What must I do when the teacher hasn’t come?
I can’t sit stiff in class and keep mum.
But its good if the teacher is strict and tough
And you begin to feel that you’ve had enough
Do teachers fill up forms of white and blue?
Or write in handbooks that they’ve had the flu?
Do they stutter and stammer for low attendance?
Then why must we do that? It makes no sense.
Are the teacher’s records ever checked at all?
They can say they are ill and go to the mall.
Anyhow, if these teachers do miss their class
We have an equally boring time in the library, Alas!
I was rummaging through a couple of my old notebooks, when I came across this poem. Obviously written in a fit of boredom, I couldn’t help but laugh as I read through it. I must have written this several years ago. It makes absolutely no sense….and is quite childish actually, but its fun to come across such weird pieces of writing years later.
On teachers’ day, I am at a loss of words to describe the teachers who were part of my life. My life didn’t change radically due to their pearls of wisdom. Nor was I deeply inspired by any of them. Don’t get me wrong. I couldn’t have asked for a better set of teachers. But they were there…..and I learnt….what any student learns in class. Nothing more. Nothing less. But still, kudos to all the teachers who put up with moi for so many years!
The profession is losing the dignity and respect it commands. I really hope someday, I can take time off my ‘busy life’ and teach. And if I do that someday, maybe some other frustrated teen will write this poem sitting in the library because I would have bunked to go see a movie.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Saturday, September 1, 2007
The Perfect Pair of Black Jeans
My obsession for black jeans began with my visits to the orthodontist. Trying desperately to ignore the high-pitched shrieks coming from within the doctor’s room, I used to bury myself in the tabloid and fashion magazines kept in the reception. After hours and hours of gorging on such magazines, I learnt a couple of important facts on fashion. Everyone must have a pair of black jeans. They apparently went with every occasion (Back then….and even now; I don’t frequent these ‘occasions’). And they took off the extra kilos from….ahem….wherever you wanted them taken off. Every celebrity urged you to own a pair. Almost as if they would come out of the magazine, pull you by your collar and jinx you to buy them. And almost all designers went gaga over the black jeans of film stars and Page-3 socialites.
I began the search for my pair of black jeans. I was in need of a new pair of jeans anyway. I had managed to cut off all my old pairs to transform them into shorts or capris. So I had no pair of decent jeans for the ‘occasions’. And thus I began my quest for the ‘Perfect Pair of Black Jeans.’ I came across all kinds…….from gravity-defying low waist pairs to the skinny kind that can give a stick insect an inferiority complex. None matched my standards. Or my fussy attitude and stingy budget. I had almost given up for good when I saw the words SALE plastered upon one of the top branded shops in a market. I ran towards it to buy my pair. There was almost a premonition that I would get my pair there. But on opening the door, all I saw were men’s jeans. So they use a skinny gorgeous female model to advertise the SALE and then sell only jeans for the male species. Well, I guess that’s the whole point….of luring the male species.
So after 4 years, I have managed to find the “black jeans”. I had to widen both my budget and criteria for the perfect pair. But the moment I looked into the mirror after trying them on……I realized that they were indeed something else. So occasions or no occasions, I will still probably strut around in those jeans…..after all; it took me the longest time to procure them.
Ultimately, I learnt that everyone must have a pair of black jeans….even if they take you longer to find than your entire orthodontic treatment!
I began the search for my pair of black jeans. I was in need of a new pair of jeans anyway. I had managed to cut off all my old pairs to transform them into shorts or capris. So I had no pair of decent jeans for the ‘occasions’. And thus I began my quest for the ‘Perfect Pair of Black Jeans.’ I came across all kinds…….from gravity-defying low waist pairs to the skinny kind that can give a stick insect an inferiority complex. None matched my standards. Or my fussy attitude and stingy budget. I had almost given up for good when I saw the words SALE plastered upon one of the top branded shops in a market. I ran towards it to buy my pair. There was almost a premonition that I would get my pair there. But on opening the door, all I saw were men’s jeans. So they use a skinny gorgeous female model to advertise the SALE and then sell only jeans for the male species. Well, I guess that’s the whole point….of luring the male species.
So after 4 years, I have managed to find the “black jeans”. I had to widen both my budget and criteria for the perfect pair. But the moment I looked into the mirror after trying them on……I realized that they were indeed something else. So occasions or no occasions, I will still probably strut around in those jeans…..after all; it took me the longest time to procure them.
Ultimately, I learnt that everyone must have a pair of black jeans….even if they take you longer to find than your entire orthodontic treatment!
Monday, August 20, 2007
A United Venture
The year was 1996. The air was thick with excited whispers coming from all around. The atmosphere was charged with anticipation as we saw the words “The Lion King” appearing on the huge screen. We all gave a whoop of joy and settled down in our seats to watch what was to be one of my most memorable movie experiences.
Fast forward 11 years…
The year is 2007. The air is still thick with excited high pitched noises. And this time we see the words “Chak De India” appearing on the huge screen. I can feel the same childish enthusiasm creeping into me as I settle down to watch a movie that has broken my Lion King record.
So you raise your eyebrows and think that surely, there can’t be any similarity between Chak De and Lion King. Well, that’s true. There isn’t any similarity between the movies. The only thing that’s similar is the fact that I saw both movies with my entire class. And I think that’s what made these two movies stand way apart from the others that I have watched.
After weeks of mundane routines and classes, my Class-Rep came up with the idea of doing something together. As a full class. Still reeling over with notes from the previous IC {Indian constitution} class, one of the girls screamed out, “United we stand, divided we fall!” Ha! United, my foot, I thought. Some of the girls barely even know the names of their fellow classmates. Why on earth would they want to do ‘stuff’ with strangers? And that too, watch a movie? I mean, think about it. A movie is most often screened in a dark theatre for over 2 hours. What is so “united” about seeing it together anyway? The only united factor I could think of is that we would all stare at the screen….united. But that didn’t shake the determination of my class-rep. She even resorted to threats about denying proxy to girls who gave this movie a miss. So which movie were we supposed to go to anyway, I asked her. She gave me this benevolent smile as though God was enlightening his Chosen One and said to me, “Chak De India”. Humph. Perfect. Just what I’d want to see with my entire class. A senti movie about hockey players who run around the oh-so-handsome Shahrukh.
So imagine if the team had lost its World Cup final and were returning home all disgruntled. That was the exact expression I had on my face as I was busy racking my memory about the last thing we decided to do as a class. A trip to Wonderla. Wonder Bah! Humbug. Only 18 of us ended up going. That’s how “united” we generally are. But, there’s always a time for a new beginning, the optimist part of me [which I had so far, successfully shunted away] popped up and said.
So The Day dawned. Not so bright. There was a chance of rain [Oh Please! Oh Please!]
Like all good students [who are scared to death about shortage of lousy attendance], we attended our first two hours of lecture. And then we embarked upon the expedition to reach our place of destination. By foot. Not on those fancy spaceships with all the sound effects. We reached the theatre all sweaty and panting. We were not to worry about our appearance anyway as we examined the crowd around us. In fact, it was the other way round. The ‘crowd’ was examining us. Oh, I forgot to add three things. 1) The fact that we were watching this movie in a seedy theatre close to college.
2) We had only got the ‘First class’ [also known as Gandhi Class, apparently] seats as balcony and mini balcony seats were not doled out to a crowd of 40…
3) Yes. 40. So our class finally decided to do something united after all!!
As we sank into our….not so ‘sinkable’ seats, we could distinctly smell rats somewhere. That distracted my mind till one dirty porki rascal [our new jargon for these rowdy Romeos] screamed “Hi Babies!!” okay. I’m going to end with the description right there and move on…..
The movie started….and I got back into the same days of The Lion King. Only, this time, we could howl, scream and laugh without nervously looking back at our teacher. So howl, scream and laugh, we did. All the bitter feelings about our scattered class forgotten, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. And what better movie to watch with a huge crowd than one that has a nail-biting hockey final match to finish with? We laughed as a class, ‘awwwed’ at the cute scenes as a class, stood up during the national anthem as a class and even cheered for the same players as a class. We couldn’t get more united than that.
The movie finished…but we were still high on the excitement of the whole event. As we got out, one of the ‘more’ energetic of us yelled out loudly “Three cheers for 2nd PyEJ” and every one started cheering loudly. Urgh. This is the end of my already non-existent social life, I cringed. But when I looked around, I saw everyone in the theatres giving us looks. Not looks of impish disapproval or rolling of eyes. But looks of envy. Looks that clearly read, “Che, I wish I was in that class”. I then realized how cool my class actually was….is, actually. Okay. It was something I always knew but never wanted to admit lest I add fuel to the fire of the enthusiastic girls. I can only hope that we continue this tradition and do more stuff together. Hey, we’ve already come up with a new agenda. Our next destination? To watch the International Film Festival of India in Goa……united!
Fast forward 11 years…
The year is 2007. The air is still thick with excited high pitched noises. And this time we see the words “Chak De India” appearing on the huge screen. I can feel the same childish enthusiasm creeping into me as I settle down to watch a movie that has broken my Lion King record.
So you raise your eyebrows and think that surely, there can’t be any similarity between Chak De and Lion King. Well, that’s true. There isn’t any similarity between the movies. The only thing that’s similar is the fact that I saw both movies with my entire class. And I think that’s what made these two movies stand way apart from the others that I have watched.
After weeks of mundane routines and classes, my Class-Rep came up with the idea of doing something together. As a full class. Still reeling over with notes from the previous IC {Indian constitution} class, one of the girls screamed out, “United we stand, divided we fall!” Ha! United, my foot, I thought. Some of the girls barely even know the names of their fellow classmates. Why on earth would they want to do ‘stuff’ with strangers? And that too, watch a movie? I mean, think about it. A movie is most often screened in a dark theatre for over 2 hours. What is so “united” about seeing it together anyway? The only united factor I could think of is that we would all stare at the screen….united. But that didn’t shake the determination of my class-rep. She even resorted to threats about denying proxy to girls who gave this movie a miss. So which movie were we supposed to go to anyway, I asked her. She gave me this benevolent smile as though God was enlightening his Chosen One and said to me, “Chak De India”. Humph. Perfect. Just what I’d want to see with my entire class. A senti movie about hockey players who run around the oh-so-handsome Shahrukh.
So imagine if the team had lost its World Cup final and were returning home all disgruntled. That was the exact expression I had on my face as I was busy racking my memory about the last thing we decided to do as a class. A trip to Wonderla. Wonder Bah! Humbug. Only 18 of us ended up going. That’s how “united” we generally are. But, there’s always a time for a new beginning, the optimist part of me [which I had so far, successfully shunted away] popped up and said.
So The Day dawned. Not so bright. There was a chance of rain [Oh Please! Oh Please!]
Like all good students [who are scared to death about shortage of lousy attendance], we attended our first two hours of lecture. And then we embarked upon the expedition to reach our place of destination. By foot. Not on those fancy spaceships with all the sound effects. We reached the theatre all sweaty and panting. We were not to worry about our appearance anyway as we examined the crowd around us. In fact, it was the other way round. The ‘crowd’ was examining us. Oh, I forgot to add three things. 1) The fact that we were watching this movie in a seedy theatre close to college.
2) We had only got the ‘First class’ [also known as Gandhi Class, apparently] seats as balcony and mini balcony seats were not doled out to a crowd of 40…
3) Yes. 40. So our class finally decided to do something united after all!!
As we sank into our….not so ‘sinkable’ seats, we could distinctly smell rats somewhere. That distracted my mind till one dirty porki rascal [our new jargon for these rowdy Romeos] screamed “Hi Babies!!” okay. I’m going to end with the description right there and move on…..
The movie started….and I got back into the same days of The Lion King. Only, this time, we could howl, scream and laugh without nervously looking back at our teacher. So howl, scream and laugh, we did. All the bitter feelings about our scattered class forgotten, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. And what better movie to watch with a huge crowd than one that has a nail-biting hockey final match to finish with? We laughed as a class, ‘awwwed’ at the cute scenes as a class, stood up during the national anthem as a class and even cheered for the same players as a class. We couldn’t get more united than that.
The movie finished…but we were still high on the excitement of the whole event. As we got out, one of the ‘more’ energetic of us yelled out loudly “Three cheers for 2nd PyEJ” and every one started cheering loudly. Urgh. This is the end of my already non-existent social life, I cringed. But when I looked around, I saw everyone in the theatres giving us looks. Not looks of impish disapproval or rolling of eyes. But looks of envy. Looks that clearly read, “Che, I wish I was in that class”. I then realized how cool my class actually was….is, actually. Okay. It was something I always knew but never wanted to admit lest I add fuel to the fire of the enthusiastic girls. I can only hope that we continue this tradition and do more stuff together. Hey, we’ve already come up with a new agenda. Our next destination? To watch the International Film Festival of India in Goa……united!
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Chewing Gum, Exams and Friends
Bewildered at the heading? Well, this title takes me back years in time. Chewing gum, exams and friends was my debut as an actor. This isn’t the nostalgic report of a movie star who is telling you ‘how it all happened’. And this isn’t going to end with ‘the rest is history’. This is, however, the musing of a teenager who has nothing better to do other than sit at home and go back in a time capsule to the time when she was 13. Chewing Gum, Exams and Friends (damn, I couldn’t come up with a suitable abbreviation, which is so much in fashion these days) was a play I acted in when I was in the 8th std.
Our school had introduced these compulsory ‘Hobby Classes’ and we had to, well, choose a hobby. My first choice was the Newspaper Club. The idea of having my name being printed on every issue of the school newspaper thrilled me to no end. Seeking inspiration from the Archie comics’ ‘Blue and Gold’ newspaper, I imagined myself strutting around with a smart notepad and a pencil behind my ear, interviewing famous celebrities…But I guess I wasn’t the only one with that dream. During a school assembly, when we were officially sorted out into various clubs, I discovered that the Newspaper Club had the maximum number of students. So all the juniors (that would be us) ended up in the Club we had marked as a second choice. In my case, Theatre Club. This wasn’t exactly my second choice. I was so sure of getting into the Newspaper Club, that I randomly ticked another club as a back up. Now, I was stuck in a theatre club.
I had always looked upon theater as a platform for failed film actors. Hey, you can’t blame me for the misconception. I was, after all, a starstruck teen!! So, with a rather forlorn expression [and I wasn’t acting] I entered the basement. I had only three classmates as company. All the rest were 9th std. students. There was a sprinkling of a few 7th std. kids as well.
The first thing [the first of many many more things] that struck me as odd was the location of this club. The Basement. Why would anyone want to learn acting in the basement? It was a place for the TT tables and broken cycle pumps. These were all put to one corner and we had the rest of the basement to ourselves. We all looked pretty clueless as we waited for our instructor. We didn’t wait long though.
Our ‘instructor’ turned up in a kurta with rolled up sleeves and jeans. I can’t say I expected Al Pacino, but still. I thought he would make a ‘dramatic’ entrance. After all, this was drama, right? So anyway, he came in and removed his shoes, gesturing us to do the same. He then kept a duster in the middle of the class [the basement] and asked us to form a circle around it. I thought we were in for a game of dog in the bone. But he asked us all to pick up the duster in turns and then treat it as an object. Any object, he said. All we had to do was act out a scene with the duster. The class kept ogling at him. He finally realized he ad to demonstrate. Now, this was 6 years ago. So I can’t really remember what he made of the duster. But I can, however remember I thought of it as a seed. And clearly, I was the only one who could interpret my acting. The rest of the class thought I was depicting the duster as a misguided missile. They were all staring at my ridiculous antics with awe. I finished my turn and walked away. I was still getting those awed looks.
I thus learnt my first lesson in theatre. No matter what you do on stage, everyone has their own interpretation. Often, this turns out to be much better than your interpretation. This was a feel good factor of my failed first class. If you’ve got bored reading this, I’m sorry to say…there’s much much more to come!! This was just an appetizer for the full 10 course meal I was served in the theatre club.
Our school had introduced these compulsory ‘Hobby Classes’ and we had to, well, choose a hobby. My first choice was the Newspaper Club. The idea of having my name being printed on every issue of the school newspaper thrilled me to no end. Seeking inspiration from the Archie comics’ ‘Blue and Gold’ newspaper, I imagined myself strutting around with a smart notepad and a pencil behind my ear, interviewing famous celebrities…But I guess I wasn’t the only one with that dream. During a school assembly, when we were officially sorted out into various clubs, I discovered that the Newspaper Club had the maximum number of students. So all the juniors (that would be us) ended up in the Club we had marked as a second choice. In my case, Theatre Club. This wasn’t exactly my second choice. I was so sure of getting into the Newspaper Club, that I randomly ticked another club as a back up. Now, I was stuck in a theatre club.
I had always looked upon theater as a platform for failed film actors. Hey, you can’t blame me for the misconception. I was, after all, a starstruck teen!! So, with a rather forlorn expression [and I wasn’t acting] I entered the basement. I had only three classmates as company. All the rest were 9th std. students. There was a sprinkling of a few 7th std. kids as well.
The first thing [the first of many many more things] that struck me as odd was the location of this club. The Basement. Why would anyone want to learn acting in the basement? It was a place for the TT tables and broken cycle pumps. These were all put to one corner and we had the rest of the basement to ourselves. We all looked pretty clueless as we waited for our instructor. We didn’t wait long though.
Our ‘instructor’ turned up in a kurta with rolled up sleeves and jeans. I can’t say I expected Al Pacino, but still. I thought he would make a ‘dramatic’ entrance. After all, this was drama, right? So anyway, he came in and removed his shoes, gesturing us to do the same. He then kept a duster in the middle of the class [the basement] and asked us to form a circle around it. I thought we were in for a game of dog in the bone. But he asked us all to pick up the duster in turns and then treat it as an object. Any object, he said. All we had to do was act out a scene with the duster. The class kept ogling at him. He finally realized he ad to demonstrate. Now, this was 6 years ago. So I can’t really remember what he made of the duster. But I can, however remember I thought of it as a seed. And clearly, I was the only one who could interpret my acting. The rest of the class thought I was depicting the duster as a misguided missile. They were all staring at my ridiculous antics with awe. I finished my turn and walked away. I was still getting those awed looks.
I thus learnt my first lesson in theatre. No matter what you do on stage, everyone has their own interpretation. Often, this turns out to be much better than your interpretation. This was a feel good factor of my failed first class. If you’ve got bored reading this, I’m sorry to say…there’s much much more to come!! This was just an appetizer for the full 10 course meal I was served in the theatre club.
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