In Chorus

For me one of the most beautiful sounds one can hear is the chirping of hundreds of birds simultaneously as if they are singing in chorus. It's fun to watch them fly forming various patterns in the air . At my paternal grandfathers place there is a temple just next to house. There is a large tree in the temple. The tree used to become the abode of hundreds of house sparrows in the mornings (just about sunrise) and in the evenings(at sunset).At that time the whole atmosphere resonated with their calls.
And if somebody hurled a stone at the tree or if something made a loud noise ,there chirping would become loud for a moment and in a flash all the sparrows would leave the tree and fly away .
In my maternal grandfather the scene was no different. When my grandfather used to eat he would sit cross legged on the open porch (The old houses usually have a open verandah or a porch which served multiple purposes). He would take a roti ,break it into pieces and throw around. The sparrows would gather around him and enjoy the feast.The sparrows had free access to the house. They would sometimes enter the room in search of food. They were part of the surroundings and member of the house.

Living in Bangalore for the last few years , it is not common to find birds flying around. And it is still rare to find the small house sparrows. It's only recently that I have started the presence of birds which seemed so ubiquitous in my childhood.
The little sounds and sights of nature have their own joy and beauty and it's pleasure to observe them. It may be a strange comparison to make but nowadays I see more kinds of mobile phones in a day then the birds and listen to more ringtones then I do to birds.
The world around me has changed ...

The King and the courtier

Here is a story which appeared on one of the episodes of Bharat Ek Khoj (it was long long ago when it used to come on DoorDarshan ,so I don't remember the story exactly but it is presented here in the form my mind could recollect)
There was a great king who had quite large empire .He lived in India about 2000 years ago . He was a powerful king and was fighting a lot of battles to expand and protect his kingdom. He had a courtier who was kind of jealous of king .He thought that king lives a luxurious life and gets to enjoy all the luxuries life could offer ( dance,music ,food and all that stuff which king were privileged to at that time) . He wished to experience all those privileges himself. One day in the absence of king the courtier sat on the king's
throne. The king saw the courtier sitting on the throne and understood what was in his mind. He told the courtier that the courtier can be the king for next 7 days. But he will be executed at the end of 7th day. Telling this the king went away.
Now the courtier became the king for 7 days. He had all the privileges and functions of the king. But he could not enjoy becoming a king. The fear of death loomed over him. So he lost interest in all the things he found so enchanting not so long ago.In other words he lost interest in all the luxuries for which he envied the king .His fear grew stronger with each passing day.
Finally the time came for his execution.The king appeared at the appointed hour and asked the courtier if he enjoyed his 7 days of fame. The courtier replied that how could he enjoy his time when the his mind was all the time occupied by the fear of death.The king told the courtier that this was true even in his case. As a king he is never far away from death. He has to be always be ready to fight and die in the battle. There is the fear of conspiracies being hatched to overthrow him. But he has to overcome his fear and rule. That's the king's life.

So this was the story.

So now what are the lessons learnt from this story This story teaches you that you have to put yourself in other person's shoes to understand his position .This is the obvious lesson .
The second lesson is that of adaptability. The king also faced the fear of death ,but he could do his duties and enjoy his life because he had overcome his fear .ie he had to adapt to his condition ,whereas the courtier couldn't because perhaps he knew he had just 7 days and therefore not a great incentive to adapt.
The third lesson is simple one. If you are doing a task you have to concentrate completely on the task.Diversions do not help.
Finally there is always a better way of doing things. The king could have just ignored the courtier's action(of sitting on the throne) or given him some 'suitable' punishment but he chose to teach him a lesson. But he chose the best of the three approaches.
Are there any more lessons ?

The English Teacher

I was reading a review of Taare Zamin Par (I have not seen the movie yet). The Bum Bhole song and the clown act of Aamir Khan reminded me of my English teacher S in my 10th class. He was perhaps the most interesting of the teachers I studied from. I particulary remember a class. The teacher asked us to play a game.(we were not in a mood to study that day ,and as students we never were ).A student was to come forward and enact a story ,poem or drama from our English textbook and we were supposed to identify that(dumb charades).To begin with S gave us an example.There was a poem by Vikram Seth in our textbook('The Frog and the Nightingale').Now our teacher enacted the poem by jumping like a frog in the class. It was really hilarious and all the class laughed uncontrollably.His class was always such fun. While reading a drama he would modulate his voice according to the characters. In a drama there was a robotic character and when the robot's line would come he would speak in a robot's voice.The good thing about his teaching was that he tried to involve everybody in the class.His classes were never boring.His antics always drew attention from the most disinterested lot.
We had a monthly quiz in our school and it was a pretty serious affair .Every month two teachers acted as the compere .When it was S 's turn to conduct the quiz he made it a fun affair. He introduced a audience round and the question he asked the audience was "How many times in the song 'tu mera hero no. 1' from the movie 'Hero No. 1' the lines 'tu mera' repeated ?"
It seemed that authorities of our school didn't like S 's way of teaching (ie making teaching fun).They thought that there was too much indiscipline in S 's class.(which was true to an extent. We were so friendly with S that we conveniently ignored his pleas for maintaining silence in class.)As a result in the latter half of our class 10 he cut down the fun quotient and became a little more serious.