Tag: inspiration

Tr for Teachers

Teacher’s Day

September 5th is Teacher’s Day in India. This year, I was wished by my parents and family, and I glowed with happiness. It really is a marvelous profession. The day is packed with things to do, and activities to finish, lessons to teach, and all the rest of it. But most importantly, it is filled with loving, energetic children who sometimes dance into the classroom, other times have to be coerced through a tough lesson with the promise of a treat at the end of it.

As my biological children were growing, I often heard complaints about teachers from my friends. How teachers weren’t doing enough, how their children were smart and were not being challenged enough etc etc. Having grown up in a school environment  and the child of teachers, it was interesting to see their perspectives. Like many of us do, the adults seem to have forgotten what we were capable of at every age, and the expectations from the children and teachers was especially high. We live in the Bay Area after all. A place notorious for its high expectations of its children.

But now. I am in a classroom all day long. I see what a hard job teachers are presented with everyday. There is a wide range of personalities, learning abilities, attitudes, quirks, and even motivations for coming to school. A child once confessed that the favorite part of their day was recess, and I smiled at that. How could I blame the child? After all, recess is the basis of culture, as I myself wrote. Every other place, they were being asked to do this and that. At recess, they did what they wanted. Bright sunshine, choice of playmates, choice of play, and more importantly no expectations of them. Of course they love recess! 

Nothing All Day!

I can feel their excitement seep through my ears – the cheers and moans at recess are of a particularly dramatic nature. There is drama too. The cheaters at 4-square, the one who refused to take their place in line, but that rarely walked into the classroom with the children. How can one not admire that?

Sometimes it did. Thorough investigations lead to root causes. So how is a teacher meant to juggle all of that, and ensure that the children feel sufficiently stimulated, develop good behaviors and keep the parents happy? After all, the parents think the children and the teachers happily do nothing all day.

For years, when asked about school, our conversations went like this:

“How was your day?”

Good

“What did you do?”

Nothing!

Never one to let things be, I’d prod.

Ask them about sharks-and-minnows, and their friends, they’d be eloquent, their vocabularies vibrant, and their passions evident. That too, is as it should be. Our learning is safe and steady. Our passions, dramatic and vivid. As parents, we get a tiny window into their day and it is hardly fair to form our opinions based on it. Yet, what choice do we have?

Whenever I asked about what they did learn in English, or Math, or Science, or Social Studies, the answers were hardly inspiring. I can imagine the same across millions of Bay Area homes. But our children learn to read, do math, read and analyze scientific articles, learn about community and history. The growth seems gradual, yes, but it is there, and in just a few years, it is phenomenal. A child who could barely read confidently picks up books for pleasure. A child who struggled to evenly split the pizza between his siblings does so seamlessly, and tells you strange facts about caterpillars when you’re least expecting it. 

The educational calendar reminds me more than ever of one of my friend’s favorite sayings: “We always over-estimate what we can do in one day and under-estimate what we can do in one year.”

I wish there was a way in which we could afford a better peek into their energetic days, but alas!

#TrForTeachers

My loving family in India sent me Happy Teacher’s Day wishes and I glowed all day. I had lost my voice teaching the previous week. But I still croaked to them excitedly and passionately about my children. The biological children rolled their eyes and said, “Ask Amma about her kids, and she doesn’t talk about us anymore. It is all about those 5th graders of hers!”

The parents laughed, and said, “It is what happens to teachers!”

My parents still receive wishes from their own students who are now adults. It always brightens their day, and they smile thinking of their days teaching.

“You aren’t just given happiness, you have to pick it up here and there all through the day.”

― Miss Read, Fresh from the Country

They told me that the Karnataka State government initiated a movement to give teachers the prefix, Tr (like doctors have Dr). What a marvelous idea?! I saw the campaign gain strength and the videos were inspiring and oh so loving. I wish the idea catches on. A simple idea, sure, but a powerful one. One of my professors in my teaching credential program also showed us video, and we all glowed. 

#TrForTeachers

Happy Teacher’s Day to all wonderful teachers.

The Joys of Student Teaching

This week I am with the children – a whole week in which we manage by ourselves. Me. With the children.

Trouble being heard? Or Trouble speaking?

I anticipated many problems. What I did not anticipate was losing my voice. The class has a microphone, it has a mike. In spite of all this, my voice was strained. I was croaking by the end of the day. Even the classroom Alexa refused to listen to me. I suppose my voice did not sound human at all. It was all very trying.

Classrooms are filled with technology – just like the rest of our lives. Something or the other malfunctions all the time providing for equal parts amusement, frustration, and a shared camaraderie as each of the children tries a different technique to get things going.

One time, the text-to-reader was not working. I know the children do not like listening to it either. They say it doesn’t sound like a real person. Which is fair. It does have a robotic monotone which I suppose is trying to fifth graders trying to not bounce around before recess. So, I started to read with that voice of mine.

One of the kids said, “Ms Bala, we can do popcorn reading!” I must’ve looked lost for they explained with the patience and indulgence they reserve for me, knowing I am a student teacher,  “We’ll each read a page.” And just like that, they showed me kindness and compassion without making a fuss. Or being asked to do so.

I really do love these children!

Dancing like Baboons or Flamingoes?

Just as I glowed in appreciation for them, they’d also try my patience by refusing to work out a hard math concept. I found myself coaxing and cajoling them to slide through the cubes to find the volume and surface area one morning.

“But we won’t even use this anywhere!” Whine.

“We did this all already! We filled out our answers!” Indignant.

“Not correctly! I checked your work. Most of you got it wrong. And I am so glad you brought up that it may never be used!” And I went on to tell them all the ways in which we use surface area to design products, or rooms, or cabin holds in flights, or medical instruments for that matter.

Only the promise of a dance video at the end of the lesson got them through the class. I shook my head as I watched imitate flamingoes or baboons in a dance video and moved away. But at the end of the lesson, two of them came up to me and said shyly, “Ms Bala – You really are a fun math teacher!”

I’d do the whole lesson again just for that. Don’t tell them that.

Oh the things you do!

Some days they behaved fabulously, and other days they were irritated with the fact that they were having to do work even though their main teacher was out. It was fascinating to watch.

Just as I’d admire how emotionally intelligent some of them were, I’d be faced with something like this:

“Ms Bala! He’s been saying that he’s going to take away my toys!”

“Which toys did you bring to school, Lysa?”

“I didn’t bring any toys!”

“So what can he take from you?”

I was reminded of P G Wodehouse’s quote about teachers:

“There is always something going on in a .. school. Beyond breaking up fights,…, inducing boys of all sizes not to throw stones, go on the wet grass, , tease the cat, make too much noise, …, swallow pencils, and drink ink because somebody bet them they wouldn’t, I had very little to do except teach mathematics,…,  play football, herd stragglers into meals… “

 

AIImagegeneratedbasedonthequotebyPGWodehouse:

I have James Patterson’s book, Thank You, Teachers, beaming at me from the bookshelf waiting to be read. I can already identify with it. Teachers really are as he describes it, “our last line of defense and our first line of hope.”

I am waiting to see the stories he has collected from teachers in the book.

I am full of tales every day, and I know now why there are so few teachers who are also mainstream writers. Life is so full in a classroom. It is filled with camaraderie, drama, and sweet moments that make you believe in humanity. But just like the children say “How was your day?”” Good!”” What did you do?” “Nothing!”  So it is with teachers.

You cherish the moments and prepare for the next class.

Imagination: An Instrument of Ethics

I was excited to discuss the first two stories of Exhalation by Ted Chiang in our book club that evening. So, when I had a few minutes to myself, I decided to write up the notes on Ted Chiang’s brilliant book.  I did not have the book with me, so I used AI to get me going. 

Human Intelligence Vs Artificial Intelligence

It is a book of short stories, and several times, I stopped to re-read the stories to make sense of them. A hidden clue, a brilliantly woven story somehow loops backs to some reference earlier in the story. Now, when AI was giving me salient points about the story, I did not remember reading any of that. It spoke eloquently of characters I did not remember, and with so much confidence! 

I had read these stories a while ago, so I still wrote down some of the things AI said, knowing fully well that it would have to be redone with human intelligence soon, faulty as it may be.

I came home, and skimmed through the stories and right enough, it had not even got the characters name right. I smiled at this almost-human folly, but the source of the error was not far to find. There wasn’t too much material on the book, and the blog post that it had relied on had it all muddled up.

I tucked it away in a corner as an example when I caution a class in the future. I also remembered a professor smiling at her own brilliance when she told us that her trick included a question that ChatGPT got wrong to see who had relied on AI instead of HI. 

For those of you who are looking at truly different ways in which to stretch your modes of understanding, Exhalation is a good place to start.

The themes and universes in which each of these stories is set is different, and still somehow manages to touch human experiences of empathy, trials, love, failure, revenge – all woven through the different ways in which time is measured. 

The Merchant & The Alchemist’s Gate

This one is a tale that has a very interesting narrative structure. A time portal and stories within stories. This is one of those tales where the nested tales create an interesting portal between the narrator, his stories, and the reader. Written clearly in simple language, the beauty lies in the subtle hints embedded in each level of narrative.  

These are apparently called Matryoshka structures as they are similar to russian nesting dolls in thematic. I am in awe of the technique and if anyone has recommendations on multiple levels, please let me know. For those wishing to try a short story to see if his writing appeals to you, this is a good story. 

Exhalation

The next story is also the title of the book. This story refers to an alternate universe in which the beings function on argon. The pressure differentials in the surrounding argon somehow seems to be the cause for their world to function as well as their own bodies. 

This was an interesting story to discuss as each of us had a different understanding of the story. The protagonist is able to perform ‘brain-surgery’ on himself to examine the workings of his mind, as he is trying to figure out why time is slowing down in their universe. I do not have a proper understanding of the link between time and the brain-surgery. But I think it has to do with the fact that time slowing down is a manifestation of their brains slowing down because of the reduced pressure of the argon surrounding them and not time itself slowing down. 

In any case, this story is one that when discussed in a good high school classroom moderated by a competent teacher is worth listening to. 

 

The remaining stories proceed in the same vein. One on free will, another on nurturing online pets and robots as a method to nurture connections, and so on. 

Just like AI can lead you down a wrong path when it is a path less-trodden, this book can lead you down paths forcing you to think of alternate worlds and realities in the confines of your mind.

Ursula Le Guin’s Essay on Science Fiction & Fantasy

I have been looking for several years for this essay by Ursula Le Guin on Science Fiction and Fantasy as a genre. It is not available online. I borrowed a copy of The Left Hand of Darkness in the Hainish Chronicles from the library, and there, as an introduction by the author, was this gem of the essay. There are times I wish I had an eidetic memory, and this was one of those times. 

This book, too, is determined to set us thinking of alternate modes of living, societal norms etc.

However, for those looking for a good essay online on Fantasy, here is one:

https://www.ursulakleguin.com/some-assumptions-about-fantasy

Imagination is the instrument of ethics. 

  • Ursula K Le Guin

Often, I find that is exactly what a good, thought-provoking piece of science-fiction does. It helps us examine where we land on certain issues – morality, reactions, acceptance, and therefore leads to ephemeral moments of examined living.

First Week Jitters

First Day Jitters

It was the first day of school. I had the First Day Jitters book read aloud to me by our professor, and was still as nervous as Ms Sarah.

All the advice from the children, fellow teachers, professors, aunts and parents who’d been teachers, friends and family rattling away merrily in my head.

Do I smile? Should I be friendly?

Strict? No nonsense?

If only the children knew! I felt like they were observing and wondering what to make of me.

Trying their luck?

I saw over the next few days how exactly they tried their luck.

“Can I sit there next to Joseph?”

“Why? What happened to your spot?”

Shrug.

“Usually no. But I’ll allow it today.” I said. I was telling the son all the ways in which they were asking me for this and that as I picked him up from his high school, and he drew in his breath sharply.

“Oooh! Rookie mistake Amma!”

I looked over at him puzzled.

“If they are asking you – they k-n-o-w it isn’t allowed! It’s why they aren’t asking the main teacher – because it will be shut down so quickly!” , he said zipping his hands through the air, and I blinked, and then laughed.

“You’re right. So initially, say no to everything?”

“Most things! You want them to like you too. And only for the first few days. After that, they’ll get used to getting directions from you.”, he said sounding sage-like.

It is true. Children are like that, aren’t they? I thought of all the little ways in which they settled in  with their new teachers.

  • They pushed in their chairs when they got up. Yes.Good Job.
  • They did that thing where they lean back on their chairs on two legs.No.We do not that. It is dangerous.

 

  • Thank you for listening.
  • People who do not listen are going to miss this.

 

  • Thank you for doing your classroom jobs.
  • Why didn’t you do your job?

The human spirit

I also saw plenty of things that warm the human spirit too. The kind of things that I hope we retain as we grow older. For instance, we played a small game to wrap up the day one day. The children partnered up with each other and played. It was a quick paced game based on reflexes and the children were quick to react.

“So how many of you didn’t win a single round?”, asked the teacher, and one of the children raised their hand. “Got to work on your reflexes buddy!” She said good-naturedly and moved on.

I watched the game with interest and smiled at the moans when they lost and the whoops of joy when they won.

At the end of the game, she asked the partners to agree on the winner between them and come for a quick treat of candy. One of the children who sat many desks away from the child who hadn’t won a single round walked around in the mayhem and shared his candy with him. No fanfare – just friendship.

The bond between them was laughter. They were able to see together the same absurdities and incongruities in things. The most trivial and unnoticeable thing to others would tickle them to death.”

R K Narayan – Swami & His Friends

I smiled the whole way home.

 

The Inner Self & The Outer Self

Our Inner & Outer Selves

I am sitting in a classroom, my heart bursting at the warm atmosphere. The teacher has given an activity in which they sketch their personality – their inner and outer selves. I do not remember doing something like this in school. But oh! What a wonderful activity?! I don’t think I actively thought about inner personality & outer personality the ways in which these children are taught to in as early as elementary school, and it is such a refreshing change. 

The past few months have been a completely different perspective on life than what has been playing out in the larger world and the dichotomy of being alive and welcome in a classroom seems so different from what is happening elsewhere. I cannot believe that hateful forces are at work outside our elementary classrooms. 

In all our teaching classes, we are taught ways in which we can embrace each child’s culture, make them feel like their perspective is welcome, and prepare them for the future.

The activities in our schools and with children seem so unifying and geared towards belonging. It is what the teachers are trained to do  – and they do it with competence, warmth and flair. The hum of work and chatter is a strangely comforting rhythm when monetary rewards are taken away from one. 

Teachers ask children their names – how they’d like to be called, and how they would like to respect each other, and maybe these are things that the children in adults have forgotten. But the children are marvelous teachers and I am grateful that I get to learn from them. The cheaters at four-square are not appreciated and a sense of fairness pervades the playgrounds. 

A Year to Learn About Ourselves

So what happens to all that as we grow? They vote ‘Be patient’ as a virtue to be upheld in the classroom almost universally. Yet, as adults, we seem to forget. 

The more I live life, the more I come back to the simple tenets in life. Every ten years, adults should be allowed the freedom and beautiful belonging that comes from an elementary school classroom. A year in which we are allowed to embrace art, music, dance, theatre, physical education, math, science, language and literature, history and geography with fresh perspectives, and equal fervor. 

“You aren’t just given happiness, you have to pick it up here and there all through the day.” 

― Miss Read, Fresh from the Country

Reinforce our faith in humanity through the finer things in life without expectation. Every decade. If I ever get to design a utopian society, this is just what I would do. A year in which all your worries drop at least for those few hours in the classroom.

K-Pop & Cultural References

“Would you like to explain your drawing to me?” I asked the children as they handed their drawing to me. Mild music floated around us, as the children stopped to show me what they had done. One child truly had done a fantastic job. “This, here are my favorite K-Pop albums.” she said, pointing to something that I had to squint at to decipher, while I drudged up the only K-Pop music I remembered. “Oh! The only one I know is Gangnam Style!” I said, looking sheepish. I really do need to get my cultural references in order. The other day, I told them the most recent movie I watched was Pride & Prejudice, and they gave me looks they reserved for their favorite dinosaur. It was true, but why didn’t I think of watching Spiderman the week before school started?

She gave me an indulgent look, and said, “Oh – that is good – but a little old. You can try Crazy by Le SSeraFim. ” She waited patiently as I wrote it down. I just watched it, and I can see why it appealed to her.  It is catchy with brilliant visuals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6B5gQXlB-0&list=RDn6B5gQXlB-0&start_radio=1

Another boy’s drawing was filled with baseball. I made a mental note to look up some baseball facts, remembering the famous Leslie Vs Recht Baseball Study on learning cognition.

I had this sudden gratitude that here I was surrounded by 30 different personalities, and I knew not what I would learn from them as I taught my way through the curriculum. The hour of art had done marvels for us all. Teachers and students alike emerged happy and refreshed from the exercise, and I smiled in thanks.

Pinecones & the Secrets of the Universe

I was in a class in which we were learning how to teach art. This class was particularly fascinating for me. For the class had a very hands-on make-your-art-while-learning approach to it. One session we learnt free-play, another session: elements of music. One time we all went downstairs and broke off into small groups choreographing dance routines with little themes. Birds in a storm, ritual-rhythm-like movements, a morning routine etc. Teaching through drama, poetry (this is where I learnt about black-out poetry), and one time we learnt how to extract pine nuts from a pinecone. 

The Secrets of the Universe

There are many reasons that I loved that particular activity. I have always loved pinecones. There is something about them. Like it is hiding all the layers and secrets of life itself inside that protective cone. I thought if I could ever design a home for myself, it would be like living inside a pine cone hanging off a handsome, bounteous pine tree, swaying in the breeze, holding my own in the storm, and gently lulling fellow living beings to a peaceful state as they rest under my boughs. 

Of course, human-beings are never as accomplished as all that, and instead, I spent many wonderful evenings gazing lovingly at the pine trees nearby. Watching a pine cone drop from the boughs above, trying to pry it open to see  what lies inside. 

I was reminded of Hope Jahren’s book, Lab Girl while musing about the pine cones.

In the book, Dr Jahren writes about the science and its demands on its lovers. Her writing is lyrical, and when she writes of her research and her little moments of leap, it is nothing short of poetic. For instance, she writes of the time she was studying the structural makeup of the seeds of hackberry trees, and she unmistakably finds traces of Opal in the seeds:

“It was opal and this was something I could draw a circle around and testify to as being true. While looking at the graph, I thought about how I now knew something for certain that only an hour ago had been an absolute unknown, and I slowly began to appreciate how my life had just changed.

I was the only person in an infinite exploding universe who knew that this powder was made of opal. In a wide, wide world full of unimaginable numbers of people, I was – in addition to being small and insufficient—special. I was not only a quirky bundle of genes, but I was also unique existentially because of the tiny detail that I knew about Creation,…Until I phoned someone, the concrete knowledge that opal was the mineral that fortified each seed on each hackberry tree was mine alone.”

Not that we learnt anything that was ours alone during that lesson with pinecones, but it felt just as special. Like the pinecones were divulging the little secrets of the universe to us, to hold carefully and pass on.

Pine nuts are nuts!

It was a fascinating experience to see how pine nuts were extracted from the pinecone. The pine cones do not open wherever they please. It has to be under certain temperatures and even then, it is a tricky business. Once the pine nuts can be extracted, it isn’t a simple task to extract the flesh within them which is the edible part of the whole thing. 

So we sat there polishing the nuts against sandpaper chatting amiably with each other on how much effort it takes. I could very well imagine this being a community-building, all-the-aunts-and-grandmas-singing-together kind of activity. 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/N1OeoaHGeLM

Of course, now there are mechanical shakers and crushers to do some of the work. But still, the process remains an expensive, labor-intensive process. Pine nuts are expensive – “Pine nuts are nuts!”

By the end of extracting the flesh from within the nuts though,I had a renewed sense of appreciation for the expensive packets in stores. 

I sat there one evening gazing up at the tree and saw the squirrels in the neighborhood loosen a pine cone from the tree. It fell with a soft thud upon the grass below. A single pine cone in a suburban lawn. Holding the secrets of the universe or at least the universes of pine trees in them.

Literary Conversations

I was talking to a friend recently.

“Are you driving?” She said, astute as ever. I smiled to myself in the car. She had me there. She knew from the relaxed way in which I was carrying on the conversation that I must have time and not flibberty-gibbeting around like I usually do.

“Yes!” I confessed – the sheepish feeling in my heart oozing into my voice, and she laughed.

“In that case we can talk about books!”, she said, and my heart warmed toward her. Bless her.

I told her about a book that I read recently:

The Care & Management of Lies – By Jacqueline Winspear

The tone of the writing on Jacqueline Winspear is somewhat similar to Miss Read (one of my favorite authors) – full of warmth and everyday practicality. Winspear was introduced to me by one of my son’s teachers, and I enjoyed this book more than her more famous series based on Maisie Dobbs, the detective. 

The main character, Kezzie’s treatment of food preparation borders on irreverent and artsy enough to be charming, though the food recipes do get to be a bit much towards the end.

I identified with the young bride Kezzie married to a farmer, Tom, with these short lines:

“They were in the first flush of marriage, and this was another source of fascination for the young husband, that this wife of his had no attachment to her prowess as a cook. She didn’t seem to care that pastry might be underdone, meat overdone, that bread was too doughy in the crumb, too hard on the crust, or that the men looked at their eggs and bacon and then at each other every morning. She seemed like a sprite assigned to a factory job, flitting from stove to table, then out to the kitchen garden, cutting rosemary to garnish an egg on toast-and not one of the farmworkers had ever seen garnish, nor would the word be part of their vocabulary.”

How could I not? Kezzie’s flair for the artistic, and the unconventional had me smiling. After all, I share the same sentiment towards cooking even after all these years. When I say things like, “No need to make a big deal – I’ll figure something for dinner.” I can see the looks being exchanged as though this means starving the family. It doesn’t. The family is well-fed. Ask the weighing scale. It just means, I will not think about it when I am looking for the deer shaped cloud with the sun peeping out from its antlers.

In turn, she told me about a similarly warm-toned book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I look forward to reading it. That got us talking about how the same things that life has to offer can be written in bleak ways, or in uplifting ways. After all, the book I had just read was set in The First World War, and the whole world was buffeted by its ill-effects. It isn’t fairy-tale material. It isn’t bedtime reading material. And yet, somehow the sentiment of the book felt welcoming.

On the other hand, Grapes of Wrath – By John Steinbeck had me moping for days afterward. Good writing – but bleak in outlook.

We spoke of this and that, and hung up.

Relatable optimism?

So, what is it that makes the tone of a story appealing to you? Plenty of people like Steinbeck & Dostoevsky. I do too. Just not for comfort reading. The same sentiment seems to rule my entertainment options. Life is hard enough – I don’t need my entertainment to be the same. Maybe that is the reason sitcoms are so popular with society.

Could it relatable optimism and a familiar feeling of laughter and comfort at the end of the day?

Related: https://nourishncherish.org/2012/07/25/slimy-brazil-sprout-rice-recipe/

Yoga Audiences

We were doing yoga on the lawn. It isn’t too much to say that we were being spoiled by the hot summer days and a generous neighbor with a fantastic backyard. It felt luxurious even if the rest of the day did not feel that way.

Lawn yoga is a source of great joy to birds, squirrels and cats in the neighborhood too. Today, it was the crows and blue jays who provided us with entertainment. Or at least they provided us with as much entertainment as we provided them. I could almost see the crow’s smirk at our crow pose and pigeon pose.

The Bird’s Eye View

The blue jays were more vociferous in their appreciation, or maybe it was their fight for the tallest bough in the trees. They both seemed territorial for the perch, and I wondered not for the first time, how it must be to fly and select a tree upon which to alight and take in the world.

If ever there was a meditative pursuit there’s one. I would love to flit and perch on a tree, taking in the sights of my fellow beings doing yoga on the grass below.

The cats, crows and blue jays seem to have understood the essence of living far better than we did, however, and for the whole hour, that we stretched and pulled our muscles, they did their own set of stretching their wings and paws with ease, a smile in their easy postures, and a certain earnest interest in the abilities of human-beings.

The cats are an especially discerning audience. They seem to raise one eye if you get the cat pose wrong, and show you how to do the down-dog pose without trying.

Strangely Un-extraordinary Creatures

It had been an interesting, if somewhat tiring day. I was up to my neck with deadlines, and I felt a certain helpless anxiety pervading the system, as I headed out to do my yoga. After an hour of stretching this-and-that, and more importantly watching my fellow creatures stretch this-and-that, I was filled with amusement, and strangely a sense of hope.

After all, if we could find a way to muddle along on this planet, when our capabilities are not extraordinary compared to our fellow creatures, we could figure out deadlines couldn’t we?

Yoga itself, I mused as I made my way back to my duties, was a result of human-kind trying their best to fit into the natural world around them. It is an art to remind us that we are more than our task-lists, accomplishments, and capabilities, and no more than simple breathing creatures who must learn to use their bodies to the best of our abilities and settle into the world around us.

The cat brushed against my legs – a rare act of acknowledgement, as it usually acted like it was the queen, and I was a peasant hoping for a favor.  I bent down to pat her, and she allowed me to do so. I must’ve done my cat pose well today.

The Stars Shine On

It was the 4th of July. The 250th anniversary. While the younger ones braved the crowds and went to the city to watch fireworks, we stayed away from the crowds and went to see the fireworks nearby in the residential neighborhoods instead.

We were high spirited after a fantastic dinner topped with ice-cream – sugar high as it were. That’s why you may or may not have found us slightly dizzy chanting the Pledge of Allegiance as the stars shone down on us – maybe from the fluttering flag or the skies above. Who knows?

We found a beautiful park after driving around looking for fireworks . It turned out to be one of those places folks like to give fancy names like ‘Cultural icon’.

Zoetropes 

The son keeps talking about zoetropes. I never knew what they were. “They are cool!” I agreed after he showed me what zoetropes were. Much like kaleidoscopes – tricky to get right and innately interesting once you do.

The son has always liked animation, so he has been babbling on about the zoetropes for a while now. I suspect it has to do with the ice cream store nearby, rather than the zoetropes themselves. Nevertheless, we were properly enthused after an evening admiring fireworks from the distance (fireworks aren’t allowed in our city, but the neighboring city goes nuts every year, and we get to watch).

Fireworks always brings the magic or the yearning for magic in us. So, we went looking for the zoetropes – animated films captured magic, didn’t they? After all, this was one of 1st places in which Hollywood would’ve been had it not been for the city of angels taking it on instead. We spun the zoetropes admiring the initial attempts at animation.

Really, human beings are marvelous; I don’t know whether any other species writes draws and paints the way we do! I thought of all the beautiful murals on buildings in San Francisco, so many underground passes and bridges with graffiti on them (aspiring to be art in some cases, but good in other cases).

After an evening of popping and flashing fireworks, and a set of spinning zoetropes, I felt a little dizzy, and steadied myself looking up at the stars.

The Stars Shine Down

It was a beautiful evening. The stars do shine down with an exaggerated brilliance after the artificial brilliance of the fireworks, don’t they? The spinning must be the zoetrope-effect, but it made for a Starry Night feeling.

After some time, we bought our gaze down towards the American flag fluttering in the breeze and felt a sense that in time all will be well. We just need to keep the magic of life alive. The stars shine on. The flag flutters on. America goes on. 

It was time to chant the Pledge of Allegiance and we did just that. Beautiful evenings come in various forms. As we headed home afterwards – flushed with fireworks, zinging after the zoetropes, spinning stars, fluttering flags etc, we were filled with hope. 

Equal opportunity mispronunciations

I was attending a graduation ceremony in the USA and wondering how they managed to get so many of the names mispronounced. In fact, at that point, more than 3/4th of the names were mispronounced in one way or the other. Latin American names, Indian names, Chinese names, Jewish names, African American names, Greek names, Arabic names—everyone’s names were equally butchered. Equal-opportunity mispronunciations.

The world, whether we like it or acknowledge it, has become more global in its make-up than it has ever been. So, learning how to say each other’s name, is more important than ever. For that, learning the importance of one’s name is quite as important, isn’t it?

Sitting outdoors on that sunny afternoon,  I reflected on Suma Subramaniam’s book, My Name is as Long as a River.

My Name is as Long as a River By: Suma Subramanian

Suma Subramaniam writes about South Indian life, and is a member of the WNDB (We Need Diverse Books) initiative.

This particular book is especially relevant as there are many children with long names in schools these days.

In the book, the child is named after the river Kaveri. In fact her full name is: Kaveri Thanjavur Jayalakshmi Ganesan.

Kaveri : the name of the river she is named after. A beautiful river in South India, it is the harbinger of prosperity in the South. The rice fields, temple towns, and estuaries are the centres of culture and history millennia old. The Kaveri river waters literally help feed millions of people.

Kaveri is embarrassed by her long name in the USA, and has shortened it to Kav because it is consistently mispronounced, but after visiting her grandmother along the banks of the river Kaveri, she learns the significance of her beautiful name.

“Ganesan is my father.

Jayalakshmi is my mother.

Thanjavur is where I was born.

Kaveri is who I am.

My name is: Kaveri Thanjavur Jayalakshmi Ganesan.”

Tara Anand’s illustrations combined with Suma Subramaniam’s writing makes it a truly wonderful book, and one I think many teachers will love to use in their diverse classrooms.

What’s in a name?

For a person whose name is as long as a river, I loved the book. I know that the daughter has shortened her name with a beautiful Tamil meaning to mean something ‘brave and bold’ in Irish. I have a Starbucks-name, a more lilting explanation for those who are in the mood to try a few Hawaiian excursions into the language if they really want to pronounce my name, and so on.

I‘ve often asked children to help me understand the significance, meaning and cultural importance of their names. There are so many origins of names – some religious, some mythical, some nature-based, some philosophical references: the list is truly as varied as the names themselves.

It is curious how willingly they answer this question when younger, and then seem to almost drift away as teens for the same question. Like they would all just love to be called the same thing: wall, plant, brick. I understand it, wanting to blend in is an innate characteristic (Be a Roman in Rome & all that – the adage didn’t start yesterday did it?)

At some point in early adulthood though, the innate need to return to your unique name, hopefully, kicks in.

The magic of names

My thoughts drifted to Ursula K Le Guin, whose writings, if I remember correctly, also had a lot of interesting names. Naming was important to her. It set the place, the setting, even the story forward. How easily we can imagine an island kingdom, separate from a desert oasis town, or a hillside rural area by the names alone?

Now, pluck all these characters and have them live together in a university, and the resulting entertainment from the names is enough to tide guests through a whole afternoon.

“To weave the magic of a thing, you see, one must find its true name out… for there is great power, and great peril, in a name.” — A Wizard of Earthsea

In a non-fiction essay , Ursula Le Guin talks about the responsibility of choosing names. 

“To make up a name of a person or a place is to open the way to the world of languages the name belongs to. It’s a gate to Elsewhere.” – Ursula K Le Guin

J K Rowling’s Harry Potter series has so many interesting names, and etymologies once you get past the story, and actually delve into the details. The first time I realized Sirius & Remus names with respect to their alter-ego/animagus forms, I felt a jolt of pleasure.

Mythologies the world over have fantastic names for their characters. What is in a name then? Is it’s meaning important? Is there a specific magic to what we have been named? Is it linked to something greater or is it just a name?

The first sounds to which we respond uniquely.

What does your name mean to you? I’d love to know.