A Class, A Boy and an Excuse

(Those who visit this blog often will not find the name Kabir unfamiliar. Since this name pops up every now and then, a little introduction is in order. It’s just a name and we all know, or have been told, that there is nothing in a name. Kabir is a fictional character, and these little stories talk about his past life, his childhood and his journey on the way to becoming a man. Some of these stories or rather incidents are from my life and some from the lives of people I know.)

Kabir dreaded Fridays. Going to school was something he looked forward to on the other days of the week, but fridays were something else. On friday he had his Art and Craft class.

Kabir hated that class. The teacher was nice, but Kabir was never able to complete a single project, that they were assigned. As if that was not enough, and to rub salt on his wounds, everyone else in his class seemed to be a gifted artist. Some of the things that the other boys and girls of his class created made him feel very jealous.

He had tried and tried and then tried some more. But he failed every time. This was his first experience of finding out that the famous adage of “ keep trying until you succeed” wasn’t all that it was made out to be. If you are going to succeed, it’s going to be in the first few tries, if you don’t, quitting is a better option. And that’s what he had done.

So this Friday, he had nothing for the craft class. His mind was in frenzy all day, trying to work out a way to get out of that class without getting hurt. He ran over a few excuses in his mind, but either they were overused or seemed lame and unconvincing even to his own mind.

Time is a strange fellow. When you want it to slow down, even stop, it starts to run and when you want it to take wings and fly, it begins to crawl. So, it was in Kabir’s case. Before he was ready craft class was at hand, the craft teacher was in the room and Kabir had neither done the work nor did he have an excuse.

The teacher picked up the first boys drawing, and even Kabir was mesmerized with the skill. In fact if a child at 9 years could do that, it would be worth seeing what he would when he was 15 or 18. The truth was that all the children had their craft done by their older brothers and sisters or even parents, while Kabir, living in a hostel, had access to no such help.

After looking at a few “children’s” works, Kabir, despite his situation, began to feel sleepy. As he nodded off, an idea struck him. He would fall asleep and not wake up till the class was over. But as soon as he thought this, sleep eluded him. He tried to put his head on his desk and sleep, but sleep was nowhere to be found. And the teacher was approaching his desk fast.

Sleep or no sleep, Kabir decided to go through with his idea and pretended to be sleeping when the teacher was at his desk. His heart was beating like a bird’s. A general round of laughter told him that the teacher was at his desk and he was the center of attraction.
The teacher gently nudged him with a pencil.

“Oh no! You will have to do better than that”, thought Kabir and didn’t move at all.

The teacher poked harder and Kabir made a little sound, moved a little but didn’t wake up. Today he wasn’t going to.

The teacher, a bit irritated by now, shook him up. Some more sound, a little more movement and a change of position, yet no waking up. The teacher was angry now and tried to wake him up by holding him and lifting up, but the poor child came up right off the seat, his head firmly rested on his arms and he wouldn’t wake up.

“ Lets get some water”, suggested a child.

“Pinch him”, said another.

“Prick him with a needle”, a third one.

Kabir was positively scared now, though he made a mental note of who was saying what so that he could repay them in kind, when he got his chance. The teacher was thoughtful for a second, but despite all the anger the cute little figure of the child sleeping won the day and the teacher moved on but said, “ let them sleep who will, for they are the losers.”

Kabir’s relief cannot be described in words. Even to this day when he is asked to think of a happy moment, that is the moment he thinks of. To this day he can’t draw because he always found one or the other way out of the craft class. Though there was one thing he did learn in the craft class and is thankful for: “ How to make excuses and get away with them.”

On a Lighter note...

This blog does not get a lot of hits via search engines. I would love to get a few more hits through the search engines but then I realise that I dont have a lot of information to give out, so I dont want some hapless person, desperately in need of some imprtant information reaching my blog, and ending up hating it, forever.

Some people who ended up here must have been very disappointed when they reached here, when in fact they were looking for :

"blue panther" endless

blue panther lovers

endless blue panther

and this one takes the cake : please make me a blue panther

There were other disppointed searchers, but my sincerest apologies to the ones who tried the above keywords. And a request : if you find a way to become a Blue Panther, do tell me, after all, I am the Original Blue Panther.

A Perspective

The picture shows two children being tended to by their mothers. One mother is a woman belonging to the labor class, laying her child to rest before she starts her work, which is to help in the construction of a damaged part of the road. The other is a woman who is taking her child to school.

Before I begin to talk about what struck me about this particular moment, I must say that I had a big advantage over all of you, who had access, through this picture, only to one moment. Though, this one moment does effectively capture the essence, yet being there and hearing things in person is a great aid to set your mind working.

Of course, the picture is about a Mother’s love for her child, regardless of the social position, status or financial condition. In fact, it is often said that a child can be a bad child, but a mother can never be a bad mother. She will always love her child and her child, to her eyes, will be the prettiest of all in the whole wide world.

What particularly caught my attention in the moment was the startling contrast among the two mother-child pairs. Here was one baby, laid down on a bed of concrete, with no protection from the elements, being checked upon by his mother before she left him to begin her work. Yet, there seemed to be nothing that bothered either of them. The child was lying there very snug and comfortable and looking really cute in the process. The mother was also going about her job with great care and making sure, in every way she could, that the child was comfortable. In one word, they were, it seemed to me, satisfied. They had accepted what had been handed to them and were dealing with it well.

The second child, on the other hand, was almost crying. Her mother was having a hard time dragging (look at the grip she has on his wrist, and the way the child’s front leg is stretched out straight as he was trying to pull back) him to school. They seemed to be from a family that did not have to worry about where their next meal was coming from. Yet,on the whole they presented an image where the mother and the child, both, seemed troubled and unsatisfied with their lot.

Now, in the second case, neither the mother nor the child can be blamed. Which mother will not want her son to go to school and what son, at that age, would go to school willingly.

What struck me was this: do our problems increase as we begin to have more and more?
If it is so, then why are we always striving for more? Can it be that what we have is enough for us, and all we need to do is appreciate it and enjoy it? And if at all we do need more, shouldn’t we be ready for the problems that come with that. Accepting the lot that has been given to us and dealing with it with a smile, I think, is the key to not just a happy life but also a meaningful one.

What do you think?

This picture was taken when, one fine morning, I was stuck in traffic. I saw this and something about the scene struck me. I will tell you what, but before that I will let you see the picture for yourself and attempt a guess at what it was or maybe you can throw some light on the picture from an entirely different perspective.

Birthday - Just another day of the year!!!

There comes a day in everyone’s life, when he or she is born. From that day onwards begins a nice, little journey called life, which is sweet sometimes and sour at others. But, that day goes down in the record books as your birthday.

Year after year, this day comes in a person’s life and year after year he or she is reminded that he or she has existed on this planet for one more year, but the importance and the way this day is perceived by the person, whose birthday it is, changes, every few years or so.

For the first few years, the poor kid is not even aware of what is happening. Why all of a sudden, one day, he is dressed in new clothes, allowed to do whatever he wants and treated nicely in general. He doesn’t realize the importance of this day, but doesn’t mind the attention and enjoys the day.

Then, a few years later, he starts to remember the date of his birthday, knows he is going to get many gifts and a lot of love and freedom, a chance to distribute candy at school and eat cake, so he waits for the day with great anticipation and when the day comes has a good time all through the day.

Then comes teenage, every birthday means more rights, so as soon as one birthday is over, one begins to think about the next birthday and the things they will do on their next birthday. Of course, those things have to be one step further from what they did on this birthday. This stage of life continues till one reaches the age of about 18 or 21.

After that comes a state of indifference. It’s the Birthday…so what? Is it different from any other day? No. But yes, one notices the people who remembered the day and those who did not. After all if a person cares about you, it wouldn’t hurt him or her to remember you on your birthday and send a card, an e-card or at least an sms.

Last comes the stage when every impending birthday is looked forward to with a little trepidation, because every passing year seems like one year lesser to live, one wrinkle more, one number added to your age which is already a large figure by now.

This, I figure, is the last stage in the cycle of birth dates and every person goes through these stages, though some might skip a stage or stay stuck on one stage more than any other.

Saving time...

Playing a musical instrument and riding a bike are two important activities that a human being is capable of. One helps him pass time and the other helps him save time.

The lines above are the opening lines of a well known hindi story. It was years ago that I had read this story. But even at that time, the lines seemed very apt to me, and that very day I had decided that , being human, I am going to learn both these things.

So, soon it was time to decide what instrument to pick as my chosen one. Drums sounded good but took too much space and made too loud a ruckus, other instruments were boring, till going down a list of musical instruments my eyes alighted on the name : Guitar! That was it. I would be a guitarist. I already had dreams of me with a guitar and people looking up to me with wonder in their eyes.

So off I went to a guitar shop and asked for a guitar. And the guy behind the counter wasted no time in spewing out names of various guitars available with him. Now, I had no idea what I was looking for so I took the safest way out :

" I would love to buy the best you have, but right now my budget is this much only, so give me the best I can get for my money."

He showed a piece to me and I looked it up and down, like an expert, before came the dreaded :

" You can play something if you like. It is tuned."

Now, there is nothing wrong in admitting that one is an ignoramus, but somehow that idea didnt appeal to me back then. Even now I hate admitting that I dont know something. But I always have a way out, so looking at the watch, I said :

" I would love to, but I have to be some where, In fact I should be there now. Please pack this and I will be on my way"

Close Escape.

That day I slept with my guitar next to me in bed. I had taken some books back with me but all the chords, majors and minors didnt make much sense, but I had a good time strutting away at the guitar and singing along and imagining that I was doing great for a beginner. I completely ignored the weird looks I got from the family. They were simply jealous, I told myself.

The third day, the novelty of the thing worn off to a great extent, I enrolled in a guitar class. That was when all my dreams were dashed. Weeks later, I was still struck on learning how to tune the guitar and remebering the chords. Somehow, Guitar was just not made for me. But accepting that the guitar had beaten me was something I could never do.

The solution was found in the final examinations for that year. Using that as an excuse, I stopped going to the guitar classes and began to be absorbed in books more and more, till the gutar was forgotten by one and all including me. It still adorns one corner of my room and every now and then I take a picture of me holding the thing. Good thing pictures dont speak.

Words I Like...

Words are the essence of communication. Without words, civilization, as we know it, would not be possible and we would still be living in the dark ages. Some words are pleasant to hear and when you hear them for the first time, you like the sound of it and you want to know the meaning and then you want to use that word as often as possible. For me there is a long list of such words but the top five positions would go to:

Quixotic: This word is one of my favorites. I don’t remember where I read or heard it but once I came to know the meaning, I had no choice but to pick up Cervantes’ Don Quixote de la Mancha and read it through. This book, too, is one of my favorites now because I believe there is a Quixote in all of us. A part that sees shapes in clouds, dreams of being a movie star or simply becoming very famous. The monotony and the humdrum of daily life slowly strangles this part of us. The world would be nicer place if we let some more of the Quixote inside us get out. Just a little, too much would make the world a dangerous place.

Hector: Hector was the famous warrior of Troy. Achilles, the Greek hero, defeated him. The word hector, for a long time, was used for a person who was a hero. But somewhere along the line, it began to be used for someone who was a bully or a nuisance. Its this irony and the tricks that fate has played on Hector that endears this word to me, though I use it rarely.

Sisyphean: Sisyphean task is a job that’s never finished. Sisyphus was a cruel Greek King and for his actions, he was forced to roll a big stone up a hill in Hades but as soon as he reached the top of the hill, the rock would slip down again. This word is a representation of life. Every time we think we are near achieving something we set out as target for us, the target seems to move a little further. Life itself is a Sisyphean task.

Narcissus: Who has read of Narcissus and been left untouched. He was a young man who was so handsome that he fell in love with his own reflection. Though this word has negative connotations of vanity and self-indulgent love, yet I cannot feel anything but pity for a man who falls in love with something he can never have.

Augean Stables: King Augeas of Elis had a stable where he kept 3000 oxen. It was on Hercules that the job of cleaning these stables, not cleaned for twelve years, fell on. So, this word means trying to clean up a system or a thing that has been going bad over the years.

There is a longer list of words I like, but these will have to do for now. If someone was to ask me why exactly I like them, I cannot give an answer. Maybe it is the sound of these words or maybe it’s the legends attached to them. Whatever it is, I like these words. What’s your word?

Fifty - Not Just Another Post.

One of my shortcomings, among many others, is my inability to remember dates. More than once, I have been found guilty of forgetting an important birthday, an anniversary or something. The worst incident of this kind was when I forgot a friends birthday. He called me five times that day, and I never even got a hint of what was up. Finally, exasperated, he told me, himself, that it was his birthday. I could'nt have cut a sorrier figure.

So, it did not come as as a surprise to me when I realised that I had missed another important Birthday. My Blog's birthday. Poor thing couldn't even complain. It was when I was getting ready for this new post that something caught my attention. In one corner it read: 49 Posts. So Readers , friends and countrymen ( Pardon the exuberance...trying to make up for the forgotten birthday) this is the fiftieth post and it is going to be centred around the blog.

To begin, here is the first passage that was ever written on this blog:

Life always tries to teach you something. Every moment is a moment to learn something. Something that can help you do better at your chosen line of work or something that can help you live your life better.this blog is about two kids --one about 14 and the other about 12 years of age

Then these are these two posts that I am biased towards, just a bit. Though as a mother cant choose a favorite among her children, a Blogger can hardly choose a favorite among his posts. To him all his posts are best.

Why I dont get April Fooled?

Brutus and Sally.

Thats the past. I think, fifty posts in more than a year is not something to be very proud of. The pace on this blog has been slow. It needs to be speedied up a bit but who knows what the future holds? One can only wait and watch.

For those who would want to know, the blog was born in the month of may. The date...err...I forgot again.

Independence...

Independence is a word that is open to various interpretations. It is also a word that is used by all alike - young or old, male or female. But more often than not, it is used in a sense that seems to make it one's right - something that is there for the taking without needing to be earned first.

Most countries, today, have a day set out as their Independence Day. Every year this day is celebrated with great pomp and show and an increasing number of people take part in these celebrations, specially the youth. Now, there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is a great way to make people aware of the great deeds of the heroes of the war against foreign rule. What is a cause of worry is the absolute absence of these nationalist feelings on the other three hundred and sixty four days of the year.

Independence, for any country, was not won in a day. It was a result of years of strife, struggles and sacrifices. So, now, it is our turn to understand that freedom is not just a right, but also a responsibility both to our past and to our future. The pain that our forefathers suffered to attain freedom and pass it on to us should not be in vain and our sons and their sons to come should be given the same, if not a better, world that was handed to us.

To do that, it needs to be understood that today most of the world is free in the traditional sense. There are no foreign governments deciding what is best for the people and under that guise using the resources of a country for their own good. Yet we are not free. We have people from amongst us who are in positions of Power and use this power to further their own ends, instead of fulfilling the duties their office demands of them. But it’s not right to blame them because they are a part of us, one from among us. What, then, is wrong with the society that as soon as one of us gets into a position of Power he forgets what he was or is supposed to do and can think only of himself and his.

The root of the problem is in how the word freedom is interpreted today. Freedom is used as an excuse for behavior that is not acceptable and should not be acceptable. People do a lot of stuff and if questioned reply with a :

“This is a free country and everyone has a right to do what he wants to, without breaking the law.”

Freedom is not the right to do what you please but the authority to be able to decide for yourself what is best for you and what should be done so that this freedom is long lived. A free society, in the words of the great Rabindra Nath Tagore, would be a place : “ Where the heart is without fear and the head is held high…