DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC? IT'S EVERYWHERE!

Do you believe in magic? I don't mean the rabbit pulling top-hatted magician kind.. or the Abracadabra-magic wand-Harry Potter kind.. but the everyday kind of magic that is all around us.. should we choose to see it and recognize it for what it is!

I had a truly "magical experience" yesterday that I'm delighted to share with you.. 

Someone had to have some important documents collected from my house.. I offered to send them by courier, albeit a tad reluctantly, given the nature of the contents.. My advisor called me saying their office boy Raju would come and pick it up to which I replied that I would leave the envelope with security to be handed over to him at a pre-decided time which was mutually agreeable.

My mobile rang at around that time and when I answered, an incredibly cheerful male voice at the other end said, "Good afternoon.. Pallavi Ma'am bol rahi hain na? Ma'am I am Raju from so-and-so company! Main churchgate station ke paas hoon.. aapka ghar kis taraf hai?" He also explained his location to me very clearly, saying "I am opposite Churchgate station.. Oval Maidan is to my left.. and the ticket booking office is to my right. Where should I come?" I explained to him, told him who to collect the envelope from and that was that (as far as I was concerned.)

As it turned out.. not really! Raju called me back in perhaps five minutes to say, "Ma'am main aapke building ke neeche hoon.. So-and-so ne mujhe aapka envelope diya hai.. Thank you very much Ma'am.. take care of yourself and have a very nice day!" I thanked him conventionally and hung up..

He went on his happy (or otherwise) way and I was GOBSMACKED! For starters, Raju is an office boy.. his take home definitely mustn't have too many zeroes on it.. he's out on the road collecting papers.. dropping them off.. calling people to let them know he's on the way.. or waiting downstairs.. it's SO hot these days.. and inspite of all this, he sounded like he was REALLY happy doing what he was doing! Devotion to duty is one thing.. but to have such a fabulous attitude towards his work.. that was AMAZING to me!

I chose to SEE that a little bit of magic had come by me and didn't want to let it pass unnoticed.. and so I called him back and he answered immediately, "Yes Pallavi Ma'am? Any problem? How can I help you?" I just told him, "You are such a cheerful person and I just wanted to let you know that so many people call me to offer services.. to collect things.. drop things.. but no one has ever been as pleasant as you are! It has been such a pleasure talking to you and I am going to let your boss know this as well!" He thanked me nicely and wished me, "God bless and have a nice day Ma'am."

This is the message I sent his boss :

"Hi So-and-so

Your office boy Raju came to collect the papers some time ago. Obviously I had left the envelope ready downstairs with security.. This message is just to say that I get calls everyday from people offering rendering or confirming a service.. we all do.. BUT..

Raju from your company comes across as an extremely positive enthusiastic pleasant and cheerful person who has a wonderful attitude towards his work! Am sure you know what a fabulous asset you have in him and value him in your organization accordingly! I look forward to a day when I can meet him face to face and thank him personally!

Just thought it was the high point of my day and really wanted to share this with you!"

Needless his boss was very happy.. he told me so and shared the message with him!

My takeaway from this experience was this :

The pandemic is stressful for us all.. and especially more so for some..

Most of us (including me) tend to be impatient, snappy and rude to telemarketers who call.. the poor things are making sometimes 200 calls daily.. or to people who are making feedback calls for appliance purchases or car services.. EVERYONE is fighting a tough battle..

Let's all try and be kind, patient and polite.. and LOOK for the little magical moments in our day.. they are all around us.. we just have to grab them when we see them! 

It may not seem like a very special story to you.. but it certainly was to me!!   

HOW TO POST A COMMENT

 Hello everyone!

Thanks for all the love on my blog.. really appreciate it!

A lot of you have found it frustrating to post a comment so am just suggesting something!

You can always take the no-brainer shortcut and start your comment by saying "Hi.. this is ____" so I know it's YOU.. or else be smart like my friend Ketki type your name at the end of the comment!

For those of you who WANT to do it by the book, my friends Yusuf and Ketki are going to post detailed instructions as a comment on THIS blog tonight!

Am absolutely fine with whatever you do as long as you're enjoying reading the blog!

Thanks a million!

25 YEARS OF TEACHING.. AND LEARNING!!

 25 YEARS OF TEACHING.. AND LEARNING!!

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all” said Aristotle.. and this to me, has always been the essence of teaching!

Let’s flashback to June 1987 when I applied for admission to both, Sophia College and Nirmala Niketan for the Post-Graduate Diploma in Early Childhood Education (aka Nursery Teacher's Training).. I got confirmed admission to the course at Sophia but begged and pleaded for admission to Nirmala Niketan (because it was so close to home) and I didn’t want to “commute”! My soon to be) HoD Mrs. Mahadevan was incredulous when I said that – she told me quite disapprovingly that there were girls who commuted to and from Borivli, Ghatkopar etc.. and that travelling from Churchgate to Breach Candy was hardly a commute!

To cut a long story short, the kindness of her heart ran away with her (as it often does) and (probably) against her better judgement, she agreed to take me in at NN! Imagine my utterly sinking feeling and sense of shock when in the first lecture of the course, she told us we had signed up for a two year course condensed into one year.. that we would have no social life.. no outings.. no fun.. basically no LIFE! Additional stress that I HAD to be in the top 3 students.. WHAT was I stuck with??

Good teachers help to develop a love for the subject and learning and I was blessed that all three of my teachers – Jana Mahadevan, Nalini Chugani and Nandita Jhaveri (all of whom are dear friends today) were all BORN teachers who had an unmatched love and passion for the children in preschool classrooms! It was a year when I worked harder than I had ever worked before, loved what I did.. and enjoyed every bit of it! Predictably, I crumbled under the pressure and wanted to quit halfway.. but they motivated me, believed in me and made sure I completed the course ranking second in my class.. for which I am indebted to them for life!

I started as Teacher-Supervisor at Nirmala Niketan at the handsome salary of Rs. 1000 per month – the principal has told me it would be 800.. but then called me to say they believed I deserved more! It was so exciting and enthusiastically came home to declare that henceforth, I WOULD PAY for all the fruit that came into the house!! The biggest “high” for me was that Mummy STOPPED asking me where I had spent my money.. because I was earning my OWN money!!

My journey as a teacher (rather, as a facilitator of learning) has been colourful and varied.. within the patchwork of pre-school education, I got opportunities to attend AND conduct teacher workshops.. be a resource person and lead refresher courses for teachers.. develop content for teaching computers to young children.. do a motivational training workshop for staff at an NGO that works with street children.. RUN the same NGO full-time for 2 years.. teach at a truly experimental nursery school.. run a more structured one.. work at a school that had a lot of parent participation (at times parent interference).. plan and design a full curriculum for Nursery and Lower KG for a countrywide school chain.. I am overwhelmingly blessed to have had so many opportunities in different setups within the same sphere.. and correspondingly grateful for the same as well..

 When you work with children in the pre-school space, you wear a lot of hats.. you are Mummy-substitute.. sheet anchor.. bandaid-applier.. tear-wiper.. reassurer.. disciplinarian.. coaxer.. counsellor.. occasional referee.. and a plethora of other things! You develop eyes all around your head and accept that truth IS INDEED stranger than fiction.. especially when you see the kind of things that children do, say, imagine and create!

You learn sympathy, empathy, tact, diplomacy, commitment, devotion to duty, how to keep a straight face when you’re dying to laugh, how to laugh out loud (even if you’re sad), how to shed your inhibitions and make a complete fool of yourself to entertain the children.. how to be firm but kind.. and how to stretch boundaries without breaking them.. Above all, you learn to ACCEPT.. children.. parents.. colleagues.. and staff.. for exactly who and what they are (and aren't) !

Teaching is a profession that gave me SO MUCH.. confidence.. faith in myself.. clarity of thinking.. strength of purpose.. amazing friends.. organizational skills.. soft skills.. a LOT of FUN.. and as Daddy used to say..

 “From 0 to 25 – you learn..

From 25 to 50 – you earn and

50 onwards – you RETURN”

My humble offering in return to the profession has been a set of 21 workbooks designed for children who are 4+ years old.. AND two years when my friends Ami Thakker Alefia Zoomkawala and I went to our NGO Salaam Baalak Trust and taught conversational English to a motley crew from 6 to 18 years of age! Those really were the days.. we were completely out of our depth.. but once the class took off.. it just TOOK OFF!!

Someone far wiser than I had said long ago that “Attitudes are caught.. not taught”..and also that “Children learn what they live with”.. and to this end, I have tried inside the classroom (and outside it) to lead by example.. to be as humane.. gentle.. funny.. forgiving.. accepting.. generous.. patient.. grateful.. and as human as I possibly can.. because that’s what I caught and learned from all the wonderful people I have worked.. laughed.. learned.. and taught with!!

With a heart full of love I just need to name a few people here.. Roshan Billimoria.. Anu Thyagarajan.. Renu Haksar.. Sadhana Khagram.. Vaishali Mehta.. Dinaz Stafford.. Zarine Gupta.. teachers who I adore.. and Vibhav Mariwala.. Tasneem Zaveri.. Aviva Jogani.. and Aman Shah.. children I will NEVER EVER forget!!

thank you.. Thank You.. and THANK YOU.. for being a part of my journey!!

 

What did I want to be when I grew up?

 One of the most stressful questions you can ask a child right? Second only to “Who do you love more.. Daddy or Mummy”? Growing up as the second child implied and ensured that I was a bit of a brat and had to fight for equal rights with my brother who was older, more clever, better looking and generally.. much cooler!

Growing up as a fairly average clueless and unambitious child and teenager, what defined me (in a good way) that I LOVED reading! For my super important tenth birthday (the first of the double digits) Daddy came home staggering under the not inconsiderable weight of two cartons stuffed to bursting with abridged versions of the classics!

My love for reading was quite insane.. as in.. I was once attending (physically present mentally absent) a family wedding and Mummy spoke to me sharply after THREE attempts to get through to me because I was far far away immersed in my book at the time! She used to say very often that “I was really useless and lost to the world when buried in a book”!

Enid Blyton was my all-time favourite and I felt like I was an honorary member of the Secret Seven, the Five Find-Outers, the Famous Five and the Folk of the Faraway Tree to name a few! I loved Oliver Twist, Huckleberry Finn, Just William, Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden and the Chalet School series with a passion!

When it came to reading school books and studying, however, that was a whole different ballgame! I just wasn’t interested in anything except English, Hindi, and Gujarati and French (yup.. studied all those AND supplementary Marathi simultaneously for a while)! My mother coaxed, bribed, encouraged, scolded and tried every tuition teacher she could to motivate me to study.. but all in vain.. I was the quintessential Peter Pan.. carefree and oblivious to the rude shock that was just around the corner!

Irresponsible, playful and easily distracted I was coasting through school until standard 8 when I confidently told Mummy “I’m studying with my friend”.. SHE studied, I fooled around and FAILED the year! Daddy was VERY angry and it was the biggest shock of my young life until then! Despite pleadings to change schools, I repeated the year at the same school and became a reformed character – to some extent..

Once, the girls in my class made a chart about everyone in class and on that, I was voted “least likely to succeed”! It HURT and HURT HARD! From that day onwards, I resolved to try my best.. and I did.. and passed out of school with a First Class which was a great achievement for me!

Not having thought about what I wanted to do or be, I opted for Arts with Psycolody and Philosophy as my subjects! The easing out from the strict school discipline brought forth a few strengths.. I was Class Representative and organized a few events and made some wonderful friends who are my backbone even today!

I STILL didn’t know what I should do after graduating so I followed the herd and signed up for LLB.. did well but it was super boring and after falling asleep in class every day, I quit at the end of one year..

I tried doing my MA via correspondence.. a course in Special Education via correspondence and just couldn’t do either because I NEEDED the discipline of attending classes! Dabbled in advertising for a while but was disillusioned about calling a crappy product good.. and was completely lost in life!

Daddy spoke to me and said “Look, this is a family of high achievers and you are going to HAVE to do something with your life! Take a year off, check out all the courses that Bombay has to offer.. decide what you WANT to do.. and DO it”! After a lot of research and hunting I decided to become a pre-school teacher.. major reasons being 

1) I find the process by which children learn fascinating..

2) Working hours were only half day..

3) Every weekend off and long vacations..

Daddy told me I HAD to be in the top 3 students of my class.. it was a gruelling course (2 year course we did in 1 year).. sat up until 2 am practically every night working on teaching aids.. designing worksheets.. making lesson plans.. thinking of creative activities.. PLUS studying hard! To cut a long story short, I almost quit halfway but thanks to my professors and friends, I persevered.. and stood 2^nd in class!

I LOVED (and still do) being in the classroom.. facilitating learning.. observing individual differences and similarities in children..

It’s been a hard fought battle figuring out what I wanted to do.. and doing it.. but honestly, nothing else could have even come close! It gives me a sense of purpose.. plus I get to make a difference.. and am glad the journey was what it was because now I can say with conviction and confidence that “I do what I do (teach) because there’s absolutely nothing else I’d rather be doing”!

Find your passion.. love it and live it.. there can not be anything that will make you happier!!

(My next blog will be about experiences in teaching.. can’t wait to share it)!!

Back to my blog after 9 years!!

 

Confession being good for the soul.. mine is that after having wasted a fair bit of time during the pandemic.. the realization came to me that it’s now time to do something constructive!

My greatest achievement over the past year was coordinating orders for the people in my building and a few neighbouring buildings.. particularly since there who were (and still are) a number of senior citizens who weren’t particularly tech-savvy at doing all this online stuff so.. April 2020 onwards was a crazy blur of ordering jalebi-fafda.. sourdough bread.. fruit - exotic and mundane.. dishwashing liquid.. the ubiquitous farsan.. and a fascinating plethora of other things!

When my dear friend Ami lovingly accused me of being a “compulsive samaaj-sevika” I pled “guilty as charged” but in retrospect, it was a beautiful time of getting to know so many people in my building and around me.. quirks foibles and all! WHY did I take on the role of doing something that was exhausting exasperating fulfilling and rewarding all at the same time?

The answer is very simple – because I COULD.. Not being a social worker by qualification, the one core belief I have always had has been “No matter what I do.. or wherever I go.. I want to do things that touch other people’s lives in a good way.. and make a difference.. however small that difference may be”..

With the blessings of the Universe, I have been privileged not to HAVE HAD TO work for a living (to make ends meet).. but have gotten to work in all kinds of ways and places that ensured that I was touching lives all the time.. for which I am deeply grateful..

All of a sudden, the dam has burst and there are so many stories that I want to tell.. and so many thoughts I want to share.. but this is it for today.. and there will be many more to follow!

Thank you from the heart to all of you who have had the patience to read so far.. your patience and willingness to spare the time to read my blog means the world to me!

God bless and much love always!!

it's january 2nd, 2012 and the first thought that struck me as i woke up this morning was - let me make this a GOOD year.. in the past, i've always loved surprising my friends with little things like chocolate eclairs.. an email.. or even flowers.. while reluctant to call it a RESOLUTION, i would love to try and go a little bit out of my way to make someone happy every day this year!! it's not for any special reason.. but just to thank you for bringing joy to my life.. and for loving me.. no matter what!! so to all you terrific people in my life - watch out! i'm going to do this one for sure.. and you never know when it might just be your turn to receive!! a lot of us (me included) have a problem with receiving graciously.. be it a compliment or a present, so.. today's the day to start overcoming that!! be READY to be happy!!

stray thoughts on sunday...

before i actually get started on my blog.. i must thank from

the bottom of my heart.. all the friends and special people

in my life who read my first blog and commented on it! we

all know how essential encouragement is for beginners..

so please reading.. and telling me what you think..

have been thinking about the years 2009 and 2010 with

reference to my life.. last year was difficult for me.. had

suddenly stopped working.. was struggling to find an

equilibrium.. to do something constructive with my

time.. but somehow.. it didn't happen..

in the year 2010, i am especially happy! this is in no

small measure because i have received wonderful

opportunities.. to meet the dedicated staff at the

salaam baalak trust centre.. people who are paid

to do a job that demands huge amounts of EQ..

as well as constant demands on the IQ.. social

work isn't everyone's cup of tea.. but all of us can

and do our bit for those not so blessed as us!

ami, alefia and i go to the centre every thursday

to teach the children english.. we have put our

hearts and souls into the work we do there.. only

to find that it has generated great enthusiasm in

the children! ami and i go every monday to work

with the teachers.. and that is taking longer to

show the kind of results we want to see!

let's make a pledge this year.. to awaken the "child"

in us that's being restricted by the expectations and

norms of what we call "society"! let's not allow

ourselves to refrain from guffawing with laughter

when we think something is funny.. let's meet and

call our friends because we want to.. without keeping

count of who called "last time"! let's decide to do what

makes us happy.. without worrying about what others

are going to think.. or say!!

tell me if this makes sense to you.. let's do it NOW!!