The Silk Route and More

On Friday the 21^st I had a rather new experience. The class eleven History students of our school were taken to the iLEAD auditorium to watch a documentary film on the Silk Route by director Goutam Ghosh, which was followed by an interactive session with the director and others. Such things are quite common in the schools of metropolitan cities, but since my previous school has always been a very determined frog in the well, we were never taken to such events in our entire school lives.

Students from at least ten schools in Kolkata had come together to watch the screening of the first two episodes of Goutam Ghosh’s five episode documentary movie ‘Beyond the Himalayas’. In 1994, the director along with a number of other people had made an expedition following the Silk Route through Central Asia all the way to China. The movie traces their journey and their findings in five successive episodes. Theirs was the first Indian expedition through China. Other than the director himself, two other team members of the expedition, writer-director-actor Mr. Jagannath Guha, and historian Mr. Phalguni Matilal were present for the interactive session that followed the screening of the movie.

I have not watched many documentary films, so I was a little skeptical about how the movies were going to turn out. But I was pleasantly surprised, and enjoyed myself over the next few hours. The first episode sketches the route taken by the explorers, starting from Delhi, from where they were airlifted to Samarkand in Uzbekistan. From there started their car ride, tracing the entire Silk Route. Samarkand and Bukhara are two of the oldest inhabited cities of the world, and are known for the important positions that they occupy on the trade route to China. The movie has successfully captured the dusty grandeur of these two ancient cities, alive as they are with the history of millennia. Both cities throng with historical monuments, which portray predominantly Islamic architectural styles.

From Bukhara they travelled on to Fergana, which is the old capital of Babur’s kingdom in present-day Uzbekistan. Fergana is also claimed to be the Zoroastrian homeland by Zoroastrian literature. It was from Fergana that the travellers left Uzbekistan behind and crossed Kyrgyzstan to enter the Xinjiang region of China through Kashgar, where the oldest Indian handwritten manuscripts have been retrieved, and Hotan, which is famous for its jades. This is where the first episode ended.

The second episode deviated a little from the main theme, and followed the route taken by Hiuen Tsang to and from India. The episode was called On the Search for the Buddha, and it spoke of Hiuen Tsang’s journey to the birth land of the Buddha, his studies in the great Nalanda University, and his return to China to develop his own school of Buddhism there. It was shown as a journey to India by London-based producer Mr. Michael Haggiag, who was member of the original expedition, and his wife, after the expedition itself had ended. Mr. Haggiag and his wife visited Bodh Gaya and Nalanda, and it was through their eyes that the episode has mainly been depicted.

The movies as a whole were enlightening. There were so many new things that I came to know from them. For example, Hiuen Tsang is actually pronounced as ‘Xuanzang’ in Chinese. Also, the best among jades are not the ones which are a lush green, but those which are the palest and nearly white. The monks in a certain Buddhist temple in Xinjiang chant the original Sanskrit verses brought back by Hiuen Tsang as a tribute to the great traveler scholar. It was from the Chan school of Mahayana Buddhism that Zen Buddhism of Japan has been derived. The Taklamakan desert, through which the expedition journeyed, is a Persian saying that means “He who comes in does not get out”.  That now, is a really ominous name for you!

The movies were no doubt interesting, but it was the interactive session with Mr. Jagannath Guha that I enjoyed the most. Mr. Ghosh arrived late and was too stiff, and Mr. Matilal was a reticent sort, so it was Mr. Guha who did most of the talking. He shared with us many small anecdotes that had made the expedition so memorable for him. Someone from the audience asked him about how he got over the language barrier during their travels. He just shook his head and said, “But I didn’t!” He went on to tell us how body language was often the only means of communication between the natives and the travelers, and how they had at times had to resort to base tricks like bribing the policemen with cigarettes to get themselves out of fixes! While answering the queries of another member of the audience, he talked to us about how little awareness there was about India among the population of China, her largest neighbour. Of course, here he spoke of their experience of 1994, before the era of the internet. I suppose the conditions are much better now. According to him, the travelers were gaped at like extra terrestrial creatures. Some of the children on the road used to pull the hair on his arms in wonder, as they had never seen such a hirsute person before. Some old ladies rubbed his skin to see if his dark skin was painted. The ‘smarter’ ones asked the travelers whether they were from Africa!

While I was enjoying myself hugely during the event, it was highly evident that most people were not. The girls sitting behind me continued to chat and giggle among themselves throughout the entire program. After the short lunch break, I changed my seat in the hope of finding a little quieter seat somewhere. But soon, the girls sitting in the row a little way apart started fiddling with their mobiles and talking loudly. In fact, at one point a teacher of their school came up and took away their cell phones after reminding them none too gently that they had come to watch the movie, not play around with their phones. Some of my own classmates, as soon as the second episode got over, started sighing deeply and loudly expressing their thankfulness at the ‘boring’ show being finally over. I wonder why these people had opted for History in the first place when they are so fundamentally apathetic to anything outside the syllabus.

I returned from the show feeling satisfied, but I know many of them were just glad that the show had come to an end. In this context, I would like to mention a very common complaint among students about the bland and mechanized manner in which classroom teaching is done. I completely agree, newer and more interesting methods should be employed to enrich the learning experience. Having said that, I must also say that the students themselves have to be more receptive to new experiments in order to make the innovative ideas work. The primarily uninterested attitude that I saw among most of the students in the show explains why teachers and school authorities often show no interest in providing such educative and entertaining experiences for the students. Our school is trying, and so are so many others. It now rests on us students to make the best of the opportunities that we are being provided with.

A New Beginning

My ICSE examinations ended on the 20^th of March. It has been only over a month now, but it feels like another lifetime. 20^th March was the last time that I went to the school that I had been going to under duress for the past twelve years. Unsurprisingly, there was not even a twinge of remorse in my heart. I was hugely relieved to be leaving that accursed place at last. Wild horses will not be able to drag me back there again, once I have collected my ICSE marksheet.

As soon as ICSE ended, I had to get busy with my admission in class eleven. I had applied to one renowned girls’ school in Kolkata, and their admission process began right after ICSE. During that period, we had to run back and forth between Kolkata and Durgapur half a dozen times. I had applied only to one school, and fortunately I got admitted there itself. After returning to Durgapur, mother and I packed our bags for the final time, and went away to start our new life in Kolkata on the 10^th of April.

This was the first time that I was living away from home, away from daddy. So one can imagine what a hard time I had adjusting in the new environment for the first few days. But there were a lot of things that needed to be done, so I could not spend too much time being sad. We have a flat in Kolkata. It is a new flat, and had been quite bare and unfurnished. The first week or so was spent only in buying furniture and tidying up the house. Naturally, we found that we had brought more books than anything else from home!

Then we had to buy new school books and the new uniform. My new school has a very smart uniform. Side-pleated blue skirt, pink striped shirt that does not have to be tucked in, and laced black shoes with white ankle socks. I was lucky that the regulation shoes were actually of a sort that is worn by boys, because, big-foot that I am, back in my old school I always had to get those girly buckled shoes especially made for me by the shoe-makers! The new books were exciting, and also a little intimidating. There is this common belief among idiots that students of Humanities and Commerce do not have to study much. For them classes eleven and twelve are basically fun and games. I always knew this to be a myth, yet it was only when I got my own books that I realized just how big a lie that is. For someone who only wants to scratch up a pass-mark, there is not much of a load. But if someone wants to do well, studying the Arts involves putting in lots of effort and out-of-syllabus reading. My school offers a wide range of elective subjects for the plus-twos. My own electives are not strictly Humanities-based. It is in fact a cross between Humanities and Commerce. I have opted for History, Literature in English (that’s besides compulsory English), Business Studies and Economics. My third and fourth electives are mainly theory-based, so learning by heart covers most of the syllabus. But with History and Literature in English, I am increasingly finding myself looking up all sorts of reference works and background detail on the net and in books. I know I am one of only a handful of girls in class who are doing this, but I’m sure we’ll get the reward for our extra effort in the form of wider, more in-depth understanding of the subjects and better results during examinations.

My first day of school was 16^th April. My mother accompanied me to school, because I didn’t know Kolkata roads, but also because she knew that I was apprehensive and nervous. Till class ten, my schooling experience had been nasty. So naturally I went to my new school expecting the worst kind of experience possible. But thankfully, I was proved completely wrong. From day one, I have been having a lively experience there. Only eight girls from other schools have been admitted in class eleven, two for Science, three for Commerce and three for Humanities. On our first day, the Head Girl and her assistant, both of whom are in class twelve, took it upon themselves to familiarize us  with our new surroundings. We were first taken to the Principal’s office where we were told our sections and our Houses. There are eight school houses named after eight flowers, and I have been put in Gulmohar House. We were then taken to our classrooms and introduced to the old girls. My class teacher, who is also our Economics teacher, warmly welcomed us to the school. Later, the entire class eleven was taken up to the MACE hall, which is an air-conditioned assembly hall, for a back-to-school talk from Mrs. Dutt, our Principal. There, the new girls were called to introduce themselves in front of  the entire class.  After that, it was a cake walk. The old girls made conscious efforts to make us feel at home. After returning to class, they asked us about our old schools and friends. They were especially curious about me, because I was not from Kolkata. In fact,  I am still answering some question or the other about Durgapur and my old school every single day!

My new school is very different from what I have seen in the last twelve years. Till now, I had known school to be a place that should be avoided as far as possible. Here, I am going to school of my own will every day. The school is a huge building, and it has five stories including the ground floor. My classroom is on the third floor. We have single chairs with one broad arm as a writing desk. Each classroom has a computer, a projector and a screen. The rooms are hot, but since we have only forty five students in class, fifteen girls less than what we had in my previous school, the heat is not unbearable. We have different classrooms for different subjects. There is no unpacking of bags; we roam about with them all day. It is more similar to college that way. The MACE classrooms on the fourth floor are air-conditioned, and we have History and Literature in English classes in them. It is a relief to enter the cool rooms, but we have to pay the price for the comfort. I am going around with a perpetually sore throat and a runny nose, thanks to the constant fluctuation of body temperature!

The school has a good library, from which we can take books of our own choice, unlike in my previous school, where just half a dozen books were given to us from which we had to take one! Another plus point is that we are allowed to use the library even during free periods, with permission from the substitute teacher. There are also endless after-school clubs and activities, ranging from social service to book- and movie appreciation to public speaking to cookery! A number of games are also played in the school, and the basketball team, the badminton team, the football team and the soccer team have won numerous prizes in and around Kolkata. I have not yet joined any such activity, but will be auditioning for the book and movie appreciation club this Monday. The school has a canteen which serves lip-smacking (though strictly vegetarian) food at surprisingly low prices. In fact, these days I have almost stopped taking my lunch from home. The canteen also has an ice-cream parlour which is certainly contributing to my perpetual cold!

More about the school later. Kolkata, as I am increasingly find out, is very different from Durgapur in some ways, and totally the same in others. I travel by bus mostly, and all sorts of people travel with me. There is no ego issue about using public transport among people there, unlike in Durgapur where parents are horrified at the thought of using and letting their children use transport that are for the masses, because apparently that undermines their ‘status’ and ‘position’ in society! Also, people here seem to be much more helpful in general. Being new to the city, I have often had to ask people around for locating the right buses, areas and whatnot. Till now, I have been willingly helped, sometimes even without asking. In school, I see that the students and teachers alike have a much better grasp of everyday English than in Durgapur. Daddy says that it is so in every metropolitan city. It is not that everybody speaks refined and poetic language, but at least they are fluent and can get across with ease. I have also found something which is a personal relief; the number of tall girls is much higher in Kolkata than in Durgapur. In school itself, there are many girls almost or as tall as I am. There is even a girl who is taller! In Durgapur, I always stood out uncomfortably because of my height. Even in Kolkata I stand out in a crowd, but at least I am not stared at like an unusual specimen from the zoo!

But the mall-culture is virulent here. It is there in Durgapur too, but in Kolkata, especially among the girls of my school, malls seem to be the reason why they are alive! They see me as a weirdo of sorts because I have made it clear on the first day itself that I do not like malls! They rolled their eyes in disbelief when I said I do not enjoy shopping. I read in school all the time, and just like in Durgapur, they think that I am crazy. One girl actually told me not to read so much as I would die if I did! Even in Kolkata, ‘having a boyfriend’ is considered a very exciting thing, mainly because it has to be done in secret! And just like their contemporaries in Durgapur, they are looks and gadget-obsessed. Spending money (earned by their dads, certainly not by them) seems to be a favourite pastime. I have noticed another very disgusting habit among the girls: it seems to be the ‘done’ thing to get boys to pay. If they are going out with their boyfriends, it is understood that the boy will bear all the expenses. Even if it is just a friend from school, he will have to pay for whatever the girl is doing. When I expressed my disgust at this custom, they gave me one of their pop-eyed stares again. Anybody who knows me well will know that I will never have someone else pay for me without giving something back in return, girl or boy alike. I wonder why they find this shameful practice ‘cool’!

Another, and perhaps the biggest difficulty in my present life is living away from daddy. Ever since I had any consciousness of my surroundings, I had been used to seeing him at home. Unlike most other daddies, he is a stay-at-home dad. His not being physically around all the time is quite unnatural to me. I don’t think I have taken in the full import of the situation yet. Now, I am coming home to Durgapur every weekend, so I am away from him for only five days a week. Also, we talk over the phone and chat over the net numerous times each day. But two years from now, I will be going much further away, and we’ll probably meet just twice or thrice a year, if not once! I wonder how both of us will cope then…

Anyway, my days are a mixture of nice and not-so-nice experiences. Having been brought up in a small town, it is not exactly easy for me to adjust in a metropolitan city. But thankfully I am not doing too badly, and I have had a lot of help too. My thanks to all the dadas and didis and classmates who are constantly writing to me and calling me over the phone. This strong reminder of home helps me overcome the periods of homesickness and loneliness. This is the beginning of a long and arduous journey, and it will be many years yet before I can settle down and make a home for myself again. But with the amount of care that I am receiving, I am not afraid to face life. So, thank you again, all my well wishers :)

Defective Darlings

I could not resist putting this link on my blog. Do go through this list.Only cold heart monsters will be able to come away without wanting to cuddle these 'mutants' of the animal world. 

And they say that only those who are 'normal' are lovable!

Ps: I don't mean the crocodiles and alligators though. Nothing can make me love those ugly, overgrown lizards!

An Essay

[There was an essay competition held in the school sometime last year. It was conducted by some national organisation whose name I cannot recall right now. I found the topic a little strange and very vague: "If it is necessary for us to change to become what we want to be, why not initiate that change immediately, that which needs to be done at the earliest". I participated in the competition more due to the teacher's insistence than from my own wish. I was not very happy with what I wrote. I have written far better pieces than this. However, I'd like to know my readers' comments on the essay.]

To Change the World, I Change Myself

When I was in primary school, I was one of the most careless girls in the class. On an average, I would lose a dozen pencils and erasers in school every month. My mathematics examinations routinely went badly because I would fill the papers with careless mistakes. My evenings would be spent bulldozing the house looking for exercise books I had adeptly misplaced. Then, when I was in class five, something clicked within me, and I asked myself, “What exactly do you think you are doing? You are turning out to be a good-for-nothing little brat. Is that how you want your parents to think about you?” This is it, I decided. Things have to change.

Today, I am a much more disciplined and well-organized person. I rarely have to hunt around wildly for my belongings, and my grades have improved considerably. I have been able to bring about these changes in my life by some observations and realizations, like, one of the commonest of human flaws is that one often forgets that one is guilty of umpteen shortcomings, and starts imagining oneself as perfection personified. However, that is arguably the biggest barrier in one’s pursuit of perfection. According to the Bible, the seven deadly sins are anger, pride, envy, lust, avarice and gluttony and sloth. Every human being carries the seeds of these sins. Only when one accepts and identifies one’s imperfection can one begin making a conscious effort to eliminate one’s flaws and work towards a more fulfilling life, and ultimately, towards attaining salvation.

Very few of us are fortunate enough to know exactly how we want to spend our lives and see ourselves ten years from now. Gerald Durrell, the renowned author and naturalist knew at the age of two that he wanted to spend his life with animals. Sachin Tendulkar knew his life had to be spent in the cricket stadium, Lata Mangeshkar knew she wanted to sing throughout her life. But most of us commoners have only this vague notion of wanting to be ‘successful’ in life. Most of us love to think of ourselves as ‘different’ and ‘special’, but in reality, most human beings are not only perfectly happy being mediocre and common, but try desperately to follow the herd and be exactly like one another. Very few people have any definite dreams and visions: they simply spend their lives drifting around and being carried by the current like a leaf in a river. These are people who are blissfully unaware of their flaws, and have no intention of being woken up to reality.

Even for those of us who are not so indifferent to our flaws, another great barrier to betterment is procrastination. Yes, this is THE word. The word which we fear and despise, the word which all of us knows to be an arch enemy of progress, yet the word which finds a silent yet substantial position in most peoples’ lives. All of us know that ‘tomorrow never comes’, yet we keep waiting for that tomorrow to get our work done.

As a sixteen year old student standing at the close of school life, if there is one thing that I have come to understand well, it is that it is on myself alone that I have the greatest amount of control. It is only myself whom I can mould to my liking to a great extent. Gandhiji once said, “Be the change that you want to see around you”. I try to follow his dictate and live the kind of life that I would like to see others around me leading. For the last few years, I have been trying to live by a routine. Sure, there have been blunders and slip-ups, but I have not given up, and I count that as part of my success.

However, my quest for a better life has certainly not ended. This is only the beginning. Very soon, I shall be leaving the haven of my parents’ protection and entering the real world. There are so many things that I would like to change about the way my society, my country works. For example, most western countries are so much quieter, cleaner and greener than ours. When Indians are told about these bitter truths, they grow green with envy, yet only a handful of people actually do anything to change the circumstances. It is thanks to them, people like Bittu Sehgal, Subhas Dutta, M. C. Mehta and Chandiprasad Bhatt that the country is not entirely engulfed in ugliness and dirt. I aspire to follow in their footsteps and contribute something to the social and cultural development of India, and I am proud to say that I have begun already. I make it a point not to accept polythene bags from shopkeepers, and turn off taps and switch off lights and fans whenever they are not in use. I know these are small steps, but if enough people can be persuaded to follow these small steps, India will become a much greener and lovelier country.

Sherlock Holmes, probably the most famous of fictional detectives, once outraged his friend and assistant Dr. Watson by saying that he had not known that the planets moved around the sun in the solar system, and had no remorse whatsoever for not knowing it. To Watson’s shocked exclamation of “But every schoolboy knows this!”, Holmes had replied that he was not every schoolboy; he was the great Sherlock Holmes. This can be dismissed as an unsavoury show of pride, but I will always maintain, it is the Sherlock Holmes’ who matter in this world, and not ‘every schoolboy’. That day in class five, I had decided to start being what I wanted to be afterwards in life. Hopefully, my decision has allowed me an access to the world of the Sherlock Holmes’ and the M. C. Mehtas, and when the day comes when my life’s movie flashes before my eyes, it will be worth watching.

Vacationing in Delhi-Agra

A very happy New Year to everybody. As promised, my first post this year is going to be about our trip to Delhi and Agra. The trip was short and we didn't go to very many different places. However, it was also one of the best trips we have ever been on.

Vacations for my mother and I started on the 20^th of December. We went to Kolkata two day before daddy to get on with the job of furnishing our new flat in Kolkata little by little. The Volvo ride was comfortable, but there was tremendous fog almost the entire way. It looked like a solid wall of dull grey, and visibility was not more than a few feet. It was not too small a miracle that the driver managed to bring us safely to Kolkata in scheduled time driving at 140 km/h under such conditions! Anyway, we did reach home unscathed, and spent the first two days furniture shopping. Dad arrived on the 22^nd.  We stayed in our flat for two more days, during which Rashmidi and Sayanda, Abhirupda (who happens to live ten minutes away from our flat, in the main bazaar area) and dad’s old friend Mr. Subhasis Graham Mukherjee paid us visits. It was lovely meeting them, especially Sayanda and Rashmidi. And Rashmidi, the doll you gifted us is exquisite. Someday, you’ll have to teach me how to make them (she made it herself, and I’ll be putting up a picture of it as soon as possible), though I doubt I’ll ever be able to make them as well as you do.

We boarded the Rajdhani Express from Sealdah the next day and it started on time. If only we had known that we would have to stay cooped up for eight hours more than the official time! That night was a very comfortable, happy night. I had boarded the Rajdhani after a gap of four years, and I was really enjoying watching the scene outside the window while the train moved at its best speed. We had a side berth, and I had managed to fight my mother off it, so I had all the privacy I wanted in my cosy little nook. I woke at about 6 o’ clock next morning to find that the train had crossed Kanpur on time. I went back to sleep and woke again at about nine. By that time the train was moving like a snail and kept stopping for long periods in the middle of nowhere! We knew then we would be late, but didn’t think it would be eight hours late! I had P.G. Wodehouse’s “The Code of the Woosters” to entertain me, but at one point even Jeeves was failing to keep me occupied. So one can imagine our relief when we finally arrived at Delhi station to be welcomed by Saikatda, Subhadipda, Akashda and Arundhatidi!

We stayed that night at Arundhatidi and Akashda’s place. We were meeting Arundhatidi for the first time, and all of us were a little worried about how it would turn out. But Arundhatidi blew away all our concern and made us feel at home at once. They were the perfect hosts, and we spent a very enjoyable evening there. Next morning we had to wake up really early, at five-thirty, because our hired car was to come at seven to take us to Agra. Poor Arundhatidi and Akashda also had to wake up for our sake. As someone who herself hates waking up so early, I completely empathize with how they must have felt, especially Arundhatidi who said that, like me, she prefers working late into the night and waking up late in the day.

The drive to Agra was very enjoyable. As a rule, I do not fancy car rides much, but I loved this one. The road was fantastic; in fact, at one point I started wondering aloud whether we still really were in India or not! Then, after a blissful three-hour ride, we were in Agra, crawling through the bazaar towards our home stay. Saikatda jokingly said that now we were certainly back to our motherland again!

Before going to the home stay, we visited Itimad-ud-Daulah’s tomb. It was bitterly cold, and I kept shivering violently while I video-recorded the compound. The homestay was delightful. We were warmly welcomed by the owner and guided to our room. By a lucky surprise, we found a smaller bedroom attached to our own, so Saikatda too could stay with us. Then I discovered that I had made a perfectly moronic blunder. I had forgotten to bring the keys to the suitcases! Thankfully, our car’s driver, Iqbal Singhji, was able to break the small locks on the suitcases later in the evening, so we were saved from too much trouble.

The first day in Agra we visited the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort. Both were exquisite, though frankly speaking, I was much more awe-struck by the virile splendour of the fort (and next day, of Fatehpur Sikri) than of the Taj. It was gorgeous, one cannot deny that. But then, the day was foggy, and there was a terrible crowd, so we saw more of human beings of all possible colours, shapes and sizes than of the grand Mughal architecture. The next day we went to Fatehpur Sikri. Throughout our tour of the place, I kept mentally going back to the days when the emperors and the saints actually walked there. There were a group of Sufi singers who were singing praises to Khwaja Salim Chisti in front of his Dargah in Fatehpur, and the haunting notes of their songs aided to my already colourful imagination, and soon I was all but away in another century of elephant chariots and oil lamps under every archway…

We returned to Delhi on the 28^th. On our way back, we visited Sikandra (Akbar’s tomb), and Mathura. Visiting Sikandra had a very sobering effect on me. The place has the kind of quiet grandeur that makes you feel that you need to bow down before the greatest of the Mughals, the Shahenshah of India, who is resting there. Mathura was a typical Indian holy city: dirty, crowded, ugly and with far too many restrictions. It was my mother’s enthusiasm that had caused us to go there, but even she got irritated with all the security measures (they do not allow ladies’ hand bags inside the temple premises, and mom would never let go of her bag!) and we came back without entering any of the temples.

In Delhi, our hotel room was beautiful. It wasn’t huge, but it had a very big “honeymoon mirror”, which enhanced the sense of space. But since it was exactly opposite to our bed, I had to wake up each morning with the very unwelcoming sight of my after-bed hair!

We stayed in Delhi for nearly three days. The first evening we didn’t go anywhere, just rested. Akashda had come to visit, and he and daddy went out for a short drive. Saikatda headed back to his hostel, and that night I missed him very much, I had gotten so used to having him around. The next day was my birthday, and it went very well indeed. Akashda and Arundhatidi had come over, and Saikatda too (he kept coming all that distance from his hostel every day, poor fellow). That day we went to Purana Qila and Humayun’s Tomb. I liked both places very much, though Humayun’s tomb came with the added pleasure of having a huge garden to walk about in. Akashda says he likes to visit the place often, and if I ever live in Delhi, it will probably become one of my favourite haunts too. Next we went to Delhi Haat, where we had Dal Bati Choorma for lunch, and then to Sarojini Bazaar, where I bought a long-yearned pair of boots for myself. After returning to the hotel, we, daddy, Saikatda and I had red wine as my birthday treat (the others had opted out), and then it was time for them to leave. A lovely day had come to an end all too soon.

We started 30^th with a historical walk down Chandni Chawk guided by Akashda. We had nihari at Karim’s, and then went back to the hotel.  Around noon we were joined by Aranida and Dipanwitadi. We had two cars with us, and mom, Dipanwitadi and I went with Akashda in his car. I must say I really loved being driven around by him, because Akashda with his calm smile and priceless jokes kept us so well entertained. I do hope he’ll be taking me around again in the future. After going to the IIT for Saikatda to keep his rucksack, we went to Baha’i Temple where we were joined by Subhadipda. We didn’t enter the temple because as in the Taj, the crowd was overwhelming. From there we went to Tughlaqabad. The ruins were beautiful, and given a chance I would have spent all day there. From there we came back to the hotel, stopping for some time in Janpath for shopping.

Our train was on the 31^st, and if truth be told, I had actually been hoping that it would be at least a little late, because I was enjoying myself so much. But Rajdhani did itself proud that day by leaving exactly on time and bringing us to Durgapur only half an hour late. Ah well…

This trip has been a huge pleasure, and mostly because of all the dadas and didis who came over to be with us. Saikatda, the trip to Agra (the entire trip, to be fair) would never have been as pleasurable if you hadn’t been with us. Akashda, Arundhatidi, Dipanwitadi, Aranida, Subhadipda – thank you for being with us. It was all of you together who made the trip the beautiful memory that it will always be. I hope we have many more such vacations with all of you in the future.

Musings and a Merry Christmas

I am not a feminist. In fact, if there is a term for the exact opposite of a feminist, then I am that. I have spent twelve years of my life in an overwhelmingly female-populated environment. And I certainly do not want to repeat the experience. I do not hate women, but I cannot deny despising them. When I say ‘them’ I mean ninety five percent of women. I acknowledge that I have also met women who are very different, and I pride myself in not being a typical female. However, the fact remains that these are a microscopic fraction of the female population all over the world, and are usually dismissed as whackos and outcasts. Now, before my readers start thinking of me as a prejudiced MCP (yeah, I will probably be called that by feminists in spite of being a girl myself!) let me present my experiences with women and the reasons that have led to my present state of mind. And right at the beginning, I am reiterating that there are women against whom my allegations do not hold true. I am hoping such women will realize that I have nothing against them; in fact, they are the reason why I have not yet become completely misogynistic.  

From what I have seen, the most defining characteristic of most women’s personalities is hypocrisy. Now, before all my female readers start objecting loudly to my very demeaning observation, let me give you some examples (all of these are anecdotes, either from my own experience or of people I know well). I have known parents (and most of them have been mothers) who have been unerringly polite and civil while talking to their children’s teacher, and have started using uncouth language about the same teacher as soon as the former is out of earshot. Speaking ill of people behind their backs is undoubtedly a female trait. Any woman who has ever attended a party will know how much time a group of women will spend criticizing their absentee ‘friends’. And this attitude undergoes no change as women age: on comparing notes after returning from two separate parties, my mother and I have had startlingly similar experiences. So what my contemporaries talk about is in no way different from what their mothers speak of.

In connection to my previous allegation, I have to add that women are so obsessed with their bodies. The other day my father was glancing through one of those numerous women’s magazines, and he commented about how almost the entire magazine was full of advertisements of different beauty products and salons and shopping brands, and articles that give suggestions for enhancing one’s beauty. The same thing can be seen on television. As I have mentioned once in one of my earlier posts, women want to be portrayed as bodies only. Among my classmates a very popular hobby is shopping. I do not have many male acquaintances, so I cannot say this from intimate knowledge,  but I doubt how many males of any age will cite shopping as their favourite hobby! Also, women are so desperate to become clones of one another. When I go out I am often surprised by how all the girls seem to look alike. They wear the same kinds of clothes and make-up, walk, talk, giggle, pout and roll their eyes in the same way. Though we make a lot out of ‘being a unique individual’, the truth is that girls are far more scared of standing out in the crowd than men are. It is true that there is a certain class of boys who also like to imitate each other and become as alike in everything as possible, especially in clothes, motorbikes and attitude. But this is not the majority among males, unlike in females. I still see men wearing clothes as diverse as bermudas and pyjamas and dhoti, and having idiosyncratic personalities much oftener than women.

Women also seem to get some perverted, bestial fun by harming other people, especially other women. They cannot bear to see other women being luckier than they, and will try to inflict harm in one way or the other to their luckier sisters. I happen to be gifted by unusual height in a country where must women are tiny. I cannot help being tall; it is not something I had asked for or worked for, it was just given to me. My height makes me stand out everywhere, and while I see the boys gaping at me as if  I were a phenomenon, the look in most women’s eyes is one of intense jealousy and hatred. They behave as though I have become tall only in order to make them feel inferior!

In most households, it is the mother, the grandmother or one of the older female relatives who take up the role of making their girl children realize that they have been born inferior to boys, and so they should not try to behave like equals at all. Instead, they should invest all their time and energy in dolling up beautifying themselves. I can very well realize and sympathize with many of my father’s male ex-students who seem to have no interest in girls at all. It’s time girls noticed that not all boys are interested in looks alone. Some want more matter and substance in girls, and by concentrating solely on their bodies the girls are losing out on prospective (and, if I may say so, very eligible!) boyfriends and husbands!

I can list many other reasons for my attitude, but it’s Yuletide and I do not want the last blogpost of the year to be a bitter one. So let me draw this subject to a close with the observation that I would be doing grave injustice if I do not mention some of the women I love and respect the most. My mother tops the list. Though I know I have just made a very clichéd remark, I cannot help it. She is a wonderful person, and it is to be said only incidentally that she is also a woman. Some of my best friends are girls, and though they are very much aware of my anti-female mindset, it does not bother them. They know instinctively that when I scoff at women I do not have them in mind. Because, in my definition they are not really girls, but human beings, and lovable ones at that. Then, I have met women who are my father’s ex-students or wives/friends of ex-students who are very unlike the typical woman that I have described, so they automatically fall into the 5% of the female population that I admire. Most of the really successful women in the world are non-feminists, probably because they do not think of themselves as mere women in the first place. When I say this I have in mind J. K. Rowling, Chhanda Kochhar, Naina lal Kidwai, Vinita Bali, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, even Vidya Balan and Julia Roberts. And when I talk of wonderful and respectable women, I cannot forget Beth Morgan and Bronwen of How Green Was My Valley, Pilar of For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ma Joad of The Grapes of Wrath, Mariam of A Thousand Splendid Suns and Professor McGonagall of Harry Potter. They define women in my mind.

Before I sign off, I wish everybody a very merry Christmas and an equally happy New Year. This is my favourite season; the weather is lovely, and there are so many happy days lying ahead in the next two weeks. I am eagerly looking forward to our year-end trip. This year, we’ll have some of dad’s ex-students with us, so hopefully it will be even more enjoyable than usual. I shall be back with many more happy (and interesting too, hopefully) experiences, and that will be my first post the next year. So loads of love good wishes till then. Cheers :)

Diwali Greetings

This year the festival season went rather well for me. Being the home bird that I am, I did not go out much during the Durga Puja. My friends had come to my house on Shoshti, and I had gone out with my parents and Abhirudpa on Shoptomi. That was about all the pandal hopping that I did. The rest of the days I spent reading “Speaks The Nightbird” by Robert McCammon that Abhirupda had lent us earlier. And that was the best way I could possibly have spent the Pujas.

Diwali was a nice way to wrap up the festive month. Like every year, I made a rangoli  on the ground floor verandah. This year I used gulal for my rangoli. Most years I don’t get gulal at this time of the year, but this year I had saved some from Holi. But this year I was not so happy with my design. I felt that mine had become a little coarse and gaudy. The ones I have made in the previous years were much prettier, like the one with only the lamps. My friend Shivangi had made a beautiful one though. Here are their pictures.

I made this one last year

This one is Shivangi's

This one is mine

This year I had intentionally bought fewer crackers. I don’t like the sound of any of the bombs. Even the whistling charkhi (‘catherine wheel’) bothers me. Neither of my parents is particularly keen on burning crackers, and in any case I don’t fancy all the noise and smoke they create. After finishing with the rangoli I went to Shivangi’s house. I took some of my crackers with me, and left some behind. At her house, they had organized Lakshmi Ganesh Puja. They do it every year on Diwali, and it is an informal family affair. I had never attended a Marwari puja before, and I enjoyed my first time. What I liked best about it was that there was very little pretension: the family members prayed for each other’s well-being. There was no loud chanting and ringing of the holy bell (what we call the ghonta). The faith was in their hearts, and they did not make a huge show of it. 

What was even better than the puja was the food! Shivangi’s mother gave me a small dinner of puri and two different preparations of vegetables. There was also desert made of lentils! I do love Marwari food, and if some day I manage to learn how to cook some of their dishes, I might even consider becoming a vegetarian! After the very welcome meal, Shivangi, her younger brother Nikunj, her father and I went to their terrace to burn some of the crackers. But by that time it was getting late, and I knew that dad would be getting worried, so I called him up to come and take me home, and we managed to set off some of the fireworks before he arrived. While I was leaving, Shivangi ran to her kitchen and brought me a packet of Diwali tidbits, and I came back home with that much-loved gift held tight in my hands. 

At home, I persuaded my parents to come up to the terrace to watch while I finished off the rest of the fireworks. Dad took some photos while I lighted the tubris (fire fountains) and the charkhis. Then he went downstairs. Mummy stayed back for half an hour more, as I desperately tried to use up all the crackers. But at last both of us got tired of it and came back even though some of the crackers were still left unused. When I was much younger, dadas, especially those of Abhirupda’s batch used to come to our house on Diwali. They used to light the fireworks while I watched. That used to be fun. But nobody comes these years, and it is boring to light them all by myself. I think I won’t buy any crackers at all from next year. 

The skies looked beautiful with the real stars being complemented by the man-made stars from the rockets and other fireworks. Despite the unpleasant noise, I couldn’t help being mesmerised by the spectacle. The streets looked beautiful too, with most of the housing being decorated with lamps and fairy lights. I wonder whether those who live in the Americas and the European countries have such colourful and lively festivals. The only sad thing about the evening was the nagging feeling of guilt that kept reminding me about how much air and noise pollution we were causing. Our one evening of fun would leave permanent scars on Mother Earth…

That is all for now. This one is a short post, just to let everyone know that I haven’t got tired of blogging and forgotten about writing here! And do let me know how you spent your festive days. 

Ps: My father was telling me just now that I should have written something reflective about what I feel about this festival season every year. I just told him that I don't feel anything much at all: nothing seems to me to be very out of the ordinary. People are being 'excited' about something or the other throughout the year; only the object of thrill changes, human manners (or the lack of the same) don't change. If this view makes me hugely misanthropic and unsocial, so be it. 

Do Parents Really Love?

In our society, the idea that parents always work for their children’s best interests is instilled right from infancy in our minds. The statement is so overused as to have become clichéd. The ICSE council has even set an argumentative essay topic based on this concept. For most people, this idea has become such an intrinsic part of the psyche that they can easily overlook the weightiest of proofs against it. For such people, this article might seem to be an outrageous insult to parents and all elders in general. However, to those who like to think logically, it might start a new train of thoughts and beliefs.

In the many ways that my life has been different from my friends’, one very important factor is that people of all ages keep coming to my father looking for advice or just sympathy, and often my father tells me their stories. Nowadays, even my friends have started treating me as a father (mother!) confessor, so that I come to know of the darkest secrets of many of them, and by putting myself in their shoes, I am able to live many lives at once, which helps broaden my mind. And, from the many experiences I have heard of, I find it very difficult to conform with the idea that all elders, especially parents, always know (and want) what is the best for their children.

When I was in primary school, I remember my friends gawking at me with disbelief clearly etched on their faces when I told them that my parents did not beat me. Those were the days when thrashings were a part of everyday life for almost all my friends. One girl had even gone so far as to inform me that since my father did not beat me, he obviously did not love me! It was during this very time when, after the results of a class test had been declared, many of my friends had started weeping profusely. One girl was beside herself with terror, and kept saying that her mother would not let her enter the house, and thrash her for not getting full marks. She had got eighteen out of twenty. Today, I can swear that I have received more love from my parents than half of my class taken together. And no, I have not been beaten more than four or five times throughout my life, but never to the extent of being badly injured, and certainly never because of my results. In fact, the last time I was smacked was five years ago!

This thrashing is not even a childhood thing. One of my friends told me his father regularly hit him even when he was in class twelve. In fact, things had turned so nasty in their family that he had actually started hitting his father back (well, not exactly hitting back since he was not a monster, but the self-defense was violent), and breaking glass windows in his anger! My father had a student in class ten who once came to class with huge angry-red weals on her arms. Apparently, her mother had burnt her with a hot ladle as punishment. As for black eyes and sprained arms, those are regular sights in my class.One girl who came to my father's class had multiple deep scars all over her body.

For some reason, parents seem to feel that hitting their children is their sacred right. This has nothing to do with wanting to correct one’s children; it is just a perverted yearning to display one’s superiority. The mother of one of my father’s students has actually acknowledged this at a counselling session. She says that she somehow cannot stop spanking her daughter even though she understands that it useless.

Hitting children needlessly is only one aspect of how parents think of everything but their children’s welfare. My friends tell me that their parents often shout at them because of their low marks not because of their lack of hard work or knowledge but because the parents won’t be able to show off in front of their neighbours, colleagues and relatives! So basically, what their children learn is the least important consideration; children are just their parents’ status symbols, a means to satisfy their already bloated egos.  

As a rule, parents select the kind of higher education, the career, even the spouse for their children. The children are not allowed to have opinions, choices of their own. I have heard from my friends (and some seniors as well) that their parents have threatened not to pay their school and college fees unless they abide by their parents' choice. So it all comes down to that: the bread-earner is the only one who has any say. At one point, all that counts is sheer animal superiority of one over another. But the paradox lies in the fact that when these same children become adults who earn their own living, the parents will use the sentiments of love and respect to demand the same kind of obedience that they used to get by force earlier.

It is this very mindset which when pushed to the extreme leads to female foeticide and other such heinous deeds. Delhi, the capital and one of the richest cities of the country has the highest rate of female foeticide. Obviously, this has nothing to do with poverty or illiteracy: the elite of the country indulge in such activities. Parents in our country leave their newborn babies in gutters. The rate of abortion is high among urban people who realize too late that they have ‘made a mistake’. I don’t require highbrow theories and far-fetched examples to make my point: it is all there much nearer home. There are many girls in my class who face constant discrimination in their homes because of their gender. The son, no matter what kind of a person he might be, is always better, and so he deserves the best of everything, even if it is at the cost of his sister’s welfare. Well, I should be calling these parents better; they at least stop at discrimination only. There is someone I know whose grandmother tried to poison her (if not with her father’s consent, at least with no strong resistance from him) because she did not like her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren much. So much for parents always loving their children.

In the article from The Hindu, the parents have protested loudly against the idea that they could batter their child badly enough to have to hospitalize him. However, I have fallen down from the bed enough times (once, directly on my head) to know that a mere fall from the bed doesn’t result in such grievous injuries. And judging from all the anecdotes I have heard firsthand, I don’t find it at all difficult to believe that the parents are at fault. So what is it that is lacking in Indian parents? What is wrong with them? Why do they treat their children like their property (and not even property that should be well taken care of)? How can their mentality be changed? I wish I knew, I wish I knew…   

Corbett National Park

There was something about tigers in the newspaper today, about tigers and Tiger Reserves, that reminded me of the only time that I had been to a jungle. It was way back in 2003, I think, when we went to Corbett National Park. We had gone holidaying in Nainital and other nearby places, and Corbett was on our itinerary. I was really small then, and did not enjoy the beauty of nature much. So naturally, for  me the only object of anticipation was seeing wild animals, especially tigers.

It is strange how one’s mind stores odd snippets of many different events, and sometimes these events get jumbled up, and one talks about one incident when one is really thinking of something completely different. And then, one’s mind sometimes blends the memories of one event with memories of some other event, or of something one has read about or seen in movies, and then one has very vivid ‘memories’ of things that might not have happened to oneself at all! Whenever I think of our trip to Corbett, I visualize a very narrow and shallow rivulet with shoals of multihued fish swimming about in it. Now, I know that while entering the park in the jeep we had crossed a rivulet, but the shoals of fish are almost certainly figments of my imagination, borrowed from various shows on Animal Planet. But in spite of my conscious knowledge, this image of fish is strangely associated with Corbett in my mind!

There is another thing that I always think of in connection with Corbett. That is about my first experience of a sharp chilly wind. As I said, we were travelling in an open jeep. It was December, and the temperature must have been pretty low. My parents had packed me up in a lot of warm clothes. I remember wearing a sweater, a thick jacket, woolen socks, gloves, and a balaclava. Now, ever since childhood, I have suffered much more from heat than from cold. That day, as we entered the forest, I distinctly remember standing up (I was tiny enough then to be able to stand up unobtrusively in the jeep) and pulling off my balaclava, much to my mother’s horror, and grinning widely at the world in general with chattering teeth and watery eyes as the cold wind swept across my face. That is probably one of my best travel memories till date!

We had put up in a place called ‘Jhirna’. I hear that nowadays it has been turned into an expensive resort, but in those days there were just a few cottages and an elephant ride area there. There was an observation tower a little way off from the cottages, and I have a rather exciting memory of the place. My father, mother and I had gone to the tower during the day, which was a pleasant enough experience. But then, my father and I went there again in the evening. I remember looking down on the forest from the tower. It was an ocean of black, with the distant trees looking like oddly shaped human figures. It was twilight then, and the sky was red and black, and there seemed to be no living being around except the two of us. Now that I come to think of it, I think I enjoy that moment much more in retrospect than I did when it was actually happening. At that age, I was more in search of adventure than scenery. After spending some time there, we came down and headed back to the cottage, only to find that a group of men had come to look for us with sticks and lanterns. We later heard that that area was often visited by tigers and other wild beasts, so they had become scared and come to look for us!

The next day we went for an elephant ride in the jungle. Our elephant was a young female called Albeli. She was a very cheerful creature, and was also rather small for an elephant. Then of course, she was not a full grown beast. We climbed onto her back from a raised platform. I sat right behind the mahout. There was one thing that still pains me whenever I think of it. The mahout had a short iron fork with which he kept poking Albeli whenever she tried to be a little naughty. From my position I could see that just behind her head she had numerous small cuts which were obviously the result of this poking. My father says that being an elephant she probably didn’t even feel the cuts, but I feel angry whenever I think of it. Anyway, the ride in itself was lovely. At one point, the mahout told us that there was probably a tiger there a little way ahead, and did we want to go on? My father however told him to turn back; he later told us that since Albeli was a young elephant she might have become frightened on seeing a tiger, and that would certainly have been very unsafe for us! We had our ride and came back, and heard that during our absence a tiger had come and killed a deer a little way behind our cottage! Ah well, we probably weren’t meant to see a tiger that time!

We had another delightful experience with Albeli later that day. My father and I had bought a packet of biscuits, and we took it to the sheds where the elephants were kept. Albeli was there, and believe it or not, she was actually dancing, shaking her head and body in a rhythmic manner! She stopped when she saw us, and daddy started giving her the biscuits. She took them with her trunk and ate them swiftly, and an entire packet was over in the wink of an eye. Then my father told her that there was no more, and as if on cue, she resumed her dance exactly where she had left it, and no trained Kathak dancer could have displayed more grace than she did that day!

We stayed for a very short time in Corbett; I think it was just for one night and two days. But it was a lovely experience, and someday I hope to go back there and spend a much longer time, and this time hopefully, I’ll be lucky enough to catch at least a glimpse of the tiger, the King of the Jungle!

Is my generation insane?

A very sad thing happened this Monday morning; a classmate of mine passed away in a car accident along with her mother, her grandmother and her brother, while her father is admitted in the hospital, fighting for his life. She was not a close friend, but then we have been studying together for the last twelve years, so the incident horrified me. May their souls rest in peace forever.

Generally, I would not be writing about such a sad incident; this is not the kind of news that one bandies about. However, I read a comment in one of my father’s blogposts that hit me hard, and induced me to write about this. Another classmate, a boy, has commented on the post saying that some of his friends were joking and laughing over the accident, as if it were a funny and trivial issue!

The boy wrote in his comment that these boys either have no feelings at all or are confused about what they feel. I will go one step further and say that these boys are bestial. This though would be an insult to animals, since most animals try their best to save a brother in trouble, and often express grief at the death of a member of the  tribe. Jim Corbett has rightly said in one of his stories that if the laws of the jungle were prevalent among human beings, we would be living in a much more civilized and humane society. The boy also wrote about his Biology teacher who jokes about how accidents can help control the population explosion in our country, and says that one or two dying now and then is not a big deal. This really frightens me. In the primary classes we were taught to think of our teachers just like our parents. If I had parents who had such perverse and psychopathic thoughts, I would surely have lived in constant fear for my life. These people are parents too, and I always feel sorry for their children. These are the parents who convince their children that the only reason to be alive is to get marks and get admission in the IITs. And these are the parents whose children can laugh when they hear about a classmate’s death.

I am a member of the generation in question, but since my parents have gone against the herd and consciously brought me up with a different set of values, I often get nasty shocks at my classmates’ behaviour. A very common and seemingly unimportant thing that everyone has witnessed sometime or the other is how youngsters occupy the seats in public buses while the aged remain standing. I remember once a classmate and I were returning from a tuition, and we had both been lucky to get seats in a packed bus. Moments after we had sat down, an elderly couple entered the bus. The man had a bent back, while the woman was limping and was obviously in pain. I immediately vacated my seat, and looked at my classmate, expecting her to do the same. But she kept staring pointedly out of the window and did not budge before I actually told her to do so, and then only because she was afraid I would otherwise haul her off the seat, which I am physically quite capable of doing. She got up unwillingly, gave me a glare and turned away, muttering curses under her breath! Since I have spent such a long time studying in a girls’ school (and those are actually much nastier than a co-ed or a boys’ school; I do wish some more girls/women would have the guts to acknowledge that publicly) I can think of dozens of other such instances which show how frightening the minds of many of these people are. In fact, I would not like to stay alone in a house with a great majority of them for my own safety. There’s no saying what one of them could do to take ‘revenge’ for some imagined hurt or just for the fun of seeing someone else hurt.

So where exactly has society gone wrong to have brought up a generation of teenagers with such warped and retarded senses? We have Art of Living classes galore, and Value Education is compulsory in most schools. In spite of that, we have teenagers who have little or no moral sense and responsibility. In fact, given enough power, I am sure we have a number of potential Hitlers and Stalins amongst us! I know for one that many of them, the girls especially, will grow up to be the worst kind of parents whose only contribution to their children’s lives would be making them miserable.

I often discuss this issue with my father, and we wonder about where the real problem lies. One thing that both of us agree on is that these teenagers have been simultaneously spoiled rotten to the extreme and been subjected to endless irrational restrictions right from childhood. I have had a very different childhood, where my parents have treated me like an equal, and so I have been given the same freedom as well as the same duties and responsibilities that they have. Today, I am obviously very unlike most of my classmates in my likes and dislikes, tastes and preferences, hobbies, and my entire lifestyle is a puzzle to them. Many of my classmates have this idea that I have to live under military discipline and my parents run a concentration camp at home! Otherwise they simply cannot fathom how a teenager could NOT enjoy partying, shopping, gossiping and willingly do things like reading, housekeeping or studying! With the kind of mentality that most of these teenagers have, and the kind of marks- and looks-obsessed, unscrupulous environment that they have grown up in, it is little wonder that terrifying accidents get such disgusting reactions from them. I can now understand how the Romans could enjoy watching ‘games’ like chariot racing and gladiator fighting. People like to say “Nowadays the world is becoming so bad and ugly”, but in reality the world has always been like this, and people have always been saying the same thing, be it four hundred years ago, or a thousand. That’s my only consolation: only a tiny handful try to be different, always, everywhere.

However, there is no denying that good people are still around. While some boys felt like joking about the incident, another girl has organized a prayer-and-donation meet in an orphanage in the memory of the deceased this Friday afternoon. The girl is my classmate, and is someone whom I always took to be a typical senseless teenager. I must say I am pleasantly surprised. All I wish is that we had more people like her around. That would have made the world a much happier and more peaceful place. 

The Little Prince

[I have been trying to review this book ever since I read it more than a month ago. Somehow, it had turned out to be a very difficult task, so much so that I finally gave it up and simply wrote down whatever thoughts the book had brought to my mind. So this is not a review, strictly speaking; this is the rambling of a restless mind one quiet summer afternoon.]

This is a rather strange book. I have read quite a number of books, both children’s books and books for mature minds. But I cannot think of any book that is quite like The Little Prince. I cannot even decide whether to call it a children’s story or a book for grown-ups. I am sure the author, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, in spite of being an adult himself, would have strongly objected to its being called a book for grown-ups. He has even dedicated the book to a grown-up, Leon Werth, “when he was a little boy”!

The day I read the book was the second day of dad’s admissions. It had been a very long day, and by the time it was nine in the evening, we were all dead-beat. I wanted to read something light, so I took The Little Prince out on a whim and curled up in bed with it. I had been expecting a funny and frivolous book, but right from the first page I could sense something very surprising; the author seemed to have turned society as we know it upside down. In his opinion it is the children who are the really deep and thoughtful entities in society, and the adults who insist on giving undue importance to petty and unimportant things!

The author starts the book by telling us how he had drawn a boa constrictor with an elephant inside it when he was six years old, and had asked the grown-ups whether the drawing frightened them, but they had all thought that it was an oddly shaped hat that he had drawn. He must have been a very unusual adult indeed, because right at the start he has made clear his low opinion of the average grown up. And this is a theme that he has continued to harp upon throughout the course of the story. He insists “Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them”!

The author, who has grown up to be an aviator, has had to crash land in the Sahara Desert as something has broken down in the engine of his plane. It is there that he meets the little prince, who seems to appear out of nowhere, and asks the author very gravely to draw   him a sheep. And strangely enough, the author does just that for him, as “when a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey.” That is the beginning of what goes on to become a deep friendship between the grown man and the strange child.

The story stretches over ten or eleven days, during which the author comes to know little by little the story of the little prince’s life. The little prince lives on a planet (the author thinks it is the asteroid B-612, though he acknowledges that any child would know such names and figures are of little consequence; it is the adults he is satisfying with this piece of information) which is so small that it is hardly any bigger than a house. He lives there with three volcanoes, and a haughty flower who thinks she is the only one of her kind. He used to live with his flower and watch many sunsets, because his planet is so small that the sun sets and rises numerous times each day. But the little prince was not happy, and wanted to travel around and see the universe. That was how his adventures began.

The author has memorably conveyed many essential lessons of life through the little prince’s adventures. He has also brought out some of the commonest weaknesses that grown-ups suffer from in the characters of the various people the prince meets on his travels. The price meets a king who loves to order people about and rule over people, and his only problem is that there are no subjects he can rule over in his tiny planet. Then the prince meets a conceited man who thinks everybody admires him, and then a drunkard who drinks so that he can forget how ashamed he is of drinking, then a businessman who counts stars all the time (‘stars’ here seem to me to be representative of money). The fifth planet the prince visits has a lamplighter whose plight is that he has to light his lamp and put it off 1440 times every day, as there are so many sunsets and sunrises in his tiny planet. Of all the people he has seen till then, the lamplighter is the only one whom the prince does not find ridiculous. The reason the prince gives for this is “he is thinking of something else besides himself.” The sixth planet has a geographer in it, who directs the prince to the earth.

Once the prince comes to the earth, he (and all of us readers along with him) learns some valuable lessons. He sees a garden of roses which look just like his own flower back home. He sees that she is not unique after all, and this leaves him dejected. Then he meets a fox, who makes him understand that his flower is unique because he had ‘tamed’ it, and was now responsible for it. The fox requests the prince to tame him. Here again, the author has said something wonderful: “One only understands the things that one tames. Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all readymade at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends anymore.”

The prince meets a railway switchman and sees the trains travelling up and down the  tracks. Here the author brings out another very true-to-life sentiment through their conversation. The switchman says that grown-ups are never satisfied with what they have, and are bored with life. Those travelling in the railway carriages are either asleep, or yawning. Only the children have their noses pressed to the windows as they watch the passing scenery. The prince replies “Only the children know what they are looking for.”

The part that has touched me the most is when the prince goes to the snake, who bites him so as to send him back to his own planet. Before going, the prince reassures the author that he will not be dying; he will only be leaving his body behind, as it is too heavy to carry home. This wonderful concept of ‘going home’ seems to take away a lot of the anxieties and miseries of human life. When one knows that death is just going back home after a long and tiring journey, one is able to face it without fear, and with anticipation even.

The line I found most memorable in the book was something that the fox told the prince: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” I understand now why my father keeps saying this was one of those books which changed his life forever. Somehow, I know that from now, I will be spending much more time and energy in looking at the ‘small and insignificant’ things of life. Maybe, one day I too will have a rose which will have tamed me, and which will be unique to me… 

Raindrops, raindrops, fall upon my window...

The rain is one of the most beautiful gifts of Nature, especially if it is unseasonal rain. A few days back we had a rather unexpected spell of rain here. I had been going around all morning that day with a gloomy face, and after the brief shower I could feel a marked improvement in my spirits. It was as if some invisible load had been lifted from my heart.

Last Wednesday the day had been cloudy right from the beginning. We did not think much of it; rain is the last thing that we expect in February. So we were really surprised to hear the roll of thunder sometime around seven in the evening. I kept thinking it was the sound of cars and furniture being moved around until I saw a flash of lightning through the window of the living room. And then came the rain. It was nothing extraordinary, just a drizzle. But for me it seemed to be a relief, from what I am not sure. Maybe I had just got fed up of the unending dryness all around me for the last few months. I was sitting there in front of the computer, drumming at the keyboard aimlessly, and then when I heard the first drops coming down, I simply ran to the balcony to feel the rain on my hands. The smell of wet mud that always drives me into fits of ecstasy was already there. Any other time of the year I would have stolen off to the terrace to get wet, but the evening was chilly, and getting wet in the rain was not a very pleasant prospect. Instead, I sat in the balcony watching the rain coming down to soothe the thirst of the dry earth, and memories of childhood flooded into my mind.

When I was a kindergartener most of my favourite games were related to splashing around in mud and water. The loner that I have always been, I preferred to go on these watery expeditions all by myself. After the rains a long stretch of puddles would be formed right in front of our house. As long as the sun was in the sky, I would sit in those puddles and make mud toys. At first my mother used to scold me for the soggy state that I got into, and the frocks I managed to spoil in the process. Later though she just resigned herself to the fact that I was not going to change my ways, and simply warned me not to stray into the road. Another game that I loved to play was jumping in the puddles and watching the ripples formed in the water. I remember once I had managed to induce a slightly older and very prim and proper friend of mine to step into the water. She had complied only after making me promise not to splash any water at her. Of course I had no intention of keeping my promise, and the moment she stooped to look closely into the puddle, I picked up a handful of the muddy water and threw it right at her face! I still laugh helplessly when I visualize the horrified expression on her face and her shrill voice screaming that I had spoiled her hair!

When we were in primary school, all of us loved to make paper boats. In fact, I used to return from school every day with at least five of those boats tucked into my bag. Whenever it rained, whether we were at home or at school, we would set afloat dozens of those boats and pretend to be dacoits and princesses on board ships going to distant lands in search of priceless treasures. We had such lovely times then, letting our imaginations run away with us. In fact, I think those were the days when my classmates’ creativity was at its peak. We made up impossible stories and lived them in our make-believe worlds, and found nothing absurd about them. Sometimes it started raining while we were playing with our boats, and then we would pretend that there was a cyclone and the ship was rocking helplessly on the sea, and all of us would pray that we may survive the night without being tossed overboard (this was during the time when the computer game called Sindbad was very popular and all of us had gathered some idea about life on sea from it. Also The Pirates of the Caribbean series had just begun, so we all loved to think of ourselves as future Jack Sparrows!).

But not all of my rainy memories are from primary school. Last year we had a long monsoon, and I spent many of those days getting drenched on the terrace or in the garden. I remember one day more clearly than others. It was a Sunday, and I had been studying all morning. So when the clouds overcast the sky and the rain came down in heavy showers, I ran down to the garden and stood barefoot in the soft grass, facing the sky and feeling the water running down my nose. I had been dancing around and enjoying myself for about five minutes when something like a little pebble fell on my foot. I looked down to see what it was, and to my delight it was a hailstone! By the time I had finished examining it, hailstones were falling in dozens. One the size of an egg fell right in front of me, and at that moment ma called me and asked me to get inside. By the time I had taken a bath and changed into fresh clothes I could hear the hailstorm raging outside. Later we heard that that evening there had been an unusual amount of hail, and some houses had broken window panes and tin roofs. My mother was certainly glad that she called me in when she did; none of us would have liked a big block of ice to fall on my head!

As is the rule of Nature, the most beautiful of her creations can sometimes become pretty troublesome, if not deadly. One day after school last year, those of us who travel by public bus found ourselves in a fix. There had been some accident, so no bus was running on the 8B route that afternoon. None of us carried a mobile, and we did not have enough money with us to book an auto, and the driver was very uncooperative and refused to lower his fare. To top all that, it had started drizzling. Anyway, I managed to call my father from a telephone booth, but he came to pick me up on the scooter, so my friends couldn’t go with me. The next day I heard from them that they had walked all the way to St. Xavier’s school in the heavy shower, getting drenched to the skin, where they had luckily been spotted by a neighbour who was in his car, and had managed to go home with him almost a hour and a half after school was over!

I have heard stories from my father about troubles caused by too much of rain. Once it had rained so much for so long in Durgapur that the river Damodar had flooded. For a day, it had become the largest river on earth, larger than even the Amazon! All the sluice gates of the Durgapur Barrage had been opened, and the area around it had become one gigantic lake, with people going around in boats! Another time he was travelling by train on a hot summer day, and standing at the door of the compartment enjoying the breeze. There was a cyclone, and the rest of the journey he continued to stand at the door freezing to the bone!

Still, I wish we had more of rain here in our place. My mother says that too much of rain makes her gloomy, and she doesn’t like dark cloudy days. But I enjoy myself very much indeed. Even when I am not getting wet, I love to hear the sound of the rain. It helps calm my mind. And in those moments I pity all my classmates who are so poor that they will never learn to savour the richness of Nature and all her different faces…