Story of how we adopted zelda
Hema first looked on line for homes that gave pets for adoption, and discovered 'red paws' on face book. Someone there directed us to Sai ashram in Chattarpur.

On an impulse,when she returned from office, we booked a cab to Chattarpur. The bright city lights grew few and far between, and then there were none, as we cut into a narrow lane. Till then we had been mouthing a hundred doggie names, to find out which sounded best.
Sandy
Minnie
Tina
Zelda
Xena
Shea
Nellie
We kept on at it, thinking up funny tamil names, punjabi names and so on, till we realized we had been travelling for quite some time along the narrow lane bordered by high walls of posh farms on both sides. By now it was eight and pitch dark.Then the vehicle stopped at the end of the road, where what looked like a forest extended beyond a house. From inside the cab we could see around thirty dogs get up from the open  unfenced area around the house, and watch the car, some of them moving towards it.
We waited in the car, and called the contact, who was inside the building. He came with a big stick and we gathered the courage to follow him.
It was a moment of sheer joy to enter the building and walk into a room full of dogs, all trying to get your attention. Many of them just licked toes, some of them tried to touch hands and one huge dog even managed to lick my face. We walked from room to room, and saw that many of them were abandoned pets, high bred and fantastic looking, of all sizes and there were also several suffering from serious illnesses, such as paralysis, stroke and mutilation.
Heroic is how you describe the task taken on by the people there. There are three hundred dogs in that building and they are fed twice a day. We saw a vet giving injections, and a couple of young men were assisting him.
We saw a couple of newly brought pups that were barely a month old, but were ferocious in spite of being nearly starved to death. Then they showed us a three month old puppy, whose face had been bitten by a bigger dog, and who had tick fever.
We had to do something, in the face of all the service being done there. So we picked her up and signed some papers, and took her to the cab. We first called her Tina, but the weakling, whose hind legs were too tired to let her sit on them, and who was lying down all the time, started chasing monkeys from our balcony early next morning, we knew she was no Tina.She is ZELDA. Been with us for ten days. Finished a course of venal injections, and getting stronger, although quite slowly.
That's how we got Zelda.

HAHAHAHAHA

THEY ARE SO FUNNY...THE bHARATHIYA jANATHA PARTY

Yesterday when I was walking from home, a party volunteer gave me a notice It was as follows.....

DO  YOU WANT ONIONS AT A CHEAP RATE?

COME TO OUR PARTY OFFICE AT SECTOR 31 AND BUY ONIONS AT A CHEAPER RATE THAN  THE CONGRESS GOVERNMENT'S SELLING PRICE.

I was amazed to see a notice decorated with pictures of onions that estimated that the common man would fall for such a cheap trick.Or could it be that he will...hmmmm...
Wouldn't it occur to any common man on the road to ask if the BJP would sell all the other costly stuff at a nominal rate..like petrol or gas or cooking oil????

I wish to put on record my gratitude to some teachers who have shown me what teaching is all about. My first thanks are to some of my own school and college teachers, whose lectures I loved, but this post is about some teachers who changed my way of thinking and doing things, after I started to teach.

Sivakalai- a young woman I met when I started teaching; from a small village in TN kerala border, a simple unassuming woman who had learnt Carnatic music at the village temple from a retired professor, and one who had managed to come to madurai and graduate from the the music college there. She was my children's music teacher. I was amazed to see how she repeated a single line of music several times and never moved on till the kids sang it perfectly. From her I learnt that a teacher's job is complete not when she has finished teaching but only after the student has finished learning.

Philomena Gomez - She is a physics teacher at a school where students study in tamil. The state government desists from creating a post for English teachers. Instead it demands that teachers who handle other subjects should teach at least one class of English. Everday, as we shared the ubiquitous Indian commute, the auto, I got to interact with her and we talked about teaching. What I learnt from her is something truly remarkable. Passion for teaching is not a quality found in teachers from cosmopolitan, elite, progressive schools.It was something that could be found in schools with thatched roofs where kids from, poor, backward families studied too..

Grace Rebecca - We would argue all the time. One day I was telling her that I was going to help one particular group of students instead of a set of brighter ones, as we had originally planned. "Oh what about the other group?" she asked. "O, they are bright, they can manage. It is the weak students, who need a lot of motivation."       "Who said so? Everyone needs motivation. Even smart ones."       Made  me think.....

Mala Parameswaran  - I could say she had the greatest impact on me.I had the opportunity of travelling with her and a group of students for a couple of days. I noticed that she maintained a distance with her students at all times. This way she was able to maintain her objectivity in assessing all their actions and keeping them under control.I know all about mingling with students and having fun. But this lady was more interested in providing the best leadership and being a role model, and showed me how a teacher's duty goes far beyond that of explaining concepts and honing skills.She brought about the biggest change in my attitude.

There are others too. Enough for now


.

Why did she commit suicide? That beautiful, bright,bubbly, quick to smile young woman, who was my student fifteen years ago; A last bencher, who was nevertheless attentive and respectful in a real way, that, over a period of time, her memory remained sharply etched in my mind, many years after she left the school, till she found me on facebook; and spoke to me at length about her teaching experience, and made me feel so proud and important?
What are we teaching our young people that a young woman with a son she adores, a job she enjoys and a life she flaunts about, constantly uploading posts on family trips abroad, trips to her hometown, weddings she attended, her new skates, her son's spelling bee, should all of a sudden feel she cannot face the world anymore?
Whatever be her reason for suicide, on our part, we adults are making a big mistake by making our young ones believe that life is a bed of roses.And that we should have perfect lives! We don't fight unpleasant realities and hedge around them, pretend that terrible things such as child prostitution, kidnapping and murder for organs, embryo harvesting, political murders, caste based carnages do not happen. We do not let our children work, and turn them into pampered pigs, who never realize that happiness has to be earned and can elude the best among us.
That life goes on no matter what you do and don't do and no matter who lives and who dies.
If you wanted to shatter someone's peace of mind..you sure did it, my dear....but if you had survived whatever shame was swallowing you, you would have got a lot more, and given a lot more too..Are you  resting in peace????

I remember how I lacked  career focus and didn't really care if I had a job or not, in my twenties.. I once quarreled with top  management loudly and rudely, and walked out on my job. I couldn't stand there when someone was shouting, "Get out!", could I? 

Momentous though that sounds, it was not earthshaking or shocking to me. I came home, went on about my work and at around two thirty switched on the T.V and started watching "Basic Instinct:" with rapt fascination. My dear friend Bhooma came over and tried to rehash the day's drama with me.I just nodded and tried to look serious every time she made a comment.But all I was thinking about was...Who dunnit?? How is the film going to end? 

Finally I could take it no longer. I told Bhooma." Listen. I want to see  how this film ends. Please let's talk later" But my assertion proved to be an effort that went in vain. Because of a Power Cut. No words can describe how disappointed I felt.But Bhooma started chastising me.."Here I am, rushing down to your place to console you and tell you not to worry...and look at you!" And we giggled so much over that.

Actually, I never got to watch the end. I am jobless today. May be I can catch up!!!

We need people and relationships, and yet can't tolerate many of the first and don't feel satisfied with most of the latter. We know the importance of relationships but fail to invest in them. Most people who claim to be in relationships just seem to be playing nasty games with each other.Why do people keep trashing their own lives?
A young woman aborted her foetus, because she had been selected to join the team taking a trip abroad for official work.She had not informed her husband, parents or any one of it.The doctor who did the abortion spoke about it to another woman from the same office. News spread fast and she was terminated from service. People in her office believed she had committed a murder.When her husband came to know of this, he filed for divorce, and got it too.
While everyone I discussed this with in and outside my class believed that the woman had to be fired, some questions keep popping up my mind.
1. Why did the doctor let the girl abort the child, if she did not think it was the right thing to do?
2. Why does no one think the doctor did something wrong in aborting the child?
3. Why did the doctor not inform her family, but told someone from the office?

Wonder where the girl is now?

limericks in class

Here's a limerick I wrote with a ten year old student from my online class

There was once a young boy called Sam

Who was allergic to ham

He checked his sandwich everyday

 Although his mom wouldn't give it anyway

She always made them with jam

Cool huh???

An energetic young girl named Molly

Tried to do a rolly polly

She did it in the end

Her body she had to mend

So it wasn't that jolly

Not bad!!!