An interview given to the New Indian Express

After a long period of time, I'm getting back to my blog just to post a link to an interview of my family published in the New Indian Express of 14 December 2013. Please click on the link below to read the interview:

http://epaper.newindianexpress.com/c/2066609

The Hans India story about our International Literacy Day celebrations at Delhi Public School

http://epaper.thehansindia.com/PUBLICATIONS/THEHANSINDIA/THICOASTAL/2013/09/09/ArticleHtmls/DPS-celebrates-International-Literacy-Day-in-style-09092013103023.shtml?Mode=1

The New Indian Express feature on a discussion on media literacy that was organized under my leadership at Delhi Public School as part of our International Literacy Day celebrations on 7 September 2013

http://epaper.newindianexpress.com/c/1603446

Do your bit to promote literacy, says DPS dean - The Hindu

Do your bit to promote literacy, says DPS dean - The Hindu

Break coconuts in French style

A friend of mine shared an interesting problem with me.  The problem was not hers but that of an “auntie” in her neighbourhood: she wants a machine that can break coconuts.  “A machine to break coconuts!” you may exclaim.  You may even laugh at the idea, as I did.  But you will symapthise with the old woman if you hear the story fully.

Abruptly uprooted from her country home and replanted in a two-bedroomed flat on the fourth floor of a huge block, the old woman is already a fish out of water.  (Sorry for the mixed metaphor.)  To make matters worse, she doesn’t find in the kitchen a mortar or some such object on which she can break coconuts.  The flat is paved with stones of different kinds – the carpet area with marble of one kind, and the bathrooms of another, while the kitchen slab is an elegant piece of granite.  But where is that good old stone, the mortar, on which she used to break coconuts in her country home?  It’s like the problem in The Ancient Mariner: “Water, water, everywhere, / Nor any drop to drink.”

“Can’t she use an iron rod or a heavy knife?” I asked after my own practice.  “No”, said my friend.  “Her hands are failing.  It’ll be risky, trying to hit a coconut in one hand with a rod or knife held in another.”   “Then she must make do without coconuts”, I said.  “Don’t be silly”, my friend admonished me.  “A coconutless meal is inconceivable for a South Indian.  And Auntie comes from Palakkad.”

I thought the matter over.  There seemed another alternative.  “Tell her”, I said, “to have her coconuts broken at the shop itself.”  Dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand, my friend said, “She is an orthodox brahmin woman.  She believes in breaking a coconut at home and offering it with its water to the gods before she uses it for practical purposes.  A coconut broken at a shop becomes unfit for ritual offering.”

“So, that’s why she wants a coconut-breaker – like a mixer or a grinder?”  I asked.  My friend nodded her head.  Then she said, “We have some ideas for the design of such a machine.  I have a friend called Gopalakrishna Murthy who has suggested that the machine should be fashioned somewhat like the guillotine, which was used for cutting people’s heads off in the aftermath of the French Revolution.  The frame must have a sharp blade at the top with provision for placing a coconut at the bottom.  If you turn the machine on, the blade will drop onto the coconut and break it in equal halves – and the water will flow into a stainless steel tumbler attached to the machine.”

Why cycles should be on the road

It was already 9 o’clock.  I should have been at my school by that time, but my auto had come late.  I had therefore given a piece of my mind to the automan who in turn had let off steam on the auto which was trying its best get up steam.  The contraption held its breath and raced along, turned on to Convent Road and rattled past Bombay Studio when with a screech of tyres followed by violent shaking it came to a grinding halt.  Flying into a towering rage, the automan got off and screamed out a volley of four-letter words with all his might.  In front of him stood a cyclist who, by crossing the road all of a sudden without signalling his intention, had caused that scene.  A motor cyclist would have shouted back, whether he was in the right or wrong.  But the cyclist only stood silent like a sacrificial victim until the auto driver exhausted all his linguistic resources.  Then he climbed on to his “two-wheeler” (Doesn’t a bicycle have two wheels, after all?) and pedalled away. 

Motorists screaming at cyclists is a common sight on Indian roads where there are too many bicycles even in this day and age.  Here is a common enough experience in my own city, Vijayawada: You are placidly driving along the relatively safe and convenient Bundar Road when, all of a sudden, near the Municipal Stadium or the NTR statue, a cyclist races across the road and raises your blood pressure.  You are never your original self during the rest of your journey.

Cyclists are notorious for taking turns as they like, for racing across the road without signalling their intentions, for weaving in and out of traffic, and for squeezing through the narrow gap between the fenders of two cars waiting at a traffic signal.  If only motorists had things their way, they wouldn’t have cycles at all on the road!

But are cyclists to be sympathized with or condemned?  An ordinary cyclist cannot afford to have even a rear-view mirror, let alone blinking indicators, on his bicycle.  With both hands gripping the handles of the bicycle, he crosses the road without being able to signal his intention in traffic.  He is thus neither crazy nor a speed-lover but just helpless.  The traffic density of the modern road forces him to take risks.

Motorists seem to think that the road entirely belongs to them – a wrong idea which gains strength by the acquiescence of cyclists and pedestrians.  Someone has suggested in a newspaper article that cyclists in India may think of an association for themselves (like the League of American Bicyclists) to protect their rights.  They may name it after Dr Dunlop to whom they owe their modern bicycle with pneumatic tyres.

There is at least one reason for which we should be grateful to cyclists: their “two-wheelers” don’t pollute!  What do you think will happen if bicycles are taken off the road?  I guess most of the cyclists will somehow become motor cyclists, and that will be terrible.  In enlightened self-interest, therefore, we should be sympathetic towards cyclists and keep them on the road.

Lessons from the Delhi incident

A newspaper story deeply disturbed me.  An aged couple has gone to court for protection from their son and daughter-in-law who have tortured them in a variety of ways and even snatched their house from them. 

 Mental torture in situations such as this is not unheard of, but in this case the son and the daughter-in-law have even beaten the old couple, aged 78 and 75.   Not satisfied, they let the old couple be physically and and mentally tortured by the daughter-in-law’s brothers also.  One day, the son told his parents that he was getting the house rebuilt by a builder and asked them to give him a general power of attorney for the purpose.  Having obtained it, the younger couple took possession of almost the entire house and drove the old couple to a corner of the house.  The septuagenarian couple suspected that something was amiss and got the power of attorney cancelled, but the son, in connivance with some officials of the sub-registrar’s office, got the sale deed of the house prepared in the name of his wife.  Unable to withstand all this, the old man has suffered a paralytic attack.   Driven to despair, the old couple have written a letter of complaint to the High Court which is likely to convert the letter into a public interest litigation and act on it.

The Delhi incident is by no means an exception.  There was a time when the old in this land of traditions had an honourable place in the family and were even looked upon as a wisdom bank.  That tradition seems to have lost its hold.  But we still compare our joint family system with the nuclear family of the West and boast that the old have a respectable place in our family.

The loss of place by the old in the family has something to do with the value system of the present generation.  It is time parents instilled in their children respect and love for their elders through their own example.  Otherwise, their bad example is likely to be visited upon themselves.

Educational institutions must also take some responsibility in this matter.  They must organize regular visits by their pupils to old age homes so that children can see for themselves the problems of old people.  Awareness programmes may also be conducted for children in schools.

Parents through their own exemplary practice and educational institutions through well conducted programmes must help the younger generation grow up with the realization that it is their duty to support the aged within their own family and help the old and the incapacitated outside.