Frankly most people have replaced writing by hand with typing and arithmetic has been replaced by god only knows what. And of course reading remains reading though the screen has largely replaced the printed word.
Teaching maths these days is no longer what it was when I was in school half a century ago. I don’t think Arithmetic is a separate subject any more. The children learn the basics of adding, subtracting dividing and multiplying with word problems etc without being told they are learning Arithmetic.
Anyways, like the French say, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”.
So it doesn’t really matter how you learn your numbers, eventually they all add up.
Then, during the dawning of the age of Environmentalism and Sustainability, the Three R’s came to represent.
It has remained the enduring theme for school projects over the past two decades and has become the default meaning of the Three R’s.
my current avatar of the three R’s
But according to me, the Three R’s are
Reality, Reality and Reelty
Yesterday, I was shocked to see how much my REALITY has changed. I was spending an enjoyable time at a high-end craft store when the earnest, young salesman, trying his hardest to sell us an exquisite piece of artwork, described it as a priceless antique at just 60 years old! I looked at him aghast. Heck! Since when did I become old , let alone ancient?
Only in the morning my granddaughter who was indulging me with a facial stroked my skin saying it was as soft and supple as a baby’s . How did it become wrinkled and crinkled by afternoon?
REALTY
A city’s demography changes every now and then largely because of the shift in Realty or property markets. Residential areas change, business districts relocate and the population changes accordingly. Slowly but surely, as residential buildings morph into commercial space, we will no longer bump into ordinary people like watchmakers and dressmakers or even regular folks who live in the nearby regular buildings. Gentrification, or more accurately termed ‘Redevelopment’, has transformed old established residential areas into slick glass-towered communities housing a completely different breed of people.
REELTY
Finally, the last R which is a word coined by me , is the Reelty we all get up to every morning ( yes , the majority at least ) that we all gravitate to when we switch on our mobile phones.
After checking the time, we automatically go to messages and sooner or later come upon a reel that leads from one to the next till we find that we’ve spent more than the second we had wanted to spend on checking the time !
From the 4th of July till the 9th, the rains came pelting down. As if to make up for the deficit, it really began raining buckets. And it went on for 5 days at a stretch as if in a rush to fill up the lakes that held water only for a few more weeks .
Of course we were grateful that all our prayers were answered and that it rained. But at the same time, it rained so much that many trees were uprooted, branches fell, cars were damaged and sadly around 11 people lost their lives. One was an 8 year old boy who was crushed in his school bus when a branch fell on it .
So when the rain stopped last Thursday we all heaved a sigh of relief .
We took advantage of this by placing the clothes rack back in the verandah. And thank God for that . It does get quite depressing having clothes drying in the living room !
Belly of the Beast
I’m not one of the theatre going types and unless a play comes highly recommended, I’d rather give it a miss. But I also suffer majorly from FOMO ( an affliction known as. FearOf Missing Out), so I HAD to accompany my friends to this show, which was luckily at the NCPA.
But this new-age play was just NOT my scene. The theme itself, in my opinion, is the typical reaction of a new mum who suddenly discovers that motherhood is not all that it was meant to be. Naturally, she wants the whole world to know what it’s like, hence the stage adaptation of Kalki Koechlin’s oeuvre ‘Elephant in the Womb’ as ‘Belly of the Beast’. Otherwise, the script, which at times I found offensive, was hardly ‘original’. The sound and light effects made no sense to me, and the overall flow was confusing and, all in all, a play completely worth missing despite the sincere performance of the actors.
Book Reviews
Looking for a book to read?
Look no further.
It’s been a long while since I’ve written about books that I’ve read so I thought I’d catch up with the reviews.
Read during the Lull
As always, I’ve diligently borrowed books but not always read them.
Ever since I read Freida McFadden’s ‘The Teacher’ , I’ve developed a strange fascination for her psychological thrillers . So in June I read ‘One By One ‘ and ‘The Tenant’ .
I always wonder why murder mysteries are so popular. With complex characters and unexpected twists, these books are truly absorbing. Unlike the simple mysteries of yore, these books have characters that are riddled with childhood trauma that have given them a dark side to their personalities. But the stories are crsiply told and the reader is kept guessing till the last page.
During the lull I managed to read Kiran Desai’s humongous novel ‘ The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny ’. I borrowed it from the library largely on the recommendation of Anna Shetty, who reads everything on her Kindle. So it didn’t really matter to her how heavy the book was, but I actually had to keep the book on the dining table and read it. It was absorbing because it weaves together many stories related to Sonia and Sunny. but could actually have stood on their own. This complicated novel flits between several time zones, timelines, locales and cultures and requires serious concentration to distinguish reality from fact. This ‘magic realism’ is enchanting and the delightful lapsing into Hinglish, and local languages truly captures the different cultures that Sonia and Sunny inhabit. Definitely worth reading.
Alice Feeny’s latest book ‘My Husband’s Wife’ is another book that I couldn’t put down. Set in a remote Cornish village, the tightly woven plot with its unexpected twists will keep you rooted to the book. Definitely worth reading if you like psychological murder mysteries . But do not read alone in the night or if you’ve had a fight with your spouse .
Currently I’ve begun ‘ This Book Made Me Think of You , Libby Page’s bland, predictable romance. Perhpas Mr. Kinney recommended this book as a relief from the dark mysteries.
Not Read in the lull but read nonetheless
Since I haven’t mentioned the other books I’ve read last month ( June ) I think I’ll take this opportunity to mention them.
Is it coincidence that I read two memoirs written by two authors from Kerala in quick succession?
‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’ by Arundhati Roy is a memoir I found fascinating. Of course, not many people enjoyed the book, which is not very surprising since Arundhati’s books make you think. I did wonder how much of her book was fact and how much was exaggeration. Another ‘autobiographical’ book that caught my eye was ‘The Elsewhereans’ by Jeet Thayil. Thayil describes his book as a document
I read this book largely because Anna Shetty and her family were travelling to Vietnam. And I thought it would be a natural read after Nguyen’s earlier book. Dealing with the problems of Amerasians and the Vietnamese who are willy-nilly drawn into situations for sheer survival, once again this book is worth a read.
Finally, this book by Julian Barnes is quite unlike any book I’ve ever read. I’m a bit ambivalent about it. Did I like it or did I not?
Why were most of the books I’ve read ‘biographical’? And why were most of them dark and morbid?
Now that it’s been dry for a week, we’ve begun getting antsy again. We still have three more months of the monsoon to go and the lakes and reservoirs that supply water to our city are not yet full .
And before know it, it’s already the third day of July.
What did I do in the month of June? How did they go by so fast?
Well, to use a trite phrase, life happened as it always does and perhaps it’s time for me to recall what I did during the past month.
The Lunch at Cake & Brunch
Ms Papaya always has her birthday during het Summer holidays so we always celebrate with her school friends before the actual birthday.
This year she wanted a two tier party because she has two sets on friends with differing interests.
@ Brunch & Cake
In the first week of June Ms. Papaya had a birthday so Prima Donna treated all of us to lunch at Brunch & Cake, a popular casual dining place at Worli. On the ground floor of Altimus, a newish office tower opposite the fuddy, duddy TV Tower or Doordarshan, housing financial and legal offices is almost always filled with smart, young and trendy professionals making this restaurant a vibrant and lively place.
As we sat around the table, I couldn’t get over how we’d all changed so much! The Little People were no longer little. Wow Dinga was already a teen and we had to mind our p’s and q’s around him. The Twiblings had graduated from Middle School and were no longer babies.
It won’t be long before they ban us from their birthday parties .
Here comes the rain
May was HOT and June was hotter despite the brief showers that showed up on 21st June.
All through the month, we had scattered rain, but were infrequent and so short that even before you could put your hand out to catch the rain drops, it had stopped!
However by the last day of June I was blessed with a faint rainbow I spotted during my morning walk .
A rainbow in the sky.
MONSOON SUNSETS
As always, the sunsets during the monsoon are brilliant. If the sky is clear of clouds as it was the large part of this month, you can literally see the freshness in the air. I love the wide expanse of sky with flecks of clouds gathering up.
Even though the sun blazed through most of June, the quiet sunsets were a sight to behold.
CATS : An Unexpected treat
For several years ( remember the days of the BOSE music systems), when we could play music at will without the complications of an App on a Smartphone, our house used to resonate with the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
At any given time, the strains of Evita, Cats and Phantom of the Opera would flow through the house and for the longest time , I wished I could see the originals!
But fate had another ALW treat in store for me . Anna Shetty offered me her tickets for the show on 19th June as she was unable to go.
And better still she was going to be at NMACC at the same time for a piano recital, so she offered Hubby and me a ride there as well!
Hubby and I were most excited at this unexpected treat and readily agreed . But things are never simple are they ?
Luckily or unluckily ( depending on how you look at it) I discovered that the time and place was clashing with a high society Bombay wedding. This would mean hours of crawling in the normally painfully torturous last mile traffic which is already painful
So we decided to go by Metro. This was in itself an adventure especially the post-metro ride where we clung on for dear life as the potential F1 racing driver zoomed his little rickshaw through the traffic.
The show itself was outstanding with its magnificent music, costumes, and brilliant stagecraft. And who wouldn’t be enchanted by the individual performances of Mungojerrie & Rumpleteazer, Mr. Mistoffelees, Macavity and the undoubted star performer Grizabella.
Till today I get goosebumps ‘hearing’ the haunting melody of “Memory” playing in my head.
Dress Watches with no where to go.
Sadly, dress watches of yore have been replaced by mobile phones or other digital timekeepers.
I love my mobile phone that is my lifeline. But like calendars, photo albums and radios it has made watches obsolete. Once upon a time, watches were prized gifts for special occasions and over the years, I have collected several which are now considered DRESS WATCHES,
What bliss it is to have Wellknown Watches to Service them so promptly. I do hope they are around for many more years.
A New TV
We already have three tvs at home but Hubby dear got his OWN TV! I am indeed happy that he can now watch his own programs when he wants to, leaving me free to watch mine .
Sari Shopping
Saris are timeless. Saris are flattering. But a sari blouses are another thing.
With blouses getting tighter by the wash, I find myself wearing saris only when I HAVE to. And with fewer occasions to wear them, I don’t need to buy as many saris as my mother did. So I have no reason to go shopping for them .
Paithani saris are typical of Maharshtra my home state and a friend of Prima Donna wanted one for her collection of Traditional Indian Saris. So I had to go to the shop to choose one.
Normally, shopping for a sari is a unique experience. After seating you comfortably on a fat mattress or a plump cushioned chair, the salesman will show you an array of saris in the style, fabric, colour and price range of your choice.
And then, patiently he will display them one by one , draping it around himself if required !
Tidying Up
Tidying up never seems to end and with Prima Donna and Ms Papaya away for the summer, I decided to put the ‘free’ time to good use.
I got all the photos from the 95th birthday printed and almost in place. While digital albums keep memories intact, there’s nothing like an album to flick through.
And my kitchen ! Finally I managed to find time to bring everything from the cupboards where they were just stuffed into for the past 2 years .
I finally managed to organise pantry ingredients into safe storage and will now be able to find things quickly.
A trip to Pune
And the month was rounded off with a short trip to Pune. I drove up with my cousins and got to use the ‘Missing Link ‘ the tunnel that goes under Lonavala .
Pune had typical Pune weather – cool and grey with the occasion showers . Talk, eat sleep – the best kind of break before July begins in earnest .
Twenty- five Seven 