CITIZENSHIP TRAINING

Learning to respect the other man's space ....




Immediately after our country gained independence, a certain course was introduced in all the Board High Schools. It was called Citizenship Training, or CT for short. We had CT two days a week, usually in the last period of the day.

We enjoyed the CT classes because they were strikingly different from the other classes, and related to real life with an immediacy lacking in other subjects. The teachers handling CT classes were enthusiastic because it was a change for them from the purely academic.

A patriotic feeling


We were taught the meaning of the national flag — what each colour stood for and what the Ashok Chakra meant. We were made to develop a kind of feeling for our flag, which is not very much in evidence nowadays.

We were then given the Tamil translation of the National Anthem. This enabled us to know what we were singing, without emptily mouthing the words.

Next we were asked to plough a large tract of land that was near our school. A farmer was brought in to instruct us in this. At first we were a bit scared of the two huge bulls that stood there waiting to pull the plough. But after awhile we got friendly with the bulls, and they with us, and we enjoyed ploughing the land. It was like a game. We took turns ploughing, while the others sang some songs that had been taught to us. The purpose of the ploughing class was to introduce us to the life of a strata of society we were not familiar with.

Road sense


The next part of the CT was to instruct us in road rules and develop road sense in us. A famous English essay `The Rule of The Road' was read and explained to us. In this essay the author (I think it was A.G.Gardiner) explains the principles behind the road rules. One should not think that these rules restrict one's freedom. On the other hand the rules ensure that you have a space of your own. Thus, `Keep to the Left' if observed by all, gives unrestricted passage to everyone. But when you infringe on the other man's space (by straying into the right side), you will be causing the curbing of everyone's movement including your own. An understanding of this principle will enable us to appreciate the road rules and make us adhere to them without considering them as curbs on our freedom.

How to cross the road was another thing taught to us in practical terms. As you begin to cross the road you look to your right first and as you reach the middle of the road you look to your left. Now sixty years later, when I cross a road my head instinctively turns to the right and then to the left. I must say the youngsters of today have no idea of these principles. They come on to the road without looking either left or right. They come darting into the road on their bicycles from side lanes. Parents buy them the vehicles, but never bother to instruct them in road rules. The Government gifs them bicycles. It might be a good idea to hold a test on road rules, and say only those getting high marks in this test will be eligible for a bicycle.

In my school days there was very little vehicular traffic. And yet the school took the trouble to instruct us in road rules. Now vehicular traffic has increased astronomically, but youngsters are let loose without any idea of how to conduct themselves on the road. Young motorcyclists zigzag at breakneck speed through heavy traffic, sometimes speaking earnestly on their cell phones. The way they go about on the road makes it obvious that they have no road sense. Perhaps no common sense either.

An intensive course in Citizenship Training is perhaps the need of the hour.

THANK HEAVEN FOR LITTLE GIRLS

THEY ARE THE BIG BOSSES





Sometime ago there was a picture that appeared in newspapers in which the Spanish footballer, Michel Salgado stood guard at a goalmouth while his little daughter was about to kick the ball for a goal. Salgado may be an international footballer, but there was little doubt about who would win this encounter. Little girls can twist their fathers around their little fingers.

Putty in her hands


I say this from my own experience. From the time she was born our daughter Chandni dominated our lives. The moment she started crawling she started playing catch-me-if-you-can with me. She let out a shriek and started crawling away in what she thought was great speed, and I pretended I couldn't catch up with her. Occasionally she slipped on the floor and landed on her stomach with a sigh, rested for a while and was off again screeching away. Sometimes she crawled into the next room and hid behind the door. But one bright eye was clearly visible at the edge of the door, which I pretended not to have noticed, and asked loudly, "Where is Chandni? Where's Chandni?" Impatient as always, she came out of hiding with a shriek and dashed off in another direction.

When she was about 10 months old we were living in a house close to the Ashok Nagar bus terminus in Chennai. Our servant maid carried Chandni for an outing every morning, and they usually landed at the bus terminal. One day we called them back for something, and we found Chandni's cheeks bulging enormously. We came to know that people were stuffing her with sweets every day. They had developed a belief that if they saw and greeted the little one, their day at work tended to be good. We prohibited the servant maid from taking Chandni to the bus stand.

A few days later several people started dropping in to see the little one — a case of Mohamed coming to the mountain. These included a beautiful model called Nalini Mani and many office workers. They all came to see Chandni, not us. In that area I was known only as Chandni's father.

Celebrity fans


One day a Telugu film was being shot in the vast maidan beyond the bus terminus. The servant maid got our permission to watch the shooting, and took Chandni along with her. She came back after awhile because Chandni had dropped off to sleep. Sometime later, to our surprise, the actress Sowcar Janaki knocked on our door and said she would like to take Chandni along with her for a while. We promised to send her when she woke up. And we did, enabling the little one to entertain the entertainers.

Later when we moved to Madurai, Chandni was two years old, and continued in her winning ways. Now Chandni has three daughters of her own, and lives in Canada.

So now we look for other little girls we could pet and pamper, for old habits die hard. There was a little one called Janani, whose pet name was Bommi, because she looked like a doll. She ordered us about in her baby talk. Then there was Sajitha, a cute little thing living upstairs, whose parents entrusted her to our care when they were busy. She too bossed over us as long as we lived there.

Now there is the six-month-old Tania, whom we see at the American College Chapel during Vespers. One can see her bright and twinkling eyes over her mother's shoulder. Tania would sombrely study the faces of each and every one, and she would watch with curiosity the mouths of the singers until they giggled and stopped singing. When the sermon began she promptly dropped off to sleep much to the envy of those forced to listen to the preacher. One day I carried her after the service, and she clung on to me and refused to go even to her mother. Well, that made my day.

"Thank Heaven for little girls" sang Maurice Chevalier. Yes. Most certainly.

APOCRYPHAL ANECDOTES ABOUT COLLEGE PROFESSORS

In every college funny stories are told about the professors. These tales may not always be authentic. But they do bring out the idiosyncrasies of the professors, and entertain generations of students.

Absent-minded Professor


Madras Christian College abounded in such tales. In the 1950's many of these were about Dr.Kibble, the brilliant mathematician who was terribly absent-minded. While working out a problem on the blackboard he would mentally calculate about ten steps and write the eleventh on the board. The bewildered students would ask how the last step came about. Whereupon Dr.Kibble would look at the board, do mental calculations again, and then say, "What's wrong? It is quite right".

Dr.Kibble had a car, one of the very few on campus. Sometimes he drove up to the city from Tambaram to do some shopping. Then he would forget that he had come by car, and return by train. Mrs Kibble would then dispatch some students to the city to find and drive the car back. One day Dr.Kibble came back home in the car, and seeing the empty garage started yelling, "Somebody has stolen the car", until Mrs.Kibble pointed out to him that he was sitting in the car.

Once Dr.Kibble was invited to speak at the Loyola College. He went to the Tambaram station, which was the terminus for electric trains. He found two trains ready to start for the city. He enquired which train would start first, found a seat in it and started reading a book. The train started and went to the northern terminus, Beach Station, and then returned to Tambaram. Engrossed in his book, the professor didn't notice all this. When he happened to look up from his book and found that the train was in Tambaram, he accosted a railway official. "When is this train supposed to start? I've been waiting for hours". "But, Sir," said the official, "This train came in just a minute ago."

Whether these anecdotes were true or not, I can vouch for the authenticity of one incident. Dr.Kibble was taking a moral instruction class for us. A number of students opted for this class, not because they wanted to be morally educated, but because it was easy to slip away from Dr.Kibble's classes. Every time he turned to the board, a few would escape through the door in the rear of the classroom. Dr.Kibble never noticed all this. But one day, hearing some noise he turned, and saw two students "escaping". And then to everyone's surprise, he gave chase. Considering his age he was very fast indeed. It was a long chase, and finally he collared the two escapees near Heber Hall. When he hauled them back to the classroom, there was no one there. All the others had escaped too.

Tube light with a torch


Dr.Kibble had designed a sundial that was the pride of MCC. If any visitors came, they were first taken to the sundial before going on to other landmarks. The story goes that a professor of Chemistry (let us call him M), coming back late one night, flashed his torch at the sundial to see the time. This professor might have made a few mistakes in English now and then. But the campus anecdotes made him out to be some kind of a moron.

He was going in an electric train to the city from Tambaram when another train going the opposite way crossed it noisily. Prof.M said with relief: "That was a narrow escape." A female student who had not submitted her record notebook gave some lame excuse for it. "You are lying with me," Prof.M told her. "Yesterday you were lying with me. Today also you are lying with me. You are always lying with me."

One day Prof.M was in Mount Road when he met Mrs.Kibble who had come in her car. Though she was very old (She was older than Dr.Kibble) she drove the car with great expertise. "Are you going back to Tambaram, M?" she asked. "I could drop you back." And so M got a ride back . She dropped him off at the entrance to St.Thomas's Hall. "Thank you" said Prof.M. "Oh, don't mention it" said Mrs.Kibble. Whereupon M looked about furtively and said, "All right. I won't mention it to anyone."

Well, I suppose this must have been mentioned a million times since then