Garage Sale-ing with Aunty

 

“Hello, Hema.”

I looked into the smiling eyes and expectant face.

“Ready, Aunty?”

“Yes, chalein (shall we go)?”

We walked out to my car. Her woven handbag was hanging from her wrist. I knew it contained a handkerchief, a small coin purse and a few dollars.

 We were off on our weekly jaunt. Me a 40-something and Aunty a 60-something. A ritual like no other for me. A delightful pleasure to both of us. We shared a ride and a determination to keep to a very low budget of a few dollars only.

 Every Saturday about 12.00 pm, I would pull up outside her house, pick her up and we drove around neigbourhoods in Indianapolis and Carmel, looking for treasures that no one else wanted.

 “The Senior Centre, they said Meridian Hills is a good place today.”

“A community sale?”

“No, each house only, many houses.”

“Did anyone go there?”

“No, from the Community bus they saw three signs. We’ll go?”

I pulled out my Indianapolis map to plot the road. And off we went.

 In Indiana, unlike some other states, you didn’t need to get permission to hold a garage sale. You organized all the stuff you didn’t want in the house, displayed clothes on racks, knickknacks on rickety tables (also for sale sometimes), books and records in cardboard boxes and furnishings on the ground.

 I parked the car in the middle of the row of Garage Sale signs so that Aunty would not have to walk too far to any of the sites.

The first house we went to, she cast an experienced eye over the offerings.

She smiled at the woman who was sitting in the chair, reading a magazine.

“Hello,” Aunty opened the conversation. “You are selling books? No magazines?”

“No, these books are gathering dust. I need to clear my shelves to buy more,” the woman explained.

Aunty continued to make small talk while I browsed

“Yahan tho kuch nahin milega (Won’t get anything here),” Aunty observed.

We smiled our goodbyes and went to the next sale site.

 Aunty was clever and creative, always busy with some craft project or other, some of which would be dictated by what she found at these garage sales. She had an uncanny nose for bargains and a keen eye for all kinds of things that would be useful. She saw potential in every scrap where most others saw junk.

A skein of wool. Bits of cloth. An old dress that had a good pattern that she could cut up. Buttons of all shapes and sizes and materials. Picture wire. Crochet hooks. Knitting needles. Magazines with knitting patterns.

She shared her insights on how she would turn what seemed like random pieces into dolls, earrings, bracelets, wall pieces, blankets, patchwork quilts. Only those which had specific uses that she identified as gifts for her circle of visiting relatives and friends.

“Remember the blue napkin set we bought last month? I can use this print material to stitch a hem on it. The blue is very plain.”

 What I loved best was the camaraderie. She never persuaded me to try my hand at any of her craft work. Never said, “You can if you only tried… Of course everyone can and should be interested in crafts.”

 I am a later riser. She never complained that I didn’t get in time before the choice bits were taken, that we were never among the early birds to catch the brightest and cheapest stuff.

 She never blew her budget nor allowed me to. Once her store of dollars and change was exhausted, she would go with me to sites more to my taste. Initially when I was setting up my house, I would be on the lookout for lamps and side tables. Later through the years, I mooched around for used books, earrings. She never offered her opinion, never directed my taste. Her comments always centered on how I could use it, and gently steered me away from unsuitable or over-priced articles.

 I now have a flat in Chennai that has sufficient furniture handed over or shared with me by my family: antique chairs from my great-grandfather and my sister, bookshelves and a chest of drawers from another sister, crockery from the third one, a dining set from my aunt and cousins, beds from friends before they moved abroad. Each piece is imbued with personal history and emotions.

I still need lamps and side tables to make this flat into a home and I am reduced to banal shopping on Amazon.in

But no more quirky bargains from garage sales. Aunty isn’t here to go with me.

In memory of Mrs. Roma Bhattacharya, my whimsical person shopping companion.

OBJECTS OF CURIOSITY

 

At the confluence of the rivers Kathjodi and Mahanadi in Cuttack, it is a wondrous sight to see the birds coming to roost. 

At about 5.30 pm, cormorants and egrets fly by the hundreds to the river and gather in large and small groups, resting on the still waters against the setting sun. In time, they swoop and slide, going around in circles without ever running into each other. 

 

Their objective is a large tree in which they all settle for the night. How all those hundreds of birds find a resting place without the branches bending, let alone breaking, is another wonder. 

If you have been to Lodi Garden at sunset, you have an idea of the noise created, and the sudden silence that descends at a point when some elder apparently says, ‘Enough, silence, sleep now.’ Any teacher would envy the immediate obedience this unheard command seems to engender😀

I go there to watch this spectacle regularly, though not often enough.

Two evenings ago, however, a motorboat with some revellers were on the water. They were roaring around, making a lot of noise, leaking fuel exhaust into the river water, and causing a fairly small but distinct backwash, apparently uncaring of how they may affect the birds. I don’t know if it indeed did affect the birds, they didn’t seem to change their ritual of getting ready for the night.

But I resented this interference in my enjoyment of a ritual in nature, even while I acknowledged I had no right to feel like that. None of that belonged to me, not the river, not the water, not the boat, and definitely not the birds, any more than they belonged to the revellers.

In this scenario of birds, their flying patterns, their final dance of the day, I am an observer. I like watching them, wondering about their lives, and asking questions which I have no intention of answering more cursorily than with a quick search on Google. To me the birds are an ‘object of curiosity.’ I don’t seek to make any changes, nor interfere with, such natural events. I am not expected to, nor would it be encouraged. On the contrary, if I tried to choreograph this sunset dance in any way, everybody I know would be revolted and I would be reviled, not without reason. Nature, for me, is to observe, to marvel at, to enjoy – and to go back home with pleasant memories.

Is that what we do with our students when we set them a project or have them study a phenomenon?

We ask them to examine, look at, observe the world around us. We encourage them to ask what-whom-when-where-and-why about the things they see. They attend, describe, hold, identify, locate, name, recognize, select, and use, if they can, these ‘objects of curiosity.’ They may also discuss, examine, greet, and label them. They may even report on, recite, respond, tell, and write about them.

However, do we expect them to see how they affect the things they observe? Do we encourage them to acknowledge that by just being in the proximity of these objects of curiosity they affect the behaviour of these objects? And that is not always desirable? Is our null curriculum that we discourage them from seeing themselves as part of the word around them?

As teachers, are we teaching students that having curiosity is enough, that passive appreciation is sufficient unto the day? Is our hidden curriculum that deciding what is important and actionable, and following through on it, is not necessary? That recognizing ‘objects of curiosity’ is enough to make us good citizens of this earth?

Should our explicit and stated curriculum be that our students get involved in the lives of these ‘objects of curiosity’? That we teach our students to judge how they should respond actively rather than be silent, if keen, observers of, say, climate change? Should we prepare them for decision-making and following through on completing the process of change to the environment or their society? That it is not sufficient to go through the motions of writing to the mayor about the trash on the roads, and then walk past that same trash for months without making efforts to ensure the corporation’s trash-collection processes are regular and effective?

I wonder …

Are we preparing Greta Thunbergs? Should we be preparing Greta Thunbergs?

Photo credit: Rakesh Raghunathan 

My Diverse Self-Learning, Unlearning and Re-Learning

 

I wrote this chapter in 2020 when I was lockeddown in Toronto. Fortunately, I had backed up all the required data online and so was able to access it. 

I owe a lot to my group of friends who helped me remember my childhood days with greater accuracy, and my students who read drafts and encouraged me to tell their tale along with mine. 

It was an intense period of self-reflection which made me glad for the experiences life afforded me.

The 'pop-out' button on the right-hand top corner may make it easier to read, opening the document out in a new window. My apologies for the rough scanning of the document, I'll do a better version when I can. 

A Review of Two Books: 'Parthiban's Dream' and 'Meeran's Stories'

 Another review that I wrote in May and has  been published. I hope you get to read the originals and their translations. 

Both these books are available on Amazon. 

A Master Class by a Voice Guru

I didn't post anything on my blog in May, not because I didn't do any writing but because I was waiting for my writing to be published. Here is the link to my first piece, a review of Find Your Voice: A Definitive Guide for Stage Actors and Voice Professionals by P.C. Ramakrishna in The Book Review, 46(6).

Audiobooks and dubbing films for regional audiences in India are opening up a whole new market for people whose vocal cords are their raison d’etre. P.C. Ramakrishna’s book Find Your Voice: A Definitive Guide for Stage Actors and Voice Professionals could not have come at a better time for Voice artistes. The first of its kind in India, the book is an excellent mixture of the theory of Voice and how to cultivate and preserve it, as well nuggets on the features of the field of Voice. There are two distinct sections to the book. The first three-quarters of the book explicates the theory and practice of Voice production for primary stakeholders: stage actors, voiceover artistes, singers, animation voicers, radio jockeys and public speakers. Ramakrishna recognizes the differing needs of each of these professionals with regard to usage of vocal cords and production of sounds. For instance, voice projection for stage actors as against voice modulation for voiceover artistes. Every chapter has a wealth of exercises and relevant materials for each kind of voice professional. The last quarter of the book consolidates and expands these best practices and exercises for a cohesive approach to voice training. The practice material of words, sentences and dialogues in each chapter are classically relevant and appropriate, even if younger artistes may consider them dated.

He brings to the book the same deceptive casualness and insouciance that has been a feature of his Voice career. Adopting a conversational tone, he uses the pronoun ‘you’ rather than ‘s/he’ to address the reader but this apparent breeziness is belied by the specificity of his instructions such as the placement of a mike for clarity.

‘Voice Artiste’, the first chapter on the physics of voice is an anatomy lesson, describing the parts of our body involved in the production of speech. ‘Voice and the Actor on Stage’ lays out concepts of volume and throw. It is also a primer on phonetic features of sibilants, plosives and end consonants that contribute to clarity. All three concepts add up to audibility. ‘The Chemistry of Voice’ focuses on ‘colouring’ the Voice, adding emotion to it, for example on tone and sounds like shouting, screaming, wailing and laughing that convey feelings. Chapter 4 ‘Voiceover Artiste’ provides an overview of different sub-genres in voiceovers – newscaster, human interest story, the medicine industry, tourism, nature documentaries, children’s stories, ads, son et lumiere  - that target different emotions in viewers/listeners. For example, awe and wonder for nature documentaries, husky ‘come hither’ for perfume, and friendly and expressive for children. Two short chapters are devoted voicing animated films and a radio jockey, including crafting an interesting spiel for an RJ.

‘Singing Voice’ addresses subgenres such as the Carnatic or Hindustani vocalist, singing for classical dances and the choral voice. The explanations of chest and head voices for singers, the natural pitch classification in Western music, and the preferred range of two and a half octaves a singer should cultivate, are comprehensible even to a novice of music. ‘Stage Spaces and the Actor’s Voice’ is a practical extension of Chapter 2; Ramakrishna focuses on helping actors gauge voice throw and range required by different kinds of stages.

Training the Voice: Chapters 10 to 14 – ‘Nurture That Voice’, ‘Exercises’, ‘Do Workshops “Work”?’, ‘And… Here Come the “Spoilers”’, ‘Find Your Voice’ - unequivocally constitute a how-to section. Pulling together and extending tips, suggestions, processes and exercises, it is a time saver for professionals who can build a voice routine without wading through multiple chapters. Two chapters are devoted to nurturing and exercising the voice. Ramakrishna warns against Voice workshops not connected to a theatre space or a recording studio; don’t waste your time and money. The final chapter slips in an observation about learning from listening to other interlocutors, a skill which deserves more attention. Ramakrishna states explicitly, and often, that complete, thorough, detailed preparation is key to success, an idea promoted by every resource person. He then provides a roadated map specific to Voice artistes: read and reread the script; visualize the scene; identify the overall emotion and any varying emotions through the piece; check spellings; mark pauses, breath and intonation. Then … Practice pronunciation. Practice modulation. Practice breathing. Practice, practice, practice.

 Miscues: Two chapters do not fit smoothly into the theme of the book. ‘The Public Speaker’ expands the mnemonics ABCDEF of a good public speech rather than Voice features of an orator, a motivational speaker or a storyteller. ‘And Here … Come the “Spoilers”’, while interesting, is more directly related to acting and performing plays than to Voice.

Ramakrishna has overlooked another profession where voice is used every day and continually – teaching. Given the cacophonous ambient noises most teachers contend with, and that 90% of time in a classroom is teacher talk, it is not surprising that teachers constitute the bulk of an ENT specialist’s patients list. Learning not to rely on volume but to throw their voice to 60 students in less than ideal settings would be invaluable for teachers.

PC Ramakrishna knows whereof he speaks. He found his Voice and has capitalized on it for 50 years. An ‘early adopter’ in many fields related to Voice - actor with the oldest English theatre group in India; bass singer in the oldest Indian language choir; newscaster on Doordarshan Chennai - he is still the most sought after commentator for heritage and corporate films in India. He brings to the book the same deceptive casualness and insouciance that has been a feature of his Voice career. Adopting a conversational tone, he uses the pronoun ‘you’ rather than ‘s/he’ to address the reader but this apparent breeziness is belied by the specificity of his instructions such as the placement of a mike for clarity. The level of detail and the examples and exercises he provides make clear the kind of hard, sustained work necessary to maintain the high level of professionalism he has achieved in this field. An eminently readable and useful book gains in authenticity because of the personal experience and expertise the author brings to the subject.

The first of its kind in India, the book is an excellent mixture of the theory of Voice and how to cultivate and preserve it, as well nuggets on the features of the field of Voice. There are two distinct sections to the book. The first three-quarters of the book explicates the theory and practice of Voice production for primary stakeholders: stage actors, voiceover artistes, singers, animation voicers, radio jockeys and public speakers. Ramakrishna recognizes the differing needs of each of these professionals with regard to usage of vocal cords and production of sounds.

THE PHYSICAL CONTEXT OF SCHOOLS: AMBIENCE

Looks familiar? Like your classroom in school? Except that this was 100 years ago. The one institution that has not changed physically in 100 years is, you’ve got it, schools. After two punishing years of lockdowns, how unlikely is it that they are going to look any different even as we blithely consider cutting back on the curriculum or spout off about technology in classrooms? 

There has been much discussion in Indian education circles about how the pandemic has affected schooling. Research studies have documented many struggles: inequality of technology access, student drop out, ‘learning loss,’ curtailed curriculum, and teachers managing students rather than teaching.

Now with schools reopening everything is back to ‘normal’ but what is the ‘new normal’ for teachers? They have been irrevocably changed by experiences of the past two years which have been a strange mixture of comfort and inconvenience, of familiarity and strangeness. How will they fit back into school buildings that have remained static?

Pandemic-while

During the pandemic, for close on two years teachers were forced to mix personal and professional settings creating modern ‘one room schools.’ This sudden change in physical context made for conditions of working and living inconvenient and comfortable simultaneously.

Like most of us who live in flats, teachers’ houses are not large enough for a dedicated room per member of the family. When a private place could be spared to work in comparative solitude, patriarchy determined that menfolk had first rights so that the husband or son in the family closed the door to the room and left the womenfolk and children to share common areas.

Various shared spaces perforce functioned as ‘multiple classrooms,’ whether it was the drawing room, a bedroom or the kitchen table. They had to be frequently rearranged to accommodate ‘school’ and ‘home’ functions. Dining tables had to be cleared every morning for laptops which in turn had to cleared off at mealtimes. Beds had to be remade several times after constant use. These arrangements naturally were very inconvenient and upsetting for the entire family.

Most schools avoid placing children in their parents’ classroom to circumvent accusations of favoritism. Teacher-parents were reminded of how welcome this unwritten rule is! In close proximity at school-home, instances of irony abounded. Teacher-parents had to tune out a colleague’s professional practices, hoping the Golden Rule[1] would apply to them, too. They could hear their child’s teacher echo their own calls for attention. They watched helplessly as their own children, just like their students, muted their audio and turned off their video to watch TV. They heard their children offer a familiar, specious complaint - ‘My internet is not working, Miss.’

A brighter side to this was that teachers were in their own homes, in familiar surroundings, on familiar territory which, to a large extent, they could negotiate to suit themselves. Even called on more often than was convenient to serve tea or clean up after a meal, they were conscious of the convenience factor of being in their own homes, in a place of comparative physical comfort brought on by familiarity. They could regulate the ambient ventilation, lighting and noise. They sat at ease under their own fans or in air-conditioned comfort. They closed windows when the noise from neighbours became too loud.

Though these convenience factors may outweigh the crowd factor for short spells, they could not for the interminable two years that Covid-19 sanctioned. It is not surprising that teachers were raring to get out their houses and back into school buildings.

Post-Pandemic

With schools in full swing again, teachers are back in a very familiar mode. They are back in the whirl of school assembly and bell to bell periods, and hurried lunches and even shorter tea breaks. Students are in one room, under their eagle eye, unable to remain unseen, anonymous or absent. Life is back on track. Phew!

But do they see schools as the Garden of Eden before the fall?

Furnishing classrooms

The most depressing thing about schools is their physical set up, how they are furnished and maintained. Rooms are usually packed tight and the narrow aisles are most inconvenient. In fact, unless the teachers are as thin as walkway models, they can scarcely get to the back of the room.

The quality of student furniture leaves a lot to be desired. Gouges and scratches bear witness to the boredom of generations who have graced the building, and quickly descend into a state of dilapidation. They are not regularly painted or varnished and are not replaced until they become unsafe.

Teachers’ chairs, if they are provided one at all, are hardbacked with even harder seats that are murder on their backs and bums. A definite disincentive to rest tired legs.

The poor ambience of the classrooms is exacerbated by the fact that teachers have little to no say in the location or arrangement of their classrooms. Why then would they have a stake in it and take ownership of the state of the room?

 

Ventilation

Classrooms are hot and not well-ventilated. Schools have little choice in the placement of their buildings, especially in overcrowded cities. So while homes may run north-south to let in air but not direct sun, classrooms windows, where they open to the outside, are perfectly positioned to trap the heat of the day, which is multiplied by forty warm bodies.

A majority of the classrooms are equipped with at least fans, if not air-conditioning. Though it must be acknowledged the intermittent, unreliable electricity flow make these fittings moot. Further, teachers are discouraged from switching them on to conserve on utility bills. End result is that classrooms are sweatpits.

Is it any wonder that by the end of the day the fetid atmosphere in the classroom makes teaching or learning untenable?

 

What can school do?

No, I am not advocating for existing schools to be torn down and rebuilt, though most of them beg for it, let’s be honest. Even within the existing infrastructure, life can be made a little less unpleasant physically for teachers.

1.       Encourage teachers to rearrange furniture to serve their pedagogy. If they can turn chairs around, or pile up desks and chairs against the wall, they may use interactive activities rather than lecture.

2.       Require teachers to switch on the fan in every classroom and leave them on through the day. Even when students are not in the room, the fans will sweep out the stuffiness and swelter.

3.       Equip windows with wooden blinds or shutters that can be closed against direct sunlight. They will be less expensive and require less maintenance than curtains.

4.       Invest in and maintain generators for the entire school, not just the administrator block or IT labs. Regular sources of power should be considered as essential as furniture.

Then may be the school building will be the teachers’ workplace of choice, and not just an escape from overcrowding at home!

---

[1] Do to others as you would have them do to you. Luke 6:31

ON LOCAL LIBRARIES

 Talking of books, again (do we ever stop?), while every major city has its USIS and British Council libraries, the greatest pleasure that bound us all together was the local library. You know, which was just about within walking distance from home, the one had something for every age group in the family.

Which was teeny-tiny with perhaps just about enough room to turn around rather than crawl out backwards. 

Which was dusty and musty, where the books were so tightly packed on the shelf that you had to pull out two or three at a time. Where you wanted to get to the books first, before their spines cracked and they fell apart.

Where the owner had a record of every book you had ever read in all the 15 years you had been a member. Who knew who had borrowed the book you desperately wanted. Who kept an eagle eye on you and wouldn’t let you borrow books your parents forbade you to bring home.

Who when you go even 15 years later instantly recognizes you. Who still keeps your membership current and knows your membership page number. And suggests what authors you should have moved on to since the last time you borrowed a book. And doesn’t hesitate to dun you for the book you lost 20 years ago. Or will return the Rs. 2 which he owed you from way back when.

All of us in major metros have grown with such a library even as the city grew around it. In Madras it was Easwari Lending Library. An institution in itself.

By the time I could make my way to Easwari, I had ‘graduated’ from Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie to Romances. Mills and Boon, as they were then called, was much in demand but I was also an indiscriminate reader, willing to peruse almost anything printed. No one commented adversely on reading habits, though my father was totally unappreciative of my literary taste; he insisted on picking up my M&B only with a hanky so as not to pollute himself with ‘rubbish.’

Mr. Palani, the founder-owner, is a fairly short, thin man who ruled his library with a rod of iron. We were allowed to borrow only 10 titles at a time. Actually, we began with five. When Mr. Palani deemed us sufficiently trustworthy to return the books in time and in good condition, he upped the limit to 10.

Ooof. The relief!

Even that was insufficient for me. I was a fairly fast reader, devouring one or two books on a weekday and few more over the weekend, and ran through the new books in short order. Fortunately, there were a couple of other patrons of Easwari who stepped up. My friend Bharati’s mother, for instance, was another avid reader of M&B who would sub-lend me her borrowed books, keeping me well supplied. The only provisos were that I returned them safely to Easwari before the due date to avoid late fees, and in time to enable them to borrow a fresh lot without hitting the max ceiling.

The reading was an all-absorbing enchantment and thrill but returning the enormous number of books threw up many issues. First of all was the timing since I had to juggle the deadlines of three other patrons apart from my own. Sitting up nights to finish a book was standard practice, which my family tolerated. It also required late-evening runs to the library, not a practice my family approved of.

Returning 15 to 20 books at a time to the library, which was not on a bus route, involved huge, heavy bags. They were special trips from home, not combined with other errands in the area or on the way back from college. Definitely not the last as the books would have been seized upon by various friends to be read between the pages of the English textbook in Mrs. John’s class probably, not to be seen again for a couple of days, well past the due date.

Secondly, I had to look sharp to avoid paying unnecessary late fees. Palani was not above pulling a fast one on me, slyly failing to cancel books I had returned. Fortunately, my prodigious memory served me well and I countered by tracing them back on the shelves or to my friends who had borrowed it after me.

My nephew Rama, as he is now known, shares my mania for books. When he was old enough to read, I insisted that he earn his privilege of a library visit by walking to it. The five-year-old would trudge 1.5 km through the hot, humid evening to choose books that were first vetted by me and then by Palani. We would get a ride back if the book load was too heavy or it was much too late in the evening.

Even before Easwari was the Children’s Club mobile library. In my days, the club membership consisted of friends and family who lived within a 10-minute walk of each other. The club was run by my extended family who called the shots on all details of the library service.

Every Saturday, Munuswamy would ride the library van around the neighborhood (and no, that is not his picture and the van was a dull gray!) and we’d fall on it like vultures, ready to pick it clean. We were each allowed one or two books and one magazine, a paltry number. Ritakka, my cousin, as always came to my rescue, allowing me to appropriate her slot, setting a custom that I later took for granted. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t have first choice every week because, of course, I was the most avid reader in our group, I whined. But more dispassionate heads made sure each household was fairly served in the rota system. And Munuswamy had strict instructions not to permit any reservations, so I had to wait my turn for a coveted book. We were strictly not allowed to trade across households, even those next door or just across the road, a decision easily enforced since the chief librarian, invariably an aunt or an older cousin, kept informal tabs on our weekly reading list.

I read my first Enid Blytons here, stories about Amelia Jane and pixies and elves. And Highlights with its puzzles, mazes and  puns, also my first introduction to crosswords, a passion that still rules me. We couldn’t colour the pictures, of course, but traced the maze or did the crossword in pencil lightly enough to erase it without a mark.

In total contrast was the school library. With musty books run by a dragon who didn’t seem to have any interest in reading and had no idea who the passionate readers in a class were. But the library did have books and authors I couldn’t find anywhere else, probably because they were so dated – the Chalet school series, Angela Brazil and the Dimsey books. And I found classmates and friends who were non-readers very willing to check out books for me, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Maybe now that I am back in Chennai, perhaps Easwari beckons, though it looks pretty hifi. Or payback time in the Children’s Club library, to (re)introduce its membership to the delights of a local library?