Back To School!

In a couple of days, our children will be back in school, beginning a new school year. I can almost hear the sigh of relief from many harried mothers!

Talking of school days, one cannot avoid talking about teachers. They play such an important role in our lives. The way they teach, their love of the subject - all these influence our attitude towards the subjects we study.

In this context, I remember some wonderful teachers I have had in school and college ( and some unsavoury ones, too!) Dear rolypoly Mrs. Samson, with her infectious smile and love for English who made us laugh so much while we read "The Pickwick Papers"; who led us through the nuances of Shakespeare and imparted a love for English literature. I think it was her influence that led me to major in the subject later. Our Geography teacher, Snehaprabha, was good, but we were more interested in the fact that she had eloped with her drummer husband against the wishes of her rich parents. Quite filmy! Physics and Chemistry I don't remember much, probably because I could not relate to the teachers. But the worst was Math. Miss Asuntha was a dragon, and must have received our curses on a daily basis. With maturity, I know today that she must have been a very unhappy woman, for only someone very unhappy can make others so unhappy.

School is not entirely a golden period in our lives, although we would like to think so. While working with middle-school children, my friends and I realised that children go through so much - academic pressure, labelling and bullying, being accepted (or not) by the groups in class, rejection and loneliness. Each child we worked with had problems. It was left to us - a group of volunteers from outside- to interact and work with the children while the teachers just did their "job" and went away.

I know they have a lot of work, and today teaching is just a profession, not a calling. But if more and more teachers were involved in the lives of their students, things can change in our schools. I recently read an article by Gloria Estefan. She talks of how difficult it was for her, as an immigrant from Cuba, to learn English and fit into school. Her struggle to master the language and to achieve, were helped by her first standard teacher Dorothy Collins, who did not just teach her a language, but helped her find her voice.How wonderful if we could each have a Mrs.Collins in our lives...

Music, and more. . .

Growing up in the 60's and 70's, our main source of entertainment was the radio. After the early morning Suprabatham which woke us up from sleep, it was the radio that ran our lives. I would know when a certain programme started that it was time to queue up for a bath (sharing a bathroom with 3 siblings called for a certain amount of planning!), or when the news started at 8, it was time to get out of the house or else I would miss the bus.

In our house, the radio was on most of the day. At 3.30 p.m., however, we would switch loyalties and tune into Radio Ceylon. Till 4.30 or 5, it would be a feast of Malayalam film songs, and later it would be Tamil programmes. With the advent of the transistor radio, it was easier for us to carry our music with us wherever we went, although tuning the radio station was sometimes a nightmare!

Unlike song clips on television, the radio sharpened our auditory faculties. Listening to the songs, we picked up the words quite easily and sang along happily, even if we did go off-key sometimes. The presenters, unlike our RJs, did not talk non-stop. They were dignified, clear in their diction, and had great panache. I remember the popular Tamil presenter on Radio Ceylon, K.S.Raja, signing off in style, rolling the "R" in his name.

Sometimes we got more than music on the radio. At times, a film's entire soundtrack would be broadcast. Since movie-going was not a frequent activity, I would sit glued to the radio, listening to every word as I visualized the movie in my head. I distinctly remember listening to "Thiruvilayadal", "Pattikada Pattanama", and "Sollathan Ninaikkiren" among others. It also helped that films those days were more "wordy", leaving nothing left unsaid. Later in life, when I finally saw these movies, I realized that the movies in my head were better!

I'm glad radio has staged a comeback, but it is a newer, brasher version and I still have to get used to it. It also, unfortunately, has to compete with the visually more attractive television and internet and can no longer claim complete integration into our lives. No wonder our poor RJs talk so much!