Inception of conception

She did not hear him. He repeated his question but she did not respond still. He touched her on her shoulder and asked "Are you ok?" She looked up at him and responded "Yeah". But she still seemed lost in thought. He asked "What happened?" She responded "I was thinking..." She did not continue. He waited for a few seconds before asking "Thinking about what?" She looked at him said "Thinking that we should ..." Once again she stopped talking. Now, he was worried. He persisted "Are you ok? Should we go to a doctor?" She shook her head and said "No, no. It is just that I am not sure but I think, ehhh. I think we should start a family". He was perplexed "What do you mean?" She responded "I mean we should have a child." He looked at her without saying anything. It was now her turn to ask "Are you ok?" He said "But you did not want to have a kid for five years." She said "That's what I thought but now I feel we should start a family." He did not say anything. She asked "Do you have a problem?" He took a moment before responding "Not a problem. It's just that I did not think about it." He paused and then continued "I was wondering about the EMI and all." She said "But the EMI goes on for another 15 years. One year will not make any difference." He agreed. He sat beside her and placed his hand around her shoulders. She rested her head on his shoulder. They started at the television for some time.

She said "There's something else you should know". A look of concern appeared on his face. She looked at him and said "It's nothing to be concerned about. It's about a custom in our family." A part, only a part, of the concern he felt disappeared from his face. She hesitated before continuing "In our family, the first child should be conceived at our ancestral home." He did not understand her words properly "You mean the delivery should happen there?" She responded hesitantly "Not just the delivery but also the conception." He still did not understand clearly "What do you mean conception?" She felt annoyed "You know what I mean." He stared at her wide eyed. He said "You mean..." He could not complete the sentence. She smiled and shook her head. He wanted to say something but could only say "baaa..." She laughed and patted his cheeks. She said "Don't worry. We will plan it. I will book the train tickets for next weekend". He felt stunned "You mean you have planned it already." She laughed "Of course! Family requires planning. Haven't you heard of family planning!" They watched the television silently for some more time. 

Later, when they were having dinner, she said "I forgot to say something. Let's sleep in separate rooms from tonight." He left his hand with the food between his fingers hang in mid air as he asked "Why?" She smiled "You know! It's better to be careful." His hand with the food continued to stay midair as he protested "But..." He could say no further. The argument that it is better to be careful was too strong to be argued against. She made her already strong argument stronger by saying "We have to do everything to ensure that it happens when we are at home." She had emphasised on the word everything but thought the emphasis was not strong enough and so repeated "everything" emphatically. He shook his head and finally let his hand with the food travel to his mouth.

That night, for the first time, in their married life they slept in different rooms while staying under the same roof. It would not be entirely correct to say slept for he did not sleep much. He lay on the bed and stared in the direction of the roof for a long time. His disturbed mind randomly threw many thoughts at him 

" A child, a child, a child, hmmmm!"

"A child, a child, a girl or a boy, a child, mmmmmm"

"EMI, hospital, doctor, preschool, nursery, school, college and even then, the EMI, mmmmm"

"But who will take care of the baby when we go to work? Will my parents come or will her parents? Will she leave her job or should I leave? But can I take care of the baby? Can she? Oh god!"

"The baby has to be conceived in two days! Two days! How is that possible? This is not ... Oh god! Never mind!"

"Two days!"

"Vaccination!"

"Higher studies"

"Marriage"

In a matter of hours, he travelled across many years. Finally, his mind gave up and he went to sleep. He woke a few times in the night but he did not remember if he had similar thoughts then. Finally, the alarm went off and he got up. He did not feel very well. As he was making the coffee she appeared smiling brightly. She said "Good morning!" He responded "Good morning". She looked at him with concern and said "Didn't sleep well?" He shook his head. She said "You should not be worried. It will only make matters difficult." He waved his hand and said "Yeah! I will be ok."  She took the cup of coffee from the kitchen counter and had a sip from it. She said "By the way, I booked the train tickets for next week." He stuttered "Already but, but when did you book?" She chirped back "Last night, just before I went to sleep." He sat down with his cup of coffee and said "Oh". 

He remained gloomy and tense for the next few days. She tried to pep him up and he tried his best to pep up but his mind was clogged with too many worries to actually pep up. As the weekend approached his worry turned from the distant future to the near future. The night before the night of departure he asked "Does your parents know about this?" She asked "You mean our trying to conceive?"  He said "Yes". She responded "Of course, everyone knows." His eyes went wide and he asked "What do you mean everybody?" She responded "I mean everyone. There will be a pooja and feast day after tomorrow. Everyone will be there." He stopped sipping his coffee "Pooja? What pooja?" She explained "You see! Usually, the first night will be the first night of attempted conception and the pooja happens with the marriage ceremony itself. But now things have changed and the pooja is conducted separately." He remained silent for some time. He looked at the ant strolling carefreely towards the edge of the kitchen counter. He asked "So everyone knows." She replied impatiently "Will you stop this. We have been married for four years. So everyone knows anyway." He asked stupidly "Even the children." She walked over to him, held his shoulders and said "Even the children. These days the children know a lot more than they should. Hopefully they don't know all the details but one never knows these days." He got up and hugged her. He said with a sheepish smile "Well! I am embarrassed." She smiled and said "Don't be else we will have to make more trips."  He asked "Will there be pooja every time?" She laughed "No, no, only the first time. But please, let us hope we don't have to make more trips"

He spent the next 48 hours wondering about the pooja and the embarrassment of facing the uncles, aunts and cousins. Just before they left to the station, she kissed him and said 'Don't worry. It will be fine. This is the beginning of a new chapter in our life." The thought comforted him and he slept well that night in the train. The next morning, when they got down at the station, they found many members of her family at the station. Her younger brothers walked up to them with garlands in their respective hands. After they were garlanded every member of the family on the station congratulated them. All his forebodings about the day came back to him in a rush. He looked at her. She was happily laughing and chatting with her relatives. She held his hand firmly in her's as though she did not want him to run away. Sure enough the thought had crossed his mind but he was not sure where he would run away to. So he stood amidst her relatives with a smile forced on to his lips.

There was many more relative waiting in front of her house to welcome the two of them. They all hugged and patted them as they walked into the house. He was shocked to see the number of people who were present there. Soon, they were ushered into their room. They had an hour to get ready for the pooja. When they were inside the room, he asked her "Why are there so many people?" She responded "This will be the first child of the new generation in our family like I was the first in my generation. They are all excited." He remained silent for some time before asking "Will they stay the whole time?" She held his hand "Stop thinking so much. You are giving this too much importance to all this. This is just a process like eating or taking bath." He did not understand the comparison but he let it pass. As she had mentioned he had to stop thinking about this situation. 

An hour later, the pooja started. It involved priest, fire, smoke, ghee, sprinkling of water, chanting of holy mantras and explanation of the mantras. These explanations were unlike any that he had heard earlier. They provided graphic details of the intimate interactions between the various gods and their respective goddesses. The adults giggled and relished the explanation, which further fuelled the graphicness in the priest's explanations. The adults had driven away the children who were actually relieved to be away from the smoke, fire and the boring chants. The two people responsible for this fantastic event, kept their heads down and looked at the fire and embers intently. She had a shy smile on her face. The expressions on his face could not be read clearly. An hour and half later the pooja ended with the priest announcing "The time between 2:27 and 2:52 is good." Her mother inquired "That late in the night?" The priest responded "PM not AM; afternoon not night." He looked at her bewildered. She did not look at him. Her mother said "Oh! There is not much time. Let us arrange for the lunch." 

The lunch was sumptuous but the couple sat separately and were only provided limited amount of food. One of her aunts said "Too much of food will make you sleepy. Then nothing will happen. Have a lot of payasam. The combination of jaggery and ghee in the payasam is good for both of you." The other aunts giggled and agreed. Once again, the two of them kept their heads down and ate the food. At 1:45 pm, her father, uncles and brothers guided him to the room designated for them that afternoon. Her father explained "This room is considered special. It is only used for the first nights in our family. Though, in your case, it is not the first night, this is technically your first night." Every one laughed except him. Her father opened the door and said "As per our customs only the couple can enter the room. Please go in." As he walked in her brothers said in unison "Wish you all the very best". One of her uncles chipped in with "Do well." They closed the door. He stood in the empty room and looked at the bed decked in flowers. The decorations on the bed made it seem like a tulip field in Netherlands. At the centre of the bed was the shape of a heart with an arrow piercing it through the middle. He did not feel like sitting on the bed. He sat on a chair and stared at the shape of heart at the centre of the bed.

At 2:00 pm, the door opened and she walked in holding a glass of milk in her hand. She wore a silk saree and was decked in jewellery. She held a glass of milk in her hands. He had not seen her like this since the day of their marriage. She looked at him stare at her with his mouth open wide. She said "Don't look at me like this." He responded "But we have been married for four years now." She said "But for them this is our first night together. In a sense it is, isn't it? It is a new beginning." He corrected her "This is not first night. This is first afternoon." She corrected him "Technically, it is not the first afternoon either." She walked up to him, gave him the glass of milk and said "Don't drink it all. I get the bottom half of it." He looked at her incredulously and said "Seriously! Like in the movies!" She responded "Movies are based on life. It is an aphrodisiac." He refuted "Milk is not an aphrodisiac." She corrected "It's not just milk, they have mixed some powder in it." He said "Hope it does not knock us out. On second thoughts, hope it knocks us out." He drank half of the contents in the glass and gave the glass to her. She finished it and said "That's all! It's as simple as that." At that moment, they heard her mother's voice from outside the door "Don't waste time. Start, start." He looked at her shocked and whispered "Are they listening?" She laughed and said "They are only there to ensure that we start. Come on!"

Later, when they walked into the living room, they found the whole family was assembled there.  Everyone looked at the expectantly. It seemed that they expected the child to pop out of her immediately. Her mother asked "So, did it go well?" She shook her head in affirmation. Everyone clapped their hands and congratulated each other and the couple. One of her aunts said "You should try again tonight. Hope the two of you have enough energy left."  Another aunt said "Don't tire yourself now. Rest well. Sit down, sit down." For the remaining part of the day and the next day too people advised them to relax and to save their energies for the process of creation of the first member of the next generation of the family. From time to time, they talked about the future and discussed about the child's gender.

"It will be a girl."

"No, no, it is better for the first child of the generation is a boy."

"No, it has to be a girl. Remember our grandmother and what she said about her mother."

"That is correct. Look at this generation itself. This girl has been so good for our family."

"True, true, it has to be a girl." 

In the middle of this discussion, the couple sat wondering what control they had to guarantee the sex of the child. That night and the next afternoon, the couple were ceremoniously taken to their room by the men and women of the family. The next evening as they got into the train, her mother held her hands and said "Take care of yourself. We will be waiting for the news."

A few weeks later, she walked out of the bathroom looking glum. She sat beside him and rested her head on his shoulders. He looked at her and asked "What happened?" A tear made its way down her left cheek. She said "My period started." He closed the laptop and placed his head on her's. They sat in this manner for some time before she wiped the tears away and said "Let us go out for dinner tonight." He agreed. That night she said "I have booked the tickets to go home." He looked at her shocked. She reassured him by saying "Don't worry! This time there will be no pooja or flower decked bed." He continued "But all the people and the half glass of milk will still be there, right?" She smiled. 

This time the crowd of relatives at her house was lesser in number and in the display of enthusiasm. Many comforted them by saying "It's ok", "It's all in god's hands", "The time has not come yet, that is all", "Don't lose hope. Keep trying." He was reminded of the time when he could not get though the JEE exams. This time, there was less fanfare though. Only her father and one of her uncles escorted him to the room. She was accompanied by her mother and a few of her aunts. Later when they walked out of the room, they were met with anxious faces. Her mother asked "All ok?" She responded "Yes, yes." Her mother said "Good, good." 

A few days later, he heard her curse and shout "Not again" from inside the bathroom. When she walked out with her wet eyes he said "I have booked the tickets." She sat next to him and placed her head on his shoulder. 

Four and a half months later, when they got off the train, they saw their father standing at some distance. They walked towards him. When they got into the car, her father said. " Dilli mama is here." She said "Oh no! Not him".

"What happened? Who is Dilli mama?"

"He is a pain. He is a creep. He is a painful creep. He is a creepy painful oaf."

"Shush. He is your uncle."

"He is not my uncle. He is your brother."

"But you called him mama."

"You don't know anything about him. So you don't put your head into this. Appa, please stop for tea. I have to talk to him."

At the restaurant, she explained "This fellow ran away from home when he was sixteen. Please don't ask 'why'. No one in the family wants to remember. Everyone was relieved and no one searched for him. He remained lost for thirty years. But a few months before our marriage he landed at our doorstep. We refused to believe that it was him but he had not changed much both in appearance and character. So we did not have a choice but to accept him." He interjected "His name is Dilli?" She responded "No, his name is not 'Dilli'. He stays at Delhi these days and so we call him Dilli." He asked "So what is his name?" She could not hide her frustration when she responded "It does not matter. You keep away from him. You don't have to know his name. You just don't talk to him. He is a creep..." Her father interrupted her "But there is a problem." She looked at her father worried. He continued "He wants to take mapillai out for breakfast." The mapillai said "Me?" The father shook his head and said "I don't know how to say this but you have to be warned. He has fathered four children, legally that is. He considers himself to be an expert in the art of making children. Unfortunately, your grandmother informed him everything that about you two and he wants to educate you." She hit her head with her palm "Oh no! We are going back now. Let us take a break. We will come back next month." But his interest was piqued and he said "No, no. We should not turn back now." She looked at him annoyed and said "Oh! So now you have become interested, is it? You want to learn the art of making babies, is it?" He said "No, it's not that. We have to do what we have to do. We can't be put it off due to such small problems. Don't worry, I will handle it."

As soon as they reached home, they saw Dilli mama standing by the gate. He hugged them and said "Chella kutti, mappillai, it is so good to see you two. Your grandmother told me all your problems. Don't worry I can help you. Let us go out for breakfast. You have a quick bath and come back here, OK?" She looked at both of them worried but he responded "Sure mama!" 

A few hours later, the two of them came back to the house. Dilli mama had his arms around his mapillai's shoulders. As the two parted, he mentioned "So mappillai, remember everything I said. You will be a father within ten months." He left the mama at the hall and walked into the bedroom. He saw her sitting on the bed. She asked "So what happened?" He sat down beside her and said "You mama is a pro. My god. I don't know what to say." 

"Oh god! What did he do?"

"What! He did not do anything. He only talked. But, my god, he talked."

"What did he say?"

"Please! I can't tell you. When I was in the hostel during my college days, two fellows decided to write a porno story. They made is so graphic that we could not stay in the room for more than fifteen minutes. The last two hours was even more graphic than that."

"And you stayed and listened to it all."

"What choice did I have? He is your uncle and a powerful uncle at that."

"So what did he say?"

"Forget it! I am not telling you."

"Listen! I don't know what he told you but you are not trying all that out on me, ok?"

He laughed and said "I can't, even if I wanted to. I am human after all."

Black coffee

The bitterness of the vending machine driven sugarless black coffee
Hit the insides and the outside of my brain with an hammer
Not made of steel but of thoughts that struck me hard
Drowsiness and emptiness disappeared from my brain
Speeding away through my nose, eyes and ears
Into the emptiness of the atmosphere around.
I opened my eyes wide and stared at the world like a new born baby
Here, I should acknowledge I have a never seen
A new born baby open its eye wide and stare at the world, wide eyed
But if there was such a baby doing such a thing the baby would have looked like me

The bitterness of the coffee hit my brain and not only drove away sleep and bitterness
It also drove away the bitter thoughts that enveloped my brain's insides and outsides
Sweet thoughts did not flow into my head for bitterer thoughts entered my brain
I said 'stop' aloud and stopped the bitterer thought dead on its tracks
I drank another sip of the bitter black sugarless vending machine birthed coffee
To merciless murder the bitterer thoughts that were stuck dead on its tracks
Now that the bitter and bitterer thoughts were dead it was only right to cremate them
A voice in my head asked "cremate or bury?"
Another voice responded vehemently "Cremate, these are Hindu thoughts".
I sipped another sip of the bitter black hot sugarless coffee
I let the heat flow through my head to burn the bitter and bitterer thoughts down into ash
Now it was time for the two voices in my head to shovel the ash out
They shovelled the ashes of the bitter and bitterer thoughts down my nose singing 
"Heave the ash and ho the ash. Let it wash away from here to the eternal nothingness outside."
It was not much of a song and the voices were not good singers either
But I ignored the cacophony for they had a job to do and could not be disturbed.
Besides I was busy sneezing the ash out through my nose.
I sipped and sipped the hot black sugarless bitter and now not so hot coffee till the cup became empty
And my mind was free of sleep, drowsiness and bitter thoughts
Only Ian Gillan sang "Can't hide, can't hide my misery" into my ears
"Before,... Before, ... Never, never before..."

Too much monkey business

The evening news blared out of the television. At the bottom of the screen the words 'Landslide in Wayanad' screamed in white on a blood red background. He sat on the bed typing into his laptop, which rested on his lap. From time to time, he looked up from the laptop screen to look at the television screen. He listened to the news for bit before getting back to his laptop. His mobile phone lay resting on the side table, relieved to left alone for a few minutes. But the mobile phone's relief was short lived. Someone called and it had no choice but to ring. He looked at it and saw that the call was from his nephew. Since his nephew got his own mobile phone, he did not call him much. Earlier, his nephew used to grab his parent's phone and talk to him. So he wondered why he was receiving the call now. He picked up the call and heard his nephew's desperate voice at the other.

"Uncle, we need help. We are the college for training. There is a problem. Please come."

"What is the problem"

"I can't tell you now. Please come quickly. I will send the address. Please don't call, only send messages. Please come soon."

"But wait..."

His nephew had cut the call. He looked at the time. It was twenty minutes past seven. He received his nephew's message about the location. It was a small place 200 kilometres from his location. He checked the web and found that a bus would leave from the bus station close to his hotel to the location in two hours. Thirty minutes later he walked out of his room with a backpack and made his way to the reception. At the reception he informed the receptionist that he would come back in a day and that his luggage was still in the room. He was a regular guest at the hotel and receptionist noted the point with a smile. 

He reached the bus station thirty minutes later. At the station he was informed that a bus that passes through the location would leave from bus bay number 4 in another 5 minutes. He found a bus with the word Delux written prominently on the front, at the bay. He inquired with the bus driver if the bus would pass through the location. The driver responded "You have to get down at the by-pass. It does not go into the town." He informed the driver that he had to go to the college. The driver said "The college is not too far from the place. I think some six or seven kilometres away. But we will reach there by 4. I am not sure if you get any vehicle there at that time. You have to either walk or wait till 7 o clock". He asked if there was a bus that goes to the college. The driver responded "No bus to the college. It is in the middle of nowhere. Even from the town it is difficult to get a vehicle till 7". He remembered the urgency in his nephew's voice and decided to board the bus anyway. He got a ticket from the conductor and found his seat. The seat was hard and the bus did not exude any kind of deluxeness. But he was happy that it was not dirty. 

He did not sleep well more due to anxiety than discomfort. He wondered about his nephew's anxiety. At that moment he remembered that his sister had mentioned that his niece too was planning to attend the training. His nephew had not mentioned about her but then he had hardly mentioned anything during the call. He did not want to call his sister and frighten her. So he decided to wait for a few hours and find out for himself the cause for his nephew's desperate call. He woke up when the conductor tapped on his shoulder and said "Wake up, this is your stop." He got up quickly, picked his bag and got off the bus. He looked at his mobile. The time was five minutes past four. Many buses and trucks passed through the highway but he did not see any auto to take him to the college. Behind him was a small tea shop, which was open. He walked to the shop and ordered a tea once he reached the shop. He asked the shop person how he could get to college. The person responded "At this time, there are no buses or vehicles here to take you to the college. There is only one possibility. Can you see that road? Usually an auto stands at the beginning of that road. The driver sleeps inside the auto. If he is there, he might be able to take you to the college." He looked in the direction pointed by the tea shop person but in the darkness he could not see the road. He did not see anything at all. The tea, to his surprise, tasted good. He was tempted to have another glass but once again the urgency in his nephew's voice made him decide otherwise.

Vehicles were plying at regular intervals on the highway. This made crossing it difficult. He waited for nearly three minutes before deciding to dash across to the middle of the road. He waited for another two minutes on the median before dashing across to the other side of the road. When he reached there, he touched different parts of his body to ensure that all of it had reached intact across the road. Everything was fine, nothing was lost during the crossing of the road. He walked tentatively to the road that the tea shop person had pointed to. It looked dark and ominous. He did not believe in supernatural beings but he believed in the existence of snakes and scorpions. So he took out his mobile phone and switched on the torch. It lighted up a small part of the road. He held it straight and it lighted a small part of the way ahead. In it he could identify faintly, the shape of a vehicle straight ahead. He walked briskly towards it. When he reached the vehicle, he was relieved to find that the vehicle was indeed an autorickshaw. His relief increased when he found a person sleeping inside the auto. He shone the light on the driver and tapped him lightly. He said "mmmmm", turned around and continued to sleep. He gave the driver a harder shove. The auto driver jerked out of his sleep and sat up. He felt terrified to be woken up thus with a harsh light shining on into his face. The driver shouted "Aaaaah! Leave me alone. Don't harm me." He moved the light away from the driver's face to his own face and said "Calm down." It is said that not many people get calmed down when they hear someone say "calm down", The auto driver seemed to be one such persons. He flayed his hands and legs and let out an "Aiyoooo!" To calm the auto driver without saying calm down he decided to get to the point "I want to go to the college. Come, let us go." The auto driver's business sense kicked in and he said "Oh! You want to go college is it? Sure... Oh no! There is a problem."

"What problems?"

"The headlamp does not work."

"What!"

"Yes. It stopped working last evening. I could not fix it. I will fix it later."

"That's too late. I have to go now."

"But it is too dark. Wait for an hour."

"I have to get to the college immediately. You drive, I will shine my mobile's torch on the road."

"Your mobile's torch but I can't see the road with that."

"The torch is powerful."

"Yes! That is true. I am nearly blinded by your shining that powerful torch into my face."

"Let us go. Come on."

He sat besides the auto driver and directed the light towards the road. A small part of the road lighted up. It was not clear, how this was sufficient for the auto driver to drive but he continued to drive. For an risky enterprise like this, the twenty five minute drive proceeded without any hitch. A few times, the auto driver asked him to show the torch towards the side of the road. At those times, he commented with satisfaction "Ah! Right! We are on track." The auto driver knew the road like the back of his hands. When the auto reached the college's gate, he got out of the auto, paid the auto driver and told the driver "Wait for me here. I will come out in one hour." The auto driver hesitated "But, ..." He interrupted the auto driver by saying "It will be dark for another hour. So you can't go back anyway. You wait for exactly one hour. I will pay you double." The auto driver seemed to like the deal and said "Ok. I will wait here."

He took out his mobile and looked at the message his nephew had sent. "The gate is locked and there are no watchmen there. Don't try to call out for anyone. The compound wall is not high, you can climb over that to get in. The road that goes straight from the gate leads to the hostel named 'Ambili'. The hostel is right after the main building. The gate of the hostel is open. We are in the first floor; room 111. Please don't make any noise. Come very quietly." He was perplexed by the paranoia in his nephew's tone. He wondered if he should be worried getting into the campus. But when he looked into the campus through the gate, he did not see a reason to worry. He walked towards the gate and turned towards the wall on its left side as he got closer. He climbed the wall with some difficulty. On the other side there was a stone bench next to the wall. He climbed down on to the bench and jumped to the ground. Almost at once, he heard something rustling in the trees above. He waited for the rustling to stop before walking towards the hostel. As he walked along the road, he could hear rustling among the branches above. Soon, he reached the hostel named 'Ambili'. The building seemed run down and was in desperate need of maintenance. He went in and climbed the narrow staircase to the first floor. He turned left and found that the room numbers started at 114 and increased. He turned around and walked. He knocked softly on the door marked 111. He heard footsteps approaching the door. He heard his nephew's voice ask softly "Uncle?" He responded "Yes, open the door." The door opened and his nephew stood in front of him.

"Thank god, you are here. Come in, come in" he whispered. He walked in and saw his niece sitting on one of the cots in the room. She waved at him and said "Sorry to bother you uncle. My brother is over reacting unnecessarily" Her brother retorted "Be quiet! You take everything lightly." Before she could respond, the uncle asked his nephew "Tell me what happened. Your call had me worried." The nephew started narrating the events of the previous evening.

"We were offered the hostel to stay for the night as the training continues tomorrow. We accepted it as there are no hotels close by and we did not want to travel. Only when we got the room did we realize that the hostels are ancient and many rooms have not been used for years. The room had no bedding or pillows, only these wooden planked cots. But since we were only staying for a night we thought it will be ok. The lunch served in the afternoon was bad and so we did not have much expectations about the dinner. Even so, the dinner was worse. They made dosa using batter made during Raja Raja Chola's time. It was sour like hell but we had some dosas anyway. We had apples with us and so thought it will be ok. We came back to the room at around seven and soon we heard a knock on the door. I opened the door and found two monkey standing outside baring their teeth. They were large monkeys, almost half my height. They were standing on their hind legs with their hands held high in a threatening pose. I got scared and jumped back from the door. The monkeys jumped into the room, ran straight to my bag, opened it and start rummaging through it. They found the apples in it. I was shocked. I could hear hundreds of monkeys outside..."

His sister interrupted "Oh! Don't exaggerate! There were a few monkeys outside. Anyway, while my brave brother was screaming and shouting, I picked up the waste basket and smashed the monkeys' heads with it. They got scared and ran away." It was now the brother's turn to interrupt "Not before they tried to pounce on her. I beat them with the broom too and they ran out. I closed the door and latched it. Since then through the night they have been screaming all around the room and banging and scratching the doors and windows. Its been terrifying." The sister said "That's because they know there's food inside." The brother said "Its not just that. These monkey are ferocious." Suddenly, a voice from the corner said "That's true. They are ferocious." The uncle nearly jumped out of his skin on hearing this new voice. He had not noticed a small person sitting with a stick in one corner of the room till then. He asked "Who are you?" The small person responded "I am the watchman." The uncle was confused "But what are you doing here? Should you not be watching?" The watchman responded "No, no! These are not monkeys these are demons. I can't be outside with them." "So you hide inside this room is it?" "On other nights, I lock the gate and go home. Today, I stayed back as these two were staying here. A big mistake. The monkeys nearly killed me. So I came here. It will be safer if we are all together. These are not monkeys, they are demons." The uncle had enough of these spooky tales and quietened them "Alright, alright. Let us not panic and make stories. They are monkeys and monkeys are wild creatures. They are unpredictable and ferocious." His niece agreed "Exactly! I am not sure why people make up such stories."

The watchman became unhappy by this show of cynicism from the uncle and his niece. He said "You don't believe it! That's because you don't know the history of this place. I am sure all of you have heard of the Ramayana. In it, Lord Rama surreptitiously kills the monkey king Bali. It did not happen like that and as Ramayana focuses on Rama's story there is no mention of Bali after that incident. In reality, it was a battle in which Bali and many in his army of monkeys were killed. Since then Bali and his army have roamed around the battleground tormenting anyone who came anywhere close to that place. The battle ground is called Ambalipuram. Over time, the name changed to Ambilipuram, which is the name of this place and this hostel is called Ambili because it is on this spot that Bali was killed. Ambali is short for aham Bali which means I am Bali." The uncle looked around and found his nephew crouching in a corner. His niece shouted "What nonsense! Stop saying such rotten nonsense. Ambili means the moon. That is the name of this place. Aham Bali it seems. People will say and believe anything." The uncle quietened her and said "It does not matter. We cannot stay here. Let us get out of here. This is not a place to stay. I have an auto waiting outside. Let us go". The nephew and watchman protested but the uncle and niece stood firm on the decision to leave.  

The uncle opened the door cautiously. He put his head out and looked to the left and then the right. The corridor seemed empty. He walked out cautiously and waved to the others to follow. They went down the staircase and got out of the hostel. Silence enveloped them. The lamps on both sides of the path lighted their way. They walked quietly. The uncle walked in the front while the niece was at the end of the group. They held sticks in their hands. The watchman and the nephew walked in the middle. They walked cautiously looking at all sides. Suddenly, they heard rustling of the branches above. The nephew and the watchman attempted to run. The uncle held their hands firmly and directed them to not run. They walked nervously behind him. By this time, they were walking abreast. They were all looking in all directions, including upwards towards the branches. At one point, the uncle lost his balance and nearly fell on a hibiscus bush that grew besides the path. The niece caught his hand and whispered "Careful uncle, don't wakeup the flowers." He gave her a quizical look and said "Don't wake up the flowers? What do you mean wakeup the flowers?" She responded "Not wake up, I mean pluck. Don't pluck the flowers." He asked with annoyance "Pluck the flowers! Why would I pluck the flowers?" Before she could respond the nephew whispered urgently "Will you two be quiet!" They walked towards the gate quietly. 

As they approached the bench the gate, they heard the sound of something hitting the ground. They turned around and saw two monkeys approaching them. The watchman and the nephew screamed. The monkey screamed back menacingly. The uncle ordered the others to climb over the wall and jump. "I will take care of this" he added. While the nephew and watchman climbed over the wall, the niece and uncle swung their sticks at the monkeys. The monkeys bared their teeth and hissed menacingly. The uncle pushed his niece towards the wall and shouted "Go!" Once she jumped he too quickly jumped the wall. All of them ran towards the auto that still stood by the gate. The driver woke up with a jerk by the commotion. He was shocked to see four people running towards his auto. Before he could react, the uncle dragged him off the back seat, pushed him on to the front seat, sat besides him, switched on the mobile torch, directed it towards the road and shouted "Go, go, go, go, go!" By this time, the remaining three had jumped into the seat behind. The confused auto driver turned on the auto and drove away from the college.

On the top branch of a tree, an elderly monkey sat looking at the first rays of the sun painting the horizon orange. Darkness still surrounded the world below. In the darkness, the monkey saw a faint slither of light moving away. The monkey sat looking at the light till it faded away. 

Movies - July 2024

Count from August 2023: 189 

July 2024 -  movies and series

1. Lion: This movie appears in many lists of Academy Awards worthy movies in Prime. I have consistently ignored it due to its name. It reminds me of the 80's malayalam movie song where the hero realizes that the work LION when seen upside down is NO17, whic seems to be a major clue in the movie. Everytime I am reminded of the scene, I am both amazed and appalled. Also, I am not ready to watch a Dev Patel movie. I did not like Slumdog Millionaire and this dislike somehow landed on Dev Patel. Recently I read something good about the movie and decided to watch it. It was a good choice. A beautifully made movie. The initial scenes though sad and disturbing are shot beautifully. The fact that it is based on a true story made it fascinating and touching. By the end of the movie, I had to fight my tears.  
2. Makal: I only watched this movie for Nasleen. He brings out humour well and his timing is impeccable. One scene from the movie appears in many reels. Nasleen lived upto the expectation. In general the movie is a super light movie, its so light that it seems pointless. It has a serious theme but Sathyan Anthikad flies through each situation so lightly that none of it leaves an impact. In the end, it is good break from all those heavy award worthy movie. As a post script, I am not sure why Jayaram acts in these roles. This is a typical Jayaram role and I think I have watched him do such roles many times.
3. Priyan Ottathilane: I only watched this movie for Sharafudeen and for the good rating that this movie has. The movie is not taken well. I got the feeling that I was watching a serial on Asianet. But the screenplay was good and so the movie keeps the viewer occupied. At two hours and twenty minutes, the movie is too long for the story but as I said the screenplay kept me occupied. The actors are good and situations are interesting. Good for a watch.
4. Civil War: I had seen the trailer of this movie on the big screen. I did not like the trailer, it reminded me of one of the zombie attack movies.  But even the bad trailer was good enough for me to realize that this is a movie not to be missed. Yet, I missed watching this movie in the theatre. I really wanted to go for the movie but I couldn't. During the first week of July, I saw that the movie was released in Amazon Prime. Almost immediately, I started watching the movie and finished it in one sitting (nearly). Its a beautiful movie. It has a poetic feeling to it. As I watched the movie I shouted to myself "You should have seen this movie in the theatre man." I really should have watched it in the theatre. Though I have seen many great movies during the past few weeks, this one captured my attention totally. Its scary and beautiful. The background score is one of the reasons for this - the change from music to the sounds of the scene and a song suddenly bursting into the scenes make the movie a complete pleasure to watch. I love this movie.
5. Gaganachari: Once again it was time to watch a movie in the theatre with family. I did not want to watch Kalki. I don't want to pay money for a hyped up pan-India nonsense. Besides, I don't want to watch a movie with Prabhas in the lead at the theatre. I have done that mistake twice - Bahubali 1 and Bahubali 2. Also, a harcore Telugu movie fan had responded Amitabh was good when asked what he thought about the movie. This does not augar well for the movie. So I gave the movie a skip. I am not even sure if I will watch it in OTT (As I review this writing I am attempting to watch Brahmastra on OTT, so I think I will end up watching Kalki on OTT). Instead a movie called Gaganachari captured my attention. The reviews for movie were good. It's a Malayalam sci-fi mockumentary that was not mocked by any reviewer. Instead everyone appreciated the movie. So I booked the tickets for this movie. This is one of the funniest and wierdest movie that I have seen. I am not sure I will recommend it to anyone as I think they will only observe the wierdness of the movie. But the movie has a lot more than just wierdness. It shows how storytelling can make the most impossible of scenarios plausible. At a less than modest budget, this movie depicts a convincing post disaster earth, focussing only on a small section of Kerala. That said, what made the movie click for me was the humour. I laughed.
6. Half Love, Half Arranged (Season 1): I had seen bits and pieces of this series as reels and had found them amusing. So when I found that the series was available in Amazon miniTV, I decided to watch it. The series is a short one with just six episodes, each about twenty minutes long. But miniTV being a TV has a number advertisements added to it. This made the experience a bit painful. The series itself is funny. Most of the characters are fun to watch. But I did not like the end of the series. It left it at a place that forces one to wait for the next season but somehow I felt I did not care about it. I seemed to have lost interest in the series during the last few minutes. Anyway, I will see the next season too if and when it releases. If I am unable to do so, I really don't care.
7. Bramaram: Many years back, I saw a small part of this movie and I liked it. But it is a Blessy movie. I had watched two of his movies and did not like it much. For that reason I have not watched Aadu Jeevitham yet. Also, other than Drishyams I have not liked any of the recent Mohan Lal movies either. So I never got around to watching this movie. Recently one of my friends mentioned this movie and said that Mohan Lal was terrific in this movie. So I decided to watch it. Sure enough, Mohan Lal is terrific in this movie. He brings out the disturbed and yet decent character out well. But the movie making is terrible. It seems like an Asianet serial at many places. Other than Mohan Lal almost all other characters are loud. This makes the situations seem extremely staged. All this seems to have convined me that I would not like to go through this movie again. But I think I would like to see Mohan Lal's acting in this movie again and so might watch a fast forwarded version of this movie some time in the future. 
8. Malayalee from India: It has been sometime since I had seen a fun Nivin Pauly movie. The teasers seemed funny but even there the jokes did not seem funny. The acting seemed forced too but I still hoped it will be a good movie. It wasn't. The story seemed like a combination of many movies. In that sense the movie is a paisa vasool - you get five movies at the cost of one. But that is not the issue with the movie. It does not flow well and worse the acting is forced. Nivin’s interactions with the Pakisthani character are good and is funny in some situation but other than that even Nivin has not acted well in the movie. For a disappointing movie, the ending is even more disappointing. It is cringe worthy. Ultimately, it is not a movie worth watching even on OTT.
9. Dune:I had heard that the David Lynch made this movie is the 80’s and that it did not get good reviews. Yet, when Prime threw this movie at me, I could not resist the temptation to watch it. I think the movie deserved all the terrible reviews that it received. The movie is terrible in most, if not all, departments. The only thing interesting about the movie is watching Sting make a fool of himself in a few scenes. It is interesting to note that the negative characters in the movie displayed too much energy and all the positive characters seem spaced out. It seems they were all high when they acted in the movie. Their eyes stared into infinity as they whispered nonsense, AT some points I had to rewind to hear their words. Still, I don’t regret watching this movie. It was an experience that one must have at least… No, not at least. Its once and only once in one's life.
10. Manaadu: This movie was a rage when it was released in the theatres. Its was STR’s come back movie. It is directed by Venkat Prabhu. S J Suryah’s acting was the talk of the town. Yet, I did not want to watch the movie in the theatres. In general, I don’t watch Tamil movies in the theatres, not because I dislike the movies. But most Tamil movies have something that is terribly disappointing in it. I am usually annoyed just watching many of them on OTT. So, I gave this one a miss. Also, the movie is based on ‘Source Code’, which is a movie I love, and I was pretty sure Venkat Prabhu, will not be able to do justice to that movie. I was right and wrong. The first half of the movie is not great. But the second half is good. STR’s dialogue delivery continues to be annoying. It is so annoying that I am unable to remember how he acted. The explanation for the recurring events that occur in the Hollywood movie was explained using science but we being Indians brought in gods and mythology into it. The explanation is not unbearable. It is cheesy to hear the actors mouth it with a serious expression on their faces. I might have lived with it if I had not watched ‘Source code’. On the whole, like most Venkat Prabhu movies, this one is a decent entertainer – timepass.
11. Thoramukham: I was very unhappy to see Nivin Pauly in ‘Malayalee from India” and so wanted to see another movie of his. I found this one. It also has Joju George and Arjun Ashokan in it. The movie was directed by Rajeev Ravi. Its rating was not too high, but it seemed interesting, and Rajeev Ravi is a good director. So, I picked it. It is a terrific movie. The direction, screenplay, cinematography and editing are great. The background music is superb. Poornima Indrajit is absolutely fantastic in the movie. She brings out the aging of a person well, though her makeup is not great.The movie tells a sad story and yet it seemed like a poetry. I was reminded of the first few scenes of the movie ‘Lion’ but in Thuramukham it is consistent and the whole movie maintains the flow. The climax is great and got me pumped up. I think this would have been a good theatre experience movie. 
12. Garudan: This movie fits the description I had said some time back about Tamil movies. This movie was a hit and has good reviews. Yet, it is a terrible movie. It seems like a rehash of all the Sashi Kumar movies. I did not like the movie at all. Soori is ok. Unni Mukundhan is not much of a bad guy. I have no opinion about Sashi Kumar. On the whole, this was a waste of my time. 
13. Jai Ganesh: I was so disappointed by Unni Mukundhan in Garudan that I had to watch a movie where he is not a bad guy. But the character he is playing in this movie is too complex for him to portray and he ends up hamming through the role. Since he is stuck to the wheelchair through the movie, he does not get a chance to beat up people. So, he has to act but that is not his forte. The theme of the movie is reasonably good. But as usual the scientific concepts thrown through the movie sound quite iffy (Chlorine gas becomes poisonous when a child is exposed to it for 12 hours not 11 hours and 58 minutes but exactly 12 hours). I think it is not a movie worth spending one’s time on though it is not really a bad movie, like ‘Garudan’ or ‘Malayalee…’.
14. Journey of Love 18+: The theme of this movie is outright terrible. It justifies everything from (nearly) underage  marriage to women having pills to keep their period away. I found it inappropriate on many occasions. The movie uses a caste based issue as a justification for all the nonsense. Yet, when looked at as a medium for entertainment, it is funny and moves along very well. The story appalled me and yet I laughed at the comedy. It is a great case for how story telling forms the crux of a movie. I should not have watched this movie or should have at least stopped watching it half way but I did not.
15. Tamilikku en onnai azhuthavum: This movie was well received by critics. It has Dinesh and Nakul on the poster and I did not really care for either of them. But for variety of content I decided to watch it. It is an interesting movie, which is inspired by many non-linear narrations that came earlier. It is not well made though. The attempt to mix in humour with serious siutation makes it annoying to watch. It had to be an edge of the seat thriller and the humour had to be subtle. But most of the humour is on the face and plain stupid. This made the movie tiresome in the second half. The ending was absolutely terrible and unintentionally laughable. I don't think it was worth a watch.
16. A Haunting in Venice: I wanted to watch a movie of the thriller genre and so I picked this. I had watched Kenneth Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express, a few years back and liked it.  I also remember fondly, the series Poirot that I had watched many decades back in Doordarshan. So I gave this one a shot. I enjoyed it. It was spooky and went smoothly. The person responsible for the crimes did not come as a surprise but the flow of the movie is interesting and more than the revelation the reason becomes more important by the end of the movie. I liked the fact that in the end, I was not clear if the supernatural element had a part to play in the movie or not. 
17. Death on the Nile: 'A Haunting in Venice' had some reference to this movie. This movie also had some identifiable people in the star cast like Gal Gadot and Ali Zafar. This movie was well received too. It is a good watch. Once again the ultimate villain and scheme did not surprise me. But the build up to the revelation is good. As a plus, the movie is set in Egypt, which is always a pleasure to watch. A good thriller. I am running out of movies in Prime, XStream and HotStar. I think I have to start on NetFlix.
18. Bose - Dead/Alive (Series): Damn it! I got conned into watching this. I thought this is a movie but it is a series from Ekta Kapur factory. It's not bad. It has Rajkumar Rao, who is convincing as Bose. The series is watchable. I really liked the background score. It covers a lot of ground, from Bose's early life to his presumed death and his presumed life after his presumed death. So it rushes through the scenes and ultimately leaves a feeling of dissatisfaction. The English and German characters speak in Hindi with an English accent, which should have been terribly cheesy but surprisingly I did not find it so. It also ends abruptly. The last part of the series covers a lot of ground with words written on the screen and a background narrator explaining it. The series had to be atleast twice as long for it to do justice to the material.

Superstitions

The boy was considered the brightest one in the family; not just in the current generation but for many generations past. He stood first in the class. He knew everything about everything. He did not talk much but when he started talking, he talked for a long time. He was current with current affairs. He could recite the names of Prime ministers and Presidents of 67 countries. He excelled in maths and physics. He excelled in chemistry and biology too. He did not like history and geography but consistently stood first in the class in these subjects too. He stood first in all the subjects in all the tests and exams that he has attended since he started attending test and exams. He was good at sport... No, that's not true. 

When he was seven, on the sports day, the PT master forced his name into the list of high jump contestants. He informed the PT master that he had never done a high jump in his life. He should have said, he had never participated in any sport or physical activity earlier. But, that would not have made any difference to the PT master. The master was not interested in history and as a result was not aware of the beginnings of civilization and movement of homo sapiens from hunting to farming. It goes without saying that the PT master had no awareness of the renaissance and the industrial revolution. For him, homo sapiens, whom he referred to as man, still lived in the jungles and had to run and jump tall and short hurdles to save himself from an approaching tiger or to bring down a deer to feed himself. So he did not take heed of the boy's words. He responded "High jump is easy. You see that bar kept at a height. You have to run till that and jump above it as soon as you reach close to it. When I look at you, I think you can at least clear one and half metres." The boy did not seem convinced. "But I don't know how to jump". The master retorted "What nonsense! Everyone knows how to jump. Now, you jump and show me." The boy jumped a few centimetres off the ground. The master felt disappointed. "You bend your knees and then push yourself off the ground like this." The PT master's jump was ten times higher than the boy's. "Ok, you practise here." Before the boy could react the master had moved away.

Thirty minutes later, the boy heard his name being called out. The boy tentatively walked to the high jump area. The master waved at him and shouted "Run!" The boy ran slowly towards the starting point. The master asked him to take his position for the jump. The boy stood and looked at the high jump bar, which was placed higher than he expected. He turned towards and attempted to ask the master "is that one and half metres?" But the master cut him off with a "Be quiet". So he continued to stare at the bar. In a few seconds, he was startled by the master blowing the whistle. He looked at the master perplexed. The master shouted "Go! Jump!" The boy started running. The master shouted "Faster, faster". The boy ran faster. The master shouted "Faster, faster". The boy ran faster. The master shouted "Why are you walking? Run!" The boy ran faster. The master said "Run, run, run!" The boy ran faster. He had nearly reached the high jump bar when he heard the master shout "Stop! Don't jump." But it was too late; the boy had started his jump. It was not much of a jump. The high jump bar was in line with his mouth. He saw the bar rushing towards him and involuntarily pushed out his hands. The bar hit his palms and flew away. In the process, he saved his mouth from injury. Couple of seconds later, he landed on the sand pit with his hands stretched out still. He spent the next two months with both his hands in the cast. Since then, he avoided sports days, sports field, games period and any sort of physical activity at school, including march past for Independence Day. 

One summer vacation, a few years later, his extended family decided to visit a Hanuman temple some two hundered kilometres from his home. The temple was situated on a hill. The boy was not interested in visiting the temple or climbing the hill. But he was eager to spend time with his cousins. They were in total awe of him and he looked forward to the display of his mental abilities to this appreciative audience. The train journey from thier home town to the location of the temple, was noisy and chaotic. Every member in the family was involved in conversing with one or more members of the family. This made it difficult for people to listen to each other. As a result, everyone started talking at a higher decibel level than usual. This made the conversation a lot more difficult, which made the people talk even louder till a point where people could not talk any louder and no one heard everything the other person said. If someone had the ability to record such a conversation, the resulting conversation would have made no sense at all. As an example, the conversation in a group that consisted of two uncles and one aunt of the boy went thus. The uncles are referred to as u1 and u2 and the aunt as a1.

Note: To safe gaurd the identity of the individuals involved in this conversation names of people and places are not mentioned. The words 'this ' and 'that' are used instead.

u2: What happened to that person's son?

u1: Yes, the sun is shining bright. It's very hot.

a1: Its very annoying. I don't know why she can't take care of that child! The boy keeps whining already.

u1: Not just wine, rum and whisky too.

u2: Run away! With whom? Isn't he too young?

u1: Not just two. Sometimes three or four times a week.

a1: No, no, no. That boy is not weak. The mother pampers him.

u1: Yes. He gets a lot of gift hampers from his suppliers. Every one of them has alcohol in it.

u2: You mean they are not married yet! Who is hampering the marriage?

a1: That boy is aged enough to be mature. What do you mean immature?

u1: Oh! I don't know much about alcohol. I am not sure if he like aged ones or not.

In this manner the conversations continued. One can notice that each member of the group took feed from other members in the group but each of them was talking about a topic which had no connection with the other's topics. Every one came out of the journey with a lot of misinformation but for them the 'mis' part got missed in the din.

Meanwhile, a group of cousins crowded around the boy and listened to him intently. This was not a discussion. The boy talked and the others listened. The listeners were so awed by the boy that they did not dare to utter a word even if they had something to say or ask. The boy talked about physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, sociology, anthropology, cinema, books and many other topics. He was so confident in everything he said that he seemed like an expert in all the topics that he talked about. The boy did not talk loudly; he never talked loudly, he was always composed. Yet the noise of the surroundings did not bother this group. They sat in a circle with their heads touching each other. It seemed like the words from the boy travelled to through each person's ear to the next. A few children got bored of listening to the boy after an hour or so. But they did not move away from the group as they were worried that they might be considered not intelligent if they did so. Besides, even if they moved out, they could have done nothing but to listen to the adults, which would have been excruciatingly boring. So the boy's audience did not reduce for most part of the trip.

Three hours later, the group got out of the train and stretched themselves in various shapes. Some preferred the over head hand stretch, others the sideways hand stretch, while a few did the bending down and touching the feet stretch, but others... Well, you get the point. Their bodies had shrunk in the cramped space inside the compartment. Now, they tried to unshrink themselves. The temple was at a distance of nine kilometres from train station. The large family travelled the distance in four horse carts. The horse struggled to pull the weight of the members of the family through the distance. But the tips of the whips stinging on their backs was motivation enough for them to continue. After an hour, the horses reached the family's destination. They let out a collective sigh of relief when the people got out of the cart. The cart drivers haggled for additional fare from the family by complaining "Sir, too many people", "Look at my horse sir, its back is nearly broken because of the load", "The wheel sir, it needs fixing now". The accounts manager of the family was unmoved and did not part with a paise more. The cart owners walked dejectedly back to their carts and gently tapped their horse's back. The horses were too tired to appreciate the caring act from their owners. They hung their heads low and stared vacantly at the ground.

The boy looked at the hill and said with disappointment in his voice "That's it! This is the hill! Its small. It is nothing compared to the Tirupati hill". The elders in the family were angered by this blasmphemic statement. "Shhh! Don't say such things", "Hanuman is a powerful god, he will get angry", "Will someone ask that boy to shutup!", "This is what education does to children", "Yes, they no longer respect anyone or anything". The boy ignored the protests and continued to look at the hill disapprovingly. He said to no one in particular "Are you sure this temple is powerful? This hill too small to have a powerful temple." The boys mother held the boy's hand and dragged him towards the steps that led to the top before anyone could react to the boy's statement.

The climb to the temple was not long but the climb was slow as the family was large and old age had caught up with some of the members of the family. The younger ones got impatient at the slow pace of the climb and did not wait for the elders. But they were forced to stop when they heard names being shouted out by their relatives. They complained and waited. The boy sat on the steps and looked around. He saw a troop of monkeys close by. He pointed at them and said "Look monkeys." The children looked at the monkeys with amusements. Like their own family the younger monkeys were jumping around busily from tree to tree while the older ones sat conserving their energy. A few of the younger monkeys were bold enough to come close to the children and then run away. The boy pointed at one of them and said "This one could possibly a great great great great great great grand nephew of Hanuman." The children found the statement amusing and laughed. The young monkey seemed to take objection to the children mocking it and jumped right into the group. The children screamed and ran away. The older monkey felt threatened by the noise and approached the group to take care of the safety of the young monkey. The boy did not move quick enough to get away from the monkey who approached him from above and grabbed at his face. It got hold of his spectacles and jumped away.

The boy shouted "My specs!" The family ran upto him. His mother wrapped him in her arms and said "Oh my God! Are you alright?" A few members of the family coaxed, cajoled and threatened the monkey to give back the spectacles. The monkey ignored them for it was inspecting the spectacles with interest. It did not know what it was or what could be done with it. It wondered if it was a food item and tried to bite into it. The spectacles was too hard and it did not taste like anything it knew. It pointing it towards the ground and looked at it. The lens came between the monkey's eyes and the ground. The sight shocked the monkey. It let out a screech and threw it away. The spectacles fell on the ground below. Two brave aunts retrieved the spectacles. One of them said "One of the lens is cracked but it is usable still." The mother protested "But the monkey bit into it." The boy said "It can be washed. I can't see properly without it." The aunts washed the spectacles thoroughly and wiped it with a towel. They then handed it to the boy who wore it and said "Its not bad. Its usable."

At that moment, one of the children said "Hanuman punished him". Almost immediately the other children agreed and recited the incidents prior to the monkey attacking the group. All the adults in the family looked at the boy accussingly who cowered behind his mother. The mother took hold of his hands and walked ahead. When they were at some distance from the remaining family she said "Why can't to you avoid saying such things?" The boy protested "I was only joking." The mother became angry. "You can't joke about god." The boy said "This is all superstition. It has nothing to do with god." The mother cut him off before he could proceed further "I don't want you open your mouth till we get back home." The boy felt sad and angry. He looked at the ground and walked ahead. He avoided the group from then. The children tried to talk to him but he moved away from them. A few of them apologized but he did not accept the apologies. The older ones in the family tried to talk to him but he did not respond. When his mother offered him food and water, he shook his head and walked away.

An hour later, the family started going down the hill. The boy walked besides his mother quietly. He continued to look at the ground. The mother tried talking to him but he did not respond. When they had reached half way down the hill, the boy suddenly collapsed. The mother screamed his name and the sothers crowded around him. A number of medical advices flowed from the different members of the family. The mother sprinkled water on his face. The boy opened his eyes and looked at the people around him. He felt confused "What happened?" The mother with tears flowing down from her eyes said "Thank god! You are okay." The boy said "I want water." The mother gave him the water bottle. He sat up and drank some water. His father said "You have not eaten or drank water for a long time." The mother said "I offered them to you many times. Why did you not eat or drink?" He looked at his mother confused "You are the one who told me to not open my mouth till we reach home. How can I eat or drink without opening my mouth?" Everyone laughed. The troublesome eldest uncle of the family said "This is what happens when you make fun of God. Why did you unnecessarily compare this hill with Tirupathi hills?" Everyone looked at the boy accussingly. The boy closed his eyes and thought "Another five years, I am escaping this mad family. I will get admission in that college and stay in the hostel. I will never ever come back to this family."

A morning errand

The boy looked up from his book and saw his grandfather sitting in the long chair, listening to one of his neighbours. The man spoke in a low voice and the boy could not hear anything he said. His grandfather's expression seemed grave, and he realized that his grandfather was angry. Soon, his grandfather raised his hand and said loudly "Enough! I don't want to hear about it anymore. For the past few years these fellows have not taken care of things. Now it has hit a rock bottom. I don't think even God can fix that place. I am sure God cannot reside in a place that is run so badly. That temple has lost its sanctity. I will not go there anymore." The neighbour seemed disturbed when he heard this. He asked "But then where will you go? How can you live without going to the temple every day?" The grandfather responded "I did not say that I will not go to the temple every day. I will go to the other temple." The neighbour asked, "Which one?" The grandfather mentioned the name of the temple. The neighbour seemed shocked. "But that is more than two miles away!" "So? You think I cannot walk for two miles every day?" The neighbour corrected "Its more than four miles to go and come back." The grandfather irritation increased "Ok, ok! Four miles. I can walk for four or five or even six miles every day. I can walk 10 miles every day. As a matter of fact, I can even walk 20 miles every day. I will not go to that temple ever and if that I mean I have to walk a hundred miles every day, I will do so. But I will never ever step into that temple again." The boy had forgotten about the book. He listened to the conversation keenly. He liked reading books, but he liked listening to conversations even better. But he was not happy to see his grandfather angry. He closed his book and went inside the house. 

The next morning, as the boy was preparing to go for school, he heard his grandfather calling his name. When he reached his grandfather, he asked the boy to go a place not far from his home. The boy said "Ok" and stood looking at his grandfather. His grandfather too looked at him without saying anything. After a few seconds the grandfather said "Don’t you want to know why you are going there?” The boy responded “Yes”. 

“Then why did you not ask?” 

“I thought you will tell me. I was waiting for you to tell me.”

The grandfather laughed and said “Always ask for information when you don’t know something. Do not wait for others to tell you. It does not matter who the person is, if you don’t have all the information you require, ask. Do you understand?” The boy responded “Yes” and then asked, “Why am I going there?” Once again grandfather laughed and said “You are a quick learner. I want you to get the prasadam from the temple there.” The boy shook his head but did not leave. The grandfather asked, “Are you worried about your school?” The boy shook his head in agreement. “I have already talked to your master. I told him that you will reach the school an hour late. So, its ok.” The boy thought “So, first period is gone. Today’s Tuesday. Its history, super!” The boy smiled at his grandfather and left. 

He walked through the fields that surrounded his house. The paddy that was planted a few weeks back, had started growing. The land on both sides was painted bright green till the horizon. The boy was used to seeing this beautiful sight every day and so did not focus on it. Instead, he focussed his thoughts on the amount of time that he will take to get back home. “From here to the village road its ten minutes, from the village road to the main road its thirty minutes. From there, another 20 minutes to the temple. That means I will take 10 + 30 + 20 = 60 minutes, which is 1 hour. At the temple, I will spend 10 minutes, I think and then another 1 hour to get back home. That means I will get back home after two hours and ten minutes. I left home at 8 and so will reach back home at ten ten! I will then pick the bag and go to school. So, I will reach school at ten thirty. That means, I will miss two periods and not one. Oh no! Math’s gone too.” He felt sad. 

By the time he reached the village road he felt happier. “That’s ok. I will find out from Venu what happened, or I can ask the master itself. What is important is that I am missing the history class. Today, master said he will talk about Vikramaditya’s empire. That will be boring. I will read it from the book before the test.” The village road did not have any vehicles plying through it. Bullock carts plied on the road only once early in the morning and then again once in the evening. So, the boy walked in the middle of the road. Soon he started whistling a tune. He had learnt whistling a few days back and these days, he spent most of his time practicing whistling. He was good at it and in the past few days had picked up a small fan base. The previous evening one of the boys in the class, wanted him to learn a new song. Since then, he had been whistling the tune. He thought he will learn the whole tune in a two or three days. 

As he continued walking the scenery changed from green fields to trees and bushes. Soon, he reached a pond. It lay to his left. He stopped and stooped down to pick a flat stone that lay on the road. He flipped the stone off his hand. It flew in the direction of the pond and touched its surface, but unlike the other stones it did not sink. It skipped on the surface and flew back into air. The boy stood on the bank of the pond and counted “One, two, three, four, five, si… Oh no! Almost six times. Wow! That’s a record! Five and a half skips.” The boy continued to walk. He continued to whistle. Step by step be moved closer to the main road. When he was a few yards from the main road he stopped suddenly. A long black snake lay in front of him. The rains had only stopped a few weeks back and many of the snake burrows were flooded still. So, the snakes were forced to stay over the ground. They slithered around for some time and when they got tired, they stopped wherever they were and rested. 

He looked at the snake for some time. It seemed poisonous. He was sure that it was a cobra. He wondered what he should do. “Should I turn around and go back? No! Grandfather will be angry. But if the snake bites me, he will be angrier. But then I will be dead and so it would not matter. But I don’t want to die. So that is not an option. But I can’t turn back now. But…” Suddenly, he remembered his mother telling him “When you are walking in the fields late at night stomp your legs hard on the ground then the snakes will not come near you.” He did not understand the connection between stomping legs and snakes. He was also not sure what stomping legs will result in when the snake is this close already. But he had no choice but to stomp if he wanted to proceed further. So, he stomped his legs hard on the ground. He stomped like a soldier chanting “Left, right, left, right, left right, left, …” For reasons only known to the snake, it started slithering to the side of the road a little after he started stomping. A victorious smile appeared on the boy’s face. He had won over the snake. “Now no snake can come near me. I have the ultimate snake weapon.” The snake disappeared into the bushes, and he continued his journey.

The main road was crowded when compared to the village road. People walked on its sides. Bullock carts passed by at a leisure pace. The persons driving the cart did not seem to be in any kind of hurry. They flipped the whip that they held in their hands out of habit than need. The whip did not affect the bullocks. Only the flies that flew around the bullocks’ backside flew away annoyed. From time to time, horse carts went by at great pace. The carts drivers in this case seemed impatient and constantly smacked their horse’s back with their whips. The boy looked at the horse carts with interest. He liked the sight of the horses flying through the air. He segregated the horse based on their colour and tracked the count. By the time he left the main road some minutes later, he had counted 3 white and brown horses, 2 white and black horses and 1 brown horse. 

The temple was small and was situated by a pond. It was not crowded. A few devotees stood in front of the inner sanctum and prayed with their eyes closed. One of them shouted “Om Namah Sivaya” suddenly and the boy nearly lost his balance in shock. The temple priest saw him and waved at him. The priest held out the prasadam in a yellow bag. The boy stretched out his hand and the priest dropped the bag into his stretched out palm. The priest asked, “How is your grandfather?” “He is good.” “Please request him to come one evening.” The boy nodded his head and walked away. 

As he stepped out of the temple, he noticed a man and a woman arguing with a horse cart driver. The man said “That is too expensive. It is not very far. Why are you charging so much?” The woman added “We can buy a horse at this cost.” The driver snapped his whip on the horse while saying “Then buy a horse and go in your own horse.” As the whip struck the horse’s back, it started moving forward. The man shouted “Hey wait. Ok, ok! We will pay the exorbitant amount you are asking.” The horse cart stopped. The driver stretched out his hand and said, “Its fair price. Pay now.” The man said “No, I will pay at the end of the journey.” The driver lifted his whip to strike the horse. The man protested “Don’t you trust us?” The driver responded “No”. The man said, “How can we trust you?” The driver said, “You don’t have to.” The man said “Ok, ok. Here is the money.” The man and woman boarded the cart and it moved away. 

The boy walked along the sides of the main road. He got the feeling he had spent a lot more time on road than he had expected. He walked briskly and did not wait to observe the events that took place around him. As he reached closer home, he crossed the school. He heard the voices of the children and the teachers. Suddenly, he missed being in the school. He started running towards home. As soon as he reached home, he ran up to his grandfather’s room. His grandfather was sitting by his table and writing something. When the boy entered the room, his grandfather looked up and said, “What took you so long?” The boy said, “It took this long.” The grandfather said “Ok, ok! Now run to the school.” The boy placed the prasadam on his grandfather's table and ran out of the room.

Movies

Count from August 2023: 26.

August 2023 - 26 movies and series

1. Jack Ryan (Seasons 3 and 4)
2. Good Omens 2
3. Pachuvinte Athbuthavilakku
4. Vellari Pattinam
5. Pathuthala
6. Mahaan
7. Neelavelicham
8. Arrival
9. The Imitation Games
10. First Man
11. Thankam
12. Jailer
13. Thandatti
14. Malayankunju
15. Yaathisai
16. Maaveeran
17. Ela Veezha Poonchira
18. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
19. Jurassic World: Dominion
20. Top Gun: Maverick
21. Jack Reacher
22. Jack Reacher 2
23. The Mummy
24. Naradan
25. Vendu Thanindhathu Kaadu
26. Confess, Fletch

Count from August 2023: 45.

September 2023

1. Charles Enterprises
2. Yanai Mugathan
3. Extra Ordinary
4. Happy-go-lucky
5. Madhuraiyai Meetta Sundharapandiyan
6. Bhargavi Nilayam
7. Ardh Satya
8. Nalla nilavulla rathri
9. RDX
10. Christopher
11. Kaduva
12. Women Talking
13. Yuvaratna
14. Om
15. Kantara
16. American Gangster
17. Citizen Kane
18. Veyil
19. Bambai meri jaan

Count from August 2023: 60.

October 2023

1. Dahaad
2. Thiruchitrambalam
3. Lucky Man
4. The Covenant
5. Kannur Squad
6. Mark Antony
7. Rahasya
8. The Stoneman murders.
9. Shimla Special
10. Hannah and her Sisters
11. Mirzapur (seasons 1 and 2)
12. The Covenant
13. Paramoporul
14. Kumari Srimathi
15. Killings of the Flower Moon

Count from August 2023: 134 

March 2024 - 15 movies and series

1. Corona Papers: This is a filler movie that I snuck in between other movies. I was in a mood for malayalam movies and so I picked this one. The movies stars Shane Nigam, whose movies are always interesting. But the director of the movie is Priyadarshan, who I don't consider to be a good director but has made some funny movies. He was a big director in 80s and 90s. In general, the new movies by the big directors of those years have not been good. So I did not have much hope for this movie. Sure enough the movie was not great. It was ok - a reasonable thriller. It has been two months since I have seen this movie and I don't remember much of the movie. It has slipped out of my mind. A forgettable movie I guess. 
2. Malikappuram: This movie has a high rating in IMDB and it stars Unni Mukundan. This is one of the God supports the good movie. So it reminded me of many movies that I had seen in the past.
3. Manjummel boys:
4. Hridayam:
5. Neru:
6. 12th Fail: 
7. Pookkaalam:
8. Janaki Jaane:
9.  Jaya jaya jaya hey:
10. Perilloor Premier League (series):
11. Masterpeace (series):
12. King of Kotha:
13. Dune 2:
14. Malaikottai Vaalibhan:
15. Bheeshma Parvam:

Count from August 2023: 147+ 

April 2024 - 13 movies and series

1. Varathan:
2. Aattam:
3. Kooman:
4. Carnival Row (Season 1):
5. Carnival Row (Season 2):
6. J.Baby:
7. Premulu:
8. Poacher (Season 1):
9. 83:
10. The Teacher's Lounge: 
11. Aavesham:
12. Special Ops (Season 1):
13. Aarya (Season 1):

Count from August 2023: 153 

May 2024 -  movies and series

1. Aarya (Season 2):
2. Saba Nayagan:
3. The Boy and the Heron:
4. Bhavesh Joshi Superhero:
5. Madgaon Express:
6. The Tudors (Season 1): For the past many years topics related to history have interested me. I have read many books and watched movies related to history. So when I realised that one of the series that Amazon suggested, The Tudors, is related to a king of England, I started watching it. It is only after a few episodes that I realised that the series was about King Henry VIII, who killed many of his wives and also made England Protestant. Actually, the last point was not true, though I believed it to be so till I watched the series. He took England away from the Catholic faith but did not embrace the Protestant path. That happened during the reign of his daughter, Elizabeth I.
   
   I loved watching this series and watched all four seasons in a stretch. King Henry VIII is a villain of the highest order. He manipulated everyone and everything for his own convenience. But he always claimed to be a fair and knowledgeable person and the people around him had no choice but to accept this. Jonathan Rhys brings out this character beautifully. I had only seen him in 'Bend it like Beckham' earlier and that character was very different from this one. But now I will only remember him as King Henry VIII.
   
   I see that the series does not have a great rating but I loved it. I thought it brought out the politics in the king's court well. It also made me sympathize with  villainous characters, in the sense, it brought out no one is good or bad well. People do things for survival or power and these become harmful for others. Ultimately, these acts boomerang and they themselves get caught in it.
   
   The one big issue was that there are too many graphic sex scenes in the series. This makes it impossible to recommend this series to almost anyone. In a sense, these scenes bring out morals of the time but still I think they could have been toned down a lot.
   
   Talking specifically about this season, it is an intriguing start to the whole series. Jonathan Rhys, Sam Neill and Henry Cavill take care of it well. I really liked the way Henry Cavill changed physically and emotionally through the series. It was even better than that of Jonathan Rhys. It ended with the Henry's second wife Anne, being at the cusp of becoming his wife. Her character seemed extremely scheming. But by the end of the second series, she gets trapped in her schemes and becomes a pitiable figure.

Count from August 2023: 171 

June 2024 -  movies and series

1. The Tudors (Season 2): I really liked the way the Queen Anne's life changes and one's own feeling changes the season comes to a close.
2. Guruvayoor Ambalanadayil: We wanted to see a movie in theatre and this was the only option. We had seen a few scenes from the movie and they seemed funny. But none of us are fans of Prithviraj and we were not keen to watch the movie. But we liked most of the other actors, including Basil, Anaswara and Nikhila. This turned out to be a laugh riot. It was silly as hell but in a good manner. It is like reaching hell and instead of being boiled in oil, one is tickled. The ending with its spoofy reference to Nandanam ensures that the viewer walks out of the theatre laughing. I am glad we saw this movie in a near empty theatre.
3. The Tudors (Season 3): This season once again proved that the people in power were always in danger of losing their life. Their downfall is also aided by people who surround the king. The king is merciless and kills the trusted people around him and regrets later.
4. Premulu: At last, I watched this famed movie. Its fun and the romance is fresh. The story is cliched but it is presented in a fun manner and one does not take it seriously. The dialogues and acting are good and from my point of views, the movie seems good primarily due to these factors. The big advantage of the movie is that it stays with you even after the movie finishes. I was not very impressed by the movie when I watched it but it stayed with me and then the reels on FB kept reminding me of the good scenes. As a result, my impression of the movie with passing of time.
5. The Tudors (Season 4): The grand finale of the series. It is interesting to see the transformation of the religious beliefs of the England. It moves away from Pope based Catholicism to a king based Catholic like Christianity. The sixth and the last queen of the King Henry, Catherine Parr surreptiously tries to the move the country to Protestantism. Also, King Henry's ruthlessness comes out clearly in his marrying his 5th queen Catherine Howard who was only 17 compared to him being in his 40s. I loved this series. It made me understand a lot about England's history during the important. I plan to the watch the movie, Elizabeth as a followup soon. Elizabeth is King Henry's daughter and it was during her reign that England converted to protestantism. 
6. Hacksaw Ridge: I saw this movie in Prime under the section "
7. Panchayat (Season 3):
8. Taxi Teheran:
9. Valiya Chirakulla Pakshikal:
10. Tumse na ho payega:
11. Veyilmarangal:
12. Anatomy of a fall:
13. Once: 
14. Greenzone:
15. Mercury rising;
16. Looper: 
17. Predestination: This movie blew my mind off. It is a science fiction movie but it is a drama and not an action movie. In fact the movie only has a few action scenes. It builds slowly through conversation and incidents to the ultimate revelations. The first revelation is interesting but as more and more revelations happen, I was amazed by the realistic nature of an absurd idea. In a sense, this movie and Looper have some similarities and as I mentioned for that movie, it in some manner connects to the original Terminator movie. I loved this movie and have been recommending it to a couple of people. Watching such movies has made me realize that people should watch more movies but most don't care.  
18. Varshangalukku Sesham:

Count from August 2023: 207 

August 2024 -  movies and series

1. Deadpool & Wolverine:
2. Brahmastra:
3. The Equalizer: 
4. The Equalizer 2:
5. The Equalizer 3:
6. Paradise:
7. Nan Pakalnerathu Mayakkam:
8. Minnal Murali:
9. Katta Kushthi:
10. Thallumaala:
11. Iratta:
12. CBI 5:
13. Oru Thekkan Thallu Case:
14. Churuli:
15. Kim's Convenience (Season 1):
16. Thangalaan: I have never been doped but I get the feeling the experience will be like watching this movie. I decided I will watch this movie in the theater. I chose a Wednesday afternoon in the second week of the movie.
17. Anweshippin Kandethum:
18. Padavettu:

Count from September2023: 207 + 

August 2024 -  movies and series

1. Kuttavum Shikshayum
2. Maamannan
3. Ullozhukku
4. Turbo
5. Thalavan

Hiding in the Blackboard

On my first day at school, I stood in front of the black board and stared at it anxiously. During the first part of my life, I had spent many hours staring at the words and numbers written on the blackboard wondering when the teacher will stop writing. Now, I found myself on the other side of the table. I wondered if my students would have similar thoughts. A question popped into my head "should I avoid the blackboard?" I searched through my memory of school and college life but could not find a teacher who had not used the blackboard. I erased the question from my mind, picked a piece of chalk from the table and walked towards the blackboard.

As the days passed, the anxiety l felt on the first day disappeared. Every time I wanted to explain something, I found my right hand move involuntarily towards the blackboard. The method to determine the HCF of two numbers, started at the top of the board and grew steadily towards the bottom. Numbers with the help of alphabets and symbols attempted to narrate the stories behind LCM and BODMAS. Gravity’s conspiracy to bring down objects was exposed using circles, lines and arrow marks on the blackboard. A horizontal line towards the lower part of the board represented the ground and a circle at some distance above the line became the ball. An arrow mark pointed from the circle towards the line to show that the ball had no choice but to fall towards the ground. I let the alphabets G, g, M, m and d tussle above and below a small horizontal line to explain the force of gravity, which was responsible for the objects falling towards ground. As I described these concepts on the blackboard, I talked to the children continuously.

I did not use the blackboard well. At the beginning of the class, the board started off clean and black. As soon as the central part of the board was filled with physics or maths, I moved to its two sides and twenty minutes later, there was no space left on the blackboard. I had to find space to continue. I paused for a moment to stare at the board and decipher how to proceed. Every piece of information on the board seemed important and I struggled to decide which part of the board I could erase. Finally, I created a small black island near the centre of the board, enveloped it with a white border and continued. It did not take long for the blackboard to become a letter-y mess again. A few days later, I decided I had to learn to use the blackboard well. I sneaked into the classrooms of some of the senior teachers and observed them use the blackboard. These observations gave me an important insight on the its use – Do not start writing from the centre of the blackboard. Instead, start from its top left corner and proceed to the right bottom corner. 

The next day, I walked confidently into the class. I erased the blackboard and before turning around to face the class, closed my eyes and said softly “start from the left – top corner”. I turned around and started discussing fractions. Within minutes, I walked up to the board wrote the word numerator. I drew a line under it and wrote denominator. I placed the equal to symbol next to them and wrote a set of numbers that represented fractions. I was on the verge of writing the tenth fraction on the board when I recoiled from the blackboard in horror. The piece of chalk fell out of my lifeless fingers. I stared at the board in horror. Once again, I had started writing from the centre of the board. I erased the board and started writing from the top – left corner of the board. Twenty minutes later, I stood in the front the fraction – filled black board wondering how to proceed.

Over the next few days, I realized that starting at the top – left corner of the blackboard did not change the matters much. For me the blackboard was a tool used in the process of learning. I only used it as an aid to the words I uttered; a scratchpad. From my point of view, the discussions in the class were more important. Written words were available in the textbooks and they could always be supplemented with worksheets. These methods of passing information were more permanent than the white markings on a blackboard. This comprehension made me comfortable with the use of blackboard. I even looked forward to using it. I looked with pride at my chalk dust covered fingers as I walked out the classroom at the end of a session. I liked using the blackboard.

Unknown to me, the world was making plans to shatter my world of comfort. The events that started on 17th March 2020 brought about a change in the way I handled the classroom. As we walked out of the school that evening, we thought that we were taking an early vacation break. We expected to get back the school in June. But we had underestimated the situation and by July we realized that the children will not be in school for a few more months. So, we had no choice but to append an ‘e’ and a ‘-‘ to school and continue. The words classrooms and homework were replaced with interactive sessions and assignments. We moved from the world of tables and chairs to the world of smartphones, tablets and computers. 

I enjoyed meeting the children over the internet. The computer screen seemed like an equal ground compared to the classroom. The teacher was locked in a rectangle like the students and did not own the space at front of the classroom. Everyone in the class possessed an equal share of the real estate and this resulted in many open and equal discussions, especially during the non-academic sessions. I enjoyed listening to the children when they displayed eagerness to talk during many of the sessions.

This did not mean that the online mode of education was bereft of problems. Many of the children and teachers had issues with their internet connections. They were unable to hear and see others when they switched on their own cameras. The video conferencing software required consistent connections, which could not be guaranteed in many places. To complicate matters, in many homes, three or four members of a family were on video meetings at the same time. This meant all of them had issues in getting good connections and none of them had a satisfactory experience.

My initial euphoria about the online mode of education died down when the faces started disappearing from my screen. I did not enjoy talking to a set of alphabets. To be fair the video conferencing software that we used tried to brighten our spirits by placing these alphabets within coloured circles but this was only a poor replacement for the faces. Soon, I realized that not everyone faced internet issues. Some of them did not like to be seen on the screen and preferred to switch off their cameras. During many of the sessions, I requested, and sometimes pleaded to the children to come on camera. As time passed, this became a tiresome exercise and I preferred talking to alphabets over reminding the children to come on camera.

I did not have the advantage of using the blackboard during the online classes. During the first year of the pandemic, I, like the other teachers across the world, conducted my classes from my home. I did not posses a black or white board in my house. So, I was forced to discuss about gravity without the help of the circles, arrows and lines. But I had to prove to the class that the force of gravity existed and convince them that it is a force. I looked around in desperation and found a coaster on my table. I picked it up, showed it to the children and dropped it from a height. As soon as I let go of the coaster, I realized that the force and Newton’s third law could result in the coaster breaking when it hit the floor. A second later, the coaster landed on the floor. The resulting sound brought the other members of my family to the room. I waved them away and continued my discussions on gravity. From that day, I dropped anything that I could lay my hands on to discuss gravity and I am glad that I have not broken anything yet.

Dropping objects is effective while talking about gravity. But there were other topics that could not be discussed through demonstrations. So, I created presentations and used them during the interactive sessions. This seems a better idea on paper than in reality as I could not see the students while I presented the material. The students too tended to get off camera the minute the presentation came on. As a result, the interactions and discussions reduced during such sessions. Within a few days, I dropped the idea of showing presentation. Instead, I started using the presentation to create videos. I used the animation and recording features of the software I was using to create videos explaining the different concepts in physics. In my opinion, this has turned out to be the greatest benefit from the online classes. I now have supplementary material that can be used across years. Students in the senior classes have found the videos useful while they prepared for examinations. 

Unfortunately, the decision to not use presentations during the online sessions, brought back the problem of the non-availability of blackboard during online classes. In due course of time, I used different means to solve this issue. I started using objects in the house to demonstrate concepts. The tongs and scissors came in handy to explain levers. A glass of water and pencil demonstrated the effect of refraction of light. The increase in the force of water flowing from a plastic bottle through holes at different heights proved the increase in pressure as the depth of water increased. My ability to demonstrate concepts increased once the restrictions of the lockdown were taken off. I started visiting the school and using the equipments from the laboratory to demonstrate concepts. 

When I did not find an object to explain a concept, I used my palms to as tools for demonstration. One palm became the nucleus of an atom and the other an electron going around the nucleus. Sometimes the left palm became the north pole of a magnet and the right showed the lines of force emanating from this pole of the magnet. The classes became animated and, in the process, I added drama to my voice. I got the feeling that I had become an actor on a stage when I started an interactive session.

After a year of online classes, the children started coming to the school. We had got used to the phrase online classes and started calling the classes conducted in the school as offline classes.  But we soon realized that the use of the phrase offline did not seem appropriate and we moved to calling them in-school classes or in-person classes. 

The feeling of an actor walking on to a stage increased when I walked into a classroom. The blackboard could no longer satisfy my requirements. Instead, I used my hands to explain concepts. I took a paper and the duster and dropped the two. As expected, the duster hit the floor earlier than the paper. Next, I crumpled the paper and dropped it again with the duster. This time, both the objects hit the floor at the same time. Thus, I was able to prove to the class that acceleration due to gravity did not depend on the mass of an object. I conducted a class in the physics laboratory to prove inductance. The use of my hands and laboratory equipment have reduced my dependence on the blackboard. 

One day as I was erasing the blackboard prior to start of a class, one of the students asked “Anna, why do you erase the board every day, you don't use the it anyway?”