English Literture and Silence

The times, they are a changing. Jispa has been studying regularly and I too have been studying along with her. No this time around its not me studying thanks to her but I am genuinely studying for a damn exam that I have to give. In the insurance industry one has to give some relevant exams if one has to represent the firm in various forums. This Saturday Jispa and I, both sat to study on the dining table. I found myself studying seriously, very seriously. I studied the whole day and finished one book of three that I needed to. It was quite surprising. I hate studying and I hate exams and I can’t bear to give any other one anymore.

The last time I gave a test professionally was around 15 years ago when in the broking industry there was a need for certification. I hated the feeling and I never understood why I should be the one giving the exams. They were meant for the sales and the dealers, not marketing professionals. The only reason the CEO made it compulsory for all, was that each certification was compulsory for each terminal and we needed as many as we could get. The stupid dealers were not competent by themselves to pass these tests and hence it was compulsory for all. He had made it a mandatory thing if you want your bonus.

Even then, studying without a purpose is a complete burden on yourself. I just found it difficult to sit down, remove time and study. But this time around things are different. I don’t know. Possibly because it’s a start up and hence there is a greater sense of a shared vision in me or because it’s just that I am older and saner and wiser and I realize that I have to pass this exam, I am studying religiously. I took a pen and the book and went through the whole book word by word. I took in time to understand the syllabus and try and remember the key points. At the end of the day, it wasn’t a chore; there was something more to it.

Jispa has also been studying like it’s serious business. For her studying is not a bore. She is right now amazing me by making notes of what she needs to study and she is carrying her books everywhere. Yesterday while we sat at the Starbucks at a mall, she was busy making her biology notes. I was talking to her, that I was never ever as serious as her about studying and looking at her makes my heart feel very warm. She is putting pressure on her own to study and do well. She wants to study. I told her that I think that, one of the big factors is also what she is studying. The style of teaching, the text books, the ability to put thought, the teachers, everything is so amazing that you feel like studying. I had a shit load of everything and my life was all about mugging up. That was studying. No application of brain or thought or out of the box thinking in an exam. Just shut up and vomit your brain of all the unwanted shit as fast as possible. If you met me 24 hours after an exam, I wouldn’t have even been able to recollect most of the syllabus. I remember cramming formulas seconds before the exam and running inside the class and writing it on the answer sheet, first thing. Then you can refer to it when you want, as you want.  That was my studies.

Jispa has been writing amazing things for her favorite English literature subject. We share a lot of time discussing stuff about how to interpret her English poetry. The other thing we also spend time over is listening to her music. I am trying to connect to it and am making an effort to listen to it. It’s been largely rewarding. I too have been trying to get out some old songs and getting her to listen to it. One song that V-inu played when we were at his place and which came up in the listening list on internet radio was ‘The sound of silence’ which was re-sung as a cover by Disturbed. It’s an amazing version with a really gruff voice of a rock singer. When melody meets a gruff voice and some tempo changing, it makes for a compelling listening.

Here you judge

But while you do so remember the original by Simon and Garfunkel. It’s a lovely one with the melody coming in through the strumming of the acoustic guitar and the vocals in chorus.

You decide which one is the better one!

But the point is not the music, but the juxtaposition of the poetry. With Jispa and me talking music and English, such music with amazing lyrics suddenly has far more meaning that simple melody

"The Sound Of Silence"

Hello darkness, my old friend

I've come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone

‘Neath the halo of a streetlamp

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

No one dare

Disturb the sound of silence

“Fools” said I, “You do not know

Silence like a cancer grows

Hear my words that I might teach you

Take my arms that I might reach you”

But my words like silent raindrops fell

And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

And the sign said “The words of the prophets

Are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls

And whispered in the sounds of silence”

Tell me it’s not poetry and tell me it’s not literature. Garfunkel once summed up the song's meaning as "the inability of people to communicate with each other, not particularly internationally but especially emotionally, so what you see around you are people unable to love each other”

We look at songs as lower art than poetry and pop songs as the way lower. I have argued that pop songs that fire a population’s imagination are as much literature as anything else. I have argues way back in my blog piece ( http://jaimit.blogspot.in/2009/07/time-to-change-times.html ) that Bob Dylan should be taught in schools and then, recently, it gave me joy to know that he got the Nobel Prize for literature. While there has been enough criticism on this, I firmly support the move. It brings song writers within the realm of serious literature. If Shakespeare would have been alive, would we have given him the Nobel or would we have told him that an Oscar is at best what he can do?

The Nobel prize allowed Jispa and me to revisit our friend Dylan while we were returning in the car. She put the music on as we listened to the times, they are a changing’ and “blowin in the wind”. She took my phone and searched for the lyrics online while the song was playing, enjoying the poetry in the composition as much as the melody.  Who knew English syllabus and Music would merge?

 Now that is song writing! If that doesn’t deserve the Nobel then what does.

A Nobel prize is a cash award for sure, it’s a recognition of the individual for sure, but more than anything, its role is to inspire many more to either emulate and try and achieve or simply still, follow the work being done in order to understand and imbibe. Because simple money can come in the form a grant, but real difference comes from the inspiration that recognition brings about. That is the true value of a Prize, especially if it is as big the Nobel Prize.

--

End bonus video of the "Disturbed" singer on singing the Sound of Silence.

An exam is not an exam, Jispa!

I almost forgot to write this story down, but it deserves being there for posterity. It is something that Jispa will probably laugh over when she grows up and this one is seriously good.

One evening I come home and see Jispa having her dinner on the dining table. Jasmine was sitting on the sofa. I have no idea why Jasmine doesn’t like sitting for food with the entire family. I have spent the last 16 years coaxing her to do it, but she just doesn’t like it, or values it. I hate this aspect of her, but that is another story for another day. Bah!

So I come home and watch Jispa eating her dinner alone. I ask her whats up, how was her day. “bad” she replies. OK… now I am listening. So what happened, I asked her. “you finish and come here, I will tell you”. OK. I wash my hands and come to sit on the table and I am ready for dinner. “what happened today sweetheart?”. “I want mommy over here as well” she insists. Ok mom, you sit here and we all sit around the table for a chat. It was pretty serious, I assume. We all wait as the big thing is about to revealed. The she says “I will tell you but you will nottell me anything immediately afterwards. You can tell me later, but can’t get upset at me or tell me anything now.” “ok” what choice do we parents have in this case. Of course I agreed and gave her the freedom to talk freely without any repercussions. Then she starts “today was math test. It was horrible. The teacher gave us the papers ten minutes late and we were solving it and I couldn’t finish the paper on time”. “ok” I urged her one as I saw one tear coming down her cheek. “I think I am going to get a C”. “ok – how do you know you are getting a C” I enquired. “I calculated the marks. I know. This is bad.”

Now what to do with this. Math is important. Tests are important. Scoring is important, but crying over a test – that’s shit. I remember my childhood. School and studies were bad enough but this, this exam shit was way too bad. For many years after, I still got nightmares about not being prepared for exams. About going to exams late, about failing, about being blank… many such things. I think once I turned up late for one paper, once I studied the wrong paper and things like that as well. It was crazy growing up and managing exams. It was so stressful. One thing that I wanted in education for my child was – absence of fear from an exam. Everything else can be managed. Everything else is a function of the stress the kids put on themselves. Their hair is not ok, they have pimples on their faces, they like other boys, everything else – I really don’t care… that stuff is self-imposed. But exams – that’s one thing that is imposed by the parents on the kids in connivance with the teachers and the whole freaking education system. Exams are designed to kill you and make your life shorter in the long run but stretch it for eternity in the short run.

So what advice should I now give her? I start:

Ok. I hear you but if you give me permission to say one thing, may I say it. (she gives me permission) Cool. Thanks. First – I don’t care about your exam grades. That’s ok. More so – I don’t care about exams in general. I think they are too measly a thing to be upset about. So that’s my point of view, but if you now allow me to talk completely and freely, I can explain further. ( I get permission again).

So you couldn’t complete it, because you did not understand it or you did not have time? (it was time she said). Well then that’s ok. Math is all about speed and practice. They purposely are now raising the bar for you and getting you to know that now you area bug girl who needs to solve math fast. That’s important now going forward. The only way to get it right is to keep solving the papers, again and again. Chat with your teacher, tell her you want to improve and ask her how. Tell her you are not used to this and that you don’t have tuitions and you want to go beyond. So that’s about the paper in question.

As regards exams, come on kid. It never the exam. It’s the preparation. I have always pushed you to prepare right for the exams and not bother about the results. Results are important but only as an indicator of the preparations you put in. Exams are over rated. Don’t push yourself on this. I have always had a hate hate relationship with exams. They never did do well for me. You have to figure a way to attack the question papers and game the system. In eight grade, I once failed a Hindi paper. Mom flunked a year in 4^th or 5^th grade when her mom was in US. That too in History or something. Its ok. It doesn’t matter. In my final year in economics, I just about passed. I got a 36 on 100. Today I teach economic concepts to people. When I first saw the paper, I distinctly remember, that I thought I was going to fail. I had obviously underprepared myself for the exam and I was shit scared. I remember then gathering myself and telling myself, if I fail this paper then 90% of Maharashtra will fail. I am better than 90% of my peers. So I spent 30 minutes just thinking of how to attack this paper.  Which questions can I write the most without even knowing anything. I will attempt and attempt well. I will write and write long. I will not give up. I then remember for writing non-stop for the next two hours. I wrote so much that my hands got tired. I wrote so much rubbish and about anything and everything I could write about. I wrote. If today, I see that paper I will probably die of laughter. But I wrote. No exam could get the better of me. And I passed! I was so excited about passing. It was such a relief. My other scores ensured that my aggregate went up beyond 60 (62%) and I got first class. Mom managed a 35 in the same paper and Vinu managed a 26 and got 9 marks grace. It was an epic paper.

So Jispa – exams are a piece of shit. Don’t give it more importance than they deserve. Go ahead, study for a paper. Give it your best, but please, please don’t cry after the paper is done. It’s over, enjoy, have fun. Learn from there on. Exams are bad things. Don’t give them importance in your life. Study. Study hard but learn more. Have fun giving exams. Write whatever you think is right, write anything, have a blast and come out happy. Whatever you do, don’t get stressed by an exam. Kick its butt, but don’t get stressed by it.

I work hard and try and build a career with pays decently well and I save money. I try to read and teach. I do everything so that some of the basic stuff that I hated while growing up is avoided in your life. The scare of exams rank up there amongst the top things to hate and remove from your life.

Jasmine thinks I am a bit too lenient on this. But I really don’t care. When we conceived Jispa, I was clear. I was going to love my child and have a few things that I will dream for them. I wanted a healthy child, a child that could do good in some sports, a child with insatiable curiosity and a child with little stress to perform – at least little or no stress from me. AND definitely – NO EXAM STRESS.

Now that I think about it, my dad was pretty advanced in his thinking. He told me that till the tenth standard, it is my job to push you to study. After that it’s your problem. True to his word, he never did give me any grief on it afterwards. The least I can do is advance that by two years. Now Jispa is in 8^th. It’s time to back off and to let her pursue what she wants to do and how she wants to do. Basically – let’s not see the grades and stress out.

Enjoy! This is the age to enjoy life and studies not loathe it.

pressure cooker

I hate myself. What a devil I turn out to be when I am teaching Jispa under exam pressure. It becomes a pressure cooker environment and the whole thing is just about to burst.

I hate exams. I hated them as a child and I hate them as an adult. Everything you know or don't know is left to the two hours in which you vomit out everything who have tried to assimilate. It designed to give joy to the sadist bloody exam setter who tries to outsmart the poor kid by asking some weird questions. Joy in failure.

I love teaching. I enjoy teaching. I was dying to have a kid to whom I could teach everything I knew. this blog in many ways is an expression of my teaching. I have been teaching for 13 years, and all the while improving and hoping that my own kid will take the best out of it. But then came the exams. When exams are on the head and you have to teach against a portion with a view to out fox or merely keep up with the exam paper - the pressure turns on you. You are expected to teach to succeed. How is that the right way to teach. The best way to teach is to get someone to discover, to find out, to fall and rise again. here formulas and shortcuts and rules are to be applied. I have been teaching math for the last few weekends. I have improved  a lot in my ability to manage myself. I hate myself when I am teaching Jispa thus. I lose my temper, I lose my balance, I get aggressive with myself more than anything else.

This time, I have improved a lot. A lot less anger expressed. A lot more explanations and lot more ways to do things. In time and work studies, with Jispa, we figured out our own logic for solving sums. Use  simple logic basis how you fundamentally understand the sum and then do it.

I remember that in the 10th standard, I had devised my own way to calculate the answer to the sums given. I preferred to do it my way and I had spoken to my teachers about it. My tuition teachers and my school teachers. both agreed and encouraged me to do it my way. As long as I did it my way and explained the way I did it, it was right. the 10th standard mathematics were the best time of my study life. I loved doing it and it brought be great joy. It was not math but logic. It was not a formula but a problem to be solved. I was so good at it that in many cases I knew the answer as soon as I saw the sum. Then on it was just a simple solution. The logic in math excited me.

These weekends have been too stressful. Though it's gotten better. I have gotten better at handling this. A five-day work stress followed by a pressure cooker of a weekend is something I find too much to bear. I try and cope with it but it gets too much. Many things contribute - first the sleep deprivation of the week thanks to Jispa’s swim schedule and then the pressure of work, then the long driving, the meetings, the extra backup work I try and do to stay relevant and then the teaching at colleges, the pilates class - wow. Sometimes I think I might just spontaneously combust. Poof!

Jispa has moved her swimming trying to another club. This is the GAF club run by a swim father who wants to bring to India some of the best methods from around the world. So Jispa now has a punishing swim schedule like she has never ever done before. Plus She swims for 6 days in a  week. Plus she has land training where she does some grueling workouts. Looking at her swim and looking at her being dead, I felt really bad and had to fight out a bit of salty water from my eye. I don't my daughter to do this. I have had various chats with her. Do you really want to do this? I want her to quit and relax. Read a book, watch  movie, dream under the sky. Anything else will do.

Yesterday we had a chat again. She said, she really wanted to swim well and compete at the nationals. She wants to go there and be there once. She says that this year is her best chance. She WANTS to do it.

I thought about it and then told her “ fine. you want to do this then go do it. For the next four to five months - go for your swim. Do what it takes. I promise you that I will not ask you for your studies and for your academics. I will work with you on studies and push you to do your best in swimming.” On Friday, I had used my daddy veto power and decided to not send her for the morning swim as she was looking very tired. Now I won't do that. I will let her push herself, massage her and manage her to get her swimming first. With that, her this year of studies will get a bit of a hit. But that is ok. Her basics are strong and her ability to study and keep up shouldn't be compromised. I will figure this with her and help her manage.

Writing is therapy. I have not been writing and I have had very little time to introspect. Writing helps me do that. While I write I and forced to think about what I really hold close to my heart. I hold being a fun dad more important than being a ‘successful’ dad. I want to watch a few movies with my kid, watch some kabaddi and watch some clouds. And hopefully, in the process teach and learn at the same time. Writing this post and helped my strengthen my beliefs. I have been  an ass, a jerk and I want to change that. I know the answer, I know what to do. I just have to take a chill pill. I have to believe in myself and remind myself on what I hold dear. I hold happiness dear. I want not love and teach what is right and not what the examiner wants. I want to tell them screw you - I want Jispa to win without bowing down to these jokers. I don't want pressure on her… anything more than what she puts on herself.  She has enough pressure to start with - peer pressure, self-belief pressure, confidence pressure....So help me God. Really help me so.

teach her, to be free?

What the hell man. It doesn’t take long for parents to grow horns. The devil inside of us is lurking and shows up at the opportune moment.

When Jispa was born my mindset was vastly different from where it is today. One the things I was happy with a girl was – she doesn’t really need to study. No – I was not being sexist but I knew that the world wouldn’t accept a guy who is a failure. While I was growing up the guy thing was clear. You are a guy and hence you have to study and make your life and earn money and be successful. If you are a girl – you figure what you want. Jasmine wasn’t forced in to studying well and graduating. I think it was just a happy thing to do. When Jasmine after studying decided not to come with me into MBA – she had done enough of studying and exams – she wasn’t questioned. When she was at home doing almost nothing – no one bothered. She was settled in and was in many ways engaged to me – the big question was – was I earning enough. Does my financial future look good enough?

So when Jispa was born I was so happy. I will not push her to study and she would be free to do what she wanted to. She would play, lean an art, draw, cook, swim, kick ass – anything. We wanted her to be free. All this resulted in a great childhood – till she hit the 4^th or more recently the 5^th standard. Now we are assholes after her life. We want her to study. We ensure she studies. Till last year Jasmine would take up her studies, but this year on – Jasmine had decided that she will study on her own. Just ensure she sits to study and that’s all. Her grades were ok so far. Now exams are on our head and Jasmine this weekend decided to just check up on her and decided to take up her Hindi. ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE. She wasn’t that prepared for the Hindi test and she needed a lot of help.

I found this similar to the situation that I was in when I was her age. I remember my mom leaving me to study and once just on a lark deciding to take up and BOOM.  I knew nothing and wasn’t ready for the exam. SO now we are after her. We are making her study every day. Exams start this week – Thursday with Hindi. So there it is. We are pushing her to study, we are taking up stuff, today I woke up early and woke her up as well and did history with her. Wow. I sacrificed my badminton and got ready with her and sat to study. Basically I became the father that I never wanted to be. Never. Goddam it!

What do I do? I keep thinking? On one side I have to be the father who is fun all the time and on the other side I have this niggling doubt – if my mom would have pushed me and made me study; not by simply making me sit, but being after me – taking up, setting goals, pushing me – I would have been able to study better, earn better and make a better career for myself. So what do I do?

I spoke about Freedom in one old post. When you want the freedom to choose some freedom must be taken away from you. In effect we are taking some freedom away from Jispa. We are taking away her freedom to choose her childhood time so that we give her the freedom to choose when the time comes to choose her career. If she does well in in her studies can she have the freedom to pursue whatever field she wants to. That is the truth of our system. Exams are not attest of knowledge – they are a test of time. What all you know in that period of time – not your understanding and what you retain over a longer period – but what you know at that time. This TIME creates the pressure. SO as we teach Jispa – we are cramming into the brain something that will help her for this time. Like Hindi – dam shit – I cant understand why you need to be able to write Q&A in Hindi. I struggle to teach Jispa Hindi and there are a lot of words that I have no idea of. Swachand! WTF! I understand the need to know how to read and write Hindi. I believe it’s critical but not this way. You have to inculcate the love of the language – teach them how to talk in Hindi and not cram in Hindi. Get conversations flowing and then get the questions and answers flowing. Jispa is simply cramming the answers of the chapter. There are no discussions. A little bit that I do is allow her to express the answers in her own words. Jasmine is a bit stricter in this respect – but this I am happy to fight for. As long as the answer is written to the point – it does not matter if it is by rote. Therefore I allow for a bit of leniency but that is still no excuse – it still is a big F*&^*^ mug up.

So yes – I have sold my soul – once again. Hopefully – it’s for the right reason. Isn’t that the last refuge of the thief? The right reason. I don’t know. I try to be different and try to commit a different set of mistakes, but in the end – I feel so helpless. When I lose my cool while studying I feel really miserable. I don’t think Jispa will have too many happy memories of me teaching her school stuff. I am really bad at it and my frustration shows. I am jumpy and irritable and I tend to snap at Jasmine and Jispa. I am sorry. I try my best to then regain cool and ensure it doesn’t last too long. So far my only redeeming feature is that I haven't ever scolded her for bad results. That's the outcome. I rather focus on the input. I hope to never stoop that low. I am equally responsible for a result as she is. But i have also learnt never to say never when talking about the future. that word is only good for the past. Lets See.

But hell – grow horns – chop them off  - that’s parenting 101 for you. For me. 

Now you understood the need of the comma in the title?