The previous blog was induced by boredom but triggered up real good memories. But this one is an inspired recollection derived by the comments of Vivek on the previous post.
Standard X is an important phase of life and it’s supposed to mould you into what you wan to pursue in future. Although in schools a students future depends only on his mark sheet and not on his potential, I never gave a second look at scored. True, it did result in a lot of tension during admission to the next level, but it was unable to stop us from mischief and what I am right now!
Physics classes were the funniest ones for we had the weirdest teachers. IX standard saw us through with one whom we named ‘kuthiral vaal gundama’ (pony tailed fatty: P). I seriously don’t remember what her name actually is! But this named suited her for her curly haired pony tail and squeaky voice. In standard X landed in our class, the most brilliant physics teacher we ever can rejoice of, of torturing to the maximal extent. Indira alias Aaya. Aaya in Tamil means servant maid and she was named so because of her looks, language and behaviour! Well to simplify things in her language, she has no capaquity whatsoever, even to handle electriquity and her classes were pure atroquity.
She commanded our class to submit a project in Physics for which we would be granted 5 precious marks and this would be added to the final score of the practical in turn to get added with our board exam marks. The final threat to make us all work. BOARD EXAMS! The class was divided into groups and mine had my dear companion Vivek. I can remember only Vivek in my group for it was only the two of us who decided to work weekends and actually submit the project. I think our group also had few other students who failed to understand the importance and need of our project, to construct a working model of the solar cooker!
Initial days went off in designing the cooker in paper. Well, there wasn’t much to design, but me and Vivek drew on pages and pages and finally came to the conclusion that it had to be rectangle! Unfortunately there was no Wikipedia to guide us instantaneously! Then came the list of raw materials required to build it. In principle, it was a small list. Wood to make a rectangle box, nails, hammer, black paint, mirrors to reflect the light inside and a pane of glass to cover the top.
The above bill was not passed since making our own box seemed a bit out of way for the project and hence we decided to buy one. Now the problem was how to get some box like that. Jumping from one hardware store to another finally taught us that we need a box which translates into English as 5 ½ woods and 3 inches (anjara katta, moonu inch). I still have no clue what the dimensions mean, but we did get one that exactly fitted our need. The next weekend was a black one owing to painting of the box with black enamel. For some reason it was a good feeling to smear our hands with the paint and then remove it using turpentine!
The reflecting mirror was bought from Vel glass works, just near to Sanskrit college and had been fitted with supporting styrofoam as a reflector. Now the task of getting a glass cover remained. We scanned the glass works but then they all asked for exorbitant rates for a small piece of glass cover. Finally we hit upon one kind glass workshop in St. Marys street and the owner allowed taking the glass broken covers for free! Rummaging the throw aways, we fished out a huge piece of broken glass sheet, got it cut neatly and placed it to complete our cooker!
It was really funny when we took it to class. That was the last day for submission of the project and our ingenious Aaya kept our cooker in the middle of the playground with a bowl of water inside it for testing purposes. A thermometer was kept on the water and we were told that only if the temperature rose above 80 degrees we would be given marks. Seriously, we couldn’t take that risk though the sun was at its hottest. So, after few minutes of waiting, we replaced the water in the bowl with hot water taken from the chemistry lab and once the thermometer showed 80 degree Celsius, we ran to fetch our teacher who reluctantly gave us the full marks!
And then the cooker remained in the attic of our class room and the students made good use of the mirror to comb and style. After a few months, the same was used by my sister for her project submission and I guess it still remains in some classroom shifting hands to fetch easy marks!
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Monday, February 09, 2009
Electrical Gadgets, some memories of 2000
A sudden urge to write just filled me. Is it because the volume of diethyl ether I have kept under argon will probably take 4-5 hours for evaporation or am I getting bored of trying to fix the conformation of my compound to perform density function theory calculations? I guess it’s because of the Harris Jeyraj music in the background and the fact that I just read a lot of very good blogs (some of my old ones too!).
For the past few minutes I have been staring at my screen deciding on what to write. I know that now, whatever I decide on, is not going to hinder my thought flow and words are going to be typed until my co-worker sitting opposite to me goes mad due to the non stop sound of the keyboard.
Somehow my thoughts stray back to my 10th standard EG classes! Every Friday was a treat for us because the two classes before lunch was EG and typewriting and we had so much of free time and fun. Our EG teacher was a very old yet stylish mallu guy named Balakrishna Nair. I have a very clear picture of how we were seated too! Two parallel rows and boys on one side and girls on the other and the teacher could move in between. I used to sit at the very first and opposite to me was her as usual and always. Besides me was Karthik followed by Vivek. The line further down had no significance since the source of maximum distraction and fun has already been listed.
Our master seldom took classes. Usually the blackboard had some stuff already written with which we had to copy to our record notebooks and then idle away the rest of the time silently. But me, Karthik and Vivek had other plans. We started directing movies with our EG master as the hero! We even used to tell it to him and every time he moves or tells some stuff in the class, we used to pre phrase it by ‘ Movie name – Scene 1 – Take 1 ‘. The hero entry for the movie was like this… Our EG sir comes in, takes a live wire to his head and the shock makes the hair on his head stand straight. Then he takes some styling gels and puts his hair back and then pick up his 1 meter long wooden scale and walks to hit the students, Darpan, Siva Saravanan and Arvind who have been playing sharpener game! Our EG sir for some reason disliked when students played that game in his class: P
I always wondered how he heard the chaos of the sharpener game in the last benches for in the first row; we used to make such a racquet. I always used to sharpen a small knife on a touchstone with Karthik trying to spin the touchstone faster and faster to produce more noise and sparks! Somehow he never scolded us for doing that, though the girls opposite to us complained.
May be he was frustrated with scores of students taking his subject as a fun session or may be he didn’t really mind all this as it reminded him of his younger days. Whatever is was, these are just beautiful memories!
For the past few minutes I have been staring at my screen deciding on what to write. I know that now, whatever I decide on, is not going to hinder my thought flow and words are going to be typed until my co-worker sitting opposite to me goes mad due to the non stop sound of the keyboard.
Somehow my thoughts stray back to my 10th standard EG classes! Every Friday was a treat for us because the two classes before lunch was EG and typewriting and we had so much of free time and fun. Our EG teacher was a very old yet stylish mallu guy named Balakrishna Nair. I have a very clear picture of how we were seated too! Two parallel rows and boys on one side and girls on the other and the teacher could move in between. I used to sit at the very first and opposite to me was her as usual and always. Besides me was Karthik followed by Vivek. The line further down had no significance since the source of maximum distraction and fun has already been listed.
Our master seldom took classes. Usually the blackboard had some stuff already written with which we had to copy to our record notebooks and then idle away the rest of the time silently. But me, Karthik and Vivek had other plans. We started directing movies with our EG master as the hero! We even used to tell it to him and every time he moves or tells some stuff in the class, we used to pre phrase it by ‘ Movie name – Scene 1 – Take 1 ‘. The hero entry for the movie was like this… Our EG sir comes in, takes a live wire to his head and the shock makes the hair on his head stand straight. Then he takes some styling gels and puts his hair back and then pick up his 1 meter long wooden scale and walks to hit the students, Darpan, Siva Saravanan and Arvind who have been playing sharpener game! Our EG sir for some reason disliked when students played that game in his class: P
I always wondered how he heard the chaos of the sharpener game in the last benches for in the first row; we used to make such a racquet. I always used to sharpen a small knife on a touchstone with Karthik trying to spin the touchstone faster and faster to produce more noise and sparks! Somehow he never scolded us for doing that, though the girls opposite to us complained.
May be he was frustrated with scores of students taking his subject as a fun session or may be he didn’t really mind all this as it reminded him of his younger days. Whatever is was, these are just beautiful memories!
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
From my balconey
After a brilliant day at the labs and after good food and web development with Neeti, I suddenly felt like having some tea. Aromatic masala tea, steaming hot. I stood in the balconey watching the christmas lights of the city. It was freezing cold, but the warmth of the tea in my hands and down my throat was more effective than sweaters and thermals. I just felt like having tea, though my cozy bed was welcoming me to prepare me for a very early tomorrow morning.
It was around 9.45PM and freezing. I looked down the streets as well as into my memories and recollected loads of beautiful moments. The present also made me happy. There was this little boy, unaffected by the searing coldness playing solo in the streets. He was having a stick in his hand and was conducting an imaginary opera with himself being the lead baritone. It was filled with lisp and energy. He actions made me energetic! Well, you can imagine how energetic if I am writing this from home at this time!
Scanning through my address book in my mobile, I decided to call my friend Tomas who is in Prague. I thought he wouldnt recogonise me, especially through the masked phone number that is displayed when I call through my international calling account, but surprise, he recogonised even my Hello! Its really a good feeling when you are recogonised like this by friends whom you had made during a conference.
Oh yawn ! The effect of tea is wearing out... or is it time for another tea and another blog?!!
It was around 9.45PM and freezing. I looked down the streets as well as into my memories and recollected loads of beautiful moments. The present also made me happy. There was this little boy, unaffected by the searing coldness playing solo in the streets. He was having a stick in his hand and was conducting an imaginary opera with himself being the lead baritone. It was filled with lisp and energy. He actions made me energetic! Well, you can imagine how energetic if I am writing this from home at this time!
Scanning through my address book in my mobile, I decided to call my friend Tomas who is in Prague. I thought he wouldnt recogonise me, especially through the masked phone number that is displayed when I call through my international calling account, but surprise, he recogonised even my Hello! Its really a good feeling when you are recogonised like this by friends whom you had made during a conference.
Oh yawn ! The effect of tea is wearing out... or is it time for another tea and another blog?!!
Monday, November 24, 2008
Back to childhood II: Snow wars
Earlier were days splashing in water when it was the first rain of the season and then as years passed by I gave it up but making paper boats for streams of rain water didn’t change. It’s the second winter here in Germany and I felt getting back to younger childhood days in the first snowfall of this winter and the first ever major snowfall in my life. Though I was here last winter, the skies failed to appease my yearning for the whiteness but this year, the wait and thirst was more than satisfied. Winter came early and so did the snowfall. It is the most beautiful experience.
After dancing and enjoying the Diwali night in Aachen, we started out to hit the bed at around 1.30AM only to discover that it had snowed and was snowing like crazy. The entire road was white. The shrubs, trees and the parked cars were coated with inches of soft fluffy snow! I held my palm out to catch a few and felt the chillness as the snow melted in my hands. I also caught a few on my tongue! The temperature was minus 3 with soft wind guiding the snow fall. We walked through the white pavements occasionally making snowballs from the snow collected over the cars and aiming the person walking in front.
After reaching the destination, we decided not to call it a day, but to begin it in the snow! Everyone was so excited and we left our mobiles and purses safely in the room. Gearing with coats, caps and gloves, we walked the snow covered lawns and awed at the white trees. The colour of the street lights made the scene more magical. After reaching the place with the maximum collected snow, it was time for snowball fights. Seriously, I never had so much fun. Though fingers sting when collecting the snow, it is definitely worth the pain to dodge and get hit with! We even made snow cigarettes by pressing and rolling the snow and smoked with our breath through our mouth!
Finally our first snow man was ready. Well, from the size, he may be a snow child, but that was what we could manage without proper equipment and gloves. I felt like Calvin making his famous snow monsters! As our snow man braved the cold sitting on top of a BMW, we retired to the cozyness of heated rooms and blankets. I really felt like a kid, let loose to enjoy however he wanted to.
After dancing and enjoying the Diwali night in Aachen, we started out to hit the bed at around 1.30AM only to discover that it had snowed and was snowing like crazy. The entire road was white. The shrubs, trees and the parked cars were coated with inches of soft fluffy snow! I held my palm out to catch a few and felt the chillness as the snow melted in my hands. I also caught a few on my tongue! The temperature was minus 3 with soft wind guiding the snow fall. We walked through the white pavements occasionally making snowballs from the snow collected over the cars and aiming the person walking in front.
After reaching the destination, we decided not to call it a day, but to begin it in the snow! Everyone was so excited and we left our mobiles and purses safely in the room. Gearing with coats, caps and gloves, we walked the snow covered lawns and awed at the white trees. The colour of the street lights made the scene more magical. After reaching the place with the maximum collected snow, it was time for snowball fights. Seriously, I never had so much fun. Though fingers sting when collecting the snow, it is definitely worth the pain to dodge and get hit with! We even made snow cigarettes by pressing and rolling the snow and smoked with our breath through our mouth!
Finally our first snow man was ready. Well, from the size, he may be a snow child, but that was what we could manage without proper equipment and gloves. I felt like Calvin making his famous snow monsters! As our snow man braved the cold sitting on top of a BMW, we retired to the cozyness of heated rooms and blankets. I really felt like a kid, let loose to enjoy however he wanted to.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Workshop in Advanced Crystallization, FEBS, Nove Hrady
Nove Hrady, had the workshop not been held there, I am sure everyone who attended wouldn’t have noticed this place! 350 Kms away from Prague, 30 Kms away from České Budějovice, Nove Hrady translates into New Castle. The history of this town dates back to the 12th century when a castle was built for protection of trade routes and since then till now Nove Hrady houses a population of 3000. It has all the essentials and to top it all, it has got a research institute!
This is the castle/research labs where we were put up for 7 days. There were lectures everyday morning from 9.00 am to 1.00 pm and then practical demonstrations from 2.30 pm till 6.30 pm and followed by late night beer party discussions which extended till 2.00 am in the morning!
This workshop was the first of its kind I attended. It was really a wonderful experience to be admits so many international audience and scientists. Unlike the Lindau conference, where I a big group of Indians with me, here I was all alone. Hence my interaction with the group was better than weak Van der Waals!
Apart from the scientific discussions, there was a lot of discussion regarding the culture, religion and habits of people from different nationalities. The amazing things that stuck me there is that fact that people can be programmed to hear things differently!
It was early morning and me, Sofia, Valentina, Rosa and Manuela decided to go for a walk. Suddenly, Valentina said, hear the rooster… kekerakeee kee! Her in-the-middle-of- road jiggle like the chicken was unfortunately not caught on the camera, but her representation of the roosters call was different! Me and Sofia were, come on, its cockaraakoo koo. Rosa and Manuela were with Valentia and apparently they hail from Italy. Then we made a survey and found that many people agreed to hearing it as kekerakee kee and not like how we hear it! Some serious audibility programming!
The travel to Nove Hrady for me was with Terese Begfors and Claude. They are both crystallographers and gave awesome presentations and workshops. Terese is a vegetarian and loves cooking Indian! Wow! I was really amazed and shared with her some of my patented recipes! The getting back to Prague was in a train. The group that travelled back was Me, Sofia and Kathrina. Kathrina is a native of Czech and she helped us get the tickets. When I entered the Nove Hrady station, boom, I was transported to my good old childhood days! What a station! Very old, smelled old too. There was burnt diesel in the air, just a single platform, cross the rails and hop into trains, heaped building material and a worn down building. It was just beautiful! There was some construction work going on and hence no trains to České Budějovice from where we were supposed to take a connection fast train to Prague. So, we were shuttled till another station in a bus and then from there in a diesel carriage. The diesel carriage was slow and late and we would have missed the fast train to Prague. Kathrina spoke to the conductor “ there are two international scientists travelling to Prague and they must reach on time. Do something and hold the train there.” The conductor called the controller in Prague and had the fast train held just for the two of us! Man, what a feeling it was!
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