Reminiscence of Academic Days

I realize this is a favorite topic for many of the readers, going through my blogs. So, after spending ample time in recollecting the episodes, Im compiling the same. I was always captivated by the moustaches of Rajnikant, and many other favorite heroes and these incidents took place in my late Higher secondary days and my early college days. When we were at school, it was a great topic for us to discuss and debate about and lot of people of our class had big moustaches. Certain eccentric people had made unique styles with moustache and I was one among a few people, who hardly had traces of it. So during these conversations, I stood embarrassed and thinking how to grow a moustache.

I was pondering over the discussions and I wanted to grow a moustache as soon as possible. I had a few friends who contributed their free recommendations for growing one, and I tried all possible pranks to grow one. One hot day we were discussing a lot on growing a moustache. One of my closest pals, who happened to be in the same boat, suggested that we should shave frequently and he gave unique ideas of applying hair oil in that area and letting it grow. We had tried several times to grow one and we found failure every time.. That time it was really difficult to manage a razor and a blade to accomplish that task of shaving and trying to grow a big moush.

Another very good friend of mine suggested that we can use metal soap boxes whose edges used to be sharp to accomplish this task and that seemed to be a good idea. It was a embarrassing thing for me to say that I had started shaving and I couldn’t find any other way to get a razor. Fortunately so, we had such a soap box at home and it was quite sharp at the edges and I tried the act… Since it was an experiment I applied some soap and tried to do that.. But I found nothing happened.. Another attempt.. Another attempt.. Ouch.. I hurt the upper lip and it was a line and still there is a scar on my face.. Then I stopped to play such pranks…

But this scenario continued in my initial college days also because it was an issue of admiration during that age. I found another guru who gave that brilliant idea, though identity gets revealed this time, I would like to mention the name of the person who gave such a good advise… It’s a guy called Kannan @ our college… We were in the middle of a heated discussion regarding this topic, the guy suggested that he’s got a unique way of growing a moush in a short span of time… He described that by peeling off the skin of small onions (chinna vengayam) and rubbing on that area during the night and then go to bed.. Being an innocent chap, I tried that too… To my surprise, it came…

Not the moushtache, “TYPHOID”

I was bedridden for almost 15 days and slowly recovered from that…

This was one of the unforgettable instances in my life, munching a few moments on this event gives immense pleasure to me. I was really young that time and it was holiday time as we used to stay as a joint family alongside of my mom, dad, my uncle (dad’s younger bro) and my aunt and all the kids together. It was real fun because we were at least 4 people in the same age group and the other 2 were really young compared to us.
So we were very close pals and we enjoyed great days together.

We used to go to movies together with my dad or my uncle and we used to enjoy cycle rides to school with my uncle. On the way we used to shout “maady veedu – gopuram” seeing the tall trees and the big houses on the way to our school. My sister Anu who used to always excel in her studies, used to be very disciplined too. I was (rather Im) always careless and always used to get reprimanded from my mom for many things. If Im sent to a shop to buy something, I always used to buy some candies & sweets for the remaining money and never used to return back any money to my mom. And anu used to be very smart in negotiating with the vegetable market and she used to always get praises for such deeds. But we all enjoyed living together and we had a huge list of adventures to carry lot of memories on.

Once we were nearing the holiday season and we were desperately trying to stay away from school. We were eagerly awaiting the holidays and it looked extremely difficult to spend time in school. Since all of us are from the same school, we could not fool around my mom, because anu used to be extremely sincere. We cannot lie to our parents because an immediate and honest reference check is available. She always used to participate in the annual day functions and she would stage dance programs. We never participated in such events. On one occasion I remember, due to extreme compulsion from my mom, I went on stage for a sloka performance. I had struggled seeing so many people watching the show. Since it was a remote village, almost 80 to 90 percent of the population were available to watch such annual day functions conducted in schools. We used to go to other school annual day functions and others come to ours. I got extremely embarrassed before so much of crowd, who don’t enjoy the recital, I was forcibly pushed to do that. I stammered a little and was very happy when I completed the same and ran out of the stage.

I was really annoyed on the show and I screamed at my mom for making me participate in events like these. I also had options like dancing for cine songs, which was totally abandoned by mom. She used perform, classical type dances for cine songs which had some room of acceptance.

As anu used to be diligent and sincere our parents were really confident that she would take care of us and some times they let her take care of us. This time they all went to a function and on that day none of them available and we were real kids. Though the acquaintances would take care of us because it was a real friendly environment and there was no bothering that people would be left alone. I told her that I was really hungry and we had only rice at home. There was nothing else available that time and I was not willing to wait till something was made. We saw a bottle of dal powder (paruppu podi) on the loft and we thought we will have dal powder with rice, (paruppu podi satham). After a few tussles we were successful taking the bottle of dal powder from the loft and we planned to mix the dal powder with the rice. We didn’t know where the ghee or the oil was kept and we had only rice and dal powder to eat. So we decided to mix a little dal powder with rice and eat the same.

Normally, since it was a joint family food was prepared in plenty and that time rice was available in abundance. We took a large plate (my father’s plate) we used to call it “thada thada thattu” because it used to make lot of noise while eating. When my father used to eat, it used to make sound of movement up and down, it used to hit the ground frequently to make that noise since it was not a leveled plate. That used to be a large one and we took some rice for us which we would be in a position to eat and we put some dal powder on it. After the mixture, we realized that we had put the powder a little larger than it should have been and the trouble was there was no ghee or oil available to support. So it would be really difficult to eat the rice with that over dosage of dal powder, we thought we should mix some rice to suffice the mixture and when we added rice to the same, again there was a problem. This time there was a shortage of dal powder. I tasted the rice and told her that this would not taste good, and finally we thought we should add dal powder again. After a couple of iterations of the same, we were almost exhausted with the rice, which was available.

Almost the entire quantity of the rice was wasted in the process and we saw a huge amount of paruppu podi satham before us. We could only have two gulps of the same since it was not too good to taste without the ghee or the oil, we placed the plate there only and exhaled from the kitchen and we hid ourselves before our moms saw this.

It was a nice little incident which happened and I hope anu would have enjoyed reading this in the blog…

I had being surviving at least for 2 and a half years now in the cosmo streets of Mumbai, working for almost 12 to 13 hrs a day without fun and frolic. There are many complaints against Mumbai that food, travel and half a dozen other problems. I have always thought that leading life in Mumbai is extremely difficult. The people out here are lazy not so interactive as the usual acquaintances I used to enjoy company with in Chennai. I had a great liking to bike riding in Chennai and almost every weekend we used to do so many things.

I used to visit many of my relatives when I was working from Chennai, and its extremely difficult here for me to visit any of my relatives. Though I know couple of relatives here, its really difficult to visit them since travel here is really paranoid. We will have to catch a public road transport (BEST) to reach a midway point and then another train to reach the place. It doesn’t end with that, you will have to finally hire a rick to reach to the place. Normally its really expensive over here to hire a rick all the way to the place, so this is the best advised method. Normally most of us staying over here being lazy ducks we normally avoid such a circumstance. Wherever we went we went only in a rick and we never liked to take the bucks of traveling because it either cost us heavily or we had to undergo lot of physical strain to do something.

Another major complaint that we had was for food. Initially for many months I used to survive on one meal per day and that too lower than ordinary. We used to get chapattis for lunch and some rice with horrible side dishes. Particularly myself, having great taste for food preferred to starve rather to eat that food. We had almost exhausted all the stuffed crusts and thin crunches of pizza varieties and we were left with no other choice. And we were having a maid who prepares dinner for us @ home. She also prepares chapattis and some rice for us. She used to prepare very strange combinations of sabzi which I really refused to eat every day. Ladysfinger with potato, Beans with onion are some of the dishes, which she normally prepares for us. I was really aversed to such type of food and I literally ignored dinner every day. I was feeling sick at one point of time and there was no cheer at all, at professional and personal levels.

Slowly the evolution of the HR department in our company started turning things around. The first thing we really appreciated was the introduction of the evening snacks with Chai. That was a real success because every one bought snacks from the caterer. Normally lunches he would prepare for guys like us bachelors and a few other people who don’t have the habit of bringing lunch. Slowly the caterer also started bringing lot of variety in the snacks and the lunch which he would prepare, the employee size was on the higher side by then. And prima-facie he started making lot of money. Gradually our food problem was solved and surprisingly the maid who cooks at home has also improved to high standards and now that is not much of concern to us.

As steven covey keeps saying the paradigm influences a great deal of your outlook, my impression about life in Mumbai being really substandard, I had always felt that Im suffering. Nowadays due to financial constraints, I have started traveling long distances in public transport since it would cost a bomb in ricks and cabs. To my surprise, I find that public transport is really good and I wonder why I had been shelling out so much of money on private transport. Every time I took a bus, I saved at least 100 bucks and that was the best thing available. And trains are really comfortable here, but not during peak hours. There’s a lot of crowd during the peak hours of weekdays and during weekends when we normally want to roam around the trains are empty. We get seating facility in public transport during the week ends and the trains are the fastest mode of transport in this cosmo city.

After spending quite a while here, I had realized that this city is not such a bad city to live in, there’s a lot of transformation of values. I started looking everything about Mumbai as a respectable point, and almost everything is available to you over a phone call… There were certain things with Chennai, which were fun like movies and freaking out in bikes etc. Even the movies here we felt initially that it was too expensive for a movie, but after seeing the comforts available in these multiplexes, again there was a paradigm shift. It is too comfortable here to go out for a movie with family and the crowd at the theaters are of high quality. There is good sound quality in theaters and good booking systems. Everything happens through the internet these days and it has become inevitable to come out of these comfort zones. We also gradually started acquisition of furnishings at home and we have more than everything at home. I really feel comfortable and satisfied living here, at a time when Im expecting to move to Chennai within a dozen days or a couple of weeks.

After Mohandoss the next prof who comes flashing in my mind is this guy named victor, unbelievably sincere and expressive. He used to be very soft at heart and be a nightmare for all the students like us who are unproductive at that age and not willing to focus on studies. This guy was one among the senior persons of the physics club at the college.

His favorite subjects were electronics, quantum physics etc.. We have had wonderful time with this guy especially at the college since he was very very strict. One of the days explaining a experiment he came really hard on us, since we were not concentrating.. He lost his enthu and started abusing us for disheartening behaviour. The entire class sounded on a low note and he started again with that experiment. One interesting thing about this guy is his body language. He had strange expressions and movements which every one of us love imitating and making fun about. Normally for showing a zero we all use a single hand with a revolution.

While talking about the results of the experiment which should be a zero our man used both his hands and did a circular motion with them. We all were watching him do that and it was a funny thing. We couldn't laugh at that moment because we knew that he will get upset and will not continue the classes. So we kept mum and the classes ended there. After that, Sivaraman, who usually be to a eccentric and a notorious student in our class, (will need one more blog to narrate about this guy) who used to make fun of every professor imitated the body language of Victor and it was a hilarious moment. The next class the prof had certain recollections on the experiment and he asked sivaraman what would be the result of that experiment. With all due respect the guy stood up and explained with his two hands making a circular motion as the same way he had explained. None of us expected such a reaction from sivaraman, started laughing & were almost laughing for about 10 minutes. The man took it in sporting spirit and he also enjoyed the thing with us. Again a surprise response from this guy.

He always used to come to college in a bajaj chetak, and punctual to millisecond precision. Once he came to the classes with a tight trouser, and he mentioned in our class that he liked the fitting of that one. Then whenever he used to wear the same, we used to call "Pudicha Pant". ("Pudicha" means "most liked" as well as "tight").

Another few moments which I cherish about this guy is he demanded fullest possible attention during his classes. As all of us have weaknesses, I also had one, sleeping in the hour immediately after lunch. I had been caught frequently by all profs, almost twice or thrice by this guy for sleeping in his classes immediately after lunch. And, in lab sessions this man was quite serious and would easily make out cooked experiments and results. He used to always insist on finer points in mentioning the units in the observation note books and so on... As I was always a sloppy guy (rather I am) always used to miss these things and get bashings from this prof. He would never entertain untimely submission of observation note books and record note books.. I had always been a pet for this guy and still he never used to show that off.. In every class he used to mistake my name with the next one on the rolls (Ramakrishnan)..

Though he had been a nightmare to many of our students, he was a nice prof and he had been really kind enough to me... During our last semester at our college, he being the incharge of the electronics lab, told all of us well in advance to get his signature done before the april 10th because he would not come to college after that since he had to attend classes in the university from then.. Every one except myself, had got the signature done from him, and myself as usual sleeping... On april 14, suddenly realized that this guy will not come to college rushed to the college to check if he was available... After some disappointment, I met one of my classmates (Krsna) who came and told me that Victor had informed him that I was the only one who had not taken his sign and he was to come to college on the 17th april and asked me to meet on that day. Since I was really afraid that this man never really allowed any of us to do such things at college.. Thinking that he is going to take my trip, was eagerly awaiting him at his desk... With lot of enthusiasm, he came and patted my back.. Of his own style he yet again mis-spelt my name with Ramakrishnan, warned me for the delay that I have made and asked me to submit my record notebook to him... Awaiting the opportunity, I opened my notebook and presented it to him. Regrettably almost all the experiment tabulations were missing the critical units, yet another bamboo for the day... But the sweet prof. corrected all the tables and gave his graceful signature on the record book...

After about 3 and a half years, when I went to the college and could meet very few members of the faculty, he was one among them. Gracefully welcomed me to the college and once again messed up my name with Ramakrishnan...

After mentioning identities of great teachers, I really feel I should write about each one of them and their favorite subjects and their unique styles.. I also consider backtracking from college days since those are highly remembered and a lot of events which blossom to our minds, wherever we are and whenever we chew on those experiences... Also certain episodes with each one of them which will accompany in this series...

Firstly to mention, Mr G I Mohandas, among the ppl who check this blog, vinoth will be the person who can recollect this prof.. He was a good tutor and had solid fundamentals in physics... Though very light hearted and taking things really easy, the guy used to impress a lot of people and the language of this man being admirable... Wonderful in his subject never irritates or make people unhappy during his classes.. He was least bothered whether students attended his classes or not.. When we were just in the college from school we had long hours at classes, the transition from 40 min class hours to 1 hour classes.. He never took more than 35 - 40 minutes in his classes and certain classes its only 15 - 20 minutes... That time we used to think that this guy is a hard core time pass and never realized his intentions behind making every bit interesting for his students…

Every day the man used to take a new thing and starts explaining in detail.. He would try and pace his classes in such a way that they are not boring.. If it starts boring he will suddenly close and say that we are free to do whatever we wanted to do or we can wait for the bell.. After that session of his, each time just after 15, 20 minutes, we used to pro-actively wait for the bell.. The man used to be cool and allowed us to do whatever we wanted to do though, but completed his lessons well on time and used to give lot of information during classes..

One or two memorable incidents with him were, in the first year I had a great enthu towards TT game and almost spent most of my time at the TT Court at the college... It was the first hour after lunch break and we were supposedly late by 45 minutes for the 1 hr class.. Rightfully so, questioned us where we were roaming around all this time. Like men of words, we told the truth to him that we were playing TT at the court, and told him that we were able to get the table only at 2PM when his classes actually started... He generously appreciated us and gave us the attendance which we weren't worth for and asked us to attend the rest of the classes...

Another incident which comes to mind about his classes is that he being very expressive in the classes, once started explaining a cylindrical object... He took the chalk pieces and rotated them in the air, pushing himself so hard, so that he doesn't object the path of revolution.. He was about to fall and he leaned on the wall and restrained himself from falling... That was a moment of laughter which we couldn't express before him...

About his unique habits he used to be a hard score chimney (smoker) having almost 2 packs a day... Came to college in a decade old Explorer Bike in those days and his son studying in the same college came to college in Kawasaki R100 bike...

Teaching is one thing which I had always liked to mention about and the fact that during my school / college days I had come across many people who used to be motivators for many students like us.. Not worrying that identity is getting revealed at this juncture, I treat this as a dedication to such great minds...

To start from High school, there were many teachers at our school but only a few inspired.. Im expressing the names of those great teachers at school...

S S N (Maths), S R(English), KVS (Tamil), RS (Science), RC (Chemistry), SSN (HM that time PHYSICS), RSV(Maths +2).

Apart from these, there were a few men who were center of attention in the school Chidambaram vathiyar (Art Sadha should be knowing), Manickam (PT), Nachimuthu (PT), Kudumiyaan (Im sorry I forgot his name), RVR(with a female voice AHM Tamil).

If I forget to mention the names of tution teachers I wouldn't qualify to have todays bread and butter TR (SSLC Science, Maths, English) (HSC Physics), RSV (HSC Maths), Varadhan (HSC Chemistry) Murali (used to write tests in Maths during my vacation in HSC).

GRK (Venkat's Bro...) who was a teacher for us for a brief time period...

There were a lot of professors in college who have really been inspiring during my BSC patta padippu though I dont remember every one's name Im mentioning most of them...
G Immanuel Mohandas (Major Physics) TR (Allied Chemistry) CRaja (Allied Chemistry), S Balachandran(Major Physics), JSP Ebenezer (HOD Physics), Victor (Physics), A Devadoss (Physics), P Ramakrishnan (Physics) , V Natarajan (Applied Physics), PM Baskaran (Applied Physics) ...

I had enjoyed learning from all these people and its really emotional to mention about your teachers... I have particularly liked all the people appearing in the list and there are many more whom I couldn't recollect at this juncture... I have been notorious to almost all these people, and remember almost all incidents happened at the college and at school...

(To be continued...)

As every one always mourne of their habits, some or the other which they are unable to do anything to change, I have dozens of such. One such thing is the reading habit, which all members in my family, surroundings & friends have always stressed on building.

Obviously during peak periods of our academics, there used to be comparisons with cousins & friends who used to be brilliant.. Ppl reading this blog can ignore this since its not a complement in any way... Though we used to shape up fairly on academics, there were comparisons which irritated guys like us.. We always focus on games, movies & other stuff since studies were something thrust upon. One of my cousins in schooldays developed astonishing reading habits, for hours and days together, he will gulp novels & comics and other things..

Once we thought he can survive even without food but not without books.. He had no theme behind reading any thing and everything... I always wondered how he got so much time for spending... No wonder he is just a genius in academics and planning...

I had always tried reading novels especially english since reading ananda vikatan kumudam was a part and parcel of life that time... I never got hold of a novel which could make me read till the end... I sincerely tried to read those but unfortunately the no of pages i read in each one was discouragingly poor.. 10, 12 pages was my limit and I had never crossed that barrier, though I would boast to my friends that I had read this book which was very good.. Till I started my career and after 4 and 1/2 yrs at work the scenario didn't change.. But pretty recently I got hold of a novel by author Dan Brown which made me read till the very end.... Now I hope to have achieved something in a month by finishing 3 books, thanks to brown....

Those were holidays, the months of april and may used to have fascinating festive spirit all over the place, accompanied by close circuit relatives and friends. The mood starts mid of april when all the cousins, arrive to Kulitalai the popular bank of aganda cauvery, where the festive mood creeps normally at this time. People, out there being quite religious start off their day with a bath at the cauvery at 6:00 AM, complete their daily duties. The spirits (non alcoholic) made people more enthusiastic and we also enjoyed bathing on cauvery beds.

I used to spend enough time at cauvery and every one in the gang used to visit the mariyamman temple with a pot of water. Every one used to carry their own kujas & kudams to fill up water and pour water in the temple. The mariyamman temple will host a strong heritage with the alangarams and the neem leaves decorated all over the place. There used to be a common kumbam decorated with neem leaves where every one pours the water collected from the cauvery river. The cauvery banks are about a kilometer far and every day we used to walk all the way with our friends and relatives. By the time we start for bath at the cauvery, every one would have completed their duties and back home.

We used to get up at 7:00 AM and with full of haste we brush up and rush to have the filter coffee (degree coffee as popularly termed in south). After brief quarrels for the news paper sports column with cousins we head towards cauvery for bath. All of us carry our own personal vessels to carry water from cauvery and pour it in the kumbam which is kept at the mariyamman temple. Then after drenching ourselves for a couple of hours in the cauvery, we feel satisfied and start for the temple. Before a week of the car festival, the excitement starts as the market place gets occupied with ranga ratinams, and other fancy shops with lot of fancy items which create a center of attention.

Every day of that week we used to spend most of our times, in the market street looking at whats new that has come up for the day. We used to get carried away with the tiny shops selling items like whistles, balloons, prankies and other fun stuff. Being from a well known family from the village, the shop owners never charged us for the stuff and they used to typically call us “Iyer oottu pasanga”. We used to take rental cycles and get away with not paying up the money, riding in rattinams and there used to be a jallikkattu function also in the same week. A lot of men who possess good marketing skills bump on us during the seasons selling sweets, bar icecreams etc. Every day we enjoyed the pal ice, rose ice and mango ice each one of has had our own choice to make and the ice wala never quits from our house since there were a lot of members, one or the other goes to him and gets one.. After this episode my father or my uncle comes up and settles the check with him and saw him off…

At the day of the car festival the entire village will be charged up with a lot of crowd, we used to play cards on the first floor of our house, the place which seemed to be typically designed for that. We were juniors at that time and after evening the senior batch started their play displaying passion towards the game by playing hours and nights together. It used to be a fun packed experience at times when the senior and the junior batches were playing in parallel. We had a lot of friends who used to do lot of pranks during the festival and normally we try to avoid those situations.

Since the festival starts in the mid of may, the floor used to be like a heated oven, people frequently splash water on the road opposite their house since it will be difficult to walk during the time of the car festival. So it was normal practice to pour water on the ground in that month. Since lot of people pour water on the ground it used to be muddy during those days, and our folks play by pushing one of our friends on the mud.. One after another, as my favorite pal calls our identity gets lost that time… So much of mud on ur shirts. They also used to have this obsession towards holy festival, used to play their own on the day…

Each one of our friends used to carry a lot of color packets with them, the people normally reluctant to come out of their house, gets this treatment with colors… Normally as cowards we don’t come out of our homes, as my father was a short tempered person our friends used to hesitate to play pranks with us… But still they managed paint our faces with colors and we too used to enjoy such things… After this small event the joy of the big event starts.. The holy car actually passes through the streets in a prathakshanam mode (clock wise circle). We never come out of our terrace till the time the car passes our house and we used to get a pavilion view from our terrace.. We were not only the only family who had so many members who assemble during this period, every family in the taluk had this kinda guests coming in. Once the car gets to the vicinity of our home, our uncle (father’s elder brother) takes a thambalam filled with decorative flowers and broken coconuts (Thenga Moodis) and some fruits and gives to the pundit who is ready to collect the same sitting in the car. Once given we go near the holy car and every one of us offer our worship & obligations to the holy deity and rope pulling the car (Vadam), we come back & have our lunch. One more scintillating event which comes to my mind during these days is the thanneer panthals which are hosted by the members of every house offering panagam and neer more (Butter milk) to public… We used to volunteer during that time and we used to serve people with the above mentioned any time during the day of that week..

Amidst all tight work schedules, and cosmopolitan culture these recollections are very special for every one of us and feel delighted to blog these…