Maha's musings

BOOK REVIEW Who Moved My Cheese?  by Dr.Spencer Johnson  Changes are inevitable. They can be in our life, in our business or anywhere else. Most of us resist changes as we are not mentally prepared for that. But changes are not essentially bad all the times. They prepare us mentally to progress in our life. Adapting ourselves to changes improves us in amazing ways.  The book starts with a gathering of friends where one of them narrates this story to help others, deal with changes in their lives.The parable is about two mice -- Sniff and Scurry and two little people -- Hem and Haw. These characters depict the simple and complex parts of our brains. Everything is metaphorical here. The  maze  they live in represents  life; The cheese  they keep looking for represents  money, job, love or any such thing that gives us happiness. Sniff  sniffs the problems before they occur.  Scurry  scurries fast on the face of problems.  Hem ...

Teachers teach.. When it rains, they teach;  When it shines, they teach; When there are no credits, they teach; When there is no response they teach; When there is no school, they teach; When the students mock, they teach; When the parents scold, they teach; When the management hurdles, they teach; When their families trouble, they teach; When the society questions, they teach; Teach teach teach and teach They teach, they explain, they lecture,  they sermonise, they demonstrate, they assign, they advise, they deny, they allow, they punish, they inspire, they motivate, they imbibe, they inculcate, they impart and what not? They let the students  grow.... To grow intellectually, emotionally, morally and psychologically. They are ceaseless gardeners. They have grown many blooming buds. They are not cowed down by the occasional bad weathers. Their cans never run out of water!!! I salute those THEY who watered me and have grown me into whatever I am now today!...

Book Review The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni The book with the pages of pains, sufferings, yearnings, betrayals, guilt and finally salvation (of Panchaali) -- The Palace of Illusions It is always invigorating to read or listen to the story of  the great Indian epic -- The Mahabharata. There are numerous retelling of this epic in the forms of novels, plays, movies, series, etc., "The Palace of Illusions" stands unique from them all as it features Panchaali as a narrator who recounts the legend from her viewpoint. While reading the novel I could see the scenes so vividly through the eyes of Paanchaali.   The plot begins with the magical birth of Panchaali from the yagnya fire, next to her brother Dhri. Right from the birth, she is ignored by her father for being a girl. Panchaali, being too innocent to understand the sociaty, yearns to fulfil the purpose of her life. Years pass under the protection of her nanny (Dhaima) and the friendship of K...

Siblings - The Saplings of Same Soil Siblings are the saplings planted in the same ground. They get the same rain and same shine; breathe in the same air. Bloom together. Shade each other. Their flowers are of same fragrance; fruits are of same taste; leaves are of same shape. They bud, flourish and wither finally unchanged. Yet the bond gets stronger and stronger day by day. Their roots are tangled to let them stand firm.  There are thousands of people we come across in our life. Family is a miniature society which is complete in itself. Mother gives us birth, father gives us protection, grand parents give us care. But the siblings are ultimate. They play multiple roles. They are our parents while showing us love; teachers while teaching good and bad and streamlining our path; friends while having fun; enemies during the trivial brawls we have and what not! Despite all the odds, we stand for each other. A brother may pull your braid but will never let anybody pull your pride. A si...

Can there be a man as loyal as Hasan? as guilt-ridden as Amir? as majestic as Baba? as submissive as Ali? as prodigious as Sohrab?  as wicked as Assef? The Kite Runner deals with the lives of two Afghan  boys - Amir and Hasan. The novel is in first person narrative from the point of view of Amir which enables us to view his guilt, longings, insecurities, anger and love in a vivid way. It's a mixture of friendship, loyalty and inevitably betrayal and guilt.  Amir is the son of rich and well known Baba. Throughout his life he longs to gain his father's  love. When the novel begins, he is a motherless small boy. He and his servant Hasan are fed by the same nurse. Albeit being his master, he never treats hasan as his servant but as his friend perhaps as a brother.  Hasan is the son of Ali who is the servant of Baba. Like Amir and Hasan, they both too share the bond of friendship as they both too were fed by the same nurse. Despite being Hasaras, Ali and his son are ...

  The man who coloured my childhood   Everyone of us should have gone through the best part of our lives without even knowing the fact that those moments are never going to come back again. Having been a part of the never ending rat-race, I have never thought about those fruitful memories. Now that I’m away from all those hustles and bustles of life, my memories often go on a roller-coaster, spiralling back to the past. I remember, I still remember my carefree days of childhood spent in my grandma’s house. The enchanting village with groves to look through the window; the never ending snacks; the lovely, kind neighbours and their fun-loving children who used to be my partners in crime; the jingling pebbles; sweet-sour mangoes; quirky toys; meddling aunties, etc., Every single thing has formed numerous kaleidoscopic patterns in my heart. How bindas it was then! No one to stop me from being a queen of my kingdom; jumping over the fence; sleeping until 8 in the morning; spending ...

It's always delightful to come upon our amateurish writeups. It's such a fortunate stroke of serendipity that I came upon this poem (I think so) this morning. Probably written two or three years ago during my early years of SRV as a teacher.  I am not particularly proud but immensely pleased to find this out when I didn't expect to.  Here it is... I have..... but I don't Name I have      but fame I don't... House I have      but home I don't... Brain I have       but thoughts I don't... Heart I have       but love I don't... Sense I have        but feelings I don't... Desire I have        but efforts I don't... Eyes I have       but dreams I don't... Tongue I have       but taste I don't... Nose I have       but fragrance I don't... What if I had all that I want to and yearn to... Is life an endless seeking fo...

"The thing of beauty is joy forever" says Keats.   "The Blue Umbrella" by Ruskin Bond shows us how the beauty attracts everyone and how the attraction leads to obsession.  The novel starts with Binya,  a 10 year old girl from a village in Himalayas goes in search of her cows — Neelu and Gori in the valleys. There she sees some tourists, camped and a beautiful blue umbrella, kept open on the ground. It's so pretty and frilly, looks like a giant blue wild flower sprung up on the muddy ground. When one of the tourists asks for the leapord claw pendant she has worn in exchange for the blue umbrella, she readily accepts the deal and happily gets that from them. From the moment she gets that, she never closes that; wherever she goes she takes that along with her with great pride. The umbrella is neither big nor small for her. It covers her perfectly. The colour and its floral shape attracts everyone from the village.  Ram Barosa, a teashop owner in the vil...

This morning I went to water the plants on the terrace. My plants were very happy, nodding their heads in delight, as they were gonna be watered after longtime. I may have many lame reasons for not watering the plants but for these poor plants I am the sole benefactor. So I  went and watered the plants. Only the first two plants — two Tulsi plants. They were well nourished, even worshipped by my mother every alternative day and on some auspicious occasions with sacred camphor and incense sticks.  They stood so proud and unsatiated with my half a bucket of water and demanded for more. I didn't relent and went on with another mug. It splashed and spattered with those satisfying mugfuls. Then I went to the slab and filled the bowl that had been kept by my mother for her lovely constant guests— crows! The moment I filled and moved from the spot, a flock of crows thronged and perched on the slab. Some of them even roosted on the clothesline on which my mother had hung o...

Stories are part and parcel of human life. We are the outcome of the stories we have heard. As  Yuval Noah Harari  has rightly pointed out in his book  'Sapiens'  , stories are the most distinguished feature that enabled Homosapiens to survive and led to  cognitive revolution . The book I have chosen is  "Chicken Soup for the Indian Soul".  It's an anthology of the handpicked short stories written under various topics. One among them was  "A Drive to Dance".  It's a real life story of a well-known sope opera actress and a dancer,  Sudha Chandran.  Her life itself is a great lesson that shows  everything is possible if we have the mental toughness to achieve that.  Sudha Chandran was a born dancer. She gave her first stage performance at the age of eight and has received many noteworthy awards. But her ill-fate played its role and she met with a terrible accident. Due to that, her leg was amputed seven and a half inches bel...

It's the small hours of the fifth day of the lockdown. I was standing on the terrace,looking down at the passers by. My mother was sweeping the doorstep before adorning that with decorative patterns, wearing a kerchief as a protective mask! Our nextdoor aunty was sweeping the garbage away and uncle was Venturing out for a morning walk, his everyday ritual. Some three to four people were passing by, wearing masks for numerous reasons– to buy milk, newspaper and so on.  In the flickering street light's dull luminance I could see a carcass of a mouse on the path unremoved by anyone. The passers by didn't give a damn about that and walked past mindlessly. I could neither find any scavenger around to wipe it off nor could I gesture my mother to do that. Within a wink of my eyes there came a murder of crows. They started feasting on the carcass; thereby scavenging the carcass. I was reminded of my sixth standard science teacher telling, " Crows are natural scaven...

It's 25th of March, 2020. The first day of the 21 days lockdown imposed by the government of India which none of us knows when is going to be lifted. I am at home, doing nothing more than scrolling through my WhatsApp and other social media sites for the latest news feed. And very rarely jotting down my random thoughts and musings. Thus staying home idly without any work pressure. This was what I had been considering bindass until yesterday. But, This morning when I saw a woman police discharging her duty devotedly, a strange sense of pride struck me. By then I was having a cup of coffee (my morning ritual) and about to turn on the Television. But her penetrating voice made me peep through the window. I was just mesmerized by the way she tackled the unruly public who tried to cross her without wearing mask. She was a plump lady in her late or early thirties, in a neatly pressed uniform and a tightly coiled bun, wearing a blue mask to be away from contracting Corona. St...

Dear Corona, It was December 2019, you were just a new born baby. We baptized you Novel  Corona . You just opened your eyes and most of our brethren closed their eyes. You start crawling, we fondly called you an  outbreak ; you flourished,got nourished and started walking; we called you  Epidemic . You laughed in content and started acquainting with everyone for that we were to  quarantine  our people. You grew in hunger day by day and became a glutton. We couldn't fulfill your hunger. We called you  Pandemic  finally. Even now you are roaming around merrily and we, playing hide and seek with you. We hide ourselves, we stay at home, under the pretext of  curfew, lockdown, quarantine  and so on. You are ultimate! You just let us  wash all our sins using hand sanitizers; you let us know how it feels to be at home with our loved ones during week days; you just showed us the truth that our money and possessions have nothing to do...

Happy Women's Day 2020! This is how I'm supposed/expected to start this post. But before that there are many things to be dealt with. Under the pretext of taking women's side, we degrade them by letting them subconsciously believe that they are biologically, socially, psychologically, intellectually inferior to men. Who are men to give freedom to women when everyone is equal and there is no difference at all. Neither the boys have horns, nor do the girls have tails. (they do have ponytails though). Then what prompts us to beg for equality? There are many myths to fuel this practice. One among them is regarding the creation of mankind. God created Adam and breathed life and later only from the rib of Adam,Eve was created. A typical patriarchal story. Moreover there are some nerds to justify this too. By telling, God did it purposefully. Because he didn't create Eve out of Adam's skull or out of his leg bone. But out of his rib. It's to state, the wome...

"Teacher Plus" magazine takes up thought provoking themes on education every month. In one of the articles, the writer discusses the significance of travelling in the pursuit of learning. "Travel expands the mind and fills the gap" . Travelling expands us and transforms us entirely. When we are inside the four walls of the classroom, we learn theories but when we step out of the class, we acquire practical knowledge through real life experiences. They help us to sustain our lives in this competitive world.  The writer introduces a term " gap year ". It is almost like " career gap ". The later is a period of time spent away from work for varied reasons. Whereas the earlier is when a student takes a year off after finishing school and before starting college; perhaps to find out what he/she wants to pursue in life. It gives ample time to travel and explore and thereby enables him/her to research on a particular subject which he/she is i...

" Bounce Forward" by Sam Cawthorn tells us how to transform crisis into success. The author has interwoven his personal experience of how he learnt resilience after the traumatic accident which gave him excruciating pain and left him an amputee with prosthetic limbs. "What is to give light must endure pain". Crisis is inevitable. It can be tough and traumatic but it's a great initiator which makes us take decisions during make-or-break points and allows us to connect to our purpose. Author highlights a term called " halftime " which means every life has a halftime just as football or basketball games have. We must assess the first half to see if we perform well if not we have the second half to put it right. Facing crisis becomes more difficult due to our inhibition to admit our vulnerability. We are born vulnerable. When we are children we never have this inhibition but as we grow we think this vulnerability as our weakness. But being v...

Being a girl is not so easy.... This is the cliche we could hear almost from every nook and corner... Is it so?!  Perhaps. I too have the same mindset ..some times it demands more from us.. we have to be spontaneous  yet remain tongue tied to the ugly comments against us...  We have to be broadminded yet to follow some predefined superstitions... We have to be courteous yet to stick on to the familial orthodoxies.. We can enjoy everything yet that should be approved by the society... We are well educated yet it's not in our hands to take decision over our future.. We should be social butterflies yet to be  choosy while socialising... We should be friendly with others yet some conditions applied... Finally... We are free birds but within the cage... Love... Love... 

As days pass our memories grow faint yet there are some flimsy threads which never fail to drag us back to the past.... 💭💭💭 Strangeeeee 😃😃  I am a teacher in a private school handling English...  Last year was my first year in this marvelous teaching profession... While I was taking classes last year I didn't have any special bond with my students...but now whenever I open my book to prepare before teaching, each and every word tends to remind me of their faces, smiles, their counters,  their funky answers,  their mischiefs, gifts given by them and finally all their flatters...eventhough they are out of reach for truth I used to enjoy them.... Really longing to go back to the TG13  (my class)

Life is highly unpredictable.... It is similar to ride on the roller coaster..the more thrilled  you feel the more  excited it is... The one thing you have to possess is courage.... Yes you have to have courage to face all the adversities that are bestowed on you... If you're courageous enough to face them then nothing will be there to paralyze you and cease you from striving hard to achieve anything in life. So finally I would like to conclude this post with my favorite saying by Ambrose RedMoon Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear Ambrose RedMoon Love.. Love.. 

Bank- It is a place where economically diverse people meet....  it is a temple that should be visited atleast once for the people who are receiving their pension... People have different motifs behind them to visit here. I am also the one among them. yesterday I went to the bank nearby my house  to my surprise it was not so crowded... I thanked the almighty and headed to the counter and asked how to withdraw amount from my account... to my surprise the bank officer answered me calmly without pursing his mouth or showing his face.. I was really pleased by that... when I committed mistakes in the challan he peacefully advised me to correct it and helped me complete all the needed formalities. why I'm sharing this here is that I want to show my gratitude to all the exceptions like this officer yes..  Man like him can't be usually found in banks they will feel torturous even to open their mouth I would always tend to feel scary even to enter a bank... But thankfully god has...