For a long time I had nothing new to share.Idealism. No money kills it. Having money also kills it.

Here is something I worked on recently, with two other teachers called Abdel Jebber and Allwyn Tellis, both better than I am at this trade in some ways.

Posting it trying to keep idealism alive - the kind that is not pragmatic, utilitarian or successful but has value.

When the Nazis came for the Communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the Social Democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

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Independence Day

India of the reaching out
Reaching forth
Reaching in
Reaching up and down and……
Over
Where my people have either too much or too little
O India

India of the bad roads
And wide, open spaces
Environmentally virgin and raped
Polluted, happy, sad, poor, rich
"Dvd, vcd, cd, id, icecream"
No other place has such sign boards
Full of poems
Where else but in India would I be able to understand
That clichés and mistakes and typos are also part of the attempt
And lead to inte read more

I wrote a skit and a poem for this day. My skit was performed at Asha Kiran special needs school by special needs kids for special needs kids. I'm really proud of this.

I'm attaching the skit for your reading pleasure, feedback and also for use - because I believe copyright is the right to copy.

Listening to Geetha Narayanan, one of the leading educationists of and in India today, is always a pleasure. I know of very few speakers who can get people to listen to them talk and imprint in their mind ideas and spirit and vision without the listeners having to resort to pen and paper to take down notes. She does this frequently, in the realm of education. Months after I listened to her  recently - nearly three to be precise, in this case - her ideas about future school remain so clearly in my head that I feel like putting them down here. read more

Moving with young people is one of the best things that can happen to anyone getting old because it keeps the mind young. Thus I learn more from the young than from the old.  They are the ones who have their pulse on what's actually happening out there in the present world in the fileds I'm interested in like literature, music, art ,design, poetry , technology etc. My children, my nephews and nieces, my students in school and college are constantly educating, surprising and astounding me. read more

I taught twenty students and prepared them for this year's General English final exams in literature and language for ISC. While doing this I had actually put in some posts on the process in the resources section. Finally the results have come out. My students have all uniformly fared well. While this makes me happy it also makes me wonder about assessment. The results in hand are like this, one A+, an A, six A-'s, a B and all the others B+'s. read more

From the time I read "Screwtape Letters" I loved the ease with which C.S.Lewis wrote. I kept reading his books and felt envious; he never seemed to stop in his stride or miss a beat. His critical works like "The Discarded Image", sci-fi trilogy and books like "Mere Christianity" are all justly famous.Even an incomplete story of his that I found and read avidly, on Helen and an eidolon, after she became old, etched itself in my mind. read more

I want to revive this book and this writer. All I can say is he matters.

Speaking of his first novel Last Train to Innocence, he says, "It was largely autobiographical. It wasn't a novel, it was meant to be snippets of my childhood mainly for Shahana (author's note: his daughter). I wanted her to know about her grandparents and my childhood in Dehradun. When I showed these snippets to my friends Amit Chaudhuri and Shobha De they felt it has the making of a novel. So I put it together and sent it to Penguin for publishing. read more

Teachers are people having a great responsibility. Nurturing the next generation.

But how can idealism thrive on a purse that's always stretched tight?

The plight of the Indian school teacher is horrendous.

When will things improve for them?