Shri Keshari Nath Tripathi's poem - translated from hindi

Mother’s hem  (  Aayu Pankh- Maa Ka Aanchal - 1)

Dirty, poor , splendid , bright

Crumpled or furling wide

Whatever appearance

Makes no difference

She is mother

Her sari’s hem

How I long

To hide in them.

Lullabies lulled in its shade

Words all turned to charms

Warp and woof of life were made

In lap of affections warm

Where form and looks

Are meaningless

Mother’s lap, her sari’s hem

How I long

To sleep in them.

Her eyes become guides

As clouds of doubts gather

A wave of smile does ride

Lips of a happy mother

Tinkling sound the anklets

In the sweet dreams-

A Yashodas’s imagination-

How much I long to turn into bells

And to be, sheer

Tintinnabulation.

………….

Remembrance unawares( Yaad Tumhari Aayi no. 2)

Lonely was I whenever

Remembered you unaware

Named ‘Krishna’, the dusky me

Curly locks fondled lovingly

Tonsure, ear-pierce, lessons first

Celebrating rituals with bosomful love

Permeated the courtyard frolics

Quietly like Yamuna’s flow

    Of  kings and queens, cats, monkeys

    Tales of parrot, cuckoo, starling

    Sohar, chaiti, hori melodious

    Sang me lovely lullabies

    Gently stroking me to sleep

    Imparting a part of  her own.

Affection as vessel honeyful

Protection’s sheet impregnable

Effusion of sweet nectar fragrant

On face a smile radiant

Along with a stream of blessings

Flowed like Mandakini.

    Hot rays of summer Sun

    Sweating on the brow

    Amidst piercing winter’s cold

    Sending shivers down everyone

    The shelter of the hem comforting

    Her warmth invigorating.

Whenever disaster, calamities

Threatened life’s flow

Did not lose calmness

Fortitude only grew

Each moment of my life

Ceaselessly inspiring.

    How the days passed

    And how those nights

    Bitter seemed reprimands

    Conversations so sweet

    All my audacities

    To you were endearing.

Childhood haunts the psyche

So does the youth

How errant has been life

How mysterious the turns

Infused every wave and ripple

Of the sea of memory, chequered and supple.

                                     

                                     …………………………….

Let Us Return ( Aa Man Laut Chalen no. 3)

To the world of dolls

Let us return

Play games of strings

The cradle of dreams.

Effuse from lisping lips

Sea of love, innocence

Fondness sublime rejoice

Echoes around sweet voice

Love’s precept, life’s essence

Let us hold.

Singing, laughing every moment

Sweet, fragrant merriment

Collyrium eyed, attires pretty

‘Bindi’, adornments all day long

My doll never bare, to the days

Let us return.

Resolute moved as Ganges

Resounded not the sins

Non-existent ego’s commotion

The pure steam flowed on

My guileless doll weeps

To those moments return.

Resolutions get awashed

Vows are Ravan- faced

Search for Dashrath fails

Mirror-images change

Deep in doll’s eye-glasses

Let us all see.

Study again life-alphabets

Voices from inward pure

One tune and meaning one

Changeless every instant

Leave the false horizon

Hastily let us return.

Come of age and broken

Let built homes anew

Colour, warmth, truth affection

Settle all  inhabitants new

Venting our inner pain

Our heart’s door open.

Worldly heart dense, dark

Childhood, resplendent bright

Splendid glorious wonderful

Skyline of toys and dolls

Feathers countless them impart

Across the welkin dart.

To the world of dolls

Let us return my heart.

………….

A Handful of Sand (  Anjuli Bhar Ret- no 6 )

Sand handful, slips

Past the fingers.

Had filled the hand when

Forever had thought will remain

But was drawn a faint line

Somewhere between me and mine.

Within bone-cage did not stay

Against its essence, a moment

The feelings fade away

From relations and perceptions.

Earth’s spirit, a change continuous

If fog here, sun elsewhere

Kith, kin, hearth, riches allure

To creation’s custom oblivious.

That nothing is constant

In the game, was ignorant

Unsteady the kites fly in the blue

By its own string’s tugs break away a few.

When selfishness hums around

Amidst every inhabitation

What happens if some curse

Or others, their lips purse.

Light-strings have insects around

While ambitions feed on slime

Life continuously slipping past

Veins, arteries and time.

The sand handful, slips

Past the fingers.

……….

Some Remained ( Kuchh Rah Gayin no.25)

Life in a picture frame

paths many seen

walked are some

untrod some  remain

Carefully stacked

thoughts many

expressed some

some left unsaid

Seeking solutions

to geometrical forms

drew some

some left undrawn

Upon angle, the lines

square triangle

formed some

some left unjoined

Tottering life

is not a line

that some break

some unbroken remain.

…………..

Shavan-1 (Aayu Pankh no.28 )

On branches all

Swinging swings

Sway and swirl

Anklets bright

Sweetly tinkle

Swinging high

Lilting tunes

Blushing beauties

Newly wed

Nymphets pretty

Slumber steal

Reason delude

‘Shravan’ arrives.

…………

Savan -2 ( Aayu Pankh no 29)

Spirit gladsome

Walking blithely

Childlike twinkles

In the eye.

Delicate designs

Hennaed palms

Drops of rain

The radiant face

Searching all over

Intimate friends

Dancing steps

Soul delighted

Jingle, tinkle

Inmost chords

Being attire

Heart adorned

Welcomes all

Bedecked ‘rangoli’

Greenery, freshness

Mirth around

‘Shravan’ appears.

…………..

Welcome( Swagatam no. 30)

Anklets tinkle

bangles tingle

skip and spring

the happy doe

and drenching clouds

the hot summer caress

When lightening swift

pierces heaven’s heart

rings a stinging pain,

of a separation

and a remembrance

that fills with joyance

Imagination , a dancer

impatient for its love

the desire wanders

in heaven like a bird

and yearning does fill

every pore with a thrill

When beauty and grace

get definitions new

and lively gait ensnares

desire so numerous,

in the languor of ‘ Shravan’

pangs are so welcome

As rains drizzle,

and trickle

they whisper,

open my dear

let the sari’s border

fall from the shoulder

to dear love embrace.

………

A short journey ( Chhota Safar no. 38)

Lost in multitude

of my thoughts

in warp and woof

of questions caught.

Scratch, look

may find pain somewhere

search within

might a twitter hear.

Remembrance each

is not a milepost

waves eager , howsoever,

not on shores are lost.

Why pangs of yore

are turned within

not long in the journey

yet the feet get weary ?

………….

Self-chastisement ( Atma Nigraha – no. 40 Aayu Pankh)

                           Flying high, wings spread, thought I

                           Fruits of ‘kalpvriksha’ shall reap

                           These flights, consciousness of action,

                            Strategic struggles against destiny

                            With determination, action, blessings

                            Walk upon Sindhu’s rising waves.

                                     Forget earth below, some who fly high

                                     On ground lies the base, to it get oblivious

                                     On attaining heights, why take pride

                                      My humility, modesty shall pride nullify.

                                                        ……………………

Infinite( Anant no.41)

Freedom, a dream no more

creation the end no more.

Shackles of breath loosen

body’s frames soften

let’s make new betrothal

sing death’s epithalamium.

Beyond horizon shimmer’s sweet night

coursing on the lightening bright

all round a music eternal

qpen wide salvation’s portal.

None can see, we invisible remain

none can peek , be it hell or heaven.

………….

Consciousness ( Aabhaas- no.45 aayu pankh)

                                                 From hanging chandelier

                                                 The candle burns, melts

                                                 To drop, not on earth though

                                                 But, in the bowl below

                                                 Why does one suffer

                                                 Take pains for the other

                                                  Why does one keep

                                                  Tears that others weep.

                                                         Agony of burning

                                                         Melting of wax

                                                         When tears are streaming

                                                          Gathering the drops

                                                          In someone’s existence

                                                          When yielded is the self

                                                           Is felt within

                                                           A consciousness  intense.

                                                                   ………………………………………….

The soliloquy of an Indian housemaid

The link of the article is - http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/the-soliloquy-of-an-indian-housemaid/article5764868.ece

  The soliloquy of an Indian housemaid (published in Hindu 9-3-14)

Can someone be sent to jail for not paying a maid enough? It’s unbelievable. Not surprising that in every home I work I hear people condemning the incident. And just think the money maids are supposed to get there in America! About Rs. 575 per hour.

   Even one-tenth of that would be so sufficient for me. What life would it have been then, getting so much money, and more so working at only one place, not going from house to house, 365 days a year. Gosh!

  These Americans, they even have a system of contracts. And here the terms and conditions are settled by word of mouth. The wages, of course, depend on the number of persons in the family, the guests visiting them, the kids in the family, the number of rooms… The remuneration includes, besides the cash, the ‘tyohaari’ during Holi, Deepavali and other occasions.

    If it’s a country with such equity, I’m sure the maids in America can sit on the same chairs that family-members use. It is not only so humiliating sitting on the floor or on a discarded piece of furniture here, but so uncomfortable, particularly on very cold days. But we bear with it, without even a thought of protesting. We remind ourselves that ours is after all a country with feudal genes.

   Don’t some of them, even in these modern days, inquire about our caste before assigning us chores such as cooking and dish-washing? They have, however, no qualms about eating out in weddings and restaurants; just imagine!

   My son was reading in his book something about ‘we the people’, giving us equality of status and opportunity, and asked me its meaning. I told him I was not so well-read as he was, having had only elementary education. But my experience of life tells me that equality is always a relative term. Didn’t I hear one of my employers, that vakil saheb, telling someone the other day that it is in equal circumstances that there is a provision of equal treatment? 

   But at least we can have the very basic provisions. My mother was recounting those good old days when her family lived in the out-house of the saheb’s big bungalow. But these days, to work in these cramped apartments is such a trouble. Just think, I even avoid drinking too much water lest I have to search for places outside to relieve myself: the toilets in their houses are out of bounds for us.

   My mother’s times were certainly better. Residing in the same premises as the employer, she could manage and keep an eye on her house too. And here we are, leaving our homes early in the morning to return briefly at noon (some of my friends not even then) and then leave again to return past 10 p.m.

   Wonder how I would have managed had my daughter not been there to prepare meals for all of us and look after her siblings. Isn’t it good that she has taken to the tasks so well and so early? Remember, she is only 11. She is so good at art and sewing! I know she wants to be regular at school and take up some other work rather than being a domestic servant when she grows up. But then, can we afford it? Don’t I want it myself, to give the kids a better life than mine? Why else do I engage myself in this drudgery?

   And your employers — well some of them are good, no doubt, but how their visage changes when you ask for a day off! As if we or someone close to us doesn’t get unwell or we don’t have our own chores. Every working person has a day in a week off, but we can’t even think of it.

   They may splurge, but all hell breaks loose if we ask for a minor raise. I am not sure if it’s thriftiness, or just ego, that stops them from increasing our pay. Whatever it may be, don’t we also deserve a raise corresponding to the rise in living costs all over, and their incomes? They raised such a hullabaloo over that incident about this officer, but has a single word ever been uttered about the exploitation of domestic workers who migrate for work to other countries.

(published in the Hindu 9-3-14 open page )

   Leave that aside. Has anybody given a thought to those in our own country? If only somebody would!

We need campuses that inspire - Hindustan Times

We need campuses that inspire

Little would have been thought in 1869 by the initiators of the move to establish a college for a “better means of education” at Allahabad that it would become an imposing institution in its own right.Their efforts led to the founding of the Central College, which eventually developed into a university and it contributed ever since in the development of our nation. Its cosmopolitan spirit attracted students from all over to transform them by its alchemy. The great names that have been its products and have served the society at large in various capacities are far too many to be recounted. Every great name is only another addition to its halo of inspiration for the coming generation. This halo has been its biggest asset. 

What makes a university good or great? Is it its faculty, or its infrastructure, or the academics, or its excellence in extra-curricular activities, or the researches conducted by it? It is all these, but something more. It is its atmosphere to inspire. 

Allahabad University turned 126 years of age on September 23, 2013 but not a speech could be delivered leave alone festivities. 

Instead, screaming police sirens, slo g aneering students, and whimpering citizenry marked the milestone. Wordsworth’s lines (in a different context of course) come to mind to express the feelings – ‘Where is it now, the glory and the dream?’ 

University of Allahabad typifies the condition of our higher education. The QS World University Rankings published recently had miserable news for India’s education system. Around 11 Indian institutes featured in the top 800 of the global list with the highest-rank going to IIT Delhi which was placed 222 in the list. The fact is that our universities are plagued by many ills. 

The curricula of various disciplines do not allow for interfaces and have an exclusivist nature. The curriculum is not revised regularly and is divorced from the social milieu. It, therefore, fails to sensitise the students to the conditions of the world outside of their own. 

This malady has only deepened with the setting up of ‘deemed universities’ for narrow disciplines.
Though they may be excellent in the technical sense, the students of professional courses generally lack knowledge of society, economy, politics and culture. 

Universities have been failing to act as spaces where students emerging out of their adolescent worlds realize the existence, and the need to respect, the geo-cultural diversities. The standard of researches has nothing much to say of, particularly in humanities. In fact our academic environment is not conducive to indulging in research activities for the love of it. The setting up of many elite bodies exclusively for research is reducing universities to mere teaching and examining bodies. 

The universities are also facing a paucity of teachers, though academics is one of the best paid jobs. The reason is the non-academic ambience of the campuses which makes the best and brightest in the country choose other professions. 

The earning of a living, rather than learning and developing the art of living, has become the sole motive of our higher education. 

We are acting simply like cogs in the big machine of economy, a mere resource and, no wonder that even the controlling ministry is not called the ministry of education but, the ministry of human resources. 

On the bright side, our universities have been a precursor to many positive changes in the world of education and society.But we need to further this quality when the most felt loss is in the degeneration of values in the society at large. Developments in any sphere are useless if the value system is weak.As Tagore said in his essay ‘The Educational Mission of the Visva- Bharati’- “Great civilizations in the East as well as in the West have flourished in the past because they produced food for the spirit of man for all time; they tried to build their life upon the faith in the ideals, the faith which is creative.”Understanding the world and ourselves, through rigours of reinventing, re-examining and reconsidering, is the essence of a university.

We need to emphasise the perpetuity of these essential foundations- the immortal spirit of openness, inquiry and access that have defined and must continue to define our universities. We are terribly in need of campuses that inspire. 

• 24 Dec 2013
• Hindustan Times (Lucknow) 'Xpressions'

published in the book "Innovations in English Language Teaching: Voices from the Indian Classroom Z. N. Patil, Anindya Syam Choudhury and S. P. Patil (Eds.)"

NEED FOR INNOVATIONS IN THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH
-A Short Note...
The phenomenon of innovations in teaching of English is not new. Innovation is an intrinsic part of the dynamics of life. Language being the medium of expression in this ever-changing environment is also therefore always evolving. English, being the second-Language in India (as in almost all the countries who have had a colonial past) has been perhaps evolving faster than in the country of its origin, because of the dynamics of inter-relationship with the vernaculars. This change in the language perforce requires change in the process of teaching it.
Innovation, as suggested by the historian Carl Schorske, is the end result of two converging forces – the felt need and, new research. The last two decades in the history of this country have seen more changes in its socio-economic - technical environment than ever. Since a language affects and is affected by its environment, the English Language has had a fair share of effects on it.
This short note has no programmes of innovation to present because innovation is an ongoing process. It however tries to explore the environmental changes in last couple of decades which should prompt newer ways of teaching and, the kind of innovations required.
When we were school/college students (in the 1980's) our English teacher told us to regularly read newspaper and, listen to the AIR/Doordarshan English news if we were to improve our English. This, alas, is not possible now. The national dailies have little space for kids and adolescents. The language also at times lacks the perfection it once had (Jug Suraiya's 'Subverse' article –'Angrezi? Maro goli! – in The Times of India mentioned quite a few lapses found in the newspaper's language). The English on FM Radio and T.V. Channels is preposterous. For instance, I have failed to convince many a youngster that there is no such word as 'anyways', because for them Radio/T.V. jockeys are better guides. In this era of short texting via cell phones and social sites on the internet, the spellings of the most common words and grammar are so twisted and changed that reading them seems similar to reading a Chaucerian passage and, the abbreviations like reading Morse code. Often teens tend to hide their ignorance of their language behind the veil of designer English.
There is another aspect too. The children when they come to school now are not unfamiliar with many words of English as they were two decades back. Amidst the all pervading media the kids today are not insulated from the English language as they once were. The children in the urban areas get a more English Language environment as compared to those in the rural areas.
The post - liberalization and globalisation era also has had on impact on the English Language teaching. English is being learnt more for the sake of its utility in professional fields than for its own sake. The mushrooming of English speaking private coachings are testimony to it. Earlier the students in higher classes preferred studying English literature but now they chose English language. The veering of students from humanities stream in senior school is also a reason that makes them language impoverished. They are weak in their regional language too besides English.
The English teaching has to innovate itself in the changed scenario. Innovations are broadly of two types – imposed from the top through major policy shifts and the other at the level of the teacher in the classroom. An example of the former is that quite some time back English teaching began from class VI, later it was introduced in class III and now it is being taught from class I in the government schools in most of the States. The practice of Continuous and comprehensive evaluation is another example of it. The examples of the latter are umpteen and depend on the teacher and the taught.
For the innovation from the top to succeed it is essential that they are comprehensive and take into account all related factors. For example in the case of continuous and comprehensive evaluation system it is more necessary to design the curriculum, texts, supplementary reading materials, time-table and work-sheets/books and, the size of the classroom than a complicated chart to trace the childs progress. It is also necessary to reorient the teachers to the new method of evaluation. Bab Adamson ( Queensland University , Australia ) and Chris Davison ( University of Hong Kong , Hong Kong) in the article "Innovation in English language teaching in Hong Kong primary schools: One step forward, too step sideways?" (Prospect vol 18 No 1 April 2003) examine the success of task – based learning introduced in Hong Kong in the 1990s. They show the incongruence between the intended, resourced, implemented and experienced curriculum because of clashing teacher-student beliefs, pedagogical constraints, and unclear expectations. One major problem identified by them was that the task based learning was not grounded in local experiences and educational realities and was more an imported package from the West.
Major innovations from the top to be successful have to ensure that each of the key players – the curriculum developers, the text book writers, the teachers, the students (and their parents) and, the inspectors- along with the process, and not just the product, have been taken into account while framing the policy and they are constantly monitored, evaluated and supported.
The innovations by a teacher in a classroom has an individual orientation. As Robert Oliphant pointed out in his article (The locus of change: some notes an Innovation in English Teaching' (California English Journal V3 n2 Spr. 1967), -" the innovative process should begin at the point at which a need for change coincides with the means of satisfying that need. The English teacher can update his instructional approach by examining, on the one hand, the student's felt need for articulate expression and a sympathetic listener, and on the other, the researches in counseling, programmed instruction, and the human use of language."
Generic teaching is ineffective in a class. The teacher has to create special methods for special cases. He has to see that the student is not good merely at learning concepts – what is a noun, verb - but at applying them. He has to make the language seem so amicable that the student is not afraid of it. It is the teacher and his classroom-ambience which can make his student learn English as naturally and unobtrusively as his mother tongue. And for this he requires, more than training, a will to perform and a support from his environment comprising policy-makers, policy implementers and parents.
English is increasingly becoming a source of anxiety, paranoia and despair in a world scenario where those who have 'English' are separated from those who don't. Its teaching needs urgent attention. We need policy reforms to provide enabling environment for teachers to produce not mere English-literates but, English knowledgeable students. But, before the major reforms, it is essential to find out how many English teachers are there at various levels in school education, how many more are required, what are the major points of weaknesses in learning, what books are being used and, what evaluation techniques are commonly used. It is high time that the school –leavers do not leave with an English disadvantage which not only gets accentuated further in life, but also gets perpetuated in the generations learning from them.
Skand Shukla

Many a Hurdle on RTE Path

The link to the article - http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/many-a-hurdle-on-rte-path/article4684082.ece

The Right to Education (RTE) Act turned three on March 31, 2013. It is certainly a short period to examine its efficacy, yet it is enough to give us a fair idea of the hurdles that are being faced and have to be tackled to get positive results. Most of these hurdles are attitudinal.

The services of retired teachers are mostly sought for imparting “special training” to out-of-school children after which they are to mainstreamed in regular schools in their age-appropriate classes, according to Section 4 of the Act. These teachers are attuned to the routine teaching methods, while the “special training” teacher has to have a different attitude altogether. He has to be bias-free and sympathetic towards his pupils, which is difficult even in the regular schools as has been pointed out in the Public Report on Basic Education in India (PROBE) — “Discrimination against under-privileged groups is endemic, in several forms” (4.4).

Besides being equipped with suitable pedagogy, this teacher has to have a keen sense of adolescent psychology to tackle the hurdles of shyness and fear in the 12+ age group. The course for these ‘special-training teachers’ requires strengthening in this area.

A substantial section of students in regular rural government schools are first generation learners belonging to a weak economic background. The teachers, on the other hand, come from a relatively different background and therefore, many a time their behaviour is either patronising, or of indifference, or of a negative bias — anything but that of a friend and guide.

Cause for concern

In this scenario, the provisions of Section 12, providing for not less than 25% of the class strength of special category schools and unaided schools for students of the weaker sections and disadvantaged groups, become a cause for concern. Though it remains to be studied how students of the weaker/disadvantaged sections will psychologically cope with the upper economic class ambience of those schools where students from the very well-off families study, no effort has been made to orient the teachers to shed the subtle forms of discriminatory behaviour so that little children with a weaker economic background do not face a culture-shock or feel like misfits in the class.

Automatic promotion, a problem

Section 16, which bars failing a student, has been found to be irksome by many teachers. The surety of being promoted to the next class makes students lackadaisical towards studies at times. A teacher said that when she asked a student to be regular to class otherwise he won’t be able to learn anything and will have to sit in this class again next year, the boy replied, “Don’t try to frighten me, I know next year I will be promoted to class 7 whether I know anything or not.”

It is essential, therefore, to see that the intention of removing the fear of exams does not result in indifference to learning and breed stubbornness and indiscipline in students. Besides making the ‘Comprehensive and Continuous Evaluation’ more scientific and stringent, the curriculum and books development have to be seriously reviewed in this perspective.

Section 21 provides an important role to the community. The School Management Committee (SMC), consisting of a majority of parents and headed by one of them, is to monitor the working of the school, including its finances. A number of instances have been brought before this writer in which the SMC Adhyaksha has tried to use his local clout and the power conferred by the RTE Act to intimidate the teachers to go along with him in unfair financial acts. This only disturbs the academic atmosphere of the school and makes the teacher lose interest in his duty.

Many a time, the members of the SMC are not very eager to attend meetings as, for some, it is a sacrifice of one day’s earning. Thus, the burden of the SMC, at the end of the day, falls on the head teacher. It is so convenient for the authorities, too, to fix the responsibility of a work on him which ideally should be of the whole SMC.

The transfer of many powers exercised earlier by the Village Education Committee to the SMC has raised the hackles of the gram pradhan. Instances of false complaints against teachers and interference in the working of the school by the gram pradhan have become common. This situation will worsen when the SMC and the gram pradhan are of different political orientations.

Though the Act bars teachers from getting engaged in non-academic work other than census, elections and disaster relief, duties of a booth level officer, pulse-polio helper or, implementor of various schemes in the school and keeping their accounts do affect academic work. It also sometimes results in confrontation with the locals. This, along with poor pupil-teacher ratios and unscheduled long holidays (for instance due to the vagaries of the weather), makes provisions like ‘Academic Calendar’ (Section 9 m) a pious homily.

The schedule of ‘Forms and Standards’ annexed to the Act raises some questions. It prescribes the number of teachers on the basis of the strength of students and not classes/sections at the primary level. For instance, it prescribes four teachers for 120 students which, in effect, means that at least one teacher will have to do multigrade teaching. It will only get worse as the number of students falls.

The RTE blends the State’s responsibility of providing education with the community’s active participation in monitoring. Steps have to be devised to counter the negativities of community participation like caste bias, egos and financial corruption to make it a success and positive force. It is also essential that the training programmes focus on making teachers love their job, besides making them efficient. Road bumps are not something to be afraid of. They are, in fact, a testimony to the reality that we have started walking the path.

The mobile is the master

(Published in The Hindu 23-12-12 Open Page)

There is no doubt. The mobile is the master

Link - http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/there-is-no-doubt-the-mobile-is-the-master/article4229873.ece 

SKAND SHUKLA

  

It is so irritating. As soon as you start concentrating on an important work, it rings. However melodious or sacred the ringtone, the immediate thoughts are sacrilegious. You ignore it thinking you’ll call later, but it is persistent. The person at the other end is desperate to talk to you at that very moment; afraid like Browning — “Who knows but the world may end tonight?”

One has to have a yogic nonchalance to disregard it. Three continuous calls and forcing yourself out of obstinacy, you pick up the phone, only to hear the caller informing you of the latest insurance policy! You switch the damn thing off and, in a couple of hours, people start calling on phones of the family members to enquire if everything was all right and, finding it so, disapprove of the phone being switched off. They can’t bear to be denied the right to talk to you whenever they feel like.

Speaking is our national pastime and the ever-reducing call-rates have only given a fillip to this voluble nation. No wonder, distribution of free cellphones has become one of the most important issues for our welfare government.

Mobile telephony is only a decade and half old. We could only wonder in our teens if it was possible to walk and talk. Our first glimpses of the cellphone were during the Sharjah matches, where the Sheikhs and the rich and famous moved around talking in the stadium. We crammed its theory for the Science and Technology section of the General Studies paper in the Civil Services Exams. And then, in the late 1990s, it was here, in our part of the world.

It was a costly possession, though. Not only making but even taking a call cost money. The handsets were big like walkie-talkies. As the call rates lowered a bit, people vied with one another for it and queued for hours for the sim card. Brandishing more than one phone was the symbol of importance and, during conversations, people would try to insinuate somehow that they possessed a cellphone.

But times have changed and how! As the cellphones spread to the hoi polloi, divulging the number only to the select few or, sometimes, not even keeping one is slowly becoming the fad among the higher-ups in the social echelons. Even the instrument has changed so much. Far from being a mere talking and texting tool, the cellphone has replaced the watch, calculator, compass, camera, radio, play-station, the desktop computer ... On the basis of its features, the contraption being a phone seems only incidental; some phones are so advanced that coaching centres might be set up in future to teach how to use the instrument.

Cellphones have become intrinsic to our lives but also are a big nuisance. As an article in The New York Times pointed out, they are leading to “inattentional blindness”, i.e., people look at their surroundings as they talk on their cellphones but do not register their presence. The abbreviated language not only suits the byte limitation of texting but is also contributing its own bit to lessening our span of attention.

The CUG phone that government officials are given are not to be switched off. Of course, one does marvel at the growth of awareness of rights among our people when one has to receive calls about seemingly the most trivial issues at the most unearthly hours, but there are times when the complaint/demand is so frivolous that one is tempted to hide oneself in the deepest dungeon, away from all networks.

Once my phone used to ring about 2 a.m. every morning, but I could never answer the call as by the time I woke up and picked it up, the machine would go off. On getting reprimanded by the higher-ups that I did not attend to calls, I stayed awake that night.

The caller turned out to be an important political personality of the district who was holidaying in Australia. How angry he was for my not attending to his calls? How dare I be so indifferent to a jan-pratinidhi ? When my profuse apologies cooled him down he spoke about that ‘important’ work — a local club wanted to hold a cricket tournament and I was to be of all help to them!

Throughout my school days my report cards bore the sentence — ‘Very talkative in class,’ but cellphones have cured me of verbal diarrhoea; rather, the latest allergens.

Viral fever and regal solitude

(published in HT 'EXPRESSIONS SPACE' 16-11-12)

The mercury dipping towards normal in the thermometer did not gladden me. The last few days had been of enviable pleasure. I could lie in bed for as long as I liked. No alarms and missed calls rang early in the morning for the badminton courts.
  I was freed of my duty to get my five-year-old ready for school. Instead, I would ensconce myself on an armchair on my terrace which overlooks a lawn with flowering plants, bushes and a few trees.
Accompanied by mugs of hot tea, I was able to read the whole newspapers, down to the ‘tenders’ space; the only disturbance being the chirping of birds. I had all the time in the world.
  How luxurious it felt to be in total oblivion of the mundane world of everyday. I was dead to the hum-drum of the office, the never- ending complaints, the ominous files in which what is left unsaid in the ‘noting’ is of far greater relevance than what is expressly written.
  The obnoxious cellphone was mostly kept switchedoff and nobody complained. It was, however, occasionally switched on to read ‘get-well’ messages and to feel flattered by the enquiries made after my health.It’s so comforting to know that there are a few in this wide selfish world who do spare a thought for you.

  Yes, I was down with viral fever – the common one, not the one that has been in the news recently and which is so potent that it sends shivers down the whole neighborhood, along with the platelets in the patient.

Though this common fever does have its own set of troubles — painful throat, body ache and, a weak digestive system — at times it is welcome; perhaps because one gets all these symptoms nevertheless every evening by the time office hours are over.

   In our schooldays, it would give us a break from the dreariness of the school and, for office-goers it makes available a respite from the drudgery of the office.Those related to medicine for their living welcome its arrival for obvious reasons, but a friend recounted an interesting one related to his childhood spent in a small town of the 70s. In those times the sliced bread and glucose biscuits were a rare delicacy in mofussil towns and, since its partaking was invariably advised by the doctors during flu, its delectation made the kids desirous of getting a bout!
  In a couple of days I shall be taking up my responsibilities again.The slight weakness and cough will also be gone in another few days but, for long shall linger that indescribable feeling of comfort during the week I was down with flu rightly described as ‘ regal solitude’ by Charles Lamb.