Teaching as a profession

Place:Sringeri Shankar Mutt, Bangalore
Time:Summer holidays,every year.
Occasion:Summer Camp for school kids aged between 11 and 17
What I did there: Taught Vedic maths to school kids.
Satisfaction level:***** on a 5 * rating system.

Place:Home sweet home.
Time:Almost every day of the year,2002
What I did:Coached a class X student for the board exams.
Satisfaction level:**** and a half * on a 5 * rating system.

Other memorable teaching (this time, read 'victimizing' ) attempts:Whacking the hell out of my younger brother,while 'helping' him with his acads :)

Teaching is indeed such a satisfactory profession.I have had my share of horrible vampire-like teachers too : the ill-tempered Mukta maam for example...She used to break a dozen glass bangles every week during the process of her daily ritual of slapping me for being a naughty kid in class.Despite these unfortunate encounters, I've always had a major soft corner for teaching as a profession.The idea of being in charge of moulding an individual,equipping an individual with necessary knowledge and skills, and more than anything else, inspiring an individual to make the most of his abilities appeals a lot to me.

Teaching is also an immensely challenging job in its own right.While hunting for a 'challenging' job, most people do brush teaching aside.I beg to differ.Transferring print to young minds is a mundane way of going about it.Whether teaching is challenging or not depends on what the teacher wants to impart, how effectively the teacher imparts it and how well the teacher can get the student to remain attentive,to relate to,to absorb and to apply what has been taught.This reminds me of how my dad used to make it a point to teach us botany only in the garden.His help with my history lessons were so effective that I could paint and visualize the two world wars and the struggle for Indian independence when he spoke of them.He would refuse to help us mug geography merely from the textbook,if we went to him without an Atlas in hand.But the very best part of his teaching was when it came to science.Making countless small paper boats for us on rainy days, setting them afloat,sitting by the window sill watching their motion with the water current and explaining the fundas of buoyancy was some patience personified!He even helped us make models of steam boats,setup small experiments with potatoes,water tumblers and paper pieces,get us intrigued with an observed phenomenon, and set us on the path of figuring out why things work they way they do.

I can think of two major reasons,besides a plethora of smaller ones,as to why people shy away from such a respected profession.....and the sad part is that the two are inter-linked.Reason 1: It doesn't pay well unless you're a big-time PG/research teacher.Reason 2:The social stigma or dignity of labour factor in the Indian society.In fact,the two are inter-linked because Indian mentality ensures that the rich dad is the most respected man in the society.The least we can do about it is to change our attitude towards dignity of labour,stop glorifying software coolies,give teachers their due credit and look beyond following the herd for a change.

A long-pending account of my preps for an intriguing odyssey

Do you know how it feels when you get a chance to live the dream of a lifetime?On the other hand,do you know, how it feels to make a compromise on the dream that meant the world to you?Do you know how it feels to shut off from a life that has been hunky dory,a life that has been filled with friends ready to give you fun company anytime,a life that has given you long-time bum chums who ease your dil-ka-bhoj at times,a life that has been filled with security,thanks to a family so close that each one forms a comfortable cushion to fall back on anytime anywhere anyhow?Do you know how it feels to enter a whole new world where the place,the people,the language,the circumstances,the food,the lifestyle - just about everything is different from what you have been used to?Well, I just got a chance to figure out how it feels when my journey to SP began.

The fortnight preceding June 5th was dotted with a helluva lot of mixed emotions.I was so happy that I was gonna sail away on a lifetime dream.At the same time, the sorrow of having to choose a steam boat instead of a luxury liner,coupled wthe anxiety about my co-passengers,the anxiety about how changed a person I would come back at the end of it all, intrigued me a lot.Do I really HAVE to come to terms with the "no-IIM,it's SP for you"?Will the new crowd be my types?What if they are all mega ultra hep?I surely will get along with any kind but I definitely will not be my true self with the mega ultra-hep kinds.What if I too get influenced by what I think are 'baddies' in the hostel and change as a person by leaps and bounds?What if the values that I so strongly cling to get eroded gradually by a continuous conditioning of my strong mind?What if the "I love myself for what Iam" no longer holds after this change that I'll experience?These gnawing thoughts began to manifest themselves in obnoxious temperaments.Yelling at the people I was sure Id miss like hell after leaving home,became a daily affair.Those last few days that I spent at Bangalore,shopping,chatting,packing,last-minute shop-ransacking,cooking etc that I did with mom,convincing a concerned dad that I was perfectly alright,bidding my farewell to my closest cronies are some indelible memories of those 15 days.One of those weekends before my departure date,I had an overnight stay at granny's place.Iam immensely attached to my maternal granny n grandpa,thanks to my spending the first three years of my life at their place.That weekend,although granny was pretty sick, she took all the trouble to make unforgettably sumptous food for me,oil-massaged my hair with those frail hands of hers and gave me a hot steam.Some things in life are truly so priceless!!The next morning,grandpa and I went for a long 3 km walk and I walked past all the places around granny's that are so nostalgic to me.....One of them was a Hanuman temple right at the top of the hillock on which granny's house is.It's a small one but a very very serene one,with no compound to block the wildly blowing wind from painting a rangoli on my face using my hair.Ive always been a big chocolate fan and a huge one at that,more so when I was a kid.Back then, grandpa used to take me there,ask me to close my eyes and ask God for Cadbury's Gems.When the innocent me did so, he would ask me to open my eyes and lo and behold I'd find Gems in front of the God's idol.The place would then resound with my ringing laughter and grandpa would be the happiest man around to see me like that.It wasn't until the age of 15 or so that I figured out that grandpa himself would transfer the gems from his pocket, while I unsuspectingly closed my eyes and prayed.We would then stand at the edge of the cliff, shout each other's names out loud and his ears would again be filled with kmy ringing laughter, this time arising out of joy of hearing our names being echoed by the far-away rocks.Alas, Bangalore's too overcrowded now and the echo has died a silent death but Iam just too nostalgic about this place.After the morning walk, I cooked breakfast for grandma and grandpa and had a jolly god time with them.

Meeting up with all my friends the week before I could leave was such awesome fun.It also brought the reality of a hyper busy life with no time to catch up on good ol times,glaring back sneeringly right into my face.Faced a severe time crunch but I wasn't ready to skip meeting any of the dudes and dudettes who meant a hell lot to me.While packing my things,I yapped with them all along and had a hilarious time when they had come home.Dosa treat at Sam's place with V,Poxy,Suz,Priy and RG was good fun too.The day just before she could leave,the last-minute-raani ran to the market to shop jeans,get them altered,shop shoes,bags and God knows what else!!!.Also met the bubbly sweetheart Sush,good ol Ranj n Sam oer lunch.I had deliberately been post-poning the last visit to granny's house and it was finally time to go.Went there at about 10:30pm an cried my heart out like a starved kid!Granny's has a fierce emotional attachment towards me too but she was such a wonderfully mature source of inspiration.

It didn't need any words to sense the heavy-heart atmosphere at home.I was at my saddest worst but tried my best not to show it,lest it make things tough for the rest of them too.Talked to my dearest friends late into the night and cried my heart out.It felt so very frightening to think of the possibility that I may come back a totally changed person and things may never be the same between us again.My bros,grandpa and BMS gang dudes were so sweet to come to the station and see me off the next day.They gifted me a soft toy,we clicked a few snaps and then I boarded the train.Just before it started moving, the tear-tank burst with me clinging on to my bros too.Didn't let go even after the train started chugging along.Poor guys must've had a sad time getting outa a moving train!My journey into an intriguing world had begun and I was choking with the heavy-heart syndrome, trying to come to terms with the initial take-off nausea on the flight of my MBA dream.

n mum,if u're reading this somewhere back home, i just luuuuuuuuuuv SP.Iam havin loadsa fun.So it ws much ado about nothing at all :) but I do miss home a lot....really really a lot

Unofficial Prospectus of BMS

The following article appears in the latest edition of JAM (link).

One of the favourite ragging questions here: What's the full form of BMS? Answers to the above question range from a naive BM Sreenivasaiah college of Engineering to "Bangalore's Most Sexiest College of Engineering".

Campus: A beautifully landscaped campus, housing a stationery store, cricket ground cum football field, a huge indoor sports complex and an international hostel where guys and gals live in a single block, single floor but separate rooms ;-) The campus also houses other basic essentials like a library, four tall and spacious classroom blocks, canteen etc.

Crowd: Mostly filled with the intellectual lot who score well in the CET exams, but they are anything but nerdish.The crowd is endless fun, consisting of a very very generous sprinkling of handsome hunks, cute guys, pretty gals and gorgeous babes. The colurful crowd can be found jibbering away at any time of the day at any place on the lush green campus.

Courses offered: Engineering of all disciplines ranging from IT to Printing Technology and Silk Technology!

Extra currics: I am highly tempted to say 'studies' are the extra currics here n 'fun' comes under the head of curriculum :) On a serious note, we have a mountaineering club, a hyper-active cultural team, a social service team apart from zillion sports teams that end up winning top honours in nearly every sport under the sun.

Faculty: Very warm, friendly and helpful.

Favourite hangout: BMS Katte. Katte in kannada means a platform.The BMS katte is a huge one and you'll find half of BMS's we-bunk-class-everyday kinda junta here.

Canteen: Looks more like a bus stand, though the food is pretty good. If it's bad for a change, it's SLV restaurant.

Life of BMS: Basketball

How we boo the non-BMS team during basketball: Play drums (read old khataara vessels) with huge wooden sticks singing "We will We will rock you" loudly, but substituting the word rock with F*** :)

Fests: Utsav - a very very happening event in Bangalore, hogging a lot of media glare, and is the one event which the Bangalore youth look forward to. The fashion shows, mad ads and rock shows always run to packed houses.

Tech fest:They are generally department-specific and are spaced out throughout the year.