Tag: Miss Read

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.

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.

 

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/

Buddha & The Doves in Love

Where miniature buddhas take a deep breath

It was one of those quiet week-end mornings. I was cooking. I had not yet switched on any music. Just cooking.

I glanced out of the bay window in my kitchen for a moment, and couldn’t help smiling.  The buddha statue in the backyard is always a serene sight for those wishing for a quiet moment. It is doubly so in spring and early summer. The little statue is surrounded by sweet smelling star jasmine, making it look like a spot where miniature buddhas take a deep breath. 

That particular morning – there were two doves feeding each other. Probably fruit from the trees nearby. It was the most heart warming sight. 

Do we notice the quiet moments only in contrast to something else?

Usually, when I notice moments like this, it is in contrast to the busy things going on in my life just then. I’ve always wondered whether I appreciate moments like these because of the contrast. But this time, it was different. I had a slow morning. I got up in a leisurely manner with neither alarm nor sunrise giving me the slightest nudge. I was feeling well rested, and savored my coffee as I pottered around the kitchen prepping for the cooking. 

The birds were having an equally relaxed loving morning by the looks of it. It did not even occur to me to get my phone and take a picture till they had started to flit away from each other. 

I remembered a passage from one of Miss Read’s books, Village Diary by Miss Read ,  in which she noticed the starlings as she was going about her domestic tasks.

The Secret To Blooming Like a Flower

Quote:

As I ironed, I amused myself by watching a starling at the edge of the garden bed. He was busy detaching the petals from an anemone…

This short scene, I thought as I pressed handkerchiefs, is typical of the richness that surrounds the country dweller and which contributes to his well-being. As he works, he sees about him other ways of life being pursued at their tempo – not only animal life, but that of crops and trees, of flowers and insects – all set within the greater cycle of the four seasons. It has a therapeutic value, this awareness of myriad forms and the varied pace of other lives.

Doves in Love

The sweet interlude of the doves in love done with, I started cooking. The pace and labor of human food preparation is always so much more frenzied and complicated.

I glanced at the Buddha statue nestling amidst the star jasmines, and found his sweet contented smile still in place, like he remembered the doves playing around him that morning.

Exploring Gardening Philosophy: The Joys of Deadheading

“Huh?! Who knew deadheading flowers was a thing?” I said.  I was reading a Miss Read book for the n-th time, and came across the phrase as she took charge of her new garden in the fictional village of Beech Green. I had read the book enough times, but somehow, this time, her thoughts on the flowers in the garden drew my attention. Maybe because I was enjoying the flowers in the gardens myself.

“Do you think I should try that? To get some better blooms in our garden?” I said to the husband. He muttered something which I took to mean yes, and started snoring to avoid further plant-based rants or ramblings. If I didn’t know better, I’d have prodded the man, but I know he literally can sleep, and snore, midway through a sentence that he was speaking.

So, I set about deadheading the little yellow roses off my little shrub that refuses to grow beyond a certain point. After that, I walked around with a pair of scissors and shears, properly and improperly deadheading flowers in and around the garden. Some variety of aster or phlox or daisies did not take kindly to this, and remain sticks pointing out. I think they sometimes give me severe looks when I step out. Roses are more forgiving for all their thorns. The chamomiles are conferring amongst themselves and deciding to see how much of a menace I can be with my garden shears. 

I muse about Ray Bradbury’s quote on gardening in the book, Dandelion Wine, as I flit about on my own in the evenings. The long days give me ample time before sunset. 

Gardening is the best excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are. Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is akin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder.

-Ray Bradbury

These are summertime joys. California is full of flowers in the summer. Even as the sun beats down on your head, you can’t help enjoying the blooms. The huge angel’s trumpet flowers, the large hibiscus and magnolias, or the smaller chamomiles, and aster, they all attract your attention. There is one garden that boasts of all colors and varieties of hydrangeas. I love them. 

So, I bought a beautiful light pink hydrangea after a friend told me they need shade and grow very well. I spent the last few weeks deadheading the hydrangea, and resuscitating the poor plant after it almost died. I did everything the friendly fellow at the store told me to do. Sigh.

It makes me wonder every time I pass by a good garden. Because while I enjoy a good garden, I had thus far strayed from gardening shears and gardening experiments. Now, I have a new respect for Earth magicians. How do they coax the beautiful bounty from the Earth?

 “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”

– Buddha (apparently!)

If anyone has bright ideas on easy flowers that grow in pots or in tough soil, please let me know in the comments section. I saw a cheeky post on the internet the other day and drew solace from it. “You are enough!” it said, “That plant should have tried harder!”

Also, does anyone if the philosophers mentioned in the post were also good gardeners? I hope not!

The Joys & Jams of Plum Picking

Feeling Plum?

“Go on! Ask me How I am feeling.”

Eye roll.

“Just ask.”

“Fine! How are you feeling?”

“Plum!”

Then I laughed, and the children exchanged concerned glances at each other. Completely lost on them, of course. So, I set about explaining Plum minutiae to a mildly uninterested audience.

I have been thinking of P G Wodehouse during plummy times. (P G Wodehouse was called Plum by his close friends and family)

I have been thinking of little passages from Miss Read’s books as she wrote about making jams and chutneys for bazaars from the excessive plums and marrows during summertime.

How lucky country children are in these natural delights that lie ready to their hand! Every season and every plant offers changing joys. As they meander along the lane that leads to our school all kinds of natural toys present themselves for their diversion.

– Miss Read

I told the children about eating so many berries as children in the countryside in the Nilgiris, it made us slightly sick.  But, I also told them about how it was the most fulfilling thing in the world, and they rolled their eyes again.

An Excess of Plums

You see? We are having an excess of plums.

Some days I would gaze up at the branches – grateful for the bounty. Other days, I would step into a mushy one that plopped into my path and spattered and mutter to myself. Plum season is upon us, and nobody is spared. Neighbors, gardeners, cleaners, household helpers, friends, family. Everybody is gifted with plums. 

I stood one evening determined to make the best of the plum bounty, and set about making batches of plum pickle, plum jam, plum chutney, and plum juice. I also might’ve eaten a few plums. It was beautiful. The evening light was streaming in through the kitchen bay windows bathing all the world in a luminous glow. The plums were freely squirting their juices into the stovetops, the floors, the kitchen counters, my clothes, and the children stood around helplessly in the melee. 

“Amma – you’re going cuckoo! Can’t you just leave the plums?!”

I gasped for dramatic measure and said that prudent folks saved the excess. 

“Another 10 have fallen from the tree since you came in ½ an hour ago. Let it go!” said the daughter. Seeing that lunatic obstinate look on my face, she decided that the best thing to do was to leave me alone and took mocking videos of me instead.

I sorely regretted this plummy splash of enthusiasm a few hours later. I had sticky juice everywhere, a jar of jam, a jar of pickle and two bottles of sour juice. But I also had the back-breaking task of cleaning up the kitchen. The mops ran red, the washcloths turned pink, the tissues soaked and cleaned like they had never done before, and yet the kitchen was nowhere close to done.

I tell you. 

Black & Blue & Plum

The next day, I plucked and picked more plums and gave them to my friends. “Err…it’s okay! I have some!” they said.

“Oh! Sure – that’s nice. Don’t worry – I’ll walk over and give them to you.” I said smartly, putting the phone down before they could say no, and walked over.

“Would you like some blackberries?” said one of them, and I beamed at her. 

“Oooh! That’d be a nice change of pace from plums!” I said, and set about picking the blackberries and popping them in the mouth. The friend peeked into the bag and said, “Plums might make a change from blackberries!”

We looked at each other – lips stained with blackberry and plum juice and started laughing so hard, it was hard to stop. 

I’d call that a fruitful week-end, wouldn’t you?

Finding Calm Amidst the Chaos of Life

May seemed to me an especially fast merry-go-round. The spinning was fun, the laughter for all those involved loud, and the merriment infectious. But as June came around, I had the feeling of being dizzy without the fun bits. The world still seemed to be spinning, but the merry-go-round had stopped. Life had resumed. Normal life had resumed, I mean. 

One rare afternoon, I sat trying to soak in the quiet of the evening, and felt strange. I usually relish these moments of solitude. I reached for my books, and found that the mind and body were racing far too much for quiet contemplation. Even though the book I had in my hand was a perfectly good one on Writing, exhorting me to pay attention to the following aspects of life (Attention, Wonder, Vision, Surprise, Play, Vulnerability,  Restlessness, Connection, Tenacity, Hope), I could not slow down enough to take it all in. 

I gave in to the impulse of watching Instagram reels, and got a ridiculous song stuck in my head, I went into Facebook, and scrolled – joyless and felt more drained by the end of it. That is when I knew that what I needed to get back to a slower pace of activity was to reach for a tried-and-tested book: Changes in Fairacre – By Miss Read. I took a deep breath as I entered the village of Fairacre.

For some folks, music does the magic. The mother-in-law said she listened to Amaidhiyaana Nadhiyinilae Odum – a tamil song whose lyrics evokes the imagery of a smooth flowing river and all its associated imagery. I can see how that can be a calming influence on the senses. 

For Yours Truly, it was a Fairacre book, By Miss Read. The slow and endearing life a village school mistress leads, is therapeutic. Maybe it takes me back to the idyllic times of my own childhood – growing up in a small village community, where both my parents were school teachers. The imagery she evokes of the beautiful countryside makes you think of the maxim: 

Nature never hurries and yet accomplishes everything – Lao Tzu.

Nevertheless, that evening when my restless legs stepped out for a walk, I forced myself to slow down, to feel the breeze, to look at the rays of sunshine shining like little sparkling diamond strings through the evening air. The smell of sage and lavender crushed in my palms like a beautiful balm for the soul. 

It helped but it still took some time. For those of us who refuse to do the hard work of trying to still our senses and the world around us, the merry-go-round can keep going. That night I thought of Miss Read’s observations on modern children (her books were written a good 30 years ago, but it seems truer today than ever before) 

“What I do feel that the modern child lacks, when compared with the earlier generation, is concentration, and the sheer dogged grit to carry a long job through.”

― Miss Read, Village Diary: A Novel

Truly chastened, I settled in with a mellow light throwing a comforting gleam on my bedside table, took a deep breath, and immersed myself as best as I could in village life. Sturdy, slow, and reassuring.

A Lament for Short Stories

Give me short stories over real news or fake news any day

The clouds are wondering whether or not to drizzle. It is the perfect weather for musing and meandering thoughts.

I wonder how I meander to the thoughts on short stories – maybe a recent conversation. But I feel the short story is one of the most poignant losses of literary fiction. As children, magazines were filled with short stories and the thrill of finding a short piece contained in and of itself providing the nourishment of the soul was brilliant. What happened to short stories these days?

Give me short stories over real news or fake news any day. Please.

Stories in their natural length: stream, or rivulet, or tributary, or river

I’ve read stories stuffed into tweets – threatening to spill over, and bulging in all the wrong places.

And Then.

I’ve read stories watered down and stretched into novels. The original essence there, somewhere perhaps, but too watered down like homeopathic medicine.

What I’d like is a story – at its length. No fluff. No dilution. Just essence.

If a story is meant to dance and spurt joyously like a stream, let it. If it settles in, and flows like a river, let it. If it is a tributary and wants to join the main river, let it. If it is vast and encompasses depth adn breadth and expands into an ocean, let it.

Kindle Singles came up with the idea – I wonder what happened to it. They fizzled out.

There are anthologies – but they are few.

Reading the first half of The Overstory by Richard Powers made me yearn for short stories again. I think it is time to revisit Golf stories by P G Wodehouse or a little visit to Malgudi to reacquaint myself with all the characters. Tales from a Village School would be welcome too, wouldn’t it? Miss Clare Remembers is a wonderful book of short stories all woven around the fallen giant – the elegant, thin, straight-backed kind teacher, Dolly Clare.

Give me short stories when my attention is wandering. Enough to keep me stimulated, and wanting more.

Recommendations Please

Are we losing another art-form altogether? What would Somerset Maugham say, what would Alice Munro say? I remember the thrill of liking an author’s story, and then finding a whole book written by them. How marvelous it would be to crack open any magazine and find short stories there?

If you do read short stories, which magazines do you get your source from? Apart from The New Yorker I mean.

P.S: I have written a collection of short stories of my own too – both singles & themed collections. Written to its natural length, and savored from time to time by Yours Truly, but otherwise waiting – wondering where they can be published. So, if you have any recommendations of publications for short stories, please let me know.

Books – The Truest Brilliance of Humankind Captured

One of the most pleasurable tasks in December for me is to go back and wander over my reading lists for the past year. It is always a source of pleasure, and sets the intent and purpose for the year ahead at the same time.

Book Club:

This year, I joined a book club and that provided for many hours of companionship with an eye to discussing the books afterwards with your friends.

We managed to do a variety of genres in our book club too.

A broad array of topics can be discussed with this set of books, and the cups of tea, and the sparkling conversations were truly delightful. Feminism, colonialism, sexism, sense of purpose, and so much more.

Booklegger Books:

I volunteer from time to time in elementary school classrooms and the Bootlegger Volunteer program is one such where I get the opportunity to talk about and discuss books in classrooms.

  • Van Gogh Deception – By Deron Hicks 
  • Life in the Ocean – Oceanographer Sylvia Earle – By Claire Nivola (author of Wangari Maathai – Planter of 30 million trees in Kenya)
  • The man who dreamed of infinity – the life of genius Srinivasan ramanujan by Amy alznauer illustrated by Daniel miyares
  • The Firework Maker’s Daughter – by Philip Pullman
  • Firefly Hollow – by Allison McGhee
  • Tesla’s Attic – By Neal Shusterman & Eric Elfman

Guilty Pleasures:

It is the reason I pick up books and authors whose work feels like home every so often. There is familiarity in their worlds – a safe haven for those looking to be refreshed without too much effort. The worlds where humanity has all of the problems we do – only with an eye for humor, magic, and simplicity that we crave to build for ourselves in our real lives. Malgudi, Fairacre, Thrush Green, Hogwarts, Corfu, Blandings Castle, the idyllic worlds of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, and many more. 

  • Miss Read
  • P G Wodehouse
  • J K Rowling and many fan-fiction authors who are frankly brilliant and so deserving. Many times, I’ve hoped I could know if they went on to write other books, for I knew I would read them.
  • R K Narayan
  • Gerald Durrell

Children’s Books:

I don’t know why people go in for self-help tomes when there are brilliant children’s books for all of us to enjoy and devour. Who was it who said, It takes a true genius to explain things simply? I agree with them.

Some of these authors and illustrators are truly unsung geniuses – I wish there was a way for all places of adult work such as financial hubs, hospitals, Houses of Parliament, civic offices, transportation hubs, technology companies, insurance companies, retailing outlets etc to have a good library with children’s books to dip and delve into for a quick refresher of spirits.

I used to work at a company with an exemplary work culture. (sadly the company is no longer there) The walls were adorned with beautiful artwork, we received books as gifts every now and then, authors came to visit, and we had library nooks – surrounded by excellent books in design, literature and philosophy. I have done some of my most rigorous work in these hallowed halls of the library.

If you had access to places like this, it is truly life-changing. Some noteworthy books:

  • The Shape of Ideas – By Grant Snyder
  • On Tyranny – By Timothy Snyder (in progress)
  • The Oboe Goes Boom – Boom – the band book on the kind of instruments and the brilliant way in which the names in each of the pages actually refers to a famous player of the instrument.
  • You Can Learn to be an Artist – this book was brilliant, but it made me want to cry. It made me want to rage against the world for creating AI and taking away that simple joy of art from humans – for those who say you can do the same with the screen and a prompt now, my response is, “Why can there not be any pursuits left to mankind that is not dependent on a screen?”
  • A Songbird Dreams of Singing – Poems about sleeping animals – by Kate Hosford – Illustrated by Jennifer M Potter
  • Astonishing Animals – Extraordinary Creatures and the Fantastic Worlds They Inhabit – Tim Flannery & Peter Schouten
  • Worldwide Monster Guide – By Linda Ashman, Illustration by David Small
  • Sometimes, I feel like an Oak – By Danielle Daniel & Jackie Traverse
  • My name is as long as a river – Suma Subramaniam
  • The fox and the star – Coralie Bickford Smith (brilliant artwork – sweet story – truly captures the loneliness of being – read again)

Understanding Ourselves

What makes us human? How do we know whether we are keeping healthy in our minds and bodies? These are topics that cannot be easily answered – and yet so many philosophers and writers attempt to do just that – understand our complexities.

Alternate Universes

“I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk  away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I found joy in the things that made me happy. The custard was sweet and creamy in my mouth” – Neil Gaiman in The Ocean at the End of the Lane

  • The Lefthand side of Darkness – By Ursula K Le Guin
  • Goddess of the River – Vaishnavi Patel
  • Our Missing Hearts – By Celeste Ng
  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane – By Neil Gaiman
  • Generosity – By Richard Powers
  • YellowFace – By R F Kuang ( about the publishing industry)

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

I would probably add books and nature to the list by Tolkien.

Philhellenism – the love of Greek culture

After the freezing days of Paris, as we were bundling ourselves up in layers (yet again) , I said somewhat severely to the husband. “I think I’ve had enough of European vacations. After a few museums, a half a dozen cathedrals, and a few hundred pieces of art, I am done.”

The husband smiled one of his crafty smiles and agreed, for he knew that I will be the one craving a European vacation first. He just had to sit by, observe, and make bets with the children on the timing.

So, it was that we boarded our flight to Athens. Athens, the weather app promised us ,would be warmer, but still cold. It was expected to be between 40F & 65F (a difference of almost 15 degrees).

It was like every mile added not just warmth, but a different tinge to the culture. We had no idea on what to expect in Greece. It was our first time. A destination chosen by popular vote since the children are great fans of greek myths and have devoured all the books by Rick Riordan multiple times over. The husband had even booked a mythological tour to surprise them. But apart from this, our idea of Greece was based on A Big Fat Greek Wedding, Greek Myths by DeLaurailes, Gerald Durrell’s Corfu trilogy: My Family and Other Animals, Farther Afield by Miss Read, and all the different tidbits we knew about Greek philosophers, and mathematicians through the ages. 

As you can see, we had no idea, which was marvelous, for we were thoroughly unprepared for what happened next. We fell in love! In love with the city of Athens, the country of Greece, and the Greeks themselves.

After the professional intellectualism of Paris, Athens was like walking into a theme park – here you can have philosophy, art, literature and all the little marvels of the mind, but only if you agree to lighten up, have fun, and stay curious. The gentle humor and warmth with which the Greeks speak to each other and to the tourists is to be seen to be believed. They are a fun-loving, smart, and kind people. It is no wonder that this small country tucked away in the Mediterranean Sea gave us so much of the foundations of Western philosophy and culture. If Democracy had not been chanced upon here, I doubt it would’ve survived or chanced upon at all. As it is, it has so many assaults on it, it is fragile enough that we protect it. Greece is like the Disneyland of Europe. It reminds you of life as it should be: ambitious and lofty in our goals, but reminding us at every turn with their jolly, vivacious myths, of our humanity, our sense of community, and the importance of humility. 

I hung out of the window in the chill morning peering at the Acropolis. Those buildings were from the 5th century BC. Athens (the Greek call their beloved city, Athina after the goddess Athena) has been continuously populated over the past 6000 years. This showed up in little things such as drainage systems, rebuilding efforts and such (we found to our surprise that toilet paper cannot be flushed in Greece, and water bidets are not installed everywhere either).

It is hard to not get up in the morning and think that you are but a butterfly in the passage of time. On the mythological tour, Denai (our mythological tour guide) was informative and thoroughly impressed with the son’s knowledge of the Greek myths. I strutted along ( a proud parent) and learning so much of the mythologies that helped shape our way of the world, that I must say the cold forgot to bother me.

Who cannot be awed by the story of the Temple of Zeus being destroyed multiple times in history and the latest one by lightning? If that was not a sign from Zeus – the god of lightning himself, the Greeks did not know what was.

Or that wonderful story about how the city of Athens got its name. Apparently, it was such a popular place that even the Gods fought for the place. So Zeus tired of this bickering asked Poseidon & Athena to decide via a popular vote. Each had to give a gift to the populace and the people could decide.

  1. Poseidon – the god of the oceans, gave them water, signifying naval power and thus prosperity as a port city. This gift appealed to the men of the land.
  • Athena – the goddess of wisdom and strategy, gave them the olive tree, signifying the change from hunter-gatherer mode to prosperity from the land. The women liked all the different uses from the olive tree (olives, light from the lamps lit using olive oil, the wood etc).

The citizens chose Athena’s gifts – for  according to myth, women outnumbered men at the time of the vote and Athena won. This made Poseidon angry and to mollify him, the temple of Poseidon overlooks the city of Athens, while Athena’s temple overlooks the oceans. It was also why women were not allowed to vote from then on (again a myth, since it was never obvious that women had the vote in Greece. According to wikipedia – women gained the vote in Greece as late as 1952. But it was a crafty way to deny women their voting rights and have a story around it.

In the parliament square, the temple of Athena stood alongside that of Hephaestus, signifying that intellectual work was just as important as physical work. This was the place the philosophers gathered alongside the farmers to decide, debate and vote on the important matters of the day. Both types of people had to be in harmony for a prosperous society.

Thus it went in Greece. Wherever you went, there was a little story, involving the mighty gods, and their follies, all narrated by the populace with gentle humor.

And yet. While the myths are everywhere, there is a surprising and thoroughly lovable lack of reverence to these gods. They are gods – sure. But they have flaws – big ones. Much bigger than our own flaws since they are so much more popular and powerful.

I think it has to do with the complete dissociation of religion from the mythology. Indian mythology is just as broad, diverse and intricate – but since it is intertwined with Hinduism, good luck trying to be flippant about any aspect of it no matter how justified.

“Next time we come to Europe, we must stay longer in Greece, so we can go to the countryside and visit the little villages that dot Greece, maybe visit the island of Crete and Corfu.”, I said at the end of the glorious day in which we had eaten far too much delicious food, enjoyed far too many myths, and been far too enamored by the music and language of the greeks.

“Twenty-four hours!”, said the husband exchanging knowing winks with the children. They all guffawed.

“Amma – you said – No more Europe! Africa calls, and Australia sings and all that, 24 hours ago!”

What was there to say?  That’s how people fall in love with a country. It is no wonder they have a word for it. Philhellenism – a love of Greek culture!