Interesting Link - Declining Student Resilience

Interesting article.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201509/declining-student-resilience-serious-problem-colleges

Paradoxes of Our Lives - The More We Respect Ourselves, the More the World Respects Us

Many time we think - the more we respect people, the less they seem to respect us.

Self-respecting leaf!

However it's not the right connection to make if we think we will get more respect if we disrespect others (though in some cases it may appear so).

The key is to respect yourself more (or equally) - and not to respect others more while disrespecting yourself.

Our first allegiance lies to ourselves - so the principle can go this way. Respect yourself first, in the way that you respect the microcosm of the world, and then the world respects you.

The world always respects someone who respects himself/herself.

Love Punch - Movie Review

I watched a movie after a long time. Sadly it was 'Love Punch'. For a movie with such big stars the movie never takes off. It's humour is weak, watery, unconvincing, no one seems to be fully there. It moves flatly and ends flatly.

Pierce Brosnan and Emma Thompson - what are you doing here? Avoid.

However the one good thing about the movie is that it got me in touch with an old fvorite number of mine - 'Whatever you want' by Staus Quo. A nice late 80s number. Easily the best part of the movie (alongwith the Emma Thompson dialogue - 'Don't put anything in your mouth if its not boiled first.')

Here's the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG2jj-aIl-A

Or a more mature live version from 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67_Ult97kk8

Of Rules and Regulations - Principle and Process Again

This is a small park near my place where many of us go for a morning stroll. It's pretty small - a full circle of the park at a brisk pace gets done in 5-6 minutes. But there are many rules and regulations here for such a small park - do not run on grass, do not play here, do not bring balls and bats, do not bring small bikes and pets, do not tie a string, do not do this and that etc. It had an entry ticket for a long time which was finally removed for all those who enter before 8 am. Rules kept changing. Yesterday we got this.

Now, cameras and video tapes are not allowed. I cannot believe these guys. What is there to shoot in this park? They could have gone a step further and stopped all ancient methods of capturing the secrets this park has to offer. When every single fellow who enters the park comes with a cellphone with an inbuilt camera what's the point in putting up boards like these?

But this is how systems work here. Let me try and guess the principle here - I give up - I don't know really. If some place does not want cameras and video tapes inside it is either concerning national security, is of heritage, cultural or religious value (which makes sense). But in a park like this which has no security threats (save some walkers), nothing to hurt any sentiments of, I cannot get the principle. The process - being duly followed, without the principle in place. Of course the rule board does not say why one should not carry cameras and video tapes and what the punishment for such transgressions are. Nothing - just one 'not allowed'. Of course they are clubbed with plastic and polythene bags (why have they differentiated between these two?) which are universally seen as dangerous items, but well, are universally used anyway. So we can add the cameras and video tapes to these dangerous items as well.

So we move on with our world - full of rules and regulations without knowing why and what. Merely that they are there. Yessir. No cameras. Let us click away and video tape away on our cell phones to our heart's content.

Anjali - Lessons in Discipline and Punctuality

Anjali's school starts at 830 am. But it's not 'sharp'. At least not until last week until which time some leeway was given. A circular was issued that since children were not coming on time (mainly due to parents' slacking off), the school would take strict action and send latecomers back home. The day after her exams, (which Anjali handled despite a fever), she and I were late by five minutes.

I could sense from the deserted road and the three people near the gate - the watchman, the administrative manager and the vice principal - that something was not right.

I stopped the car at the gate. Anjali must have been smiling at her R teacher who was at the gate - she really likes her teachers. Also it was a day before her 'school birthday' (since her birthday always comes on a holiday, she gets to celebrate it a day in advance) and she had many plans with her friends. I am sure she must have been readying herself to step out of the door and into her school's open and welcoming arms. But wait.

I lowered the window to enquire. R smiled and said 'It's past 830. We are sending everyone who is late today back.' I asked - 'So we go back?' She smiled and nodded. She did add a rider though (since we are rarely late that earned us that breather perhaps). 'I just sent some children back. It won't be fair if I allow her. Come back after sometime if you like.'

I nodded. Fair enough. Five minutes or one minute, we were late. Funnily the five minutes delay was entirely my fault - Anjali was ready well in time. For no fault of hers, for not foreseeing the severity of the discipline issue coming up, for wanting to go to school and nothing else on her first day of recovery from illness - she had to face this sending off. She is sensitive to what the teachers think - much more than I was - and I wondered how she's take it.

'Okay, that's a holiday then,' I joked as I pulled out. 'Let's go home.'

But her face had already crumpled. 'But how can they send me back when I went to school?' she asked, tears in her eyes.

Put that way, I did not have an answer. She was not at fault. She had gone to school. Then why were they sending her away? Turning her down despite her best intentions?

She had not seen such rejection before perhaps (other than from her parents who are constantly at it). The same teachers who welcomed her with smiles and greetings were now saying she could not come to school because she was late by a few minutes. I can only think I understand her confusion, her sense of rejection.

At the same time I can also understand the school's desire to discipline the students (and parents!). I only wondered if it could have been done any differently so the lesson is learned - I'd be glad to learn it since I was the culprit - but without breaking that deep faith and trust between the child and the teacher. How will a child understand that the issue is between the school and the parent? All she cares for is that she wants to go to school and she was, after five years of exuberant welcome, rejected one day from entering the school.

On our slow, painful ride back I told her about rules and discipline. About how we would wait outside our gate at school, get caned for late coming. But the difference was that we had no smiling angels taking care of us as she had - the rules were clear, the canes were out there and used harshly in public view and so expectations were set. This was nothing like that. Something might have broken in that little heart. Something might have toughened. (And I am not sure I am entirely comfortable with this kind of toughening.) The stuff we call growing up. Discipline. I could only hope and pray that she did not lose her faith in her school and her teachers.

Two incidents followed this.

I told a friend about this. He owns a company and has problems of punctuality etc.
'That's the right thing to do. If they learn about discipline now, they will never go late. This is what is missing in today's kids,' he said. Funnily he never enforces discipline on his employees. He hopes that the school will teach discipline and his future employees will turn up in time.
'Maybe I should do the same thing too,' he pondered. 'They will learn.'

I told him that when rules are enforced, the 'soul' normally goes out. Great work only happens in a space of trust. With rules, people come as 9 to 5 people, do what they 'have to' and leave right on dot. Great work can never be measured in numbers. I know because I was never great with rules. But when a challenge was presented to me where rules did not apply, (normally where rules could not be applied). I loved it. My best work came there and it can never be explained logically - the effort, the hours, the quality of work and outcome, the vision - it all fell in place. The key is the challenge - and you need to understand what challenge really means to do that. You need to be creative enough to do that. Mostly you must understand that people must want to come to work - must love to come to work because they are learning something and not because they are being treated like school children. In a world where we must increasingly treat children like adults (in terms of responsibility, not punishment), we have adults being treated like children (freedom with no accountability). Give them responsibility, let them handle it their way. Support them when they fail. Let them not be afraid to fail. Provoke thought, push work ethic, set high standards. End words - make them come to you because the work is good. Make them find it difficult to leave because they are learning all the time.
My friend nodded - but I don't think it made an impact.

Another friend who lives in the US was around. He told me of his experience. He'd drop his son and son's friend at school everyday. The kids would sprint from the car to their classroom. The management sent a letter - kids must be under adult control all the time. Next day, the principal and staff looked on as the car drew up. The kids started running as usual. This time even my friend started running with them to the class. The perplexed principal was told that he ran to keep the kids under control. It was a funny incident and quite like my friend to do stuff like this to get his point across. In a later meeting with the management he drove it home. My friend said 'Why do you want to stop them or slow them when they are running towards the school? I'd have a problem if they were running away from it?'

School, work, home - people should want to come towards it. People must be drawn to it. If they are not, it's time for introspection. If they are, please encourage that behavior. Don't ever confuse the issue for them by mixing up their behaviors with others and punishing them for it. Once they make the wrong connections, the soul goes out of the work. And then it's a hell of a job to repair that.

A Rare Eyewitness Account of G.R. Vishwanath's Debut Ranji Match

This is an article written by Krishna Prasad Nukala - one of the most interesting individuals I have met. He is an avid sportsperson, a stylish cricketer, a single malt expert, a sailor, seeker of exquisite and exotic experiences, trout fisher, foodie, cook, reader, photographer, relentless traveller and much more. KPN amazes me with his energy, his zest for life and his constant upgradation of experiences. More about him later - I need to do a piece on him exclusively - but for now this is a piece he wrote of his experience as a young boy in Vijayawada who watched a historic match - without realising it.

Read on and enjoy.

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A Ranji Match

K.P. Nukala

This is my account of GRV’s Ranji debut match at Vijayawada played on 11, 12, 13^th November 1967. I was a twelve year old boy then. The cricket bug had just caught me a year before. We would play the game with all kinds of contraptions; any solid piece of wood ended up as a bat, any small stick as a wicket and any round object a cricket ball. We used to play in all open spaces and there was no dearth of open fields in those days. In the collector’s office, in the Police Parade Grounds and in vast paddy fields when the crops had been harvested. For cricket information we used to look up to our elder brothers who had a better understanding of the game gathered mainly from news papers and radio commentaries. The big names of Gary Sobers, Nawab of Pataudi, Bobby Simpson, Graham Mckenzie, and Colin Cowdrey fascinated us immensely. We all wanted to play like them. They were like Gods to us.

(The match was between Mysore and A.P. It was still Mysore and the state was named Karnataka much later. And obviously it was undivided A.P!)

The match was played at the Police Parade Grounds, Vijayawada, on Bunder Road. This road goes to Machilipatnam and was named Bunder Road because Bunder means port and Machilipatnam had a port. The ground is also famously known as PWD grounds. It still exists and is used chiefly for holding exhibitions and fairs. A large part of the ground has now been converted into a farmer’s bazaar.

This ground also served as a playing ground for all children. We used to play all sorts of games there; cricket, football and most importantly gilli danda. It used to be a picturesque set up with many stately trees all round. The ground however was devoid of any grass and was chiefly a flat, red, mud ground.

On the day before the match, we played on the center strip where the Ranji Match was to be played. We had no idea that a Ranji match was scheduled for the next day.

At around 4 pm, a police van arrived and a bunch of people emerged from it. They inspected the ground, especially the centre strip where we were playing.  On enquiry it turned that these were the Mysore Ranji players and a Ranji Trophy match was to be played on the next day against A.P. We were thrilled, as by then, we were familiar with the star studded Mysore Cricket with players like V. Subramanya, B.S Chandrasekhar, EAS Prasanna and the new wonder boy Syed Kirmani, who had just returned from England, as part of the successful Indian Colts team that defeated the English school boys.

(This famous school boys team comprised of Ajit Naik (c), Raju Mukherjee, the Amarnath brothers, Dipankar Sarkar, Syed Kirmani among others. In the last match at Lords, India needed 10 runs from last two balls and Surinder Amarnath hit two sixes to wrap up the match! Hence we were very eager to see Syed Kirmani.

We were disheartened to learn that none of the star test players had come to the ground, but were somewhat happy to know that Syed Kirmani was in the team. We asked for him and a small thin lad came forward to identify himself as Syed Kirmani. We shook his hand enthusiastically and after some time all the players left the ground.

We went home with great joy looking forward to next day’s match and spread the word all around.

Next day the ground transformed itself into a proper cricket field. A green mat was rolled out on the center and the boundary lines were chalked with a lining of ACA (Andhra Cricket Association) flags. The ground was cleared of its stones, debris and all rubbish. (The flags later ended up as underwear for some boys who decided that the silky cloth was as good a material as any for the said purposes!). Two shamianas were erected and served as pavilions for the two teams.  There were volunteers to take care of the needs of the players and the admin team. The volunteers assisted with whatever the players wanted - like carrying water, buying cigarettes, snacks and so on. In fact during all water break sessions of the match, the volunteers were the drinks carriers to the field along with the 12^th man!

A few boys including me took up a vantage position on the branch of a banyan tree just beside the north sight screen (Civil Court end). The said branch protruded at least 5 meters into the playing field so we were literally part of the match! Needless to say we had the best view of the match.

The toss was won by Y.B Patel, who captained Mysore in the absence of V. Subramanya. YBP is a fine left arm pace bowler and an uncle of Brijesh Patel, an electrifying batsman and fielder who played several tests for India later on.

V.S Vijay Kumar, a debutant along with some other opener came to open the batting for Karnataka. The A.P bowling was opened from the Civil Court end by Venkat Rao. We were familiar with Venkat Rao, our local hero, and used think that no one in the world could bowl faster than him.

The bowing from Bunder Road end was opened by RP Gupta who hailed from Vizag. He was a natural swing bowler.

Two wickets fell cheaply, below 20 runs- both to Venkat Rao and we were thrilled to see Kirmani coming to bat at No 4. The third wicket also fell quickly, before the score reached 50. We were excited that everything was going in our favour - opponent wickets were falling - and our favourite player Kirmani was still at the crease.

Slowly batsman no. 4 started hitting boundaries at will. The most striking of his shots was the one where he leaned back on his back foot and cut the ball, bat parallel to ground. The ball sped to the boundary like a bullet, so square of the wicket that it seemed like an extension of the batsmen’s crease. We later came to know that this was the famous square cut. Sometimes, he leaned so far on the back foot, and just before leaving the ball, tapped it on the head. The ball raced to the fence in no time. We came to know later that this was the famous late cut. Runs flowed at will and just before lunch, he raised his bat. He had scored a century before lunch, an indication of how easily and quickly he had scored those runs. On the branch of the banyan tree, we were thrilled and excited that our hero Kirmani has scored century. One of the customs in those days in Vijayawada was that if anyone was nearing a century, somebody would run to the local market to buy a flower garland to honor him. Just after the century the enthusiastic spectators rushed on the field with a garland and we were shouting with joy that Kirmani scored a century.  Then somebody pointed out that it was not Kirmani but a new player called G.R Vishwanath who had made his Ranji Trophy debut! Kirmani was already out for 16 and sitting in the pavilion. Our joy died down and it was an anti climax.

Nevertheless, after lunch, play resumed and the wonder boy kept scoring runs at will. Almost all his runs came on the off side laced with exquisite square cuts, late cuts and cover drives. Word spread around that a wonder boy from Mysore was sending the A.P bowlers on leather hunt and people came from nearby places to see the young boy batting. At the end of the day, the he remained not out on 209 with team total just below 400. People were already predicting the young boy’s place in Indian test team and I did not have the slightest doubt about it.  Ultimately GRV was out for 230 and the Mysore innings folded at 460. At close of play on second day A.P were 69 for two. On the third day the A.P team was all out for 181 and was asked to follow on. In the 2^nd innings the Andhra fared slightly better and scored a respectable 360 thanks to a spirited 86 by B. Mahendra Kumar who had in fact migrated to Andhra from Hyderabad where he was not getting a proper chance among the star studded Hyderabad team which had the likes of MLJaisimha, Abid Ali, Abbas Ali Baig, Jayanthilal, Krishnamurthy, Waheed Yar Khan, Mumtaz Hussain, Nausheer Mehta, Govindraj and so on.

The match ended in a draw with A.P getting 3 points and Mysore 5.

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P.S: When GRV was selected to play against Australia in 1969 in the Kanpur test I boasted about my prediction to my friends in Calcutta. Our family had migrated to Calcutta then. When he scored a zero in first innings I was devastated. My friends taunted me about my prediction. In the 2^nd innings he scored a brilliant 137 (with 25 boundaries) which helped India to a respectable draw.  The third test at Delhi was won by India, thanks a brilliant 5 wickets each by EAS Prasanna and B.S Bedi folding out Australia a paltry 107 runs in the 2^nd innings. The fourth test was won by Australia at Calcutta and they were leading 2-1 in the series. In the final test, India did splendidly well to restrict Australia to a low score in the 2^nd innings, thanks to a brilliant debut performance by Mohinder Amarnath (2 W) and EAS Prasanna ( 6W) but India lost the test ultimately chasing 248. GRV was the highest scorer (59).The series was lost 1-3.

GRV went to score about 14 centuries and India never lost a test match when he scored a century. In fact GRV scored runs whenever the team needed him the most and his 97 not out (out of total of 190) against the West Indies bowling attack of Andy Roberts and company at Chepauk is rated as one of the best non-century innings by Wisden. He scored 112 against West Indies in the highest run chase ever at that time. GRV is also known for his sportsmanship; he recalled Bob Taylor back to bat when the umpire gave him out in the Golden Jubilee test. England went on to win the match thanks to a big partnership that Taylor put on with Ian Botham. GRV is a gem of a cricketer who entertained us in true fashion of the game- a true gentleman of a gentleman’s game (at least what we used to know then)

Sources of information:  Wikipedia and www.espncricinfo.com

My Days on Whatsapp

For many months after some helpful soul installed whatsapp on my phone (a year or so ago) I did not know what to do with it. It kept making odd sounds and messages and images flowed into my phone at a pace faster than I could handle. Groups added me without my permission and soon I was part of a number of groups I did not know from Adam or Aditya (our Indian version of Adam) and was hearing intimate details emanating from the participants. It was like being part of a large household with its nice people, bad people, fake people, genuine people, the perverts and the mischief makers. I did what I normally do - watch and wait for things to unfold instead of provoking any reaction. Long conversations happened between some twenty odd people in a group of some 100 people.

Over time I gathered enough courage to send a few messages of my own, change my profile picture, look at others profile pictures, download stuff and watch crazy videos and pictures sent by the group, wonder at how they all had these good mornings and stuff. Some sent songs, some sent greetings. Some specialised only in sending the sexy stuff and some others only specialised in sending macabre stuff.

Our school group was the worst. I am in a state of nervous breakdown now thanks to it. Suddenly a picture or a video pops up - man caught in air plane turbine or man being stabbed or horrid traffic accidents - stuff that makes you shiver at night. I got rid of that group by silencing it for a year and deleting messages as fast as they came. I was not sure if I should exit these groups directly or find some other subtler way to escape these perversions. It was sheer torture.

Thankfully my whatsapp decided enough was enough the other day. One day it asked me to update it. It asked for some password. I entered all the passwords I knew and it rejected them all. I was shut out of this world forever. I uninstalled it. Tried to install it again. It again asked me for that password I did not know again.

I am done with it. I look back and wonder if it did me any good. Cannot think of much save a couple of cute pics Anjali sent me with lots of love symbols etc. I think of what it did to me  - the mental trauma of seeing all these gory pictures and videos, seeing fake greetings and wishes, reading the worst kind of jokes (the ratio of bad jokes to good would be 99:1), watching all sorts of pictures from reunions and stuff, seeing morphed pictures, getting unsubstantiated rumours, looking at the posh lives of some of our regular idiots. It was and continues to be stressful mind you.

Hopefully the effects of whatsapp will wear of in a while. I also hope whatsapp will forever ask me that one password I do not know - and that should be one good way to keep me out of that trap again. Life is peaceful now. No complaints.