Of Memories With My Morrie. #2

I used to go to the hospital every alternate day, sometimes less often. Now I go there everyday. Everyday counts. Everyday is important. He wants to see me everyday. "There is so much I want to say to you", he said. No tears came to his eyes. There is no water left in his body. But for the first time, after a long time, I did not stop my tears. I let them flow, unhindered...
He said, "You cannot cry. I thought you were on a different level than everyone else. I know you are stronger than that." I wish I could explain to him that I wasn't different at all. I was a selfish little girl who did not want her Uncle to go off to Neverland. That him leaving like that was going to affect her more than he knew. She wanted him to stay for her sake, so that he could tell her stories of far off lands, of a prince who would one day sweep her off her feet and take her away, of fairies who looked after her, of giants that he would fight to keep her safe. She is selfish. Very selfish. She wants him to stay at any cost. And she refuses to understand the pains he would have to endure to make her wishes come true.

In his efforts to make me understand he spilled his secret. He was giving me hints before, but I only accepted the facts when he told me in so many words. The doctors think that any treatment will have only two effects; maintain status quo or further deterioration of his system.
He had already made his choice. He wasn't going to take any treatments. I suppose he is more in touch with his insides than most people, he knows best. Besides there was the question, "Do I wither up and disappear or do I make the most of my time left?" He does not have time, he was not waiting for answers. He already knew the answer. His relatives have started pouring in and I now realize how loved he is and how love matters more than anything.

This year he celebrates 25 years of his marriage. He said, "25 well-lived, happy, and satisfied years are far better than 50 spent fighting and bickering". "Besides one keeps repeating similar motions for the rest of one's life anyways. The 80/20 principle: Only 20% of your activities are responsible for 80% of productive work." He said he has lived a full life and he would not want it any other way. He has no regrets and he is proud of that fact. I know how loved he is and somehow knowing all this, I find acceptance of facts easier...
Acceptance is easy, letting go is not.

Of Memories With My Morrie. #1

He is not Morrie. Morrie was old, he is not! And it's terribly hard for me to accept Morrie's fate as his fate. I refuse to! He is someone who means a lot to me, Morrie meant a story.

I realized for the very first time the FACT that he is *my* Morrie.

My Morrie says, "Separate your FACTS from EMOTIONS; Facts + Emotions = Fiction. If you can't do that, you cannot get results."
He explained this to me, his voice reduced almost to a squeak, his hands swollen, on the side, his jaundiced face and eyes, desperately looking at me, trying to keep them open so that he could talk to me. The man was frozen inside his own flesh.

And, like a fool I could not comprehend what he was saying. I felt like a wretched being who was making him go through hell to explain this simple Fact.

My Morrie began teaching me his lessons a very long time ago. I met him for the first time in the summer of 1990 and now, sadly, I see the lessons coming to an end. It has been more than 18 years of teaching, teaching and discussing, dicussing and arguing, arguing and accepting and then be done with the topic (...only till sometime later. I want there to many laters. Many many more laters). Discussing inane matters is always fun with him. I learnt to talk about philosophy like a grown-up from him. He questioned me, grilled me to no end. He made me read books, gave me examples from my life, he explained away and I enjoyed listening to him irrespective of whether or not I understood what he was talking about. I know no-one else understood us. I don't suppose anyone was as foolish as the two of us, our philosphical pair.
He has understood me more than any living mortal can ever boast of and he has influenced me in more ways than I can think of en ce moment. He has been a part of all the major decisions I have taken in my life and wanted it to stay that way...

I am writing this series to chronicle the final lessons he is teaching me, so that I won't forget anything. Anything and everything he says to me from now will be his last words to me. Immensely precious.

Another Random Blog-post About My Teaching (In)Abilities...

I cannot teach what I know. I only teach what I have learnt.



Knowing is innate. It is instinctive. It is the "gut" feeling. Sometimes I just know things. I cannot trace it back to any text, any reference, anything I have seen, any thing I have experienced, any conversation with anyone ever, but I can be dead certain of its authenticity. In fact I would believe in my known more than I would trust my learnt. I would go as far as fight for what I know. And for me this what-ever-it-is is inexplicable. Where does this know originate? Why do I stand by it so fiercely? How does it happen that 90 out of 100 times, what I know is accurate?

Why is it that I cannot teach something I know? Why is it so hard?

Probably, when people don't understand each other, or their wavelengths differ, it is the difference in these innate abilities which are responsible I think. What has been built in an individual is distinctly different; there is hard-core, factual evidence for that. Learning is acquired. It needs an activating event to trigger the intiation of the process. It something one collects, computes and stores in memory cells, ready to use whenever called up on at a later date. Even then, there is the sifting process by which one remembers what one has learnt, only very selectively. Learning, might seem difficult. According to me, it can be passed on rather easily.

In knowing and learning things, I've found a pattern. They are both a function of time; active or passive. At this stage, it is still difficult for me to define them individually, but I have a vague sense that what I am saying should make sense somehow, in time. It's just that I cannot explain it right now. And I think I cannot put it in words because this whole theory or hypothesis that I've formulated in my brain is something I "know". Had I learnt this, I would have a vocabulary and references ready.

A lot of meditation, a lot of thought still needs to be given to these random hypotheses I have in my mind. I need a structure, a logical theory, a formula of sorts to explain these things to myself...to convert innate knowledge to acquired knowledge, and ultimately become a better teacher both to self and non-self students. :D

What Do I Know?

What does it take to write? An idea? An inspiration? A frame of mind? What? What? I mean, why is it so hard to think of something worthwhile, when I spend so much of my waking hours pondering over trivial (and sometimes not-so trivial) issues?

What about that thing Rene Descartes said, “I think; therefore I am”? Am I not? Really?! I am thinking about it, aren’t I? Therefore that implies I am. But, is that what I want to think about…whether I am or am not? I want to think about other things that really need my thoughts, for example, say saving the world! Well, I am thinking about thinking, but not really thinking. Is that a waste of time? Am I rambling? Yes, I am. So, that definitively confirms I am. So now that that is out of the way, what am I? A product of this sadistic society? A product of the bourgeoisie, who disclaim it? A product of my peers’ influence? A product of my own thoughts? Or all of the above? Or none of the above? Or am I not a product yet? Do I have to pass through Quality Check, Quality Control before I can actually think and be taken seriously? Do I need an approval? Why do I need an approval? Do I care if I am approved? Who approves of anything anyways? Does approval/disapproval affect my thoughts, my thinking process? Will I become a better person if I am approved before thinking? Does thinking right really matter, at all? What is thinking right? What is right? What is wrong? I can decide, if I think.

But, what if I am denied the freedom of thinking?…whatever you call Right is right, right?!



Everyday, I see the predicament my girls suffer…. deprived of their most basic freedom and utterly uncertain of everything. It disturbs me, immensely.

? Money V/s Satisfaction ?

I had a misconception about myself, which was dispelled recently.
I always had a question when "adults" spoke about their jobs. I used to wonder how many of them really like what they do? Do they do it because they like it? Or do they do it for the money?
And then I used to question myself, hypothetically of course, given a choice between money and job satisfaction, who would I go with? And my answer almost always was MONEY, without a doubt. The argument went, if I don't have enough money, I was bound to crib, which again entailed dissatisfaction, so money was a definite choice for me.
Recently, very early on professionally, I actually had to choose between two job options, one that gave me money and the other, immense job satisfaction. To my very great surprise, I chose job satisfaction; I did not stick around the other job for the money! I did not care for the money!
Again I asked myself, if I were to earn my bread, earn my livelihood doing this, would I still choose satisfaction over money? And this time around the question has left me in the 'don't-know/can't-say' zone!
Why is this question so important? I have no idea, but I wanted it out with it, so there!

Ah! C'est La Vie!

By the end of the semester, I had begun to hate teaching at FC. This comic strip just restored my hope; I'm not alone in this TA-ing world... I can survive another semester here!

C'est ça la FC! C'est la vie!

My Teaching 'Experience'...so far...

As time passed by, I realized that sitting at home made me progressively dumber, stupider (I know it's not a word!), it was driving me insane everyday. My mind had become so empty; I saw myself becoming the DEVIL!! Sitting at home reading, listening to music all day, watching all the films that I always wanted to watch, etc., it was all fun at first, but the realization that things in my life stayed where they were annoyed me immensely. Exciting things had ceased to happen in my life...the ennui seemed to have no end. That was when I decided, I had to set in motion all my blasted brain-cells and do something constructive with my time...I had to start working part-time somewhere, to keep myself occupied at any rate with something 'technical'...I was done with the non-technicalities of life! The artistic urges wanted to go to sleep while the practical, more scientific ones took over and took charge of my life! [spicing it up for me while they were at it! :)]

I started teaching. Something I always dreamed of doing!...but in my head, I always thought I would teach the grad-students (I've always considered them to be more committed to learning, and education, and have a wider knowledge base to work upon, etc.). NOW, here I was teaching first and second year under-grads! I mean, I was one of them so recently! I knew so well their never-ending need to be nasty to the new TA's! How I dreaded doing it!

Fortunately my first class with the first year B Sc kids was fabulous! *phew* I liked my students and they liked me! (atleast that is what I would sincerely like to believe). It was hard for me to accept how much I was enjoying teaching a bunch eighteen-nineteen year olds!...and thinking about it, for the first time, I realized what I was enjoying, I was loving the process of making better grad-students out of them! I was thrilled when they looked up to me for answers, I was elated when they asked me logical questions. It was fun leading them to answer their own questions, by deducing from the knowledge they already had, from their experiences and observations in day-to-day matters and then building upon it to finally teach them what I intended to do in the first place!

"The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards."
--Anatole France (1844 - 1924), The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

So far, according to me, it has been an enriching and educating experience for me (definitely) and my kids (hopefully). To sum it all up...

"When one teaches, two learn."
--Robert Half.

GOD knows how much I love teaching! God bless my kids!



P.S.: The, er, inspiration for typing this post was the Robert Half quote on my Gmail. "Fucking coincidence" was what 'S' called it when he randomly emailed me same the quote just as I began punching in my thoughts in this space, I loosely refer to as 'my blog'! :D