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  Ratha Yatra From today, Ratha Yatra, the chariot festival in India commences. Mother would say that on the days this festival starts and ends, it has to rain, most probably heavily. I’m sure that parts of India will not receive rainfall today though. This isn't celebrated all that much where I live now but was quite a festival in East India where I grew up. I will miss seeing kids pulling their tiny carts with the three sibling gods Krishna, Balaram and Subhadra. This ceremony brings back fond memories from my childhood when we would pull tiny decorated wooden carriages on our terrace. They’d be decorated with flowers, colourful paper and incense sticks. The first term would be on in school along with class tests during that time. I'd study on the patio and while my mother quizzed me for the next day's test, I would pull the trolley. We had a one-storied handcart and my cousins a three-floored one. Our joint family had sadly not been taught to share and take turns i...

  June 2022 review Good ·        Necessary repairs were done. ·        Monsoon has set in. ·        I have seen a few snails. ·        @chriswaskomedium and @theeleganceadvisor have been kind and helpful as usual. ·        I am updating my teaching blog. Bad ·        I am feeling emotionally and physically drained. ·        My blood pressure is dangerously fluctuating. ·        I feel feverish because of the season change. ·        I feel very weak and can hardly sit. ·        I have body pain. ·        The summer was very hot with long power cuts that made me fall sick. ·        I’ve got a hole in my pocket with having to buy e...

  Do not compare Part 3                          There was a teacher who took a painstaking effort to arrange answer scripts from the highest to the lowest score. There was no need to do this, most teachers set answer scripts as per roll order. On the last day of school, the names of the students who had passed were announced in front of the whole school as per the order of their aggregate. This was a ritualistic annual practice. The students who had passed had to stand up as their names were called. The ones who stood up at the beginning received thunderous claps. The students who failed wept, sobbed or tried to blink away their tears when they sat while they never heard their names being called. I do not know what the school gained by humiliating these students. Some of them have gone on to do quite well in their careers now. A classmate had a learning...

Do not compare Part 2 As a child, I could read fast and with expression. I'd score full marks in these tests. There was another girl who was hard of hearing. Teachers refused to believe that she had a disability and even prohibited her from wearing hearing aids to school as they insisted that they were not a part of the school uniform. She was disallowed to sit in the front row, the teachers of this missionary school had decided that as she looks ‘normal’, she cannot have hearing problems, she was stupid and lazy instead. After I would read, the teacher would ask me to read again as she loved how I elucidated the emotions in the passage. Then she would read haltingly. The teacher would scold her, "How well she read and look what you just did!" I would get hurt that she was insulted. The teachers should have acknowledged her disability, allow hearing aids and helped her improve in reading with empathy, in consultation with a special educator. The teachers of this so-...

  Do not compare Part 1 Every living being is unique. No two human beings have the same fingerprints, not even identical twins. We need to acknowledge and celebrate differences instead of shaming two people by brutally comparing them. That is what many teachers do in schools to students even if the kids may be tiny tots. Many teachers insist that this is highly beneficial to the students as it fosters cutthroat competition to encourage them to improve. That is why they think that it is their duty as a teacher to constantly put side by side students in the class based on their behaviour, academic performance and diligence at work. I would like these teachers to rethink and empathetically put themselves in the students' shoes. Are they breaking in spirit when teachers pit one student against another? What are the students who are criticized for not being as good as others feeling? Is that instilling terror and inferiority complex in them? Is it making the applauded students a...

  Ambubachi Today is 7 Ashar 1428 as per the Bengali calendar. Ashar and Srabon are the two delightful monsoon months in Bengal. 22 June 2022 is also Ambubachi which translates as ‘spoken with water’.   The erstwhile parched land is getting ready to embrace the rain which will make the soil fertile preparing it for bountiful crops. Monsoon blesses the earth with water making it a cradle for lush vegetation and yummy colourful crops to sprout. The first monsoon rain of the season is likened to the menstrual cycle of a woman. This process makes the earth ready for procreation which will give rise to the plant world germinating and overflowing the landscape. This marks a three to four-day fair at the Kamakhya Temple in Assam and other parts of India. Baul singers and sannyasis assemble at this congregation to sing and dance. It is believed that the menstruating goddess Kamakhya turns the water of the River Brahmaputra red.   According to scientists red algae, certain m...

  Raindrops keep falling on my head Yesterday, it both drizzled and poured. There were pitter patter raindrops as well as heavy showers. The sky grew from pale white to light grey.   Rippling puddles appeared. The ground got muddy. People dressed in colourful raincoats and sprouted umbrellas of different colours over their heads. The sky softly growled as if a pack of wolves were hungry up there in the sky. What a beautiful rainy day and evening it was! #raindrops, #raindropskeepfallingonmyhead, #raindropsonleaves, #raindropsonroses, #raindropsonmywindow, #raindropsphotography, #raindropsonglass, #raindropshot, #raindropsontheroof, #raindropskeepfalling, #raindropsonpetals, #raindropsonplants, #playfulraindrops, #raindropslover, #umbrella, #umbrellasky, #umbrellas, #raincoat, #raincoats, #raincoatoutdoor, #raincoatfashion, #raincoatadventures, #raincoatwaterproof, #raincoatsuit, #raincoatweather, #raincoatready, #monsoonclouds, #greyclouds, #whiteclouds, #overcastsky htt...

  Seeing Seas 4 During the summer of 1986, we visited Puri in Orissa, which was a vacation of a lifetime. I have chronicled my autobiographical experience out there in a previous post. Its long coastline of golden sand along the Bay of Bengal gave a nine-year-old ample scope for fun and frolic. These fine sands adorn the east of this pilgrimage city. Beyond the soft shores, the sea is wild. A vibrant fishing village had grown by the coast on which our palatial guest house overlooked. The fishermen, the riders to the sea, would offer rituals to the sea god to appease him, so that they could take their boats safely to the sea. Even when they lost lives in the foaming ocean, they stoically philosophized, “The sea never takes anything from us, it always gives, even if we die, we get fish. When we suffer losses, he always returns it to us in some way.” #puri, #puribeach, #purigoldenbeach, #orissabeach, #odishabeach, #wildsea, #goldensands, #goldenbeach, #orissa, #orissatourism, #o...

  Seeing Seas 3 India has a 7,516.6 km long coastline. In winter 1986, we made a trip to Digha, West Bengal’s favourite beach resort in the Purba Medinipur district perched on the north of the Bay of Bengal. From Kolkata, it’s a journey of 187 km and of around four and a half hours. The beaches are of black sticky sand with waves gently lashing the coastline.  Casuarina trees fringe the shores. Warren Hastings, a British colonial administrator fondly nicknamed it the ‘"Brighton of the East". I had hoped to make sand castles on the beach but that was not possible as the sand was glued together. I enjoyed a pony ride across the beach though. The sunrises and sunsets on the sea were beautiful, glistening the brine with a red-golden tinge in the morning and a blue halo after twilight. I’d relish the tasty seafood cooked with spices in Bengali style. We’d roam through the woods on the beach and roll down the artificial mounds of sand. #bayofbengal, #westbengalbeach, #beng...

  Seeing Seas 2 I was five years old when I visited Hawaii, I only have a fleeting memory of its pristine shores. The beaches were clean with crystal clear water. If I had visited this archipelago in the North Pacific Ocean when older, I would have remembered more. These islands are crests of submerged mountains that are rooted to the ocean floor. The mountains may be volcanic, sculpted out of coral or the relics of a mountain as old as time. The leading theory is that tectonic activity gradually carved out these mountains, and it’s a chain of volcanoes that constitute them. The nation houses the world’s largest and highest active volcanoes. This island is expanding as molten lava solidifies and cools to stretch its coastline farther. Over 130 islands and islets are woven into this exquisite country. Its beaches are of vibrantly variant sand hues- red, green, black, pink, etc. The salty sea waters are home to the Spinner Dolphins (Naia), Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles (Honu), Mon...

  Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice The Northern hemisphere has almost reached the Summer Solstice date [21 June 2022]. The harsh sunlight still falls for longer hours on my work desk from the sunny window. Monsoon is gradually setting in. This exceptionally long summer has been quite unbearable. I long for the misty wintry days when the sun slept longer and I could work during the day in comfort. The Southern Hemisphere after autumn is now entering winter. In certain places, the boughs are bare and are getting ready to welcome the first snow of the season. Animals and birds are hibernating. Plants are dormant under the carpet of snow. What do solstices mean to you? Do you like Summer or Winter Solstice more? #solstice, #wintersolstice, #summersolstice, #solsticeblessings, #solstice2022, #solsticetosolstice, #solsticeenergy, #solsticelight, #solsticecelebrations, #solsticevibes, #solsticemagic, #solsticemoon, #solsticesun, #solsticeritual, #21june Pictures: https://pi...

  Seeing Seas Part 1 I spent my early childhood in Port Moresby which was perched on the Gulf of Papua on the southwest Pacific Ocean. This beautiful tropical country hovers between the South Pacific Ocean and the Coral Sea. The water was clean and you could see the corals and starfish through it. It was a world of vibrant contrasting colours down below.   On weekends, we’d visit Ela Beach/ [Turtle Beach] in the Papuan language. I fondly recall running on its soft white sand but my feet never feeling a tinge of heat. The green hills rose from the shore, I’d rush up and down them.   The fishing villages were near the coast, the fish market was like seventh heaven to my Bengali parents who couldn’t do without fish. Mother would cook Papuan sea food in Bengali style. There coconuts were also sold. Father loved ones with water and always shook them close to his ear to listen to how much juice was shelled inside. From the plane window, I could see the gentle blue s...

  Brahmaputra 1.      Whereas most Indian rivers are associated with the female gender, the Brahmaputra meaning the ‘son of Brahma’ is a male river. 2.     Mythologically, he was mothered by Amogha, the wife of sage Shantanu. 3.    It takes birth in the Angsi Glacier near Mount Kailash in the Himalayas in Tibet, waters almost 3000 kms of China, and flows through India to merge with the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh. 4.     When Himalayan snows melt in spring, the river churns to create floods. 5.       The Brahmaputra is a very navigable river with ferries and boats crossing it. 6.     Trees of mango, papaya, plantains and jackfruit dot the Assam Valley. 7.     You’ll be able to wander through bamboo thickets, mangroves, nipa palms and salt tolerant vegetation in locales where the river drains through Bangladesh and the Nipa Valley. 8.     Rhino...

Tadpole Restaurant One of my fondest childhood monsoon memories is rescuing tadpoles from water puddles that would soon dry up. We released them in our courtyard’s water tank to grow into frogs or toads. We had a marshy and mossy backyard with an overgrowth of mushrooms and ferns. When rain soaked, the mushrooms sprinted high up and the ferns spread over forming a natural green canopy. I’d explore our garden through the matrix of dense fern overgrowth for some hidden mystery or secret which I could never unearth. Meanwhile, the tadpoles lost their gills and slowly started to develop lungs. Their tails became shorter and their legs grew. Their back legs sprouted first and then their front legs as they graduated from tadpoles to froglets. Finally, they became adult minuscule frogs and hopped out of the tank into the mesh of moss, ferns and mushrooms. The tadpoles would feed on the algae, the green carpet of moss that carpeted the walls of our tank, bacteria, worms and mosquito larv...

  Snail Spotting May this go into my CV as one of my hobbies? Malacology is the study of molluscs. I don’t have the zoological knowledge of this profession. However, snails- the soft bodied shy invertebrates make my heart softer. Their placid, calm and relaxed life soothes me in this world of endless Instagram scrolling of people posting carefully curated aspects of their life which portray them in a glamorous and successful avatar as per the neurotypical societal demands of this world. What if I said on a date or in a job interview that I love to not only observe but also talk to snails? Snails don’t have ears, so I speak to their hearts. I’d love to view the horror and scorn on the faces of the people when I tell job recruiters and dates that. We are expected to drown our individuality in the pressure to be like everybody else. Friends may also find this weird, laugh and say that there are better pastimes like cooking, reading, watching Netflix, etc. I love to spot the firs...