The story of my Life by Helen Keller - a book review

It is hard to imagine life of a person who is both deaf and blind. It would be something like groping in total darkness akin to being in a deep, dark well with deadly silence. If God wishes even such a person would have her soul out of that dreadful well. Not only that her soul would fly and feel the beauties of meadows and the sky and even beyond that. 'The story of my life' by Helen Keller is part of the syllabus of class tenth where my younger son is studying. I read the story to explain it to him and his friends but now I am finding it difficult to express it in words.

Helen was born in 1880. She lost her hearing and sight due to some fever when she was merely nineteen months old.

With the aid of her teachers and the books written in Braille, her soul got enlightened as much or even more than those who can hear and see. She with her limited faculties experienced and lived her life to the full. She was the first person of her kind to be a graduate. According to her acquiring education without feeling  is like being deaf to the harmonies of nature. The richness of her vocabulary, expression and thoughts is amazing and most likely to dwarf the able bodied reader in his own eyes.

What one may not see with his eyes and hear with his ears she could feel with her hands. At times smell alone guided her ways. Despite her deprivations she had read a vast number of books and imbibed their essence into her soul.

Her enriched soul is such an inspiration that we should never at any time get depressed and discontentful in our life.

The immortal kids of the literary world.

A boy having long hair puts a strange question to his mother, "Why am I so dark cloured mother?"
To tell the boy that it was due to his grazing the cows in the sunshine could have been counter productive. So the mother says, "Not at all. You are so very normal."
" But mother, why the girl who lives around the corner of the street is fair like a fairy while I am almost black?", asks the boy unappeased by her reply.
"When you were very small you had a black thread around your waist for your clothing. Nowadays you keep a black blanket  over your shoulders. Possibly these things have rendered a hue of darkness to you. Or may be it is because you were born on a pitch dark night. But there is no need to take the complexion so seriously as is not at all black but merely a shade or two darker than others."
When the boy was still not satisfied the mother says, "Now whether you believe it or not the damsel you are talking about is, no doubt, fair but she has got dark black eyes upon which she applies black Kajjra powder. And from those black eyes she has casted a black spell upon you turning you black." With this reply she leaves the matter fully settled.

Above is the theme of a popular bhajan from the Bollywood movie 'Satyam Shivam Sundaram'.
Now let us talk about Hamid, a child character created by Prem Chand.
Hamid is an orphan. He visits the Id fare with just three paise given by his grandmother. This boy is far too mature for his tender age just as most other orphans tend to become. He sees no fun in joyrides. He cannot afford them is a different matter though. Neither is he taken in by toys made up of sugar crystals. A toy soldier, a barrister with black coat and a Bishti (the water deliverer) also fail to impress him. He considers such stuff a sheer wastage of hard earned money although a corner of his heart desperately wants to own them. By any means he cannot strike a deal as they are much beyond his budget. Finally through hard negotiation he purchases a pair of tongs. The boys try to downgrade his prized item while on their way back home. But our hero has a smart salesman within him. He throws his tong on the ground and challenges others to put their toys to such a test. The tide changes and all the little ones get attracted to the pair of tongs. "It is a multipurpose thing friends. If attacked by a baddie it can act as a weapon. No doubt one can play also with it by making the two ends strike with each other. In this way a music can be created." The other children start fancing his merchandise. They requested him to exchange their toys with his tongs for a little while. Hamid agrees to their proposal and gets the pleasure of touching and feeling all other toys turn by turn. Before reaching home most of the fancy toys get either broken or distorted. But Hamids mighty pair of tongs is in full glory. Hamid's grandmother was brimmed with affection when she learns that her grandson has bought a tool which could make her easy to make fire without burning fingers.

Tom is yet another child character. He is the creation of the story writer Mark Twain.

Tom's spirits are dampened when on a fine holiday morning he is asked to whitewash the entire boundary of the hutment. He puts a brave face and starts brushing the wall ignoring his friends who were out for playing. He declines the request of others to try their hand on such an unusual activity. Tom relents only after making a hard bargain and gives them a chance turn by turn. While tom sits under the shade of a tree with the bargained things like apple oranges, broken toys etc, his friends whitewash the fence two times over and stop only when the whole of the whitewashing material is finished. It is all over in such a short time and Tom still has the whole day before him for fun and enjoyment. Thus he discovers a very important aspect of human nature where a thing can be made extremely coveted if it is made difficult to attain. Had he requested his friends to help him in his task, he could have only got their smirks and jeers. With a tactful approach he wins their labour as well as their eatables and toys.

Sharp turns in terms of diet

Protiens start doing more harm than good when a person approaches fifty years of age. This trouble is comparatively more with men as compared to women. People with lean bodies may also be less prone to uric acid related issues caused by a protein rich diet.

The vegetables that a young boy hates the most are Gheea, Sitaphal, Ramtori, Tinda etc. Normally children become annoyed when they learn that their mothers have cooked Kaddu for them. But strangely enough these are the best for people nearing fifty. A teenager prefers Rajma. Moongi Chana dal, Masoor dal, Kalachana masala or Kabuli Chana masala. It is all because protiens are body builders and he needs them immensely.

Some people in rural Punjab tend to put their bodies on drugs like opium or poppy husk to deal with the health related issues. That causes a huge weight loss and the problems seem to get subsided . But that method takes away all the glow from their faces along with the respect in society. Moreover a person enslaves himself to his daily requirement of the dosage of the drug. Withdrawl is out of question in most cases.

When most of the things tend to become harmful for health one has to choose between the less harmful ones over the more harmful ones. According to me eating Chapati with a bit of Desi ghee and Achar (pickle) is better than eating with Dal in case there is no vegitable dish in the house. A slight amount of Gurr or sugar after the meal gives a feeling of fulfillmeant when the diet is frugal. Although both Ghee and sugar are not very good for an aging person but usually overtake of protein is the least desirable thing. There is no denying the fact that diet requirement varies according to a person"s body composition but in general the reqirement of protein declines considerably when a person nears fifty. What a sharp turn in terms of diet a person has to take at this age !

The changing pace of the love stories

The hero is all alone in his Dak Banglow. He is very young, just a little above the age of boyhood. It is the monsoon season at a very remote village. He hardly has any work. He is all alone. It keeps raining heavily most of the time because the place is in  Bengal. There is an orphan girl to help him in his odd jobs. She helps him in cooking, preparing his bath, making Chapatis and even preparing his smoking pipe. Once when he had fever she pressed his forehead and tended  him very delicately in a way that is typical of a loving and caring girl. He tells the stories of his family to her and she tells about her parents although she is an orphan now. But despite the long rainy season and such conducive environment, they had no physical relationship. The boy seeks transfer to his hometown. Upon rejection of his application he resigns. He parts away leaving the girl emotionally pregnant. She weeps and sobs upon separating from her hero whereas the hero consoles himself for the emotional pain inflicted uoon the heroine by musing that partings and meetings keep taking place even in the nature. The river meets the sea, day meets the night etc. Similarly the river departs from the mountains, distributaries part away from the river, so on and so forth. Thus it is natural for humans also to keep meeting and parting.

The above is the theme of the story 'The postmaster' witten by Rabinder Nath Tagore about a century ago. We note that the hero had an amazingly sound character.

Now let us move half a century forward. There was a movie called Aradhna sometime in the early seventies. The hero gets just one monsoon night to spend with the heroine per chance of fate. He is aware that he can err. He sings, "Bhool koi hamse naa ho jaye (may I not make a mistake)." But he definitely makes a mistake and impregnates the heroine physically in the real sense of the word.

Moving a few decades still further to the present times, we observe a sea  change in the affairs. A boy and a girl do not need any solitude of any type during rainy season along with the thunder of the clouds and lightening in the sky flashing in the back ground etc. One good mobile phone with internet connectivity is sufficient for ninety percent of the intercourse to take place. That too without any hassle of impregnation of any sort.

Preventive fence against immature relationships

How would one feel when his son studying in the tenth grade wants a sad song? There is a bollywood song 'Ye duniya, ye mehfil mere kaam ki nahin' (This world and this gathering is of no use to me )? It is from the movie Heer Ranjha. Today morning my son came to me and asked for getting it downloaded for him. In a few minutes he got it in his mobile phone via bluetooth.

The dwindling sex ratio across the country has made it really tough for the boys to court girls. Moreover the girls nowadays want boys who have a stylish hair cut and a gym toned body. Boys with Pagris are most likely to be left aside. In my opinion it is a boon in disguise. Tenth grade is not the time when one should be selecting a life partner. It is better to be left out for some time and remain focussed on the career.

Once I asked a group of girls of grade ten regarding what type of husband they would prefer in their lives. Some said, "with French cut beard" and some said, "clean shaven". I asked them if they would like to marry a Sardar with a Pagri. "No sir. Who would wash the Pagri for them?"

When I studied in the eleventh class in 1982-83 batch there were merely five girls in our class of approximately thirty students. Imagine the competetion when the harmones are perpetually violent like a Tsunami wave. Apart from that, a bearded Sardar like me had the least chance of being sought by any pretty girl. During those times l also loved singing the same song, "Ye duniya ye mehfil_____"

Now I would say that my beard and my Pugree acted as a good preventive fence when one is most likely to fall wrongly into an immature relationship.

The vanishing grey hair

Some say that the grey hair speak obout the maturity of a person. Such people often quote an Indian saying, "Maine ye baal dhoop main safed nahi kiye hain" (My hair haven't become grey due to the sunshine). They mean to say that they have the experience of life. Some people say that the grey hair are a calling from God. The God says that the timespan of life is running out. Once I heard my cousin say that these are letters from God. If we dye them we are distorting the God's command. Once during a casual discussion amongst the teachers in a technical college I was asked why some people get grey beard faster than the others. In a lighter vein I replied, " The grey hair of our beards are indicators of the expended charge of our sexual battery. Moreover if we remain true to one woman our electrical connections are robost. If a person keeps changing the connections every now and then, there occurs  an arc in our body's electric system and the beard becomes grey faster". Further jokingly I added that moustache becomes grey faster if a person tells more  lies than others and the hair of the head grey faster due to tensions and worries."

When I was employed in Delhi, I used to tie my beard using a hair fixer. Sometimes I feel that the lower part of my beard became grey faster than the upper part due to this imprisonment of the hair. However,  If I compare the greying of my beard with the people of my age it shows that my currents are draining at a very normal rate.

In the seventies when I was a school going boy, the society appeared to be less pretentious. Many people wore grey hair. The late prime minister Mrs Indira Gandhi used to have a tuft of grey hair adorning the forehead. It made her look unique and beautiful. In contrast nowadays people love to remain young with cent per cent black hair throughout their lives. Once a Sardarji from armed forces told me that it is essential as it is a kind of camouflage to survive in the society where there is a cut throat competition in every field.

In the picture below we can see the new army chief of our country in perfectly black hair and moustache. Maybe a grey hair and a grey moustache are less intimidating and less impressive for the image of an army personnel.

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.

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.

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.