Child's Play

I come out of the shower to find Small Person pottering about the room. No hugs, there’s a cold war on over one of her transgressions. As I button my cuffs, I ask sternly “Who went potty in their pants today?”
Large-eyed solemn gaze directed upwards at me from my knee-level.
I repeat the question … “Who went potty in their pants today?”
“PAPA!”, she replies with a gleeful grin before she scampers away on tiny legs.

* * *

Kids! You can love them to bits, but there will be times when you will think Herod and Kamsa had just the right methods for dealing with them. Not the views one should express, however, when invited for coffee and conversation to discuss the issue of how adults relate to children. This was with a group called “Childwise”, at a bookstore on Park Street last Wednesday. It speaks volumes for the organisers’ persuasiveness that I forsook my biryani on Eid and toddled along to hear wise (child-wise!) things about parenting, schooling, learning and disciplining. I was not disappointed.

I expected pontification. Piety. Platitudes. Instead, we got straight talk. I expected a fair amount of preaching on corporal punishment. In the next two hours, we discussed class sizes, power structures, reading habits, role models. (And I fell in love. But more of that anon.) The main question was (and is) are we doing right by our children? Of course everyone has a different answer to this. And of course 99% of parents will assert that they are doing the right thing, but … Those “buts” tend to hide the essentials. Of time spent with the child. Of teaching by example. Of not pressurizing a pre-teen to excel in six different endeavours. And where does the school figure in this picture? Can schools be more than cramming centres? Can they contribute to positive discipline? Some teachers outlined innovative new schemes for motivating students – red cards like a football match, a bank of points at the beginning of the school year. But frankly, those schemes alone do not seem adequate.

Thankfully, the whole issue of corporal punishment in schools was summarily dismissed by Mr. John Mason, who said that its rights and wrongs are no longer open for discussion once the courts have banned it. One well-intentioned lady opined that all punishment demeans the child, that punishments “reinforce an unfair power structure”. I think that’s sheerest tosh. Children are not angels. (Well, not all the time.) Positive examples and rewards alone will not suffice to keep them on the right track. Sometimes a child needs to be made to stand in the corner. Besides, they’ll grow up into a world that has unfair power structures. Doesn’t it make sense for them to get used to it right away?

I was a little disturbed by the clear divisions between parents and teachers, the “we” and “they” attitudes evident. Parents are resentful of teachers who think they know all about teaching. Again, some of the teachers were aghast at how little some parents knew about their children. Thankfully, both groups articulated their issues clearly and within the hour the milk of human kindness was flowing freely. Yes, large class sizes do make it difficult for teachers to devote individual attention to children. Yes, parents should not need to spend 4 hours every evening going over school-work with their children. But how does one get around the problems of competition for limited educational resources?

We benefitted from the clear thinking of several teachers present, including the redoubtable trio of John Mason, Sister Cyril and Brendan MacCarthaigh. Two points that they made stand out. First, on the subject of exams and competition, Brother Brendan pointed out that in sports, a coach is fired if his players fail consistently. Why is it that if a student fails academically, the child is thrown out while the teacher remains? This raised a laugh, but it is a very basic issue in teacher evaluation.

A couple of people pointed out that the supposedly large class sizes in our elite schools are wonderful when compared to the situation in many rural schools. One lady mentioned a school where in one room, one teacher had to teach 80 children across four classes. Sister Cyril (whose appearance, sense of humour and no-nonsense demeanour reminded me of my very dear great-aunt), addressing the issue of overcrowded classrooms, said that the best way to deal with it is to divide the children into groups. This can be done in either of two ways. If the better achievers are grouped together, the teacher can concentrate on the other groups who don’t do so well. If children of varying abilities are put in the same group, they can help each other.

And what about the home front? Parenting is not instinctive. Parents cover the spectrum from those who smother with love to those who forget about their children. Parents need to understand better what makes their children tick and how the child can enjoy learning. Sister Cyril revealed that she has been running interactions with parents on these lines for 32 years!

All in all, a very instructive evening and an experience that I would like to have repeated. One niggle remained, however. For a body with the laudable motto of “Connecting before correcting”, Childwise could have made sure there were more young school-going participants in the discussion.

And yes, my falling in love? The object of my adoration was Sister Cyril’s distinct Irish brogue, which has survived 32 years in Calcutta!

.. to meet the faces that you meet

Charukesi muses on portrait photography.

Which is serendipitous. On my recent travels, a friend told me I don’t take enough pictures of people. So I tried. And now, in the wake of Charukesi’s post, I have questions.

Is it portrait photography if it’s not just the face?

Or if the face is incidental to the context?

What if the person is too far away to see the face?

Or not looking at the camera?

Turned away from the camera, even?

How about a portrait without faces?

I suppose the basic question is whether the subject is more important than the story.

Your views, please (pun intended).

With THIS one below, there’s no confusion. I’m rather proud of it

In the belly of ...

The beast snorted, slewed sideways. It paused for a moment, dipped its head, then took the slope at the charge, a storm of dust spiralling from its tracks. Its roar filled the field as it topped out, then died to a rumble as it lurched forward over the ploughed earth. A cloud of chaff rose from the stubble of the harvest, whipped into our eyes with the wind of our passage. The horizon danced. Sunlight and hot air mingled with the tumult of our progress.

Sprawled on a blanket atop the beast, I held on to a convenient spike and pulled the trailing edge of the headcloth tight across my face.

*** ***

It weighs nearly 50 tons when fully loaded, carries more than a ton of fuel and almost a ton of ordnance. Scaly with armour round its bulbous head and shoulders, swollen with the racks of fuel tanks, bristling with guns and aerials and stippled with smoke grenades, the most obvious analogy is a modern dinosaur, a crouching T Rex that mangles the earth it passes over. These are seriously impressive machines. Those tons of metal are driven by a V- ** engine that generates close to 1000 HP with the turbo-charger, enabling the tank to take 30 degree gradients uphill and travel at up to 60 kmph on a paved surface. 50 tons at 60 kmph. Although braking distance is short on a tracked vehicle, think of the momentum.

Yet when I saw the row of garages waiting in the sun, the snout of a barrel poking out of each archway, I was most forcefully reminded of the stables in Mussoorie. Mounts eager for a morning gallop. Not for nothing are the old cavalry ranks still current in the Armoured Corp – enlisted men are still sawars and the JCOs are rissaldars. They have a similar relation with their machines, too. The young Major who took me around said that the same men are assigned to the same tanks throughout their time in the regiment. They had to abandon a couple of tanks recently – stuck in mud while fording a river during a field exercise – and the crews moped for weeks. The fresh-faced Lieutenant with us obviously loved his tank, too. On a couple of occasions when the Major was trying to get a gadget to work, the youngster could barely keep from showing his impatience, like a teen who can’t understand why his parents’ generation can’t handle a patch for the computer.

(I’ve been asked not to mention any details of the unit or the particular make of the tank. Security concerns. For the same reasons, no photographs.)

A tank regiment doesn’t have companies, they have squadrons of 12 to 14 tanks, backed by a HQ squadron that handles all the rest during active ops – supply, reconnaissance, repairs, the works. Every man in HQ squadron, the cooks, the clerks, the technicians, they’re all fighting men, only they don’t fight from tanks. They have some A-vehicles of their own, armoured personnel carriers that can carry a section of force apart from the 3-man crew, but a significant difference is that they carry carbines and SLRs. Tank crew carry only pistols. Simple reason – there’s no space inside a tank to stash a carbine, let alone swing it.

Space. Who would have thought that the innards of such a huge beast could be so cramped? When I managed to clamber down into the gunner’s seat I could barely turn around to look at the magazine behind me. The equipment is interesting – night vision scope, aiming screen, the actual gun controls like a submarine periscope – but any incautious movement brought me into contact with hard sharp surfaces. I tried to imagine the belly of the beast during desert ops. Outside temperature 50 Celsius, inside closer to 55. Noise level above 100 decibels, plus the report of the gun. Bouncing like dice in a shaker. And through it all, acquire target, select ammo, load, track and bear, range in, centre, fire. Rinse and repeat. While the tank commander next to you handles his radio, a machine-gun and directs the driver. Who sits in a separate compartment out front in the hull of the vehicle (commander and gunner in the turret). And this could go on for hours. 72 hours, says the Major. Three friggin’ DAYS in there. Whew. And I thought the definition of hell was an old jute mill on a night in June!

After the tour, the ride. My bald top was first encased in a headset, then came the swish part - getting to wear the black headdress. That thing is so uber-cool, even an old fat man looks kind of dude-ish in it. It isn’t swagger, though. Both headset and bandanna are essential to keep out the noise and dust. (Wonder what it was like 60-odd years ago, outside Alamein and Tobruk?) I offered to stand behind, but the Major smiled and firmly waved me up. I was placed atop the turret, a blanket under me for padding against the sharp edges of the body armour.

The giant started up with a snarling roar. As it moved forward over the cobbles, I still had no inkling of what was to come. Then we wheeled out of the garages and … out of focus! A lurch, a change of gear, a roar, a pivot. Thrown one way and then the other, holding on for dear life, I understood why standing behind would have been a Very Bad Idea. Down a muddy slope, up again onto an embankment, the barrel tracking left to stay clear of the hedges. I looked fearfully at the ditch beside our path and hoped the driver was competent. A fall in there would be bad enough without 40-odd tons of tank following me down to nestle lovingly between my shoulder-blades.

Despite the roar, once we were on the track our progress was almost peaceful. With the height and the occasional pitch and sway, it was like being in an elephant’s howdah. Babul branches whipped across us, a terrified buffalo calf ran mooing to its mother, the sun glinted off a pond. Then we went off-road, into the exercise area, and again the world fractured into a series of jerky frames. The Major, kind soul, offered me the chance to drive. I firmly declined. An 8-speed gearbox and 2 steering levers could be interesting, but not when a million dollars’ worth of machine is involved.

Back in the stables, I clambered down (stirred, not shaken), untied the headdress and whipped the thick layer of dust off my jeans. A bird trilled in the sudden silence after the clamour. More experiences lay ahead – trying out the gun simulator, seeing the various mechanical systems in tubular (stripped-down) versions, three sequences of shooting practice (9 mm. pistols, which I’m normally wary of, but by the 3^rd round I had a very nice grouping, yay!), checking out the maintenance vehicle – but for me the high point was that headlong rush through the countryside astride the roaring snarling pitching behemoth.

But I’m glad I never have to work within the belly of the beast.

We don't know when we're lucky

I had a beef about flying from Calcutta to Ahmedabad. There is no conveniently timed direct flight. I have to fly via Delhi or Jaipur and then hustle to catch the direct flight back in the evening. To put that in perspective, it’s more than 3 hrs. if I take the hopping flight.

Now my friend V (of the Laphroaig evening mentioned earlier) is visiting again. He’s moved to Portland, Oregon (from Brazil – the man is mad!). If HE needs to fly to New York, he has to change at LA. To put THAT in perspective, it’s 3 hrs. to LA and then a further 5 hrs. plus to NYC. Add transit time and it's 12 hrs. on an average.

I shan’t crib any more.

Just saying.