Kendriya Vidyalaya school prayer

KENDRIYA VIDYALAYA – SCHOOL PRAYER
———————————————————————
Asatomaa sad gamaya
(From Untruth to Truth lead us!)
Tamasomaa jyotirgamaya
(From Darkness to Light lead us!)
Mrityormaa amritam gamaya
(From Death to Deathlessness lead us! )
Daya kar daan vidya ka hame parmatma dena
Daya karna hamari atma mein, shuddhata dena
Hamare dhyaan mein aao, Prabhu! aakhon mein bas jaao
Andhere dil mein aa karke, param jyoti jaga dena
Baha do prem ki ganga, dilon mein prem ka sagar
Hame aapas mein mil-jul kar, prabhu rehna sikha dena
Hamara dharm ho seva, hamara karm ho seva
Sada eeman ho seva, va sevak jan bana dena
Vatan ke vaaste jeena, vatan ke vaaste marna
Vatan par jaan fida karna, prabhu humko sikha dena
Om SahanaBavatu
Sahnau-r-bhunaktu
Sahviryam karavavaheh
Tejasvina-m-vadhitamastu
Maa vidvishavahe
Om shantih!!! shantih!!! shantih!!

Mahasamund

I came here 7 days back. Technically a part of my 'sasural'. I was a bit jittery before I landed. I met Susmita (Lizoo) on the Raipur airport. We had taken flights ten minutes apart. She is my sis-in-law Niharika's close friend. We were both headed to Niharika's house in Mahasamund. It is a district with a population of around 10 lac people in the state of Chhattisgarh. Almost an hour's drive from the state capital Raipur.

We were pretty excited about attending the 15th August Independence day parade here. Having grown up in small towns, we instantly connected to the place and each other. For the next two days there would be no 2 idle minutes. We talked so much!

On 15th Aug we got up and started getting ready. I realised I had put on too much weight and was in no condition to do justice to the blouse, let alone the Saree. Lizoo and Niharika geared up in their finery. They carry Sarees with so much ease and elan that it's no mystery why they started the 'Magic of Sarees' group on FB. If you get a chance do join in. It's fab!

The parade started with Mantri ji taking 'Salami' in a Jeep. Niharika stood to his left. The children would look up to her...literally! After the Salami, started the cultural show. Students doing PET, dancing, acting...it took us all back to our own childhood. It had been a very very long time since I saw the Parade in a small town. The do-it-yourself costumes, an assorted songs tape being played, the dancing...everything took me back to my school days. And then the National Anthem. Nothing can be as overwhelming as 'Jana Gana Mana'. (Never mind the fact that it was written for King George). It epitomises all the patriotic sentiments that make the sum total of us at this moment.

There were march pasts. They are my favourite. May it be the Republich Day Parade on Raj Path in Delhi or a Scouts & Guides drill, march pasts fill one up with pride for the different services that make up this huge fabric of uniformed personnel. It's a pity when people out rightly belittle them for the faults of a fraudulent few. Sometimes one needs to be in the system to clean the system. Sitting on the fence and throwing stones is no good sense.

The evening was even more fun. There was a colony
tree plantation drive. Everyone was invited and given teak saplings. Withing an hour, plain flat land looked like it had magically sprouted soooooo many trees. In Anagha & Niharika's words 'This is Hope!'.

We went to attend a cultural programme put together by local talent after the plantation. There were quite a few memorable ones but the best were a rock band called 'Rythm Divine'. They sang so well. Their lead singer Shubham Sarkar had even made it to the Indian Idol! The Chhatisgarhi dance was put together very well too. The girls belonged to a village near Sirpur. They looked so strong and well tones! I remembered my mom saying " घर का काम करो, gym जाने की क्या ज़रुरत है? " They danced with joyous abandonment only the super confident possess.

I had met Maahira once, last November. She is my niece. She was a quiet, observant little toddler. This time was a total transformation! Patar patar non stop fun things she utters. For the first time someone called me 'Mami'. I like it :) She goes 'Mami Mami....' and then says whatever she has to. I told her I was leaving in 3 days time. She insisted I stay for a few more days....and then suddenly as if remembering something she said " ok you go in 3 days....deepu mamu will get bored otherwise....he will have to watch television all alone on saturday & Sunday".
I leave in three days. How time flies!
I don't want to leave but I must. I had come here to meet relatives. In these 8 days...didn't know how they turned into friends. Relatives you can leave behind, but with friends - you leave behind a bit of you and carry a bit of them with you.

Right????

busy for the next few days...won't be able to post anything....

Am at this lovely place called Mahasamund, an hour away from Raipur, Chhatisgarh. Attended the independence day celebrations. Reminded of my own school days and cultural shows.

Overwhelmed. Pix coming soon.

Primary Colours - part V

So many people touch your lives in so many ways. Some such people from my primary school days are mentioned here.

Shaila Didi

One day, my mother sent me to Swamy uncles house to give a casserole of 'idlis'. Their daughter Shaila Didi was alone at home and practicing some dance movements. One leg here and one hand there, something similar to our PET exercises. She told me it was Disco.

She was dancing on 'Tu mera Hero hai' and 'naino mein sapna, sapno mein sajna'. Come to think of it now, I fail to understand how anybody could do a disco on these two. But she did.

She had a tape recorder and a bevy of colourful audio cassettes in front of it. We didn't have one at home. I was drawn to them. My aunt 'Sandhya maushi' used to sing very well. She had a tape recorder too and had taught me how to record ones voice on it. I used to record hers as she sang, at my grandmas place. All tape recorders had big rectangular buttons jutting out of the main body. 'Stop, pause, rewind, forward, play' were the normal buttons and next to 'play' would be a nice big red 'record'. Press play and record together and capture any sound for time immemorial. Simple!

Shaila didi asked me if I knew what it was. I said of course. 

She asked me if I knew how to operate it. I said of course.

She asked me if I wanted to learn the dance she was rehearsing. I said no! 

Doing PET in school was bad enough. To learn and waste time on it at home was beyond me.

She said these were the new hit songs and she would let me take the tape recorder home for a few hours (till her parents returned) if I helped her with her steps. But to learn, I must sit and watch first.

I said ok.

For the next half hour (that's how long it seemed), all I did was press rewind and play for her as she rehearsed line by line. Anytime I wanted to stand up and perform a step just to get the hang of it, she would ask me to sit down and learn by watching first. After sometime she was exhausted and wanted to rest. I stood up, ready to take the tape recorder home. I wanted to surprise my mother.

Shaila Didi flatly refused to give it to me. I asked again. She said "No". 

I had to leave without the tape recorder. Got scolded by mom for coming back so late. One of the first times, a feeling of 'having been had' engulfed me. Someone had fooled me. Tricked me and I couldn't do anything about it. 

Few months later when I heard she had failed in some exams, I was happy with my wicked sense of justice and celebrated it with a ragtag army of dolls. Later, Dad bought a JVC tape recorder which not only recorded our voice, but had place for two tapes. We could record from one tape to the other! It also had tiny little bars of dancing green and red lights that went up and down. So much better than Shaila didis. In my little head I thought, God did have his ways of making up for things that went wrong. All he needed was time!

No wonder...

Goose pimples...red eyes...chipped nails...puffing and panting....looks like I ran miles to the east…before realising the Sun would rise from the west today. I guess he had a fight with his beloved and got off the wrong side of the bed. Why does she do this? Why doesn't she realise that it's not her alone that he belongs to. The Sun belongs to the world!

Little does one know that she is mad at him for kissing the earth and encouraging lovers to dream into the horizon, let alone allowing him to father the golden farms. No wonder his beloved spewed venom.

She always wondered why they never took a break? A retreat. Somewhere away from the maddening clutter of planets and moons. Someplace where they could be alone. She smiled at him and asked, "shall we go on a holiday?" He said.... "How can we??? Who'll take care of the earth....she won't breathe without me...she wouldn't live without me...she'll die. We have to think about all those lives."

No wonder his beloved fumed!

She asked him if he loved her and he said, "yes...more than the earth!" No wonder she got hurt. No wonder she fought. No wonder he got off the wrong side of the bed. No wonder he had to rise from the west and turn everything upside down.

No wonder.....

(This is about personal lives of people who live for the world. For the world they are messiahs …)

Primary colours - part IV

So many people touch your lives in so many ways. Some such people from my primary school days are mentioned here.
Tamanna Kar


She was a senior officials daughter. Senior to my father at least. These things matter in niche schools. Niche schools don’t just have to be the ones that charge hefty tuition fees, they can even be the ones that give you free education. The 981 Kendriya Vidyalayas across India and abroad are one such example. They are for the children of Central Government employees of India, who get transferred to godforsaken parts of the country on a regular basis. I studied in them.

Coming back to Tamanna. She had short crop hair. Two things separated her from the rest of us.

One – she was a little slow at learning or understanding anything. Even in the course of a normal conversation, one had to explain things very slowly to her with examples. In today’s world, her parents would have been made to run around therapists, analysts, special schools etc.

Two – Our navy blue school uniform skirts had box pleats and a side opening, generously studded with hooks or press buttons to keep them closed. Some fancy slits had a zipper . Unfortunately, hers would always be open.

Naughty boys had a name for it. Letter box!

We had to be careful about those side slots lest the boys teased us about our open letterboxes.

One such boy, Rajesh Singh, used to wait for such unfortunate days. He would come running and toss a handful of stones  into it. He would then run around screaming....post office is open now! We had complained about it. Sometimes he was disciplined, but most of the times he got away with it.

If he did it to anyone of us, he could be sure of a chase and a thorough beating if he got caught. But if he did it to Tamanna (which was quite rare), he wouldn’t run. He would just stand there and smile at her. She would smile back. We would be seething with anger on her behalf. “Slap him, you are so close” we prompted in chorus but she would just smile.

She wouldn't even get angry. She would just look at her skirt with a sheepish grin.and ask him “ I should get that fixed na?". He would nod a yes. That’s it! No chase. No heated arguments. Nothing at all.

In time, we saw that he had reduced bothering her but not us. He never spared us. The bickering, the fights, the chase, the pummelling, the screaming....all continued.

How did Tamanna get to be so clever when we thought her to be ‘not so bright’? She had taken the entertainment factor out of his game. Bothering Tamanna was no fun at all as she would just smile back at you. Gandhigiri (non violent civil disobedience) haan?? Something that took us quite some time to understand and apply in our lives.

Primary Colours - part III

So many people touch your lives in so many ways. Some such people from my primary school days are mentioned here.
Sindhu

Sindhu was our class monitor. It was her job to pick up the attendance register from the staff room and get it to the classroom as we wrapped up the morning assembly. Two students would stay back with her to sweep the floors and clean the benches everyday. They would be selected roll number wise.

It would have been nice to be friends with her. Especially if I wanted to bunk the Saturday PET exercises every week. But this wasn’t meant to be. I wanted to be the monitor. I got better marks than her. Teachers said she was more of an ‘all rounder’. 'Hmmppffff....all rounder, my foot’ I thought.

Sindhu was late in picking up the register one day. There was a huge playground she had to cross. I knew she was going to get late for the class. My cheap thrill for the day would be to see her get scolded. I was waiting for it. While crossing the playground, she suddenly stood still. She had heard us singing the National Anthem from far. Everybody around her was moving as she was few steps away from the barracks – the peons, the aayas, the Class prefects on rounds went on with their work – but she stood quietly in attention.

This impressed the teachers a lot and instead of being reprimanded for being late, she was praised for having honoured the anthem. I thought ‘what nonsense, she just used it....Drama Queen!’.

This year I attended the ‘beating retreat’ in New delhi on 29^th Jan. As the function was coming to an end, we moved out of the arena early, to avoid the rush later. Hubby had gone a bit ahead already. As I was crossing the barricades, the National Anthem started playing. I looked around. Everyone was rushing to their cars. I kept walking. I wanted to do a ‘Sindhu’ but couldn’t. Call it embarrassment or shyness, halting to a complete standstill when everyone else is moving takes guts. I walked on. Head hanging in shame, I reached my husband and tapped him to move on. He wasn’t waiting for me. He was standing in attention. At ‘Jaya he’ he executed a heartfelt crisp salute. I looked around, most of the men in uniform were doing the same. I had reached the car park.

The teachers were right.

Sindhu, you deserved to be the monitor!

Primary Colours - part II

So many people touch your lives in so many ways. Some such people from my primary school days are mentioned here.


Sarita Verma Ma'm

Young, cheerful and patient. That was Sarita Verma M’am. My std IVth and Vth class teacher. She liked me and I liked her. In fact, I liked her very very much! She was the best teacher in the world!

We moved out of Lucknow in 1985. I vowed to come back someday (once I become a doctor ) and tell Miss Sarita Verma how highly I thought of her.

Dad got posted back to Lucknow in 1992. I was in std XIIth. I joined the same school and set about looking for her. The primary section had relocated from the old barracks to the new building. One of her students pointed out to the three teachers sitting on stairs at the end of a long corridor. It was lunchtime. 

I walked upto them.  I saw her. My heart was singing. I went closer. I was in for a shock. My young, pretty, sophisticated Miss Sarita Verma was squatting like a vegetable vendor, chewing paan (tobacco) and was loud enough to put coolies (porters) to shame.Years can age you but they can’t take away your elegance, or so I thought.

I stood in front of them. They looked at me. I smiled at her and said “Good afternoon M’am”. She just opened her paan packed mouth and went “hain”. I said “Ma’m I am an ex-student of yours. You were my class teacher in std IV & V. I have come back to this school after 6 years. I just wanted to meet you.” She looked at me with blank eyes. Then she looked at the other two teachers and laughed. There was an awkward dumb silence. She didn't speak. This wasn’t the woman I had idolised and wanted to be like. I decided to leave. In a flash, I remembered the name of the other teacher who was sitting alongside her. She used to teach Hindi. On my way out I just added “Good afternoon Arora Ma’m” . She blushed a sweet blush and replied as an afterthought “Good afternoon beta”. By then, I had already turned my back to the best teacher in the world.

Maybe I was too quick and judgmental about it. But it wasn’t the ‘growing older’ I hated about her, it was her ‘not growing at all as a person’ that I found regressive and unbearable. 


(PS: I am sure she must have gone through some life changing experiences. In my young mind, 6 years was a long time. I had grown from a little girl into a woman. But come to think of it, in her context - She must have just gone from 24 to 30. Not very old.)

Primary Colours - part I

So many people touch your lives in so many ways. Some such people from my primary school days are mentioned here.

Vidya

We never got pocket money in school days.  A 2 rupee note or some loose change lying around in the house was payday, especially when you could buy toffees for 10 paise. Kids would get together and buy jaljeera, NP chewing gums or kala churan. As the churanwala extended his hand to take money from us, proud eager hands holding the one rupee coins hoisted impatiently. One day we saw a Rs. 50 note flashing. Everyone turned back to look at the rich kid.

It was Vidya.

She wore two long plats, a worn out pair of pointed black shoes, threadbare red ribbons and an oversized school uniform. She looked like a human rat. Sorry, but that is how she looked and I remember unkind remarks it attracted. She didn't look rich but anybody holding a Rs. 50 note had to be treated with dignity. Pure greed masquerading as dignified smiles, she got plenty from us. We made friends with her instantly. Next day she had a Rs.100 note. We got along even better. It was partytime! She sponsored everything. We bought bigger, better things in the recess now. Chocolates, small toys, Frooti (it was `3/pack), coloured pencils with fancy caps etc. She didn’t spare any expense and we were happy to be seen with her. Life was going well.

Then something happened. She didn’t come to school for a few days. We missed her and the goodies.

The morning assembly went on longer than usual. Our primary school principal Mrs. Pathak came onto the dais and asked us “How many of you know Vidya from Std V-E?”. We assumed something untoward must have happened (a similar earlier announcement regarding our ex-vice principal’s death and the following holiday was etched deep in our minds, more out of jubilation for the unexpected off day). My heart sank.

But the next thing I heard jolted me back to reality “her father is a Pujari (priest) in the Army temple and she has been caught stealing the offerings.” ....our Principal continued “I know a lot of you girls have befriended her in the recent past and have been seen with her. All those girls, raise your hands”.

We were young...not foolish! No hands went up.

The Principal knew she couldn’t randomly pick girls to punish until she was sure, so she said “ What has hurt me more than Vidya being caught is that all those girls who were her friends when she had the money refuse to acknowledge the friendship today. I know you will not steal from anyone but I want you to take this as a lesson in choosing your friends wisely and sticking by them, no matter what."

We never saw Vidya again. We don’t know what happened to her. Some say she was sent to a remand home, some said she was sent away to her grandparents in the village. I owe you an apology Vidya. I should have raised my hand up that day.

तुकबंदी

पलक, फ़लक, झलक, हलक, छलक, तलक

कुछ आदत सी हो गयी है तुकबंदी की,

ग़र न मिले

तो इतनी तकलीफ

के काफिया जमा ही नहीं,

ग़ज़ल ग़र्क हो गई I

पर किसने कहा है

हर बार मिलेगा ही

तुक से तुक

सुर से सुर

नाकाम रिश्तों का मेला सा है,

गुज़र जाती है उम्र इस इंतज़ार में,

के जुगलबंदी होगी

तुकबंदी होगी

और तुम, ग़ुलाम कलम के,

एक मिसरे को रोते हो ??

तुकबंदी = rhyme, पलक = eyelids, फ़लक = sky, horizon, झलक = glimpse, हलक = throat, छलक = spill over, तलक = up till, काफिया = rhymes, ग़र्क = to drown, जुगलबंदी = harmony (musical terms), ग़ुलाम = slave, कलम = pen, मिसरा = verse, couplet

`

रूपया बोलता है :)

एक टांग वाली मेज़

नाज़ुक सी
बिलकुल अलग,
बीचों बीच दरख़्त के तने सी
वो एक टांग वाली मेज़...

गोल तश्तरी सा ताज सागवान का,
उस पर इतना बोझ सामान का,
तन के खड़ी है,
सबकुछ संभाले,
मानो कितना आसान था I

मुझे तो दो बक्शीं हैं तूने,
फिर क्यों वक़्त बेवक़त,
लड़खड़ा कर
धम्म से गिरा जाता हूँ मैं ??

दरख़्त = tree, तश्तरी = tray, ताज = crown, सागवान = teak wood, बक्शीं =  bestowed, granted