Friday 28 September 2007

Uh-oh...

Well, that was my first reaction when I noticed that MM had tagged me to list down my quirks. Firstly, it’s mighty difficult to write down ones own quirks … now if she had tagged me for writing about S’s quirks, I’m sure I could have written about 50 in 5 mins. :-) But me quirky ??? Hey, not at all !!! And secondly, all the world & sundry will know about my quirks …mmm… which is not such a good idea. But anyway … here goes my list

1. I am extremely extremely fussy about keeping everything in it’s rightful place & in order. So, the center table should not be askew, the newspaper has to be on the lower shelf ONLY, the cushions have to be set at a particular angle … and the list goes on.

2. I hate it when people wash their hands & let the water drip onto the floor. There’s always a towel around … why can’t they just wipe their hands dry ???

3. I am verrrrry ticklish. Unfortunately for me, my friends found it out & some of the naughty ones used to suddenly poke a finger on my waist in the middle of a serious discussion with some Prof, making me squiggle for no apparent reason!!! And of course, S always “tortures” me by tickling.

4. The first thing I do while looking through a menu card at any restaurant is point out spelling mistakes & laugh at them. My friend, Sh & I used to do this so much that it used to irritate our other friends a lot … and that was kind of fun too. :-)

5. Oh yesss… like MM, I’m a hoarder too. MM same pinch to you on this one. I have never been able to throw any of the birthday / new year cards that I have received. Many are at home but the ones that I got later have been carried around from place to place as I’ve changed cities & homes within the same city.

Well, I guess that’s about it. I’m not very loony, am I ? And before anybody starts replying to that ... that was a rhetorical question … not looking for any answers here… of course, I’m not loony.

Wednesday 5 September 2007

A Tribute to my Teachers

I finally decided to start my very own blog on Teachers’ Day with a tribute to all my teachers who have taught me … some of whom I’m still in touch with & some with whom I’m not. I enjoyed my time in all the institutions that I’ve attended so far but topmost in my mind are the days that I spent in the school where I spent 12 years of my life, QMS. I loved & was loved in return by most of the teachers in QMS … some who bear special mention here are Mrs SB (taught us maths & physics), Mrs RD (English teacher), Miss RD (english teacher), Mrs. PM (geography teacher), Ms. MB and of course last but never the least Mr. AP (taught us physics). Mr. AP came into our lives like a drop of water on very parched earth … him being our first male teacher in an all-girls convent. :) (Others who’ve studied in all-girls convents would surely understand this sentiment.) But good things are never to be for a long time & he left our school after being there for a little more than a year. I still remember our rather tuneless though completely heartfelt rendition of “Sir, we love you” at his farewell. Of course our adulation of AP didn’t go down very well with Mrs.J, our chemistry teacher – a devout catholic & a strict disciplinarian. Oh, Mrs. RD was extremely cute … a petite lady with a fervor for teaching us “good” English. Strangely enough she used to mark our exam papers with a green pen instead of the usual red and oh my god… one could scarcely make out our writing in those papers given the amount of corrections she would make. Now that’s a very long sentence that I wrote & I’m sure that RD would have chided me saying “your tail doesn’t know what your head wants to say!!!” Oh she was a joy but alas I have no idea where she’s now. Ms. MB was & still is a fun loving person who used to take a leading role in all our excursions. She was also the one to sing & dance the hardest at the Children’s day function that the teachers used to put up for us. Mrs SB was always like a pal. I used to bunk my dance classes (which I absolutely hated) and go to the lab to chat with her provided, of course, Mrs. J & Mrs. N (biology teacher) were absent from the lab.

My favourite teacher during my +2 days in LH was undoubtedly our Bengali teacher, Mrs.SB. Chemistry classes used to be a laugh riot given all the faux pas that Dr. G used to make. And of course, Mrs K was a very cute, rotund little lady under whose tutelage I somehow learnt to like biology.
Once in college, teacher’s day ceased to be such an important function but the memories of the skits, songs and dances performed by the teachers in both QMS and LH still fondly linger in my memory. I have left out many names in this tribute but I salute all the teachers who have taught me and wish them all a very happy Teachers’ Day.