My Son's Teacher

My son’s teacher
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

WHAT’S up”, queried my husband when he found me desperately rifling through yellowing papers. “I’m trying to find my degree certificates and medals”. I responded. The last time I presented them for scrutiny was when I took the Civil Services exams, 17 years ago. Now, my qualifications and competence were again on test. Only this time, it wasn’t the mandarins at the UPSC, doing the assessment: it was my 10-year-old son!

It all started rather innocently. My son was doing a routine homework assignment when I corrected the spelling of accessaries to accessories and rhynoceros to rhinoceros and pointed out that ships were not parked in a harbour, but anchored in it. The little man took umbrage, and argued, “Look, my teacher’s marked it correct in my written work”. The complete conviction in his teacher being correct and complete lack of confidence in his mother’s erudition, or rather the lack of it, was a fell blow for my self-esteem.

Every time I checked an error in spelling or fact I found myself having to substantiate it with encyclopaedia and dictionaries. I would spend evenings helping him prepare a chart with diagrams et al but, when it did not meet with his teachers’ approval, my proficiency rating plummeted. That was what had me rummaging for my degrees. Junior needed to know that his mom had gone to school too and obtained a first class first Masters degree.

The student-teacher relationship, the guru-shishya parampara, is special and has been down the ages. It has to do with the aura every child invests his teacher with. The teacher is the “significant other”, the “Guru, tutor, instructor and coach”, in every little-one’s school world. The one who knows it all, is the final arbiter of all that is right and wrong, and above all holds the key to the mysteries of the world. In school, of course, the teacher is God but even outside when we run into Brother, Ma’am or Sir, the traffic stops, and a hush descends on my noisy brat as he points them out with awed admiration. From that position the teacher’s words carry complete conviction, magical appeal and unrivalled powers of persuasion.

The epics tell us of Eklavya, who cut off his thumb as “dakshina” for his Guru Dronacharya even though it meant an end to his career as an archer. The same spirit, miraculously, imbues most younger students even in the present day.

When I voiced my concern about TV, I was labelled a spoilsport; the teacher organised a debate and my son was suddenly an articulate spokesman for the harmful effects of TV. Books lay gathering dust, until Ma’am directed that each boy read a book a week and write a report. Suddenly, my son was reading abridged versions of the classics and was an authority on Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. Every parent learns to cognise and appreciate that the teachers can get their little devils to write poetry, and prose, inspire frenzied research on esoteric topics, teach them to paint, and even sing in tune. They inspire them with the motto of ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’ in sports, and infuse them with charity and capitalism when the proceeds of the School fete are used to fund scholarships for poor kids. The teacher is the miracle worker. Mom and Dad, are well, just progenitors, to be kept in good humour so they keep the pizzas and pocket money coming in.

There’s a lot of time and energy invested in teachers’ day and birthday: thoughtful cards are hand-painted and fresh flowers hand picked. Parents’ birthdays need a strident reminder and if you try and compare, there’s the gentlest rebuff, “...hey Mom I love you. Surely you don’t need a card or a bunch of old flowers to tell you that...” Well, who can argue with that except the green-eyed monster inside who feels she could use that brand of “special thoughtfulness” inspired in her progeny by his teachers.

I guess if you can’t beat them join them: so I have volunteered with my son’s school, as a substitute teacher. Perhaps I will now discover, that special ingredient, that will take me from Mom to Ma’am and absolution.

My Son's Teacher

My son’s teacher
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

WHAT’S up”, queried my husband when he found me desperately rifling through yellowing papers. “I’m trying to find my degree certificates and medals”. I responded. The last time I presented them for scrutiny was when I took the Civil Services exams, 17 years ago. Now, my qualifications and competence were again on test. Only this time, it wasn’t the mandarins at the UPSC, doing the assessment: it was my 10-year-old son!

It all started rather innocently. My son was doing a routine homework assignment when I corrected the spelling of accessaries to accessories and rhynoceros to rhinoceros and pointed out that ships were not parked in a harbour, but anchored in it. The little man took umbrage, and argued, “Look, my teacher’s marked it correct in my written work”. The complete conviction in his teacher being correct and complete lack of confidence in his mother’s erudition, or rather the lack of it, was a fell blow for my self-esteem.

Every time I checked an error in spelling or fact I found myself having to substantiate it with encyclopaedia and dictionaries. I would spend evenings helping him prepare a chart with diagrams et al but, when it did not meet with his teachers’ approval, my proficiency rating plummeted. That was what had me rummaging for my degrees. Junior needed to know that his mom had gone to school too and obtained a first class first Masters degree.

The student-teacher relationship, the guru-shishya parampara, is special and has been down the ages. It has to do with the aura every child invests his teacher with. The teacher is the “significant other”, the “Guru, tutor, instructor and coach”, in every little-one’s school world. The one who knows it all, is the final arbiter of all that is right and wrong, and above all holds the key to the mysteries of the world. In school, of course, the teacher is God but even outside when we run into Brother, Ma’am or Sir, the traffic stops, and a hush descends on my noisy brat as he points them out with awed admiration. From that position the teacher’s words carry complete conviction, magical appeal and unrivalled powers of persuasion.

The epics tell us of Eklavya, who cut off his thumb as “dakshina” for his Guru Dronacharya even though it meant an end to his career as an archer. The same spirit, miraculously, imbues most younger students even in the present day.

When I voiced my concern about TV, I was labelled a spoilsport; the teacher organised a debate and my son was suddenly an articulate spokesman for the harmful effects of TV. Books lay gathering dust, until Ma’am directed that each boy read a book a week and write a report. Suddenly, my son was reading abridged versions of the classics and was an authority on Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. Every parent learns to cognise and appreciate that the teachers can get their little devils to write poetry, and prose, inspire frenzied research on esoteric topics, teach them to paint, and even sing in tune. They inspire them with the motto of ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’ in sports, and infuse them with charity and capitalism when the proceeds of the School fete are used to fund scholarships for poor kids. The teacher is the miracle worker. Mom and Dad, are well, just progenitors, to be kept in good humour so they keep the pizzas and pocket money coming in.

There’s a lot of time and energy invested in teachers’ day and birthday: thoughtful cards are hand-painted and fresh flowers hand picked. Parents’ birthdays need a strident reminder and if you try and compare, there’s the gentlest rebuff, “...hey Mom I love you. Surely you don’t need a card or a bunch of old flowers to tell you that...” Well, who can argue with that except the green-eyed monster inside who feels she could use that brand of “special thoughtfulness” inspired in her progeny by his teachers.

I guess if you can’t beat them join them: so I have volunteered with my son’s school, as a substitute teacher. Perhaps I will now discover, that special ingredient, that will take me from Mom to Ma’am and absolution.

Mussorie: The Ageing Hill Queen

The ageing hill queen called Mussoorie
Punam Sidhu

ACCOMPANYING my husband on a mid-service training course, we drive into the town on a sunny October afternoon. The filth accumulated on the narrow winding roads is appalling. The stench of uncollected garbage and defecation, noxious. By evening, however, the chill sets in and we witness a spectacular sunset, with the fiery ball of the sun dipping into tall deodars and pines in the Garhwal mountains. The lights come on and by night, the city, she is still the Queen.

The darkness cloaks the wrinkles of pollution, and neglect. The warts of urban decay are precipitated by the pressures of the tourists who take the population of approximately 30,000 (91 census) to 2,50,000 in a season. Mansoorie, is named after the Mansur shrub (Coriana nepalensis) growing on the hillsides. Captain Young established this former British retreat in 1827.

The protagonist in Gurcharan Das’s “A Fine Family” refers to going to the Mall “to eat the air”. The Mall as a focal point of social interaction is common to all the hill-stations developed by the British. Mussorie’s Mall Road, situated 6950 feet above sea level, starts from the Library Point, past the Gurudwara Sahib Trust and Lakshmi Narain temple, down cobbled streets past porticoed shops to Kulri and the Landour Clock Tower at the other end of the bazaar. You can take a mule or a rickshaw until the old train station or wade through mule droppings on foot to the other end of the bazaar. Rudyard Kipling, Nobel prize winner, has portrayed ‘the Great Ramp of Mussoorie’ in his book “Kim”.

Mussorie in the 40s was quite the playground for the Talukdars of Awadh and other Indian Princes. Shimla being out of bounds for them, the funseekers sought out this lovely ridge town known for its active social whirl. No one was allowed on the Mall without a tie. A Regimental band played from the bandstand regaling the strollers savouring their favourite tipple. There were two popular hotels, the Savoy and Hackmans. Sukhbir Grewal told me about Hackmans having a Froth Drinkers Club. The gentlemen gathered to drink beer, at 11 each day and blow the froth. The one who blew it furthest, was declared the champion for the day and got a free beer. Hackmans has gone to seed and the Savoy, the hauntingly beautiful Heritage Hotel is barely surviving, brooding mistily, in the shade of the oldest and tallest Deodhars in all of Mussoorie.

But if heritage is what you want then, its all there at the Savoy. As you drive up, stables line the drive. The courtyard is surrounded by large urns and a filigreed boundary wall. At the reception desk, photographs of Nandu Johar, the Savoy’s owner, and his father with Indira Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, The King of Nepal, Ethiopian Emperor Haille Selassie, and his Holiness the Dalai Lama occupy pride of place. Inside the hotel there are several wings furnished with Edwardian antiques, billiards tables, panelled walls, stuffed game trophies, carved balustrades and fine wooden floors. The ballroom is an architectural marvel. A large hall, with a balcony running right around it, it is hung with taper lit chandeliers. In 1907, the tapers were replaced with electricity. The Savoy orchestra played every night and the ballroom was full of waltzing couples.

Each bedroom has its own bathtub and dressing room. Lowell Thomas who visited Mussoorie in 1926 writes about the Savoy separation-bell. This was rung before dawn, “….so that the pious may say their prayers and the impious get back to their own beds”.

The Savoy Writers’ Bar was witness to a writers workshop in 2001, where they compiled a festchrift for Ruskin Bond, Mussoorie’s adopted son. He lives just beyond Landour, in his “room on the roof”, “Ivy Cottage”. He can be spotted at book stores signing autographs for visitors. The Writers Bar is dedicated to the authors who have an association with the Savoy. Rudyard Kipling (Kim), Phillip Mason, Commissioner of Garhwal who wrote under the pseudonym Woodruff, Lowell Thomas (India:Land of the Black Pagoda),John Lang (Botany bay) and John Masters (Bhawani Junction), Charles Allen (“Plain Tales from the Raj), Pearl S Buck (Good Earth) and Peter Hopkirk (In search of Kim) have all visited this watering hole. Ruskin Bond is a regular visitor and you can join him for a drink with Nandu Jauhar at the Writers Bar just after 6 PM.

The Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy for Administration is located at Mussoorie in the old Charleville Hotel. It was formerly advertised as “the only hotel that was patronised by Her Majesty the Queen Mary” who visited Mussorie in 1906 when she was the Princess of Wales.

Mussoorie today is truly a mini-India. There is Kashmiri, Rajasthani, Saharanpuri and Benarasi handicrafts, Tibetans and the locals with their mobile woollen rehri markets. There’s also a large Punjabi trading population. Most like Sardar Harbhajan Singh of Nirankari Cottage Industries, emigrated from Pakistan after partition. His shop has over 600 Ganesha statues under one roof. Further down the road in Landour Bazaar, his brother stocks porcelain antiques and a collection of water colours exquisite in detail.

I experience a sense of déjà vu as we walk down the steep, winding, cobbled roads, of Landour past the porticoed shops with their lacey iron grills, wooden beams and sloping roofs. The tall lamp-posts cast shadows and there is a chill in the air. If I shut out the smells I could be in the United Kingdom.

If antiques are your destination head for Irfan Ahmed’s Ancient Palace at London house or Irshad Ahmed and Son’s shop in Hill Queen Centre, Kulri or Sabri’s at 11 Landour Cantt. Furniture, paintings, crockery, books, chandeliers and lamps, the list of memorabillia they stock is endless.

There’s food of every sort as well. Punjabi, Udipi, Tibetan momos or fast food, there’s a restaurant at every 10 yards to cater to appetites sharpened by the exertion and salubrious weather. We met Anil Kapur, a St Stephens alumnus, who runs the newly renovated Mussoorie Tavern and Brentwoods Sanctuary on Kempty road. His young son has just returned with a degree in hotel management and is responsible for the spanking new kitchen. The food is sumptuous and the chairs moved over after 10 to make place for the wooden dancing floor. The Manager, Mr Ashok Mahendroo, plays on the guitar and sings holding you in thrall to the tunes of a time gone by. “Once upon a time there was a tavern,……. where we used to raise a glass or two……. .”.

The cottages and buildings beautiful in their Elizabethan architecture are patchworked with new materials without respect for the antiquity or the heritage of the original construction. Only some like the State Bank of India , housed in what was earlier The Imperial Bank are carefully restored and maintained. Jim Corbett’s father was married in St Pauls Church, Landour, and served as Postmaster in Mussoorie. The stained glass windows of St Pauls backlit with Mussoorie’s setting sun are one of my lasting memories of Landour. That, and Conkers on the Chestnut trees and roasted chestnuts being sold by pavement hawkers. The magic of Mussoorie endures.

Webchat: Naughty at Forty

Naughty at forty
by Poonam Khaira Sidhu

MY son Bilawal is a millennium kid. He’s nine going on nineteen. He’s the acknowledged computer whiz in the family. Even his father, a sometime engineer now a bureaucrat, asks for his assistance. With an uncle inside Intel and another in an Internet start-up, he gets regular updates on hardware and software. The relative merits of Pentium versus Itanium or Xeon processors are kid stuff. Little Sehaj Bir, his younger sibling, who is also very computer savvy acknowledges big brother’s ability to break through the codes in game CDs. The Internet is not the final frontier. It’s his turf, where he’s completely at home.

But millennium kids need the excitement of new challenges all the time. Also the Net has spawned its own culture and language through the virtual chatrooms. Bilawal was not allowed to chat because his old-fashioned mom thought they were dens of virtual vice. But mom was also not immune to Bilawal at his best behaviour and when he pleaded “You know all my friends are into chatrooms on the net. Can I chat too, please, under supervision only”. Well, I reckoned no harm done if he’s supervised. So come Sunday and my nine year old, seven year old and their father were all ready to enter a chatroom.

It was a crowded chatroom, one of scores on the net. There were about 18 regulars, with their names in the name-age-location sex (ALS) specification. So there was cupid 16, blonde 21, hunk20, Adonis 24, and belle15. Not one had a sensible name, or was over the age of 25 and certainly no one as young as Billy. So how are you going to sign on we asked him? “As Billy9 of course”, he said. “No you can’t give your real identity away”, we reasoned. So he signed in as action boy albeit with his real age. This is how the action went.

Actionboy 9: Hi!! I’m happy to be in this room.

There’s sudden consternation in the chat room.

Cupid16: Hey Actionboy!! are you really 9?

Actionboy: is happy to get a response.

Hunk20: You really shouldn’t be here kid.

Belle15: Clear off kid!! Go find someone your age.

And, they’re back to chatting with each other.

Blondie21: Hey hunk!! Do your muscles match your IQ?

Hunk20: Try me Blondie. I will surprise you!

Adonis24: Say Belle, are you as pretty as your name means and what do you do? —————-and so the cyberflirtations continued.

My son couldn’t quite figure out the ongoing chatroom conversations. He asked quite plaintively: Why don’t they talk about hobbies or science or game-CDs or chest codes?” We the supervising adults really had no answer to that one. Not one to give up, he tried again.

Actionboy9: Isn’t there any one who will talk to me? Please!

Blonde21: Hey kid, clear off!! Learn to take good advice, OK?

Hunk21: (Taking pity) OK kid talk, but after this you leave.

Actionboy9: What’s your favourite game CD?

Hunk21: Doom, I guess, but my college assignments don’t leave much time to play.

Actionboy9: Do you like science and do you know what a Supernova is?

Hunk21: Hey kid! This is getting a bit too techie. Go to bed!! Bye!!

Actionboy9 a.k.a Bilawal, my nine year old, saddened and disappointed, signed off.

Dad, dangerously close to 40, when men get naughty, was, however, hooked.

It had been another one of those days in office. I was tired, and stressed. So, after an early dinner and putting the kids to sleep, I hit the bed and within minutes I was in slumberland. When I awakened, it was dark. A look at my wristwatch set the time at 3 AM. I glanced over at the sleeping kids and discovered my husband was missing.

I was up like a shot. Hey!! Where was my better half? I jumped out of bed and rushed out into the living room. No signs of him! Where could he be, it was hardly a civilised hour. I had visions of him running away with a secret girlfriend or a neighbourhood siren. I sat down on the sofa, trying to compose myself and sent up some silent prayers. It was then that I heard the tap-tap of the keyboard from the study. I gingerly climbed upstairs and peeped in.

My husband of 10 years sat glued to the monitor. He was much to my horror in the midst of a conversation with 21 year old sirens in a chatroom on the Internet. The old adage, “Men get naughty at four- O, forty”, is true. My sober, almost 40-year-old is now a confirmed net chatroom junkie. He’s up at unearthly hours surfing the net and chatting away in any chatroom he can find. What did I say about kids filter? Please ladies, use the husband filter too. Don’t allow your husbands unsupervised access to chatrooms!!

Of Love, Courage and Parkinsons

Of love, courage and Parkinson’s
Punam Khaira Sidhu

FIGHTING ODDS: Mohinder with her husband

The melodious notes of the harmonium waft to me in the wee hours. I could almost visualise the couple — Pritam Singh Kohli playing the instrument, and his wife of 50 years Mohinder sitting close by. Some days Mohinder, "Mindi" to her friends, appears quite normal, with just the slight tremor of her hands giving away her affliction but on other days she is rigid and incapacitated.

But the Kohlis’ routine remains undisturbed. Their life has fallen into a mellow pattern. P.S Kohli, a retired IAS officer who has been Advisor to three Punjab Governors, is today full-time caregiver and also part-time Sufi poetry enthusiast. The man who served as Consultant to the World Bank for agriculture and irrigation projects is now an unofficial consultant to others battling Parkinson’s disease like his beloved wife. But friends they were and friends they are, tranquil in each other’s company and in the ebb and flow of their daily routine.

Mindi, mother to four children, two boys and two girls settled in the US, was travelling in the US in 1992 when she first felt involuntary tremors, signalling the onset of Parkinson’s. Today the Kohlis are grateful for the early detection of the disease and administration of levedopa, the miracle drug which has substantially slowed down the spread the disease.

Parkinson’s disease is a neurological disorder caused by a degeneration of dopamenergic neurons that control normal movement. The early signs include resting tremor (shaking back and forth when the limb is relaxed) bradykinesia (slowness of movement), rigidity and postural instability. Some other common signs are shuffling gait, stooped posture, small handwriting, constipation, sweating, dementia, depression and muscular pain. Parkinson’s can also easily degenerate into Alzheimer’s, which results in impaired cognitive functions. And this is where Mindi emerges as a ‘poster girl’ for she has shown how early diagnosis, disciplined medication and strong will power can beat the odds against this degenerative disease. Post-retirement, the Kohlis settled in the US. Mindi underwent deep brain stimulation surgery (DBS) in Sacramento, California. The options at that time were between pallodotomy i.e. surgery to burn the damaged portion of the brain, an irreversible process, and the less effective but reversible DBS. In a 12-hour-long operation, surgeons drilled a coin-sized hole in Mindi’s skull, and stimulated her sub-thalamus with electrodes. These electrodes were inserted into the patient and connected to a power pack implanted under her breast. The battery life is three to five years like that of a pacemaker. Today, DBS is being done in India at AIIMS, Apollo and other advanced centres.

Mindi displays a streak of self-deprecatory humour when she says that like "Pyaar ke side-effects" the levedopa drug has a lot of side-effects too. These include nausea, digestive problems, depression and hallucinations. It was these hallucinations that brought the Kohlis back to India from the US. Mindi hallucinated and dreamt frequently of her brothers and parents. Ensconced in the protective warmth of family and friends, the Kohlis set about re-building their lives in India. Kohli, at his bureaucratic best, has actually maintained a diary recording his wife’s daily medicine schedule.

Chandigarh has a large number of people suffering from Parkinson’s but very limited medical resources to provide the specialised treatment this disease requires. The Kohlis are happy to volunteer information about resources required for battling the disease.

The Kohlis have lived their marriage vows`85 through health and through sickness. Their partnership of love and support serves as a shining example to couples in the present times when relationships are so quickly tested by minor hindrances.

Sister Nirmala

Unconditional love — that’s Sister Nirmala
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 4
Sister Nirmala, the Superior General of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, paid a brief visit to the city to its local unit, Shanti Dan in Sector 23.

The Sister had been invited to attend the CBCI meeting at Jalandhar. On her way back to Kolkata, she stopped over to spend time with The Chandigarh family. Ms Punam Khaira Sidhu, a volunteer in the home, says that she was greatly privileged to see Sister Nirmala at close quarters. Sitting in the little room that serves as a reception area in Shanti Dan, her eyes brimmed over with unconditional love and empathy. She was dressed in the order’s uniform of coarse white, blue bordered, handspun cotton sari. Her small feet bore cracks and were shod in rubber chappals. But the aura surrounding her was bright with peace and purity. When she spoke she radiated love. She said,” Love demands that we give until it hurts not from our abundance but from our wants.” Her message for the people was “ God loves each one of you tenderly. Trust Him totally and seek His will in your love. His will is to love one another as God loves you”.

This frail, tender, woman presides over 676 convents in 129 countries. Sister Nirmala handed out what she called Mother Teresa’s visiting cards, and narrated a story for how it came about. A visiting business man calling on the Nobel Prize winning missionary, apparently handed out his business card while asking for the Mother. She wrote down a small prayer and handed it over to him, saying, “This is my business card”. The card reads, “The fruit of silence is prayer; the fruit of prayer is faith; the fruit of faith is love; the fruit of love is service; the fruit of service is peace.

The mission of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity is to do all they can for the poorest of the poor. They reach out to take the old, the destitute, the disabled and retarded and abandoned children into their homes and look after them, surrounded by the love of the Lord.

Ms Sidhu says that a visit to the convent in Sector 23, “Shanti Dan”, always “rejuvenates me in spirit and mind. I always return full of faith in all that’s good and pure.” The poorest of the poor , the sick , the abandoned have a home here. Babies abandoned at birth are nurtured and cared for. The stench of neglect does not enter here. Instead, there are smiling faces and love pervading every nook of the home from the cabbage patch outside, to the nursery with the babies fragrant with talc. There is a beautiful statue of Mother Mary in the grotto at the entrance.

While she was exceedingly articulate about order and the work being done by the Missionaries of Charity, Sister Nirmala refused to talk about herself. But a browse through news archives yielded the following information. Press releases had stated that Sister Nirmala, was elected almost unanimously as the New Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa was present for the election and blessed Sister Nirmala. Sister Nirmala, 63, was never groomed as a successor to lead the order which has 4,500 nuns in more than 129 countries. Pope John Paul II had advised the nuns, in a letter, that the Missionaries should be led by a woman of deep spirituality. Her selection was unanimous by 132 senior nuns in a closed door vote. It ended an 8-week selection effort.