Electrifying Energies!!

Education always fascinated me, way before it became my calling. It always made me marvel how education opened numerous doors to a fresh, crisp, and original outlook. That is when the education is given right. I have strived hard when I am with children in a class to deliver the learning in ways which they would not have even imagined. Sadly, that kind of education is not available to a large section of our school going student population. Throw in teacher apathy, ill-designed trainings, general dispiritedness, lopsided government policy, doles instead of concrete solutions by successive governments and we have before a cauldron of mismatched and badly run government schools. The infra structure is good at many places but the souls inside are not breathing.

My first book – The Deccan Trailblazers: Education Icons of Hyderabad was one step in the correctional direction of recognizing those who mattered. They are the stakeholders – the vital teaching community who have fettered it out for years on end with children, for children, by the side of children and teachers. Their inputs, in case we want corrections to be made, will be critical.

Well, I wrote the book featuring 17 Icons – as I liked to call them. I had worked with many, knew about the others, heard about the rest. Instinctively I know when I see an educator capable of changing the current scenarios and initiating change. I hoped that it would be an educative journey of self-discovery and goal setting for those who had embarked or were fence sitting and about to embark on this journey called ‘teaching’. I sold quite a few books but not a number which would lead to change.

With my second book, the journey was a revisit of my own education about education in the three decades which have seen me inside schools and classrooms. It was, like in the first, my sincere and honest effort to portray the facts without color, the glitches without touch-ups, the good, the bad and the ugly, in between the covers of my second book: The Cutting Edge – Iconic Schools, Noteworthy Curricula, Extraordinary Strategies.

One works in one’s own comfort zones. I did too. I revisited and knocked on the doors of old friends, the new ones I had made during the journey with my first book, the leaders in the scene of education in my city, some stellar friends who were doing outstanding work with children and my book got underway. I tried to unravel and demystify the jargon, the cliches, the rules and the understandings of the boards in our country plus the international curriculums seen so commonly now. With The Cutting Edge – Iconic Schools, Noteworthy Curricula, Extraordinary Strategies I hoped to break the glass ceiling of the myths surrounding the understanding of the curriculums, not just for those who head schools but for that section of our education system which is often neglected or ignored or both and more: The Teachers. Why keep everything or rather some aspects about education elitist? To be understood and commented upon by only a few? What is so down-market in allowing teachers in on rules governing the various curriculums? We ask teachers to see the ‘bigger picture’ while as an organization we expect each to mind their own business and not interfere in the overall functioning. If I remain the “frog in the well” then “the sky over my well remains my world”. Forever. If teachers can climb over that steep misinformation/lack-of-information wall, believe me the outlooks will change. Half information is more dangerous for an organization than no information at all. Better to have someone goof up blind than with a pirate’s eye, a walking stick, a half-baked information cake. I would choose: Blind any day (in such a scenario). But I prefer to be informed. I got my information from the industry experts.

“If you bring in learning in all my holidays, they will not remain holidays but lolidays”, said my primary grader son grumpily, often as we travelled. I would then wonder if I was over-doing the information Xtra bit by going overboard. But soon his well-informed understandings of the trips proved me right and his grumpiness as his cute adolescence.

TSS EARNSLAW – quaint, magical, awesome!

Shift to my magic land again. In my favorite holiday spot there, I found stories. Including a filmy one. The magical TSS Earnslaw was so enamoring and so old-world charm, that the short cruise on it till Colonel’s Farm was captivating. Each time I am in my favorite holiday spot, a walk down to its dock and looking at it with dreamy eyes of nostalgia, are something done always. We shall take its ride again once I am there.

Trips and travel are always my moments to reflect and contemplate. I consider all perspectives, ponder on thoughts – random and real, chew on what I was and where I want to go, learn to observe & love to reflect. When trips lead you to heights which are not only grand but phantastic & imposing, the perspective on things becomes atypically singular. The spectacular heights & views from The Empire State Building were one such out-of-the-ordinary experience.

The views from The Empire State Building – surreal yet real!

Vivacities of everyday chores, the uniqueness of ordinariness, the electrifying energies of being alive to everything around me is a self-feeding formula which keeps repeating.

The Extravaganza Fair bringing out the need for that outlandish extravagance once-in-a-while, the amazing blooms in the green house of an amazing park – luxurious elegance, the mesmerizing walk, my eclectic photography with my ‘bagwati’ laptop bag & sun-hat, and my cute corner of books & an opera singer – definitely, energizing!!

Well, one vicious circle I do not mind happening. Re-happening energetically in my life!

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