It is difficult to be Indian in India

In India it is absolutely absurd if a person is dressed like an Indian. A doctor is not a doctor if he is dressed in a dhoti-kurta. He must wear a white coat. A lawyer isn't worth his salt if he is not dressed in black. A few years ago a Sardarji retired from a senior post in Punjab. It became a news as he wore only Kurta Chadra and similar Punjabi clothes throughout his career. When I was employed with Modi Xerox as an Engineer in the early nineties it was treated blasphemous to come to office without a neck tie even during the summer season.

It was the year 1980 in Delhi when a new chemistry teacher joined our school. He was dressed in spotless white Kurta and Churidar pyjama along with the white coloured canvass shoes. Even his handkerchief was a symbol of white purity. He was indeed a spectacle to behold. With very nicely groomed hair and trimmed beard he had a very saintly look. His language was dignified and manners very gentle. All his cleanliness and purity put together could not earn him any respect. Rather he was a laughing stock of the school. Children never remained silent in his class. Once I joined a technical college at Ajitwal in Punjab. I went to the interview in white Kurta Pyjama. Surprisingly I was selected. I started taking classes in the same dress. It was a very tough thing to remain as a simple dressed person in a college without being humiliated. Within a fortnight I changed my dress code into a western one. As a tuition teacher, I always maintain a western hue in my clothes with a T- shirt, Capri. Short pants etc. A Sardar with flowing beard and Indian dress cannot be easily accepted as an English teacher just as a person in Kurta Chaadra cannot be accepted as a heart surgeon.

The picture below is a parody on formality. It is a screenshot from the website of 'The Tribune'. In the picture you can see a foreign delegate wearing a neck tie along with the winter suit in the punishing heat of July. On the top of it he is smiling and waving his hands. He can be excused for his ignorance about our country but an Indian walking along side is aping him in a warm dress and is thoroughly suffocated by a neck tie. 

Gandhiji who attended the round table conference in a dhoti was indeed a hero. I salute him.

Slap difference

Once in our class Mrs Bagga came and took a lecture of Geography. She was an exceptionally beautiful Sardarni. In the middle of the lecture she walked straight and delivered two tight slaps to a back bencher. Whether he made some suggestive gesture or casted an evil eye is still not known but the so called bad boy became like a wet cat after receiving the lesson on the cheek by her. Mrs Bagga, however was not a teacher whom the children feared.

The same boy got a similar lesson from Mr Bansal. This teacher walked up to the boy coolly, caught hold of his ear lobe, swung it forward and backward in a to and fro motion and loose handedly delivered two resounding slaps on his left cheek. The terror ran through the whole class. This was the only time I saw Mr Bansal beating a student. But he and his name were a synonym of terror in our school.

If one goes by the name, Mr Bansal does not instill fear. There has hardly been any dreadful army officer or a notorious person of such name in the history. In sharp contrast Mr Bansal could send a chill down one's spine. He was frail but very active . He walked like a robot and lectured as though everything was recorded in some chip in his brain. He had a pair of razor sharp and intelligent eyes. His English was fluent and flawless. The only word that he pronounced awkwardly was 'Substance'. He would over stretch 'a' and mix it with with a touch of 'n' sound through the nostrils. He appeared so perfect that I believed that the correct pronunciation must infact be 'substaaannce' instead of 'substance'. He taught us Physics and Photography. He had a thorough understanding of his subject. Most of the things taught by him are still fresh in my mind. In short despite being medium statured and thin, his personality inspired awe. He seldom smiled. Rather his smile was a news to the students. He was handsome inspite of a slightly dark complexion and one or two artificial teeth. His composure and nerves were as robust as steel. He did not possess even an ounce of extra fat on his body and was active like some battery operated machine. His bicycle was as nicely maintained as his perfectly creased clothes. He hardly felt any cold during the winter season. When it was extremely cold he just wore a half sleeved sweater. His shirt was never tugged inside his trousers. It was said that he provided private coaching at his home which immensely benefitted his students preparing for competitive examinations.

Although Mr Bansal was one of my favourite teachers, he was a bit short of perfection on personal account. Not for the purpose of slandering but only to give a true potrait of his personality I would add that he smoked in his photography lab while hiding his face by the doors of an almirah. Once I went to his lab at a wrong moment. It appeared as if he was sorting out something in the almirah. There was a change in his tone and after a quick and hidden puff he came to me near the door of the laboratory saying "Yes" very impressively. But the odour could not be hidden.

Now, why his slaps were so different from the slaps of the other teachers? May be because of his no nonsense attitude and the accumulated impression of several years upon the minds of the children.

A tribute to the teachers from Australia

It was the second week of September of the year 1981. The Summer heat was becoming tolerable by then. Rather the mornings had already started becoming pleasant and balmy. During this time a team of teachers visited our school from Australia. They taught the TM meditation technique to the whole school. It was initiated into the world by Mahrishi Mahesh Yogi.

These white gentlemen possessed a calm composure. There was an apprecialble serenity on their faces. It took them about a week to impart the meditation technique to the students and the teachers. The day before we were to be given the Mantra, we were asked to bring an apple and a handkerchief to the school.

The apples that we brought were placed on a table in a corner and covered by a handkerchief. One by one we went to the teacher and received the Mantra in the form of a  whisper. It was very much like the way a secret is told where the speaker places his hand like a wall alongside his mouth and the ears of the listener.

After receiving the Mantra we meditated and later on ate the apples. The soothing weather and the tanquility obtained by meditation was a wonderful combination. The inward journey was a novelty for me. I started practising this meditation regularly. After about an year those teachers sent a message to the school and sought a kind of feedback. "How many of you still meditate?" asked the Principal during the morning assembly. Two hands were raised. The other student was Praveen Kulshreshta who meditated occasionally. But I meditated exactly as it was prescribed twice a day and carried on doing so for about two years and eight months. Finally I discontinued when I developed a taste for Gurbani Kirtan which provided me with a wholesome spiritual diet.

I would honestly acknowledge that the TM meditation technique was an important milestone in my spiritual journey. I am sincerely thankful to the Australian teachers for that. They might not have earned any dollars by their efforts. But they certainly earned a lot of goodwill which is a currency of great value in the spiritual world. May God shower his blessings upon those Australian teachers for their selfless and kind service!

Truth in the gaseous form

After independence several natural landforms like  rocky hills or river banks etc near the cities got encroached upon by politicians and their allies in the guise of some Ashram etc. Same was the case in Delhi also. But a Barsati nalla (a ravine) near our school had not yet been gobbled up. In the eighties the land acquisition act was not abused as we see nowadays where a chunk of land is first acquired forcibly and then after some value addition (by providing electricity, sewerage etc) is sold to the favourite business houses. Politicians in those days pried only upon the wastelands.

The Barsati nalla was comparitively safe because any temple or Ashram made near it could easily cave in. I wondered how the Principal's residence remained safe despite being at the brink.

One day l and my friends ventured onto the other side of this ravine by crossing it. The flats on the other side had used the rear portion near to the Nalla for growing radish etc. For the purpose of thrill we uprooted and ate a few of them. Next day also the same routine followed during the lunch break. But soon the cat was out of the bag. We stopped this extra curricular activity as the fellow classmates of tenth standard got a whiff of our adventure. How they came to know is not clearly known but they claimed that they found it out as the fart of one of our comrades had become excessively stinky and gave an indication of the Mooli (radish) eaten during the lunch break.

Moral- Truth can never remain hidden. More so when it involves the radish.

Modesty and the force of gravity.

According to Gandhiji the traditional dress of a country is best suited for a person. He was right because the male reproductive apparatus suffers in tight pants particularly in the hot season in India.
After independence the government owned schools in Punjab had Kurta Pyjama for the boys and Salwar suit for the girls as a standard uniform. Later on they thought that Kurta Pyjama did not go well with the concept of modern education. So they replaced the Pyjama with the western styled trousers and Kurta with a tight fitting shirt. The girls' uniform, however, remained unchanged. With the arrival of Public schools umbrella cut skirts were introduced for the girls of primary classes.

In Kendriya Vidialaya, from where I studied, even the girls of the senior secondary classes had to wear a skirt. Whereas he boys were not allowed short pants from class ninth onwards as they exposed their hairy legs. In other words more a school is modern more is the liberty to the girls and greater is the discomfort to the boys. Thankfully there was no neck tie for us unlike the boys of ultra modern schools like DPS etc.
Now, in a skirt the modesty of a girl is at the mercy of the gravitational force. In the playground and particularly on the windy days of February the girls had to use their hands in order to keep their skirts in position. Or else the powerful winds could upset the harmonal balance of the boys around. On one such day I was walking on the path adjacent to the main building and in front of the Principal's residence. Two girls of class twelve were ahead of me. Suddenly a gush of wind made their umbrella cuts fly above their waist. Assuming no one nearby they did not use their hands to support the force of gravity and intentionally allowed the wind power to be victorious. Just for reassurance they turned around with smiling faces. They blushed when they saw me seeing them enjoy their liberty.

Desi formula of the drill master

Usually the Drill master is the equivalent of a police inspector in a school. He is a very important member of the school faculty. In fact the physical training drill during morning assemblies play an important role in refining the students, taming them and making them obedient to their teachers. But strictness beyond a limit becomes counter productive. It is well known that if nuts are overightened, they tend to become free.
Probably it was the month of July. The summer heat of Delhi in this month is oppressive to say the least. On one such hot and sultry Saturday morning the physical training session went on for a little too long. After the prayers all other members of the teaching staff went into the main building while the PT master was hell bent on delivering his duties worth all his annual salary in a single day.
The physical torture seemed endless. The children got thoroughly drenched in their white uniforms. Their patience was exhausting at a very fast rate. After a set of arm raising and clapping exercises there came the turn of bending forward while sitting cross legged. The children had to place their palms on their head and bend forward almost touching their forhead to the ground. As a voice of protest they started making a "hummmm....." kind of sound while bending. The collective sound became fairly loud and funny. Each time when the turn of bending came the sound became louder than the previous occasion. Those were the moments of both fun and dread. While all enjoyed the voice of dissent none wanted to be punished.
The master got pushed into a very awkward situation. If he ignored the revolt his reputation as a disciplinary icon of the school could get a beating. While on the other hand there was no way of finding out the leaders of the mutiny.
Ultimately he resorted to the Desi formula. He gave a sound thrashing to a few boys in the front row without asking for any explaination. "The humm...... " stopped instantly and the revolt got suppressed successfully.

Sky lab and the games period

We were in eigth in 1979 when an American Satellite called Skylab fell on Earth. Students were wildly excited as to where it would fall. Luckily nothing untoward happened. Nevertheless the event was remembered for a long time.
One day our physical training master wanted to interact with the children who had come to the playground in their favourite games period. He called all the boys and girls under a small tree near the water taps close to the primary wing where the morning assembly was held and started lecturing them. Now who wants a lecture on games? The children were desperate to play and have fun for sometime. We thought that it would last for about five minutes. But the teacher kept on speaking about something in which no one was interested. He could not understand the body language of the boys and girls who simply wanted to run, shout and have fun to relieve their stress. All our excitement of the games period died when the lecture grew into a lengthy one. When ten minutes of the period were left he said, "Okay, now you can play".
One pretty girl who was an year senior to us spoke in a girlish tone by swaying her body girlishly whilst clasping her hands near her belly, "Abb kya hoga Sir?" She wanted to say that what could be played when almost the whole period was over. The teacher did not seem to understand what she meant. He imitated her several times by swaying his fat torso while clasping his hand just as the girl had done. We all laughed unlimitedly at his imitaltion which he repeated several times along with mimicking the girlish tone and saying, "Abb kya hoga Sir". Then he turned to the girl and said in his natural voice,"Skylab ggirrae ga abb"(the heavens are going to fall now). Thus a few more minutes got wasted All the children had a hearty laugh. Finally the period was over and we all were showing our sagging faces to the world. We went back to our class rooms without playing. Was the teacher so ignorant that he could not understand our loss? Well, only some high technology Skylab can know that.

The story of our Jamun tree

A Jamun tree was planted in our compound in the beginning of the year 2001. It was bought from the nursery. Initially we planted the sapling in the rear part of the house. But later on we transplanted it to the front. It never showed any transplantation shock at all. Several years went by. 

There is a kind of custom in Punjab according to which if a tree does not bear any fruit, the owner must threaten it by applying an axe mildly upon its trunk during Diwali. Along with that he says, "If you do not yield any fruit the next year, you would be axed". If I am not mistaken it was the day of Diwali in 2007 when both my boys talked to the tree thus-
Elder one said while applying a saw to the trunk, "You need to be cut as you do not give us any fruit". Then the younger one stopped him and said,"O brother let us give the tree a chance. Probably it would start giving us fruit from the next year". The tree seemingly took it seriously and started bearing fruit from the following season. 

Many of our friends enjoy the Jamuns along with us and that too in plenty. They take them to their houses also. Birds keep feeding from the top of the tree. They peck at a Jamun and have a small portion of it while the rest of the fruit falls down. Aso when the wind blows a lot of fruit showers down. Therefore a very large quantity of Jamuns get wasted. We have never put any net under the tree for the lack of expertise. Nevertheless it has been keeping us happy year after year. 

The first picture is of the adorable tree. In the second picture my wife is plucking the Jamuns. In the last picture we are having a utensil full of Jamuns in a matter of few minutes.

Product review - Efficient Pocha

The latest purchase that we have made is a Pocha (mopping tool). This can be used very efficiently even without bending our body. First time I saw it in CMC hospital Ludhiana about two years ago. I suggested it to my wife but she refused to listen. Last week a woman from our neighbourhood came to our house and talked about it. Now, that advice worked well. Soon this Pocha and a similar efficient device for removing the cobwebs got purchased by the better half. Today is the third day that I have contributed in the mopping activity. It makes it really very simple. A few days ago we had two full time maids. One for the day time and another for evening and the night time as my mother was on her death bed and needed intensive care. After my mother passed away, I am almost free as all the coaching work had already been wound up earlier for dealing with the medical emergency. Under normal circumstances we believe in doing all the household work ourself. With no maids and no coaching work (at present) mopping is a joy. More so with this modern tool.

Application review- Photostory

Photostory is a very nice Android application for making a slide show. We can join various photos and dub them with music. In this way a lovely video (slide show or in other words a picture story) is ready. Presently two sample videos can be downloaded from the links given below. The first one focuses on my elder son whilst the second one the younger one. It should be borne in mind that for good work patience is a prerequisite. https://db.tt/iKmBqSP0 
Another sample https://db.tt/tQ4ahfjX

Book review -Third class in Indian railways - by MK Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi is known to all. But that can not stop us from praising the beauty of his language and the clarity and conviction with which he puts forward his views. In this mini ebook he gives his opinion on various matters including the pathetic condition of ordinary class compartments of the Indian Railways. Although I agreed only partially with some of the views, yet it was a pleasure reading them. This ebooklet is freely available on the internet.

Book review - Reminiscences of the Great Mutiny 1857-59 - by William Forbes-Mitchell

In this ebook the author who is an English soldier gives an eye witness account of the 1857 mutiny that took place in Inda. In such stories the hero of one nation often gets painted as a villain by the opponents. The Satti Chowra Ghat massacre of Kanpur shows the character of the Indian soldiers along with that of Nana Sahib in a very poor light. Anyhow the contents of the book are very interesting and enhance our knowledge regarding the way the pitched battles were fought in the earlier times. This ebook can be downloaded free of cost from the internet.

Book review-Following the equator (Mark Twain)

This book is a travelogue by Mark Twain written about 125 years ago. It is freely available on internet and can be read by an Android phone with the help of Flyte books or similar applications. First I read the Indian part of the travel. It started from Bombay and then went on to Varanasi, Calcutta and so on. There is an elaborate description of the 1957 mutiny and the thugs of yore. The book tells how the Indian Railways worked during those times. Indian way of life and the nature of the people has been narrated in a humorous way. Finding these chapters interesting, I read the book from the beginning. It was an enriching experience.

Sudden growth

My mother passed away on 4-7-94. After this my thinking has undergone a mutation. It seems that I have grown  by several decades in a matter of a few days. The world appears transitory place similar to a night stay at some lodge.

How childish I was

On third of July my Mother was alive though seriously sick. How childish I was with mother still around  can be known from the following message sent to a whatsapp group of schoolmates.
' Friends I joined the school in 8th. Ours was a new section especially created for us. The students of the sections were shuffled in the 9 th class. You know why? Perhaps the Principal's son wanted his flame to be in his class. I was indeed a v bright guy till 10th. One day the Maths teacher of 8th class came to our nineth class. She was casually enquiring about the marks that we had got in a Maths test paper which was given to us in the previous period. Closing her eyes she said "And Kamaljit you must have got full marks?". "Yes madam", I said.
Vikas Malhotra,Vijay Karamchetti, Vinayak etc were in my class. In 10th my self and Vijay Karamchetti were the only ones who got distinction in English. And yes my first flame joined 10th in the middle of the session. She went somewhere else after 10th. I missed her badly. In 11th I was in science stream. I had a lot of problem in adjusting with the teenage hormones and jeering and joking pertaining to me being a Sardar. Sensitive that I was, it hurt. Do not want to hold grudges and do not want to name the guys who in particular jeered and mocked. But then another flame was there in eleventh and silent ashquee, much of which could be one sided, took place. In twelveth there were two flames as one more had joined. But these flames, teenage hormones and so many other things made me only barely pass in 12th. Quite like a rolling stone I did elect engg. Diploma and served in a few Multinational companies like BPL, Modi Xerox, Bharti telecom, Salora etc. Then in 1999 we shifted to Jagraon. I started providing private coaching to the students and my wife got employed as a govt. teacher. Moreover we made a fortune by buying land in my village by selling urban property of Noida. Luckily we are among the rich guys here. My elder son is pursuing MBBS and younger one is in tenth.
Now forgive me for relating some funny but true and not very decent incidents of the school life-
1- In nineth boys and girls played a game gallery together for a few days. So while dodging and running a chick made me out by lightly touching me by her fingers but on the pvt organ. "Out Out Kamaljit out." Now I was thinking that other boys would jeer at me saying something like"12 to nahi bajj gaye. Out kara diya". Sensing the risk I instantly said " Achha batao kahan lagga?". The chick said "Acha not out not out', and the game started again.
2- We were being taught reproductive system in eleventh class. The teacher taught and taught and taught. Finally the topic of sperms came. She explained and explained and explained. Finally when the lecture was over she said by lifting her nose, "And children, it has got a peculiar smell". Heavens heavens heavens that information was not there in the book also.'
My mother passed away on 4th July and my thinking has undergone a sea change.