November's crop of national leaders

Sometimes discussions that take place in an unplanned and incidental way in the classroom turn out to be much more valuable than organized, systematic, and syllabus-based teaching.  A casual question about the relative importance of the different months of the year threw some unusual light on November.  Students pointed out that November was an important month because both Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi were born in this month.  Further explorations, which took the form of an assignment, led us to the fact that, in terms of the births of national leaders, November is a significant month in the history of the nation because as many as twelve illustrious national leaders were born in this month.

In the very first week of the month, four great leaders were born.  Both Dadabhai Naoroji, the Grand Old Man of India, who, in collaboration with Hume, founded the Indian National Congress, and Jamanlal Bajaj, the Gandhian capitalist, whom the Mahatma described as his "fifth son", were born on November 4.  Desh Bandhu Chittaranjan Das was born on November 5, while his friend, Bepin Chandra Pal, 12 years his senior, was born on November 7.

Pal was known for his thundering speeches.  On his silver tongue, VS Srinivasa Sastry, himself a master orator, commented thus:  "Pal burst out into full flame in Madras as a preacher of the new political creed.  For several days on the sands of the beach, he spoke words with emotion, subtlety and logic, which were wafted by the swift evening breeze to tens and thousands of listeners, invading their whole souls and setting them aflame with the flavour of a wild consuming fire.  Oratory had never dreamt of such triumphs in India.  The value of the spoken word was never demonstrated on such a large scale."

Four formidable personalities were born in the second week.  Both Surendranath Banerjee, who guided the national movement even before the Indian National Congress came into existence, and Sachchidananda Sinha, one of the makers of modern Bihar, were born on November 10.  CP Ramaswamy Iyer to whom not many could hold a candle in intellectual brilliance and generosity was born on November 12.  And Pandit Jawharlal Nehru, "the gentle colossus", as Hiren Mukherjee described him, was born on November 14, which is celebrated as Children's Day.

For the third week of November, we were able to find only one name -- that of Indira Gandhi, who was born on November 19.

In the fourth week was born the multi-faceted Pattabhi Sitaramayya on the 24th^.  It is well known that he wrote the 1600-page History of the Congress in just two months during a hot summer at Machilipatnam.  What is not so well known is Gandhi's description of himself as a "bania sutrakar" and Pattabhi Sitaramayya as his "brahmin bhashyakar".  Hari Singh Gour and MR Jayakar, members of the Constituent Assembly, were born on November 26 and 30 respectively.

The hills are still alive with music

It is difficult to forget that hauntingly melodious film, The Sound of Music, one of the best loved musicals based on the real-life story of the singing von Trapp family, who escaped Nazi persecution by making use of a Salazburg music festival to cross over the Alps.  Wise, the producer and director of the film, never thought that the film would become a record-breaker at the box office.  But it turned out to be the first film to gross over $ 100 million.  And it is one of the most beloved musicals of all times: some of the numbers like 'Do re mi…', 'Sixteen going on seventeen…', 'Edelweiss…' and 'So long farewell…' have been in the heart of just about everyone who has seen the film ever since 1965 when the film was released.  The film ran for 1,443 performances and earned seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical.  The original cast album earned a Gold Record and the Grammy Award.  Captain von Trapp (played by Christopher Plummer) singing a prayer ('Bless my homeland forever'), the pure and innocent Maria (Julie Andrews) singing about raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, and the lovely scenery of Salazburg and the Austrian Alps, among others, have an evocative charm.

Jarring notes emerged from the Captain's guitar a few years ago when the Trapp family (the children, I mean, because Maria had died in 1987 and the Captain forty years before that) were in the news: they had fallen out with one another over the control of a hotel they had established at Vermont in the US.

There is some refreshing news about the Trapp family now.  The hills are alive with the sound of music again: four great-grandchildren of Captain von Trapp have revived the family tradition.  Sofia (13), Melanie (11), Amanda (10), and Justin (7) have gone into the singing business.  They have released their first CD and signed up with a music label.  The marketing is being done under the name, 'The von Trapp Children'.

Their father, Stephen von Trapp, never thought that the family was musically inclined.  But when he listened to a tape of songs sung by the four children, he realized what a gift they had been bestowed with.  The best way of valuing the gift, he thought, was to let the children sing and represent the family tradition.

The von Trapp family's hearts have been "blessed with the sound of music" again, and they will "sing once more".

Professionals miss simple solutions

One day, while pointlessly browsing on the Internet, I came upon a short quiz consisting of just four questions.  Anderson Consulting Worldwide (ACW), which offered the quiz, claimed that the quiz would reveal whether a person was qualified to be a professional or not.  The questions were very simple, but all my answers went wrong.

The first question was: "How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?"  I wouldn't try to do anything so stupid, I thought.  Where was the need in any case?  Even if there was need…  At last, I thought of two complicated means of putting a giraffe into a fridge.  When I checked my answer with the correct one given by ACW, I felt foolish.  The correct answer was: "Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door."  So simple! 

Now the second question: "How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?"  Simple, I thought: open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator.  No, wrong.  The correct answer was: "Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant, and close the door."  How stupid of me, I thought, and decided to be careful in answering the next question. 

The next question was: "The Lion King is hosting an Animal Conference.  All the animals except one attend.  Which animal does not attend?"   How the deuce was I to know?  I didn't answer the question and checked the answer key.  The correct answer was: "The animal that doesn't attend the conference is, of course, the elephant.  It cannot attend because it is in the refrigerator.  You just put him in there.  Remember?"  Yes, yes, yes.

Now the last question: "You have to cross a river inhabited by crocodiles.  How will you manage it?"  How would I manage it?  Would I kill all the crocodiles?  Would I distract their attention?  But how?  I checked the answer key.  The correct answer was: "You swim across.  All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting."  I should have learnt from my earlier mistake and got this question right, but I didn't.

But I drew consolation from the fact that whether, according to this quiz, I was qualified to be a professional or not, my thinking was similar to that of a large number of professionals.  Around 90 per cent of the professionals that ACW tested got all questions wrong!  But many boys and girls at the primary level got several correct answers. 

What is ACW's conclusion from this test?  It claims that the test conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year-old!

A dictionary that never fails to delight

I just can't imagine a world without dictionaries; they have become such an indispensable part of my life.  The other day, I came across, in a printed question paper, the word 'comparative' spelt 'comparitive', and I was confused.  The thought that I might have spelt the word wrong so far in my life disturbed me.  I regained my composure only after looking up the word in a dictionary.

But if you use two dictionaries, as I do, you are apt to be confused.  I use the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary as well as the Collins Cobuild English language Dictionary.  But when there is a disagreement, I refer to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English only find the confusion deepening.

Let me give an example.  Sometime ago, at home, we had what I would call a family disagreement over the synonym of the word 'egghead'.  I looked up the word in the Advanced Learner's: "very intellectual" was the meaning it gave.  Next, I checked with the Collins which gave what I at first thought to be a slightly different meaning: "An egghead is someone who you disapprove of because you think they are too interested in ideas and theories, and not enough in practical actions."  Actually, they both mean the same because an intellectual is one who is interested in, or able to deal with, things of the mind rather than practical matters.  But the two meanings seemed different at first, and so I looked up the word in the Longman which confounded me more with the following meaning: "a highly educated person, perhaps too highly educated".  This reminded me of what Dr Johnson, who compiled the first good English dictionary, said: "Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true." 

When ordinary dictionaries mystify me, I go to The Devil's Dictionary, which hits the nail on the head.  Written by Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), this dictionary is a sheer delight.  You will agree with me as to the merits of this dictionary if only you read some of the definitions it gives.  Here is a sample:

Admiration :   our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves

Friendship  :   a ship big enough to carry two on fair weather but only one in foul

Happiness  :    an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another

Year           :    a period of 356 disappointments

Women who have dared to be different

Women Who Dared is an inspiring book.  Edited by Ritu Menon, co-founder of Kali for Women, India's first feminist press, and published by the National Book Trust, the book offers brief, cameo autobiographies of 21 Indian women who have dared to be different and thereby made a difference to the socio-cultural landscape of this country over the last 50 years.

In these 282 pages, Vina Mazumdar, a pioneer in the women's studies movement in India and one of the leading lights of the women's movement, tells the story of her tireless campaigning and lobbying with the state and central governments on behalf of women.

Padma Ramachandran, the first woman IAS officer, talks about what she had to contend with in an age which was anything but pro-woman.  The government of Kerala delayed her posting as district collector for the only reason that she was a woman.  Finally, she approached the state governor and got herself posted. 

Kiran Bedi, the first woman IPS officer, who will always be remembered as the police officer who defied convention and used innovative techniques to tackle difficult situations, gives a candid account of herself.  "I do lose my temper -- I do shout.  But it's very targeted, for effect only, not because I've lost control.  It has a reason, it has an effect, and it works!  Sometimes you have to show your anger thus far and no further.  It even works for the other person's benefit."

From this polyphonic text, as the editor, Ritu Menon, describes the book, emanate the voices of several other women (Sheila Sandhu, a legendary figure in Hindi publishing; Ela R Bhat, whose name is synonymous with the Self-Employed Women's Association; India Jaising, who has democratized lawyering; Romila Thapar, a foremost historian; Kalpana Lajmi, a film-maker; Shubha Mudgal, a Hindustani vocalist) whose "transgression" from the norm and sustained hard work and excellence in the face of tremendous odds represent the aspirations, struggles and achievements of the larger community of women.

A single volume cannot do justice to what countless women have achieved in this vast country.  Some of the noteworthy misses are M S Subbulakshmi, Medha Parkar, P T Usha and Aparna Sen. I hope there will be a second volume and several others in a series.

Kids love products -- and use people!

The influence TV advertisements have over children is really astonishing.  An eight-year-old child in my neighborhood knows three or four brands of each product advertised on television.  What is more, he can tell the story of each advertisement.  Needless to say he dedicates a great deal of his time to television.  He tells me TV commercials are much more interesting than a Tom and Jerry cartoon.  The way kids talk!

The child is not just a viewer of TV advertisements; he is a buyer as well.  Not quite a buyer but a decision-maker.  Whether it is toothpaste or a mosquito repellant, it is the brand of his choice that gets bought in his house.  His parents, both of whom are employed, are proud of their child's decision-making ability.  The consumerism of the kid is not just astonishing but disturbing.

But this child is by no means an exception.  In many affluent families as well as middle class ones in which both parents are employed, children are brand ambassadors: they insist that brands of their choice be bought, and parents do oblige.  The brands of the kids' choice are often brands which are appealingly advertised on TV.  In single child nuclear families where both parents are employed, what the kid says goes.  And what he wants and what his parents invariably buy on his "advice" also include things which the family doesn't actually need.

Savvy marketing is the name of the game.  The advertisement industry has done its homework: it knows the prevailing trends in families.  One of those trends is that modern parents can hardly say no to their children.  And they have means of obliging their children, namely, the availability of money – what is called disposable income.  The industry exploits this by targeting children in its advertisements.  A good number of ads have child appeal.  In fact, children themselves are featured in many advertisements.

Krishnaveni, a friend of mine, gave an instance of how this child consumerism operates in her family.  Her son has dandruff.  He insists on shampoo of a particular brand which greatly appealed to him in a catchy TV commercial.  Krishnaveni knows there are better ones on the market.  But she has no option but to buy the brand of the child's choice.  "We end up buying substandard stuff for the simple reason that we don't want to displease our child", she says.

Josephine, a colleague, brought to my notice something more disturbing. "You're slightly old-fashioned in talking about ads luring kids to buy products meant for kids.  Ads have gone beyond that.  They lure kids to insist on adults buying products meant for adults."

There is yet another dimension to consumerism on the part of children, pointed out by a letter-writer in a newspaper: "Once upon a time, children loved people and used products.  Now, they use people and love products."

In the throes of an all-consuming feeling

Rekha is completely starry-eyed about her boy-friend.  She meets him almost every day and talks to him on the telephone, too.  She has gone out with him a few times and given him expensive gifts, to get the money for which she had to cheat her parents.  On a few occasions, she has been noticed in the company of her boy-friend and warned, but that hasn't deterred her.  Her mind seems to be entirely taken over, to the exclusion of most other interests, by thoughts about one person -- her boy-friend.  This may now be a common enough experience in adolescence, thanks to the demystification of sex as a topic.  But there is something uncommon about the "crush" Rekha has for her boy-friend: she is only 16 years old, and he is twice as old.  There is something bizarre, too: the boy-friend is already married.

I have known Rekha for six years now.  She lives not far from my house, and I know all the members of her family.  One day, it so happened that I found myself talking to Rekha about her new relationship.  Now, I am not a counsellor; neither have I handled such situations before.  I only wanted to help.  And I was saying to myself that if I couldn't do it, I shouldn't mess it up at least.

But I found the girl as bold as brass – and very articulate.  From her digressive accounts, this is what I pieced together.  She likes the man because he talks to her "nicely", treats her "kindly" and compliments her often.  Shouldn't she have some concern for her parents' feelings?  "What's wrong with what I'm doing?  They should be a little more understanding."   What about her responsibilities as a student?  "I'll do justice to my studies."  I pointed out that it was not true: she was not doing justice to her studies.  "I know I am not", she said, "but I'll make up for it." 

I hope she does.  I hope she gets out of this all-consuming feeling which is running high now, and makes a safe landing.  I'm sure she will realize her foolishness (which is what infatuation really means, for the word infatuation comes from 'fatuous', which means 'foolish'), and the realization will help her guard against it in future.  I only hope it happens before it becomes late.

Considering that the occurrence of this "universal migraine", as the poet Robert Graves called it, has become rather frequent now, every school and college would do well to have a full-time counsellor to help students get over it.  And girls would do well to remember Rolf's words of caution to Liesel in The Sound of Music:

You are sixteen, going on seventeen,

Fellows will fall in line,

Eager young lads and rogues and cats

Will offer you food and wine.

Is the male sex the weaker sex?

An article in the Reader's Digest has some interesting things to say about the relative mental abilities of boys and girls.  The author of the article, Anna Murline, reports that scientists are exploring very real biological differences that may make boys "more impulsive and less efficient classroom learners -- in sum, the weaker sex, a role typically associated with women".

According to Murline, the vulnerabilities of boys should be traced back to the womb.  By the time a baby boy enters the world, he trails the average girl developmentally.  Males, she says, quoting research evidence, have a lower proportion of grey matter than women, which may mean that female brains have certain advantages in processing information.  She quotes Michael Gurian, co-author of Boys and Girls Learn Differently, who asserts that the female brain is the easier brain to teach. 

This is by no means a revelation.  Year after year, in the CBSE and the SSC examinations, girls fare better than boys.  I have heard people say that, unlike boys, girls are so unoriginal and uncreative that they can painstakingly mug up an entire book and reproduce it in an examination, and that since our examinations are content-based and memory-oriented, it is not surprising that girls outscore boys.

But ask any school teacher, and he or she will tell you that this is not the case.  In general, girls' classroom work involving mental abilities is qualitatively better than those of boys.  By and large, boys don't seem to be so motivated as girls, and they have difficulty concentrating.  I am aware that it is politically incorrect on the part of a teacher to talk about these differences; what prompted me to do so was the Reader's Digest article referred to above.

Raising Boys, a book written by Steve Biddulph, a psychologist, makes an insightful study of this phenomenon.  According to Biddulph, boys have slower brain development than girls and so they find it difficult to do the things expected of them at that stage.  Until about the age of 17, they don't catch up with girls.  His finding that boys are "just on a different learning time-table" appears to strengthen the belief in Western educational circles that many boys should start school a year later than girls.

Women in comics based on Indian classics

Sometime ago, while clearing my bookcase of unwanted books to make room for new ones, I came upon an entire series of comics based on Indian classics, bought for my son over fifteen years ago.  For want of anything better, I opened one of those books and started reading it.  Then I picked up another and yet another until I finished reading the entire series.  It was not just the engrossing texts and the alluring illustrations that made me read through the entire series at a single sitting but the "values" that emerged from the stories, in particular, the negative image of women that was unwittingly projected through them.

The women characters in the comics are little more than willing instruments of man's pleasure.  In Abhimanyu, there is a debate among several men about whether Uttara should be married to an elderly man or his son.  Uttara, predictably, abides by the men's decision.  In Chandralalat, when the girl who was expected to bear twins for the king fails to do so, the latter drives her out of the palace.  In Gandhari, you have yet another paragon of female virtue in the eponymous heroine, a well-known character from the Mahabharata.

Abduction of women seems to be a praiseworthy act on the part of valiant men.  In Arjuna's 12-Year Exile, the much-married Arjuna kidnaps Subhadra.  Lord Krishna asserts that the kidnapping was right.  "Which valiant man", he asks, "would wait for a maiden to be donated like an animal?"

When a woman loses either her husband or his favour, suicide seems to be the only course open to her.  Thus, in Ranak Devi, the heroine burns herself to death when her husband dies.  In Purandara Dasa, Saraswati is alarmed when she finds her nose-ring missing.  Lacking the nerve to face her husband's wrath, she rushes to her chamber to commit suicide.

I don't know whether these comics are still on the market.  If they are, and if they are read, imagine the values our young readers must be deriving from them at an impressionable age!  We ban Salmon Rushdie, but we allow books like this to be widely read by our young people.  Either there should be modern versions of these stories, or stories of this kind should be avoided in books meant for children.

Newspaper English: Ignorance or Indianization?

In countries where English is used as a second or foreign language, English newspapers are looked upon as a resource in the learning of English.  While teachers of English insist that their students read at least one English newspaper regularly, even non-English-educated parents buy an English language newspaper hoping that reading the newspaper will help their children improve their English.  The average educated Indian assumes that newspaper English is a standard variety of English and even relies on it as an authority in matters of correctness.  To what extent is this assumption valid?

Not to a great extent, I should think.  By using – and overusing – several Indianisms which violate the basic rules of English grammar, our newspapers have given them the force of a standard.  Using postpositive adjectives in the attributive position is a common practice in Indian newspapers: instead of writing "authorities concerned" (which is what they actually mean), they write "concerned authorities".  When a news report talks about a "reputed" college or company, it means one with a good reputation, in which case "reputable" is the right word.  "Unique", an absolute adjective, is often misused in the sense of "rare" or "unusual".  The word "police", as in the sentence, "The police have not made any arrests", takes a plural verb and is preceded by "the", but newspapers often use a singular verb with it and omit the definite article.  "Have a soft corner", "avail an opportunity", "in the premises" and "in the campus" are a few other Indianisms which came to be 'fixed', thanks to our newspapers.

Indianization was at work even in my own newspaper writings -- in a weekly column I was writing for an English language newspaper: some of my own standard forms were Indianized by the editorial staff.  Thus, my "reputable college" became reputed college, "etched on my memory" became etched in my memory, "on the market" (in the sense of 'on sale') became in the market, " a university" became an university, and "an HRD consultant" became a HRD consultant.

"If you can't beat them, join them!" said my facetious husband, a professor of English, when I told him about the Indianization of my English in the column.  "And promote Indianisms", he added.  "Next time you can write about the most unique crime that has been committed by a famous celebrity of the town in the premises of one of the reputed colleges of an university, what the concerned authorities say about it, and how police is investigating the case."

A dirge for a dying system

What makes a school?

This question seems relevant now because the conventional concept of the school is losing currency.

I picture to myself the conventional one – the kind of school I myself attended.  An imposing building wrapped as it were in a cocoon of trees; large, hall-like classrooms; vast, open spaces for children to play on; a liberal curriculum that doesn't quite blind you with science but promotes imaginative and creative skills and has a role for parents; a surfeit of extra-curricular activities; and, of course, that stock character, the schoolmarm -- prim and proper and the rest of the stock-in-trade – who never fails to raise a laugh but who is quite competent -- and humane!

I see a new and totally different kind of school emerging.  It is a school that views space purely in terms of money.  And so, you have cramped classrooms, cramped corridors, and cramped playgrounds -- or no playgrounds at all.  (The ritualized annual events, conducted not so much for their intrinsic value as for publicity, can take place in a borrowed playground or a hired auditorium.  Indeed, they often do!)

What about the curriculum?  Since the ethos of the school has changed, the emphasis is on success in the narrowest sense of the term: a hundred per cent success in the exam with high scores; and a relentless drive towards the 'promised land' of the IIT or medical colleges through a tortuous route.  Interestingly – and inevitably – this system has produced a breed of neo-teachers who are adept at cramming and wringing results unmindful of its effect of cramping the child's style.

This newfangled school's promise of success appears to be immensely pleasing to parents.  No less pleasing is another factor.  By keeping children for more hours than required in a conventional school and, consequently, by taking over some of the duties which have traditionally been the parents', the neo-schools have, happily enough, for parents, absolved them of several responsibilities of theirs.

It is not my intention to discuss the larger psychological and sociological issues here.  I represent the conventional system which is facing a grave crisis now.  Fall in or perish -- this seems to be the grim message of the market forces.  I don't think the conventional system can afford to ignore it.

The old order will change -- sooner, not later, at that.  There are tell-tale signs already,

Dictionaries needn't be a big yawn!

Rather often, former students of mine studying in arts, science, or engineering colleges ring me up just to ask me what a particular English word or idiom means.  Each time, I only look up the word or the idiom in the dictionary and give the meaning, lest I mislead the girl.  And I tell the girl, too, that I am giving the meaning only from the dictionary.  "But you can do it yourself, can't you?" I ask her. "You can look up the word yourself instead of wasting a phone call."  She laughs and talks about some pleasant nothing before hanging up,

Why is it that students don't feel encouraged to use the dictionary?  How often do they refer to a dictionary?  On what occasions?  What do they usually use a dictionary for?  Do they use the dictionary at all?  Do they own a dictionary?  To find answers to these questions, I spoke with some students, both present and past.

The students do have a dictionary, but most of them use it just three or four times in a month, especially when they are asked to write an essay or when they are given a home task that involves the use of the dictionary.  Some refer to a dictionary to check the spellings of words, while some say they consult a dictionary only to check that a word they want to use exists!  Not many students use the dictionary for its primary purpose, namely, looking up the meanings of words.

Some of the dictionary features (like syllable division, pronunciation, parts of speech, usage, and etymology) to which lexicographers give much importance, are either unimportant or of peripheral importance to the students.  In fact, one of their complaints is that dictionaries are cluttered with quite a lot of unwanted information.

That, I think, is the crux of the matter.  If dictionaries are unappealing to students, it is because of their poor layout and typography.  Design actually sets the scene.  Good design attracts attention and arouses interest.  If creates motivation in the reader to read further.  At a glance, the reader should be able to recognize what is happening under each entry.  Clear definitions, attractive information paths, and proper signposting will ensure easy accessibility.  Illustrations and colour will add to the attraction.

Some of the modern dictionaries do have all these features.  Take the Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, for instance.  The definitions are easy to understand because they are expressed in a 'defining vocabulary' of 2500 words.  In the case of words with many different meanings, there is a 'menu' on a light orange screen, which makes it easier for the reader to find the specific meaning they are looking for.  Words with greater frequency are printed in red; this helps the reader identify the words they are most likely to need.  Example sentences are given in italics.  When a word has many collocations, they are shown in a box at the end of the entry.  There are hints for avoiding common errors (example: "You accept something, but you agree to do something."), and notes about the origin of words like 'Cinderella'.

Consulting the dictionary will be a delight to children once they get the right dictionary and learn how to use it.

The father has come a long way indeed

I was at the birthday party of a 9-year-old.  The child's father drew warm-hearted appreciation from all the guests not just for his wonderful hospitality but for his care and concern for the child which was evident in everything he did.  This led us to talk about modern fathers and compare them with fathers of the earlier ages.

"My father was a terror", said Kumari, looking back on her childhood four decades ago.  "He never beat me, but kept me at a distance.  We, children, spoke in hushed voices when he was at home.  And when he turned on the radio for the news from Delhi with a stern look in our direction, there was absolute silence."

Kumari's description of her father more or less fitted the traditional stereotype.  Traditionally, fathers were always strict, often grumpy, and occasionally cynical, and they hardly ever approved of what their children said or did.  Even when they were at home, they were too busy to attend to mundane matters; the "spot repairs" were always the concern of the mother.  However, when the occasion arose, the father did appear on the scene, and gave the required advice in a firm tone of voice.  When angry, he either gave a good wigging or resorted to spanking.  Was he unloving or lacking in affection?  Not at all.  It's just that he conducted himself with reserve and restraint and didn't want to be blatant about his deep feelings.  To put it in other words, he had the manly self-control of the Victorian.  Little Swami's father, in RK Narayan's novel, Swami and Friends, perfectly represents the real-life fathers of those days.

The modern-day father seems to be the opposite of the traditional stereotype.  He is informal, friendly and excitable.  Unlike his Byronic counterpart of the earlier ages, he is not ashamed of his feelings and is even "indecently" blatant about it.  He doesn't mind running errands at home, and does lend a helping hand to his wife in the kitchen.  More importantly, he treats his sons and daughters more as friends than as children.

What should the word 'fatherly' mean in the modern context?  A part of the dictionary definition holds good even now: "an attitude (or action) that shows feelings typical of a warm, kind and protective father".  But the problem with this definition is that it also includes "a patronizing attitude".  The term will have to be redefined in keeping with the sea change that has taken place in fathers.

But Indian movies still present only the old stereotype.  When they have reversed the traditional stereotype concerning different aspects of the home and the world, I don't know why they persist in projecting the anachronistic image of the grumpy father.  That's the image I have come across in some of the Tamil and Telugu movies I have seen recently.  In one of them, a young man grumbles, "If I have one enemy in this world, it's my father."  But I guess it has to be that way only, given the fact that parental opposition is central to a love tangle, a theme common to most Indian movies.

A case for a dress code in colleges

A student I saw in front of a women's college sometime ago made me wonder whether there shouldn't be a dress code for college students.  She wore a shirt which was long and loose, no doubt, but it was buttoned haphazardly, and the two ends of the shirt were tied in a knot above the navel.  Her hair was as loose as the shirt, but the tight jeans she wore below the navel presented such a contrast to the looseness above.  But for the schoolbag she carried, I would have sworn that the pretty girl was a film actress – an extra, I mean – or a TV anchor, or a model – yes, a model parading an ill-fitting, dismal-looking, trashy outfit "on the catwalk".  Every eye was on the girl, and she seemed pleased with the attention she was receiving. 

Not that I am unused to provocative dressing on the part of teenage girls.  At Modern Superbazaar, or in Guru Nanak Colony or Beasant Road (these are some of the places I visit in Vijayawada) or at a wedding, I do come across former students in trendy clothes.  Not many sport such clothes, I must add; just a few from rich – especially North Indian – families.  I must admit, however, that it is refreshing to see them out of their stale uniforms; the fashionable clothes they sport certainly make a difference to how they look.  But the occasions on which I see them in trendy clothes are social occasions.  I wouldn't expect to see them in such clothes on a college campus.  It's because there should be some difference between a college and a marketplace, though education is already grossly commercialized, and higher education will become much more so once the GATS agreement is finalized.  Neither is a college a fashion house, though college campuses are increasingly being used for organizing fashion shows.  For serious academic work to take place, there ought to be some decorum and discipline.  I thought the badly dressed girl coming out of the women's college represented a serious threat to such decorum and discipline.

Some years ago, a Class X student said to me while leaving school: "One of the things that excites me about college life is that I will not have to wear a uniform."  True.  Freedom of dressing is one of the most exciting parts of college life.  But I feel it shouldn't be unrestricted freedom leading to undesirable things such as diversion of attention from studies, an increase in parents' expenses on account of the girl becoming a fashion victim, and eve-teasing.

Placing some dress restrictions may safeguard students against these evils.  Besides, the restrictions will help them discipline themselves.  A college is, after all, a place which is expected to prepare students for life.  Let it teach them, in addition to whatever it teaches them now for getting a degree, how to dress decently and behave properly so that later in their life they know how to dress and how to behave as wives, mothers, and professionals.  When some private companies, particularly software companies, have a dress code, I see no reason why there shouldn't be some dress restrictions in colleges.

The credibility of our postal services

An old, dilapidated-looking building which hasn’t seen a coat of paint at all for ages, a battered sign-board that looks older than the country’s independence, gum-stained walls, a staid old gentleman sitting behind a four-legged, ink-stained object which would, a quarter century ago, have passed for a table, and a peculiar-looking contraption swinging above his head producing more noise than air.  There certainly is an old-world charm about post-offices and the people who work there.  If you are unhappy about the modernization drive around yourself, and complain that people – and institutions – are playing fast and loose, step into a post-office.  You will no longer complain.

 Most post-offices don’t even have a franking-machine.  If you want to send an article by registered post, you will have to stand in the line twice, if not more.  Once, to have the article weighed and to buy the required stamps.  After affixing the stamps, you will have to stand in the line again to have the article registered.  That again is a primitive process involving the clerk writing a composition about your article on a printed form and then disfiguring the composition – and tearing the receipt – by stamping vigorously on it.  If patience is a virtue, post-offices contribute a lot to it by teaching people how to be patient.  You may be – you are! – impatient on the road, but in a post-office, your behaviour would try the patience of  a Job.

If you think I am being sarcastic, you are wrong.  I have admiration for the people who work in post-offices.  Thanks to them, the system is extremely trustworthy.  You drop a letter in a pillar-box with the confidence that the letter will reach the addressee.  It does!  Come rain, come shine, the postman on his rickety bicycle carries it to the person whose name and address you have scribbled on the envelope.

Recently, I was at a post-office to send some papers by registered parcel.  The parcel was beyond the weighing-machine in the post-office whose (the machine’s, I mean) capacity was limited to one kilo.  The post-master could have directed me to some other post-office, but he didn’t.  “Leave it with us, Madam”, he said.  “We’ll have it registered at some other post-office”.  And he sounded apologetic about the capacity of the weighing-machine.

The value or credibility of a system depends not so much on the machines it is equipped with or the technology it employs as on the quality of the personnel who operate the system.

Going against the stream: a success story

It was a rather uncommon auto ride.  Not just because the automan didn't take me for a ride and gave, to my surprise, a smooth ride, avoiding the shorter but congested Five Route and taking the longer Mahatma Gandhi Road instead.  What made the journey refreshingly rare was that it unfolded a worldview so uncommon to find in an autorickshaw driver.  Rarer still, he expressed it in enviable English.

What could be his name?  Prasad?  Joseph?  Ismail?  I don't know.  I never asked him.  Considering that he spoke Urdu, let me call him Ismail.  Well, Ismail is a graduate.  When he took his BCom degree from a reputable college in Vijayawada ten years ago, he didn't apply for a white-collar job, as most of his classmates did.  "For one thing, I didn't have the money to buy even an application form.  For another, I had contempt for white-collar jobs which, I feel even now, are good enough only for unenterprising middle or lower middle class people who have some property and so are complacent.  I was lower than the lower middle and enterprising.  So, I decided on a blue-collar job – I took the wheel."

"Behind the wheel" for ten years now, Ismail is well away.  He owns an auto and is buying another very soon.  His net income is Rs 600 a day, and he is working hard to achieve an ambitious target – seven lakh rupees by 2010 by which time he will be 35 years old.  "It's make-or-break time for me.  If you don't make your mark by 35, you can never!" he asserted.

"How did you learn to speak such good English?"  I asked him.  "It's a gift, Madam", he said raising his hand heavenward, "with not much effort on my part.  I can speak six languages – English, Telugu, Hindi, Urdu, Tamil and Kannada.  And I have a smattering of Malayalam."

As I got off, I remembered what Oscar Wilde said about success:  "Success is a science.  If you have the conditions, you get the result."  Ismail had some of the primary conditions: motivation, determination and self-confidence.  Together they urged him to take the road less travelled.  That, in the poet's words, has made "all the difference".