself forms the foundation of a successful life. Nothing new learned is ever a loss; we never know when it comes handy.
I developed a fascination for Computers when I was finding it difficult to get a break in my Post-Graduate Entrance Examinations. I never got a PG seat. But what I got instead was a flair for the Technology. That meant I was quicker in picking up the nuances of newer testing methods and the use of Computer aided technology in Medical Field. This has created a place of my own for me in my institution.
But is this enough ? No, I have to keep learning something; some new thing and sometimes even old things ! At the risk of sounding Philosophical in the '3 Idiots' mood, I don't believe life is a race. Life is rather like 'running on a treadmill'.
We have to keep on running on the treadmill. The speed might increase and the inclination might go upwards, but we have to cope up and keep up. If we don't, we fall down ! We can decide the speed and the inclination to suit us, but never give up on learning and never stop running ! Running keeps one 'Fit and Fine' !
The process of learning continues with age. Learning to adjust to new school, new friends, new jobs and everything new. Teen-age brings teen-aches. Youth brings responsibilities. Adulthood brings added weight. Middle-age brings insecurities. Older we get; pains, illnesses and sufferings increase.
Every born individual has to go through these if one lives long enough. Looking at some extraordinary and eminent people going through extremely difficult days in old-age has convinced me about the futility of 'Carrying Ego' !
Death is the final and definite frontier and not a single human has crossed and 'Outlived' it ! But does the process of learning end here ? Yes and No ! 'Yes' only to the one who has died and 'No' to all the others.
Life goes on and the process of learning goes on. The kith and kin have to learn to live with the pain and sorrows and without their loved ones. This too is learning, howsoever painful it is. And this pain and final and binding truth also comes with a lot of wisdom !
If we keep our mind, eyes, ears and all the senses open and alert; we keep learning something every moment of life! And that to me is the essence of life itself; Learning is Living !
Dr. Pun-dit
Think of it, a man with most number of runs, centuries, records and awards in the history of Cricket talks about getting better. And he has proved he means every word of it. He has got better and better and then BETTER! The reason for his name, game and fame is this... Getting Better !
Learning is a process as vital as life itself. I just love the word 'Learning'. While at school, I always wondered why the word 'Studying' was used at all. That to me sounded like a punishment. "I am studying in sixth standard". Most of the kids look so solemn and so lost; there never was any fun in it.
I realized 'Learning' was a better word and 'Studying' was a poor cousin. You study something when circumstances force you to; but you learn something because you want to ! This is what I feel about these two words.
My English and vocabulary aren't as good as those of Shashi Tharoor and neither am I as smart as him. So let me be pardoned if my version is not acceptable to someone.
Learning starts with life, that is from the womb; and it continues till death and ends in the tomb! A newborn baby has to learn every bit about life from the moment it is born. It starts with the 'Cry'. The cry is vital to life, because that is when the hitherto unacclimatized lungs learn to breathe. The cry then helps the baby to communicate with the mother; hunger, thirst, discomfort and everything.
Then comes the sucking of breast-milk. The sleep, the smile and all the milestones. The milestones of a baby's growth that make the parents happy and proud are but a continued process of learning. Why do we all enjoy this ? Because we are 'Learning' and NOT Studying !
Even as the baby is learning to grow up, the parents too are learning. Learning about parenting and about the responsibilities of parenthood. At any socioeconomic level, in any society, country or religion; growing up of a baby is a special feeling and nothing can better it.
Every baby is born special and smart. Perhaps our education that demands studying rather than learning makes us dumb. I have discussed in an earlier post "Mathematics: Cutting the Diamond simplified" how vision in teaching can turn the dull and drab studying into an enjoyable learning process!
As we progress, a lot of people think we have learned everything. Well, to be precise, 'Studied everything'. This feeling is the beginning of the end of progress. I remember a very talented pace-bowler from Karnataka who shot to fame during the boom-time of Karnataka Cricket in the 90s.
His name was David Johnson. He was quick and he swung the ball both ways and bowled a good bouncer. The BCCI sent him to the Dennis Lillee Pace Academy in Chennai to train better. He left the Academy within a short span claiming, "I have learned EVERYTHING". This attitude irked T. A. Shekar the Coach and he was disappointed. Just look at David Johnson's career stats. Well, no need actually. He hardly had any career at all! The importance of Sachin Tendulkar's words become evident here !
Lack of opportunities is a common refrain used by lazy people. I love the quotable quote, "You are unlucky if you are born poor, but you are a fool if you die one". The urge to improve oneself forms the foundation of a successful life. Nothing new learned is ever a loss; we never know when it comes handy.
I developed a fascination for Computers when I was finding it difficult to get a break in my Post-Graduate Entrance Examinations. I never got a PG seat. But what I got instead was a flair for the Technology. That meant I was quicker in picking up the nuances of newer testing methods and the use of Computer aided technology in Medical Field. This has created a place of my own for me in my institution.
But is this enough ? No, I have to keep learning something; some new thing and sometimes even old things ! At the risk of sounding Philosophical in the '3 Idiots' mood, I don't believe life is a race. Life is rather like 'running on a treadmill'.
We have to keep on running on the treadmill. The speed might increase and the inclination might go upwards, but we have to cope up and keep up. If we don't, we fall down ! We can decide the speed and the inclination to suit us, but never give up on learning and never stop running ! Running keeps one 'Fit and Fine' !
The process of learning continues with age. Learning to adjust to new school, new friends, new jobs and everything new. Teen-age brings teen-aches. Youth brings responsibilities. Adulthood brings added weight. Middle-age brings insecurities. Older we get; pains, illnesses and sufferings increase.
Every born individual has to go through these if one lives long enough. Looking at some extraordinary and eminent people going through extremely difficult days in old-age has convinced me about the futility of 'Carrying Ego' !
Death is the final and definite frontier and not a single human has crossed and 'Outlived' it ! But does the process of learning end here ? Yes and No ! 'Yes' only to the one who has died and 'No' to all the others.
Life goes on and the process of learning goes on. The kith and kin have to learn to live with the pain and sorrows and without their loved ones. This too is learning, howsoever painful it is. And this pain and final and binding truth also comes with a lot of wisdom !
If we keep our mind, eyes, ears and all the senses open and alert; we keep learning something every moment of life! And that to me is the essence of life itself; Learning is Living !
Dr. Pun-dit
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Mathematics: Cutting the Diamond Simplified !
Aamir Khan is quite conscious about the problems faced by our system of Education. He played Ram Shankar Nikumbh in the much acclaimed ‘Taare Zameen Par’ and Phunsukh Wangdu a.k.a. Rancho in “3 Idiots”. Both these characters advocate a ‘New’ approach to education.
I have always endorsed this line of thinking. But I became acutely aware of the necessity of a change in approach when I saw my own daughter coming up with pathetic grades in Mathematics. Maths has been my favorite subject and I have told her many a times to take it as a game and not as a problem. But unfortunately I rarely get time to supervise her studies.
My daughter can pick up the lyrics of film songs in no time. She gets her dance steps correct straight away. She educates my wife on the ways to work on the internet. She also teaches me how to play games on my N-Series phone. But when I saw a PowerPoint presentation she had prepared about herself, my heart went out for her. She says, “Samskruthy is 11 years old, studying in Class 6”. She writes about her school, her teachers and her subjects. And at the end of it all, she writes, ‘Maths is her tough subject’.
This is not unique to my daughter. A huge number of the children are like this. Why are our children scared of Maths? Why? I know a lot of people from my native place Karkala LOVE Maths. My close friends and many from my generation are Engineers, Economists, Scientists and also Doctors and are doing great in life. And almost all are unanimous about our love for Maths.
I recently had a chat with a young Engineering student from my place and he too is absolutely ‘cool’ about Maths. And it didn’t take us long to understand the reason for our ‘Love’ for this ‘Dreaded’ subject. The chat with Raghavendra Kamath, the above mentioned youngster reminded me ‘Why Maths is NOT TOUGH for us’! The common thread is a ‘Fantastic’ Maths Teacher we had in High-School and his name was Mr. Panduranga Rao.
Mr. Rao was way ahead of his times. He definitely was an awe inspiring personality. A short, clean shaven gentleman with tightly combed hair without even one strand out of place. He was very fair and had a booming baritone of a voice. He commanded enormous respect from entire student fraternity. Even his colleagues were in awe of him simply because of his popularity. He was never seen in anything less than immaculately pressed shirts and trousers. So much so, one of my classmates used to joke, “You don’t need a knife to cut things when Panduranga Rao is around. The creases of his shirt or trousers are sharp enough to cut raw mangoes and cucumbers!”
The trademark of his teaching was his ultra-quick wit and supreme confidence. Not a boring moment through the entire class, not even once! How could he manage this? I would be lying if I say I wasn’t scared of the Disciplinarian in him. But we adored the wisecracking jovial guy who made Maths easy! So easy, that I still can ‘Teach Maths’ even though I had to give up Maths in 1988, the year I joined Medical College.
Mr. Rao never called a single student by his first name, but mostly by their last names. No singular ‘You’ in Kannada for him. He always called students ‘Neevu’; that is the way you address people with respect. As it was a small town, he knew even the pedigree of most of the students. Once he knew a student well enough, he invariably came up with a nick name for him or her and then it stuck like the ‘Mustache in the Fevicol Ad’.
One chap in my class had a habit of cutting and crossing really bad when he made some mistakes while writing. He did it so ferociously, our man nick-named him ‘Bison’! He used to say, “Just like a Bison, you rush and demolish anything in the vicinity”.
I was a left-hander to start with, forcibly converted to right-handedness by my Grand-father, because left-handedness was a taboo for our people. Due to this ‘Forced Conversion’, I perhaps had a bit of Dyslexia. I used to, and still write letters and numbers from the wrong end, that is from right to left! Since I had a decent handwriting, nobody ever noticed this and I was completely unaware.
I had done a lot of writing on the black-board in the classroom, but not a single teacher had found out this anomaly. But Mr. Rao found this out the first ever time he asked me to solve a problem on the black-board. Since he knew there was an Urdu School on my way to school; he asked me, “My Dear Shenoy, did you go to Urdu school for Primary education?” Henceforth I was called, ‘The Boy from the Urdu School’.
In those days, it was fun. Today I realize it was a thing he and only he had noticed! Fortunately or unfortunately, he had no solution to this problem. This particular problem meant I was and am still a partially ambidextrous person. I used to write both handed. I still can do mirror writing. All thanks to my Grand-father!
I have a million stories to write in Eulogy of my most favorite teacher ever. But this is a Blog-post and not a novel. So I have to restrict myself to the best of the stories.
Cutting the Diamond simplified:
We all knew how to derive the area of a square, a rectangle, a triangle and a circle thanks to Mr. Rao’s unique ways of teaching. But how he taught us to calculate the area of a Diamond shaped quadrilateral is still etched in my memory simply because he literally converted it into a play-field, rather a ‘Ball Park’.
He asked us, “How many of you play cricket?” All of us boys raised hands. He said, ‘We all know Cricket is played with a bat and a ball with 11 players a side and it is played in side an oval shaped boundary. Well now, how many of you know what baseball is?” Naturally not a single pupil knew! How could you expect kids in a small South Karnataka town to know about Baseball in the mid-80s?
Mr. Rao proceeded to the black-board; he drew a diagram of a baseball field or a diamond and then dusted off the chalk from his hands. Then he turned to us and told, “Baseball is a game played in America and is more popular than our own Cricket. They too use a stick like our bat and they too have a ball. They have a batter in place of our batsman and a pitcher in place of a bowler. And they play inside a quadrilateral area that is called ‘Ball-park’ by common people and Baseball Diamond by the elite.” He then explained how the game is played and finally about the diagonals of the quadrilateral. At the end of it all, we all knew how to calculate the area of a Diamond shaped quadrilateral.
An ordinary teacher would have just told us the answer [½ × Diagonal 1 × Diagonal 2] and most of us would have forgotten it very soon. But yours truly still remembers simply because it was taught the ‘Right Way’.
I fondly hope my daughter will find a teacher like him, so that Maths becomes a ‘Pleasure’ and not ‘Pressure’ subject for her! In the meantime, I am trying my best to use some of 'His' techniques to drive away her 'Maths-Phobia'. Hope things work out nicely for us and I can say... "Every Child is Special, Mine too... So All is Well !"
I stated at the beginning, Mr. Panduranga Rao was a man much ahead of his times. I believe those of you reading this will agree with me now. This post is dedicated to my most beloved teacher ever and perhaps the favorite teacher of a several thousand pupils who have imbibed knowledge from him!
I have always endorsed this line of thinking. But I became acutely aware of the necessity of a change in approach when I saw my own daughter coming up with pathetic grades in Mathematics. Maths has been my favorite subject and I have told her many a times to take it as a game and not as a problem. But unfortunately I rarely get time to supervise her studies.
My daughter can pick up the lyrics of film songs in no time. She gets her dance steps correct straight away. She educates my wife on the ways to work on the internet. She also teaches me how to play games on my N-Series phone. But when I saw a PowerPoint presentation she had prepared about herself, my heart went out for her. She says, “Samskruthy is 11 years old, studying in Class 6”. She writes about her school, her teachers and her subjects. And at the end of it all, she writes, ‘Maths is her tough subject’.
This is not unique to my daughter. A huge number of the children are like this. Why are our children scared of Maths? Why? I know a lot of people from my native place Karkala LOVE Maths. My close friends and many from my generation are Engineers, Economists, Scientists and also Doctors and are doing great in life. And almost all are unanimous about our love for Maths.
I recently had a chat with a young Engineering student from my place and he too is absolutely ‘cool’ about Maths. And it didn’t take us long to understand the reason for our ‘Love’ for this ‘Dreaded’ subject. The chat with Raghavendra Kamath, the above mentioned youngster reminded me ‘Why Maths is NOT TOUGH for us’! The common thread is a ‘Fantastic’ Maths Teacher we had in High-School and his name was Mr. Panduranga Rao.
Mr. Rao was way ahead of his times. He definitely was an awe inspiring personality. A short, clean shaven gentleman with tightly combed hair without even one strand out of place. He was very fair and had a booming baritone of a voice. He commanded enormous respect from entire student fraternity. Even his colleagues were in awe of him simply because of his popularity. He was never seen in anything less than immaculately pressed shirts and trousers. So much so, one of my classmates used to joke, “You don’t need a knife to cut things when Panduranga Rao is around. The creases of his shirt or trousers are sharp enough to cut raw mangoes and cucumbers!”
The trademark of his teaching was his ultra-quick wit and supreme confidence. Not a boring moment through the entire class, not even once! How could he manage this? I would be lying if I say I wasn’t scared of the Disciplinarian in him. But we adored the wisecracking jovial guy who made Maths easy! So easy, that I still can ‘Teach Maths’ even though I had to give up Maths in 1988, the year I joined Medical College.
Mr. Rao never called a single student by his first name, but mostly by their last names. No singular ‘You’ in Kannada for him. He always called students ‘Neevu’; that is the way you address people with respect. As it was a small town, he knew even the pedigree of most of the students. Once he knew a student well enough, he invariably came up with a nick name for him or her and then it stuck like the ‘Mustache in the Fevicol Ad’.
One chap in my class had a habit of cutting and crossing really bad when he made some mistakes while writing. He did it so ferociously, our man nick-named him ‘Bison’! He used to say, “Just like a Bison, you rush and demolish anything in the vicinity”.
I was a left-hander to start with, forcibly converted to right-handedness by my Grand-father, because left-handedness was a taboo for our people. Due to this ‘Forced Conversion’, I perhaps had a bit of Dyslexia. I used to, and still write letters and numbers from the wrong end, that is from right to left! Since I had a decent handwriting, nobody ever noticed this and I was completely unaware.
I had done a lot of writing on the black-board in the classroom, but not a single teacher had found out this anomaly. But Mr. Rao found this out the first ever time he asked me to solve a problem on the black-board. Since he knew there was an Urdu School on my way to school; he asked me, “My Dear Shenoy, did you go to Urdu school for Primary education?” Henceforth I was called, ‘The Boy from the Urdu School’.
In those days, it was fun. Today I realize it was a thing he and only he had noticed! Fortunately or unfortunately, he had no solution to this problem. This particular problem meant I was and am still a partially ambidextrous person. I used to write both handed. I still can do mirror writing. All thanks to my Grand-father!
I have a million stories to write in Eulogy of my most favorite teacher ever. But this is a Blog-post and not a novel. So I have to restrict myself to the best of the stories.
Cutting the Diamond simplified:
We all knew how to derive the area of a square, a rectangle, a triangle and a circle thanks to Mr. Rao’s unique ways of teaching. But how he taught us to calculate the area of a Diamond shaped quadrilateral is still etched in my memory simply because he literally converted it into a play-field, rather a ‘Ball Park’.
He asked us, “How many of you play cricket?” All of us boys raised hands. He said, ‘We all know Cricket is played with a bat and a ball with 11 players a side and it is played in side an oval shaped boundary. Well now, how many of you know what baseball is?” Naturally not a single pupil knew! How could you expect kids in a small South Karnataka town to know about Baseball in the mid-80s?
Mr. Rao proceeded to the black-board; he drew a diagram of a baseball field or a diamond and then dusted off the chalk from his hands. Then he turned to us and told, “Baseball is a game played in America and is more popular than our own Cricket. They too use a stick like our bat and they too have a ball. They have a batter in place of our batsman and a pitcher in place of a bowler. And they play inside a quadrilateral area that is called ‘Ball-park’ by common people and Baseball Diamond by the elite.” He then explained how the game is played and finally about the diagonals of the quadrilateral. At the end of it all, we all knew how to calculate the area of a Diamond shaped quadrilateral.
An ordinary teacher would have just told us the answer [½ × Diagonal 1 × Diagonal 2] and most of us would have forgotten it very soon. But yours truly still remembers simply because it was taught the ‘Right Way’.
I fondly hope my daughter will find a teacher like him, so that Maths becomes a ‘Pleasure’ and not ‘Pressure’ subject for her! In the meantime, I am trying my best to use some of 'His' techniques to drive away her 'Maths-Phobia'. Hope things work out nicely for us and I can say... "Every Child is Special, Mine too... So All is Well !"
I stated at the beginning, Mr. Panduranga Rao was a man much ahead of his times. I believe those of you reading this will agree with me now. This post is dedicated to my most beloved teacher ever and perhaps the favorite teacher of a several thousand pupils who have imbibed knowledge from him!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)