THE SILVER LINING

Holiday Reading was a wonderful concept in my children’s school. They were given a book to read in English and Hindi during summer vacations and then their understanding was tested and later prizes were showered during the annual function which again were books. These books were classics and a few even contemporary; I too got to read new kinds of literature with them .

The curriculum in ICSE and ISC when I studied was relentless. There was, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Richard the second, Mayor of Casterbridge in successive years. I reminisced to my boys. They seemed to have found it incredibly amusing that their mother showed a poor performance in the subject. To add salt to my injury my grandfather even shared a school report card which stated “Needs to work hard in English” and a grade of 4 marked with a red underline describing the inevitable. This report card continues to be an only family heirloom of my academic record despite being in tatters now.

There’s a silver lining to every cloud besides a comment for English there was “Diligent in Science. Keep it up!” in the remark section. This report card had let open the floodgates and no consolation was sufficient enough to stop the deluge of emotions as far as I remember.

As I write, I only think of the source of motivation this one liner was. It stays with me even today even after four decades irrespective of its tattered condition. Ever since I have worked on my English and made Science, the stream of my profession to make a livelihood.

Comments

World Book Day

Usha Vance became the Second Lady of the United States, following JD Vance, her husband’s election as Vice President. An accomplished attorney and the first Asian-American holding the position. Last week, she occupied the center stage in India. A lot was talked about the book Iliad, which she carried during the campaign for her husband. What interested me was neither of them, but her title. It reminded me of something I had read years ago. Irving Wallace’s THE SECOND LADY. In our younger days, we frequented libraries and often the shops at Janpath in Delhi to buy reasonably priced paperbacks or second-hand books. My sister and I visited our chachi to borrow her library books. She would recommend them, much like Goodreads . Those were not the times of the internet, and recommendations were always made through word of mouth. I remember her narration of the political thriller. “ The first lady of the United States is abducted during a state visit to Moscow and replaced by a Russi...

THE FRUIT OF LABOR

Notification alerts continued one after the other and I knew it had to be my sister. Next morning her WhatsApp did not seem so interesting. Thank God! I never got up at midnight to see these. There were images of mud, plants and potatoes. Nothing new, I put it aside without a thought and sipped my early morning tea. As I read further, scrolling down the images was her excited note on her home grown organic potatoes. Now that was a bait I asked her "miraculous, since when have you started all this". "While composting for my garden I had accidentally left a potato in the garbage ditch. This was my discovery just today" she answered and I could imagine her admiring those potatoes. "Great guns," I responded. The matter rested after this for a few months. The feathers were ruffled again as she posted images of tomato, eggplants and potato plants neatly planted along the sidewalls, her today's endeavor .Thanks to our family group messaging system, ginger a...

Yoga se hoga… pr yoga kaise hoga? (It will happen by yoga- but how will yoga happen?)

If you have ever tried starting yoga, you know the struggle: motivation fades, and mats gather dust. For me, yoga was always on my bucket list, but what I needed was the intent to start. Then something unexpected happened. My yoga group formed an unusual trio: my 80-year-old mother, my niece visiting from the USA, and me. Every morning at 6:30 am, we gathered not in the garden but in front of our TV to tune into live yoga sessions by Saurabh Bothra. And guess what? Yoga did happen. It wasn’t perfect, but it was consistent. We stretched, laughed, and even dozed off in shavaasan, but slowly, breath by breath, a habit was born. Because sometimes all it takes is showing up together.

Newerways

Search This Blog