At home in school

Homeschooling uses the head, heart and the hand to impart learning, say parents who have chosen it over conventional schooling for their children.

HomeschoolingLessons from life PHOTO: AP

Two-and-a-half years ago, Aum spent his days at a local school in Alandurai, where his parents Nisha Srinivasan and Ragunath Padmanabhan live on an organic farm. One day he returned home unusually thrilled, saying, “Everything the teacher taught today, I understood!”. “What did she teach you?” asked Nisha. “She held up a plant and spoke of its flowers, roots, stem and leaves,” smiled Aum. In her journey of questioning conventional education, that was Nisha’s defining moment. “In a full school year, why was he truly happy only on one day?” she asked. For Nisha and Ragunath, the answer lay in homeschooling Aum.

Today, Aum rises with the sun, spends his morning working the farm with his parents, his day reading, drawing, playing and learning, and his life in tune with Nature’s rhythms. The family is one among Coimbatore’s few homeschoolers, each founded on American educator John Holt’s belief that “living is learning”.

“Reading, writing and math has to therefore, be designed around the context that has the most meaning, interest and value for the child,” says Nisha. For Aum, questions of the world around him arose as he sowed, reaped, made mulch and watched Nature. “Why do bees hover over flowers? Why do seeds look different?” he’d ask. An exploration of pollination or plant species through observation, conversation, books, pictures and videos would ensue. “He now understands monocots and dicots with his hands,” says Nisha.

“Homeschooling looks at education as equal measures of learning with the head, heart and hand,” says Santhya Vikram who follows the Waldorf system of education. For instance, her daughter Kimaaya, spends as much time knitting and cycling, as she does learning Malayalam or telling stories. At nine, she knits bags on order, cycles Coimbatore unaided and can host a self-cooked dinner for her family, besides having age-appropriate reading, writing and math skills. The process of homeschooling Kimaaya, however, began with one of ‘unschooling’. “At school, I noticed Kimaaya losing her sense of independent opinion, lacking curiosity and giving into conventional thinking patterns,” says Santhya. So Kimaaya’s first few months at home were spent absolutely free, losing the rhythms of regular school and eventually finding her own. “We began following the Waldorf grades in Math and English only when Kimaaya herself was curious enough about learning,” says Santhya.

Homeschooling is not about replicating conventional schooling at home explains Chitra Rajendran, one of the city’s earliest homeschoolers; neither is it about parents unloading their knowledge baggage on the child. “It’s a process of exploring answers to questions pertinent to our world, together,” she says. Chitra, therefore, had to confront her shortcomings (math, for example) and be honest about them to her children as well. Nisha concurs, “I was my biggest challenge to homeschooling Aum. I had to learn to be present for him always and be alive to our surroundings together.” As a result, Santhya says that in the initial days, Kimaaya almost shadowed her. “We eventually worked out a schedule where we did spend considerable time together but also equal amounts apart — in the same room maybe, but doing our own thing.”

Most homeschoolers also consciously engage in giving their children varied life experiences. “I’m often asked how my daughter will learn to interact with other children if she’s homeschooled. But education must prepare you for real life and there, we’re never in an environment where everyone is our age! So we travel often, to learn of, and imbibe from, other’s lives and cultures,” says Chitra. For the sheer commitment and involvement required from parents, most homeschoolers say the model isn’t everyone’s blanket solution to conventional schooling’s loopholes. “We often start this journey with anti-establishment sentiments, but one’s motivation must be from a deeper place (without negativity) for it to last. To let go of textbooks and tests, I had to be unschooled first,” says Chitra.

Homeschooling lets children set personal goals for learning with self-defined measures of progress. “Kimaaya, for instance, goes back to her earlier writing to see how she’s grown. She’s today a more confident person with views of her own,” says Santhya. “Aum once saw the world in black and white terms, now there are many shades of grey. There’s nuance to his questions and observations, and a better understanding of ambiguity,” adds Nisha. For homeschooler Giri Leo, the approach’s greatest advantage is its gift of time: “We’re now together enough for real conversation, family bonding and most importantly, for spiritual growth.” Does the system, however, close doors for children’s academic future? Absolutely not, believes Santhya. “In fact, it opens many more; because homeschooling makes children self-sufficient through one all-important skill — the ability to learn anything.”

March 28, 2013

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/at-home-in-school/article4560917.ece

Story behind the story

This was an interesting story to do because the home-schooling community are a people of deep-rooted convictions for it takes that to live such radically different lives. To get to the bottom of those convictions, I had some very long conversations with each of the people mentioned in the story. With Chitra especially, our lines of thought traveled through all the spheres of homeschooling and went on into prayer, spirituality and purpose. It’s when I rediscovered the incredible privilege this profession gives me : the ability to have meaningful and fulfilling conversation with absolute strangers; the chance to discover fascinating people.

Their verses and ours

An intimate gathering of poets and poetry lovers celebrated World Poetry Day

At the CATS event. Photo: M. Periasamy THE HINDU

“Perhaps you’ve been lurking behind bookends. Or maybe, you’ve been asleep in the sentences of my favorite piece of writing. Were you in the ink of my pen? Or the pages of my moleskin diary?” asked Srividya Sivakumar in her poem lurk. At the World Poetry Day celebrations by Coimbatore Art and Theatrical Society (CATS), nothing lurked — not words and phrases, nor imagination and poetry. All things literary flowed free at the Stanes Higher Secondary School Hall, as city poets, both closet and published, read either their verses or those of writers they cherished.

The evening began with a short musical production of Edward Lear’s poem The Owl and the Pussy Cat. Young Jethro Daniel then presented two poems, Start Up and Me and You, both read aloud by his father, for Jethro has cerebral palsy and writes poems by signalling at letters with his shoulder.

There followed poems on love and Nature by Air Cmde (Retd) Minoo Vania, and poems on womanhood by Madhumitha Varadaraj and Tanvi P.S. While Madhumitha wrote through vivid visuals of being A woman in the City of Small Pleasures, Tanvi defined Akaisha — a woman whose ‘reflection isn’t a blur’.

There were poems that looked within, such as Siddarth Manoharan’s Noisy Silence of the quiet in his mind against the chaos outside, and Shyam Kumar’s What are we Really After of the extremities we straddle in the search for identity. And then there were those that looked at the world outside, such as JVV Murthy’s critical commentary on America’s wars, Wing Commander Raghavan’s tribute to refugees world over, Ranjan Thomas’s satirical take on Catholicism and Philip Fowler’s wry IMS Titanic on the sinking ship of Indian democracy.

From politics we entered science with Jayashree Murthy’s reading of her sister Prathiba Nandakumar’s work The Quantum Leap. To bring things back to the personal, there was Shobhana Kumar’s No Man’s Land and Packing, Leaving. The first dealt with the loss and distance that emigration brings and the second wondered aloud what one would pack if forced to leave life and home in a few minutes: “Pack just sanity/ and oh yes, forget your heart.”

The evening brought on stage poets as young as Class VIII student Jayashree with her poem Untold Lines and engineering student Renuka reading Just Another Dream. For variety, there was Shivguru with his haikus and a Tamil poem on Draupadi, that he had translated into English too. Tributes were also paid to poetic greats with readings of Rupert Brooke, P.B. Shelley and Rudyard Kipling, as well as contemporary writers such as Meena Kandasamy and Tamil poet, Cantirakanti. A short session called ‘Poet and Poem’ followed where Srividya spoke with moderator Pierce Nigli on writing and poetry.

For this edition of World Poetry Day, CATS took things a notch up from last year by putting Coimbatore’s published poets’ works to music. Singer J.W. Johnson sang his way through the beautifully sad, slurred phrases of Srividya’s poem on alcoholism, someday. He followed up with the upbeat piano-driven rhythm of Minoo’s Chasing Rainbows, and then brought the house down with his aalap-laced composition of Shobhana’s free-verse work, Comfort Zone. As the lines wove through the hot-chocolate-and-books memories of the poet’s boarding school, the vocals ranged from spoken to whispered to belted out, all accompanied by wholly-appropriate percussive guitar playing. The evening closed with the reading of John Donne’s No Man is an Island. As the last lines, “Therefore, send not to know/ For whom the bell tolls/ it tolls for thee”, rang through the hall, outside, the school bells tolled in time.

March 23, 2013

http://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/music/their-verses-and-ours/article4538475.ece

Remembering Sindh

Author Saaz Aggarwal speaks of her Sindhi legacy and how through her book, she has tried to fill in History’s blanks on what happened to her people during Partition

Author Saaz Aggarwal at a reading and discussion of ‘Sindh – Stories from a Vanishing Homeland’ Photo: M. Periasamy THE HINDU

After the 1947 Partition, thousands of Sindhi Hindus sailed from Sindh, Pakistan for Indian shores. Author Saaz Aggarwal’s mother, Situ Savur was then 13 years old. Once on Bombay’s soil, the community began life and trade again, settling into a new culture while rarely speaking of the one they’d left behind. Sixty-five years of silence later, Saaz spoke with her mother about her memories of Sindh. It led to conversations with many others from her mother’s generation, the collection of which makes Sindh – Stories from a Vanished Homeland. Through personal narratives of headline events, the book fills in a missing piece in India’s official Partition history. In Coimbatore to launch Sindh at an event organised by Coimbatore Art and Theatrical Society, Saaz spoke with author Shobhana Kumar about the book’s writing and the Sindhi Hindu community in India today.

Sindh is Saaz’s eighth book and follows a scrapbook-like structure with short first-person accounts interspersed by family photographs, maps, newspaper clippings, poetry, recipes, excerpts from research papers and quotes by academics. “While my mother’s story represented a well-off class of people, the others I interviewed, spoke of life in rural Sindh, the Arya Samaj and RSS movements, and the rehabilitation process in India’s refugee camps,” says Saaz.Their individual lives pointed to historical facts which the interspersed anecdotes supply, besides providing visual relief. Sindh’s partition history is different from the well-recorded, violence-ridden Punjab and Bengal stories because while those states were physically divided, Sindh went entirely to Pakistan. “Rivers of blood didn’t flow in Sindh but the people’s migration stories tell of the drastic cultural change they underwent,” says Saaz.

The book opens with Situ talking of a Sindh where children flew kites all year round because it never rained. The first time she saw an umbrella was in the Bombay monsoons. “Her story made me realise just how much of a new world ‘India’ was to my mother. At Partition, they told her ‘We’re going to India’ but for her, Sindh was already ‘India’,” says Saaz. Despite the sea-change, few Sindhis spoke of their past culture, few young Sindhis know their mother tongue today, and by and large, the community is shrouded in the Bollywood stereotype of loud, money-minded businessmen. “Tracing their history, however, shows that once in India, they focused on making a living for themselves. The richer Sindhis helped the poorer ones settle. It was a community that looked forward, but in the process lost their past,” says Saaz.

Saaz’s research partially explains why letting their culture go came easily to the Sindhis. “The capricious river Indus ran through their lands and it changed course often. One day, you’d be by the river bank, the next, you’d be flooded. Their surroundings created a people prepared for change,” she says. Saaz’s research also paints a forgotten Sindh where secularism was upheld and spirituality mattered more than religion. Burial sites of religious leaders were places of strength and were sacred for all regardless of individual belief. “The generation that migrated to India, however, lost this secularism because Partition polarised the Hindus and Muslims into ‘us’ and ‘them’. My mother too believed this way,” she Saaz.

The book, however, revisits an article published by Situ which writes of how visiting Muslim neighbourhoods after the Bombay riots changed her views: “I looked into their eyes and I saw a familiar expression. It was the same fear that my parents had during Partition, not knowing what their future was going to be.”

The publication of Sindh took Saaz to the Karachi Literature festival where Oxford University Press launched her book. She also visited the land of her ancestors with her mother. “There I met a socially conscious young generation who knew their cultural history; Sindhi Muslims who still remembered and missed the Sindhi Hindus who migrated,” she says. Moreover, she visited a village with over 4,000 Hindus where the elders said they never left during Partition because their tribal chieftain promised them safety and fulfilled it too. She concludes, “It proved to me that all you need for peace between two communities is good governance.”

March 15, 2013

http://www.thehindu.com/books/books-authors/remembering-sindh/article4508687.ece

To those of you who’ve been wonderful enough to follow this blog, I feel indebted to explain the prolonged silence of last month. Some typhoid got in the way unfortunately, but fortunately brought with it some time for reflection, reading and re-thinking. And all of that I hope to inject into the writing and editing that resumes tomorrow. Here’s to new beginnings with hope that the words continue to come unhindered.

Esther

Robots that kids built

Two teams from The Indian Public School make it to the National and the International levels of a robot-building competition. Esther Elias meets the young scientists

The First Tech Challenge team at The Indian Public School Photo: S.Siva Saravanan THE HINDU

If school labs were inhabited by mad scientists, The Indian Public School’s robotics workroom is what they would look like. Spare parts lie around, work manuals pile high, the walls are covered with flow charts and labelled diagrams, and, in the middle of it all, a bunch of kids huddle over a robot they’ve created, calculating its efficiency to overcome preset hurdles.

The workroom has been a second home of sorts to two teams that made it to the National level of The First Lego League (FLL) and the First Tech Challenge (FTC) — competitions for school students in varying branches of robotics, conducted internationally by First, a not-for-profit U.S. organisation. On February 9, the FTC team came second at the Nationals in Noida and will represent India at the Europe Championship Festival in Germany.

The students’ foundations in robotics were laid from Class IV where it was a compulsory subject at the school’s monthly workshop. Later, in 2010, Professor Jawaharlal Mariappan from California State Polytechnic University conducted a three-day camp on robotics’ basics, and also informed them of the FLL competitions in India. “In 2012, a group of us decided to enter the competition and the school supported us,” says class IX student Mani Vannan. Simultaneously, a younger group enrolled for FTC, which was conducted in India for the first time this academic year. Then on, there was no looking back. “During the last two months, we spent most evenings after school in this room working toward the competition. All weekends and official holidays were here too,” says Ashwin A. Kumar.

FLL requires students to prepare two projects. First, the design of a product that could answer this year’s competition theme, ‘Senior Solutions’ (gadgets to aid the elderly), and second, manufacture an automated robot that could manoeuvre a game course involving several obstacles (such as inclines) as well as perform tasks such as arranging tile quilts.

“We researched geriatric problems that could be addressed by robots and discovered that many seniors pass away from not having taken their vital pills on time,” says Nishanth. After much brainstorming, the team designed a palm-sized automated pill dispenser that would dispense tablets according to prescription into a retractable cup. “Additionally, the dispenser has a talking alarm and flashing lights that signal medication time,” says Rudra Narasiman. The product is being manufactured by Crisp in Coimbatore and is receiving design feedback from patients at GKNM Hospital’s geriatric wing.

While one half of the FLL team worked on the product design, the other half worked on the automated robot. The FTC team too had to design a joystick-operated robot that could lift pegs off hooks and place them on three levels of a stand during a timed game called ‘Ring it up’.

“The process of designing the robot is a long-drawn out one, especially because once it’s been put together, dismantling it to make changes is very difficult,” says Athmika S., captain of the FTC team. Their robot features a scissor lift, whose parts were manufactured in Coimbatore, mounted on a base provided by the competition organisers, and put together from scratch by the students.

Both teams began with drawings of possible designs that were modified, discarded, updated and finally approved. Every step of the process is documented in their engineering notebooks. “Every time we met, one of us would write down the minutes — from the ideas discussed to the physical work done. This helped us trace the robot’s evolution as well as go back to earlier designs if we had to,” says Roshini Thangavel. Both team’s notebooks were particularly appreciated by First’s Challenge Advisory Team at the Regionals in Chennai. The FLL team came second at the Regionals and was also awarded the ‘Best Design’ prize for their robot here.

While the students were guided by their school robotics teachers Jayashree (FLL coach) and Saranya N. Rao (FTC coach), the ground work and implementation was their own. “Each team member has designated roles such as building and design, programming, operating, quality check, marketing and publicity,” says Yashvanthraa Mohanraj. While the teams have received sponsorships at the Regional and National levels, they hope for help at the Internationals. Concludes Saranya, “Representing India in Germany is a huge responsibility, as well as an honour. So, we hope to make the best of it!”

February 13, 2013

http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/robots-that-kids-built/article4407582.ece

Chinese whispers

Clean, sharp and subtle flavours mark the new menu at Red Pearl

 

Nutty chocolate noodle at the Red Pearl Photo:K.Ananthan THE HINDU

At midnight on February 9 in China, millions of fireworks ripped across the skies to welcome the Chinese New Year, the year of the snake. In Coimbatore, the Red Pearl at Vivanta by Taj Surya chose a quieter celebration, and opened its doors to a new cuisine designed by Chef Zhai Wei Dong, a specialist in Schezwan food. Within cosy interiors coloured by red leather cushions and lit by paraffin oil lamps, we settle down for an a la carte dinner. For starters, there are golden fried corn tossed in green chili and cilantro, followed by hoisin-glazed lamb ribs. It’s a gentle beginning with the softness of the corn meeting the crunchiness of its fried batter. The lamb, on the other hand, has a mild sweetness infused by the plums and dates that go into the hoisin sauce glazing. Up next is vegetable half-moon dumpling soup, a clear, subtly-flavoured vegetable broth with two floating dumplings, beautifully plated in a wide-rimmed soup bowl. The broth warms you up just right and the dumplings are little bursts of hot vegetable stuffing.

Soon after, the main course arrives and it’s a spread of distinct flavours, none overpowering the other. On the non-vegetarian side, there’s poached fish with sliced lemon and scallion. The blandness of the perfectly steamed basa is countered by the sharpness of the lemon. The vegetarian option is an oil-less salad in varying shades of green and white made from crispy Chinese greens with garlic pearl and water chestnut. “Traditional Schezwan cuisine is marked by Schezwan pepper which is more pungent than black pepper. To balance out the strong spice, we’ve included a few dishes in this menu from the comparatively blander Cantonese cuisine,” explains Balan Venkatesan, Senior Chef de Partie.

To represent the Schezwan paradigm, there’s Mapo tofu vegetable curry, a spicy concoction of bean curd (fermented tofu) with a generous helping of diced vegetables such as beans, zucchini, broccoli, carrot and Chinese cabbage. “‘Mapu tofo’ means tofu cooked by a grandmother. So the dish has a warm, homely touch to it because that’s how it’s traditionally made. There’s also a non-vegetarian take on this which uses chicken or lamb instead of tofu,” says Balan. For accompaniment, there’s Hunan fried rice with its prominent soya sauce and dried red chilli flavours, as well as hakka rice stick noodles (made from rice flour), and unlimited refills of warm Chinese tea.

To round it all off, there’s crispy flat noodles tossed in honey and chocolate, garnished with crushed pistachio and cashew, and served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. “Usually the noodles are tossed only in honey but to give the dessert a Continental touch, we’ve used chocolate as well,” says Jayanta Das, Resident Manager. It’s been a wonderfully light yet satisfying meal that explored just the highlights of Chef Zhai’s creations. And the dessert’s been my dream ending.

February 13, 2013

www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/chinese-whispers/article4407585.ece

Taking to their wheels

It’s all in a day’s ride for cyclists of Bikers Terrain who range from novices to those who are planning ambitious 1,200 kilometre challenges, writes Esther Elias

Members of Bikers Terrain during a ride in Coimbatore Photo: K. Ananthan THE HINDU

 

The full moon is still out, but the stars aren’t and there is no sign of the sun. Lit by their flashing front lights and trailed by their reflective rear lights, 30 cyclists ease their way out of Cosmopolitan Club’s gates and onto Avanashi Road, deserted but for speeding trucks. With the morning nip, a gentle wind and the howl of stray dogs, they ride close to pavements; circle around Codissia, cross the airport and onto Kalapatti. By now, the sun has announced itself and more car honks fill the air than bird calls. After a short stop for water and conversation, they return to an awoken city and choked streets. It’s all in a day’s ride for members of Bikers Terrain (BT), a 130-strong cyclists’ group in Coimbatore.

Bikers Terrain (BT) began in April 2011 when Sanjana Vijayakumar discovered cycling through Sanjay and Arjun Balu, and later bought a cycle with her husband Sri Hari Prasadh. She began a Facebook page by the same name and added Hari as well as her friends Divya Chandran and Sujini Meiyappan.

Soon enough, acquaintances and relatives joined, strangers found them online, and within a year the group was a 100 strong, and cycling in several teams of smaller numbers frequently.

Over time, some have stopped riding and others have changed cities but despite the shifting population, Sanjana says 80 per cent of their group are active cyclists. “We do large group rides once a month to places such as Chettipalayam, Sulur, Siruvani and Maruthamalai, and most people cycle several times a week with people from their locality,” says Sanjana.

The group currently comprises of cyclists with varying riding abilities and styles. For instance, Arjun and a few friends hit the mountain trails on long rides through tea estates, forest edges and often, uncharted territory. While it is physically demanding, he says, “It’s worth it for the places you discover and the people you meet.”

Vinay Balaji, on the other hand, takes to road biking with friends and trains for brevets — long-distance endurance rides of 200, 300, 400 and 600 km each. The group most recently participated in the 200 km Cochin Brevet and hopes to qualify for the 1,200 km Paris-Brest-Paris in 2015. “It takes a lot of saddle time to prepare for these rides. It’s not about going flat out till your lungs are bursting, but about taking it easy enough to hold a conversation while you’re riding — ‘chatting pace’ for say, three hours at a time. It builds a great sense of confidence to meet these targets,” he says.

For Divya and Sujini, cycling began as a variation from running but soon grew into a viable cross-training exercise. “It’s not as strenuous on your body as running since the physical impact is less but it develops a different set of muscles,” says Divya. With Sanjana, the trio now challenge themselves to triathlons periodically — 5 km run, followed by a 20 km cycle and a 750 m swim. Besides these, they cycle over 20 km thrice a week.

So does Shanthini Rajkumar, who rode a 100 km for the first time last week. “That’s the first benchmark most cyclists try to meet but it’s the love of cycling that makes you wake up before sunrise to explore how much more you and your bike can do,” says Shantini.

While BT has its share of experienced cyclists, it also welcomes newcomers. Sujani Balu, for instance, got back on a cycle at 65 and got comfortable by cycling around her compound with her six-year-old granddaughter. “Once you find the right bike, and begin riding right, your posture straightens out and you feel fitter. It’s addictive,” she says.

Choosing a cycle depends entirely on what kind of terrain a rider prefers, how much he/she plans to ride and specific geometric variations on the bike that are judged by body type, says Sanjay, who sells cycles at his store MVS Enterprises. “Step two involves ‘riding for time’ which is getting conditioned to spending time on the bike independent of how far or fast you go,” he says.

Some energy bars and decent hydration later, a beginner is set to start. In terms of maintenance, Shanthini says, “We wipe our cycles down regularly, keep them free of moisture, lubricate the chain and check for tyre pressure often.”

On the road however, life isn’t smooth sailing for a cyclist. “We’ve had ferocious dogs at our heels and traffic in the wrong direction. Also, people on the road aren’t used to cyclists riding fast. And sometimes, cyclists are fast enough to be thrown off at sudden brakes,” says Nitiya Sathish. “That’s when cycling with a group ensures a little more protection,” says Sanjana. BT is also a platform where people share their cycling experiences across the globe, discover new routes and learn more about bikes. “It’s an easy-going bunch of people with enough focus to encourage a cycling community,” says Sanjay.

Adds Shanthini, “People are already beginning to cycle to work, mothers ask if this is safe for their children and most of our kids already cycle. It’s going to be the way of the future

February 8, 2013

http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/leisure/taking-to-their-wheels/article4389582.ece

From the outside looking in

There are nearly 700 colonies of people living with leprosy in India and one of them is on the outskirts of Coimbatore, at Maruthamalai. Esther Elias listens to the stories of some of its inhabitants

Government records say leprosy is officially eliminated but the stigma remains Photo: K. Gopinathan THE HINDU

“God is love” reads the letterhead of Amarjothi Leprosy Nivaran Sangh (ALNS), a colony of 100 closely-packed homes housing 140 women and 160 men, 30 girls and 40 boys. On December 31, 2005, the National Leprosy Elimination Project declared the elimination of leprosy in India, as the prevalence rate was below one case for 10,000 people. Seven years later, reports say, India still bears half of the world’s leprosy burden and is home to many colonies of people living with leprosy, one of which is ALNS in Maruthamalai Adivaram (North).

What began with seven patients with leprosy and their kin 30-odd years ago is today a colony where over 70 patients live with their families. While most of them are near senior citizenship today, their life stories of exile, rejection and transfer from one Government rehabilitation home to the other, speak loud in memory.

“Many of us came to Coimbatore to beg at the Maruthamalai temple. We’re from villages all over Tamil Nadu, some from Kerala and some as far as Delhi,” says A. Ganeshan (60), one of the earliest members of the Sangh and its President today. Most of them still make a living from alms received at the temple, while their able-bodied relatives work as domestic help, on construction sites, as electricians, plumbers and the like. “Some days we receive Rs.10; some days, Rs.100. But many people give us food on their way to the temple,” says C. Vembannan (72). “We can’t lift stones or carry things. What else can we do but beg?” asks Ganeshan, lifting up withered palms.

Leprosy is among the primary causes of physical disability and while the free availability of multi-drug therapy has considerably reined in leprosy’s spread, it has not cured the stigma associated with it. In the Sangh, none of the younger generation has a positive bacterial load and among the seniors, years of medication have garnered them negative, but it has not been in time to prevent deformity. For instance, 10 years ago, Vembannan developed a severe ulcer on his leg leading to its amputation. Today, he and many others walk on crutches. Their vital medication is provided by the Rotary Club of Coimbatore Metropolis every three months. When distance and disability keep them from frequent visits to the Government Hospital, M. Lakshmanan (48), a patient himself, tends to their ulcers and wounds with his self-taught first aid.

All community activities happen within an office room and extended shed built in the centre of the colony. Tiny homes extend around it up to the very foot of the hills. The shed is also a night shelter to families whose kuchcha houses flood in the rains. “When the rains are light, we manage to collect the water in plates but that’s impossible during heavy monsoon,” says Pechiamma (70). “The Government has given us a road leading to the colony, water and electricity. All we need are pattas for the land that our homes are built on so that our children may continue to live here. Only then can we also build sturdier homes,” says Ganeshan. All children in the Sangh currently study at a Government school in the vicinity while four of the young adults go to college.

The first of every month at the Sangh is collection day. Each member, excluding the children, contributes Rs. 2 to a collective which funds their transportation needs. Organisations in the city such as Assisi Snehalaya gift food and clothing on Deepavali and Christmas. These days are also special to men such as Vembannan, as they are the only times he visits his wife and children who continue to live in his hometown. Other’s stories, such as those of Madhinabibi and Abdul Ajiz, reflect more acceptance. They met and married at a rehabilitation home they were both housed in, and later moved to the Maruthamalai colony to make a life for their son who looks after them today. Ganesh adds that there are stories of hope too. His wife Savithri, a non-leper, married him knowing fully well the extent of his leprosy. “She looks after me like a child,” he says.

Hope has also come from within the quarters themselves. Vice President of the Sangh, P. Mohan (60), for instance, had to leave his home when he was found positive and was forced to sell lottery tickets for food, despite having completed his SSLC. After changing multiple rehabilitation homes, he finally settled in Maruthamalai, learnt to speak fluent English and today handles the Sangh’s paperwork.

He says, “We believe what Gandhiji believed, that if you raise the life of one leprosy patient, you help raise the whole nation.”

February 5, 2013

http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/metroplus/from-the-outside-looking-in/article4378834.ece?ref=sliderNews

Story behind the story

The build-up to the story is always the scariest part. Maruthamalai is an hour’s bus ride from office and the leper’s colony is a few kilometers walk from the Maruthamalai bus stop. All through the journey I sat fidgeting from fear. I got off at the bus stop and paced another half hour before calling Ganeshan – how do you speak to a people already marginalised without objectifiying their lives further? How do you ask for the stories of a community when any external intervension thus far has only been intrusive? Susan Orlean, the New Yorker’s famed profile writer said this, “Reporting is like being the new kid in school. You’re scrambling to learn something very quickly, being a detective, figuring out who the people are, dissecting the social structure of the community you’re writing about. Emotionally, it puts you in the place that everybody dreads. You’re the outsider. You can’t give in to your natural impulse to run away from situations and people you don’t know. You can’t retreat to the familiar.” All I truly wanted to do was run away. Before I did, thankfully, Ganeshan came looking for me on his moped. He drove me into the community and every single one of them was there, seated around the community hall, crutches and support sticks scattered all over, the old, the young and the middle aged, all waiting to see what this stupid girl wanted. I plonked myself on the floor with them and Ganeshan began with his story…some got bored and walked away, others eyed me but refused to speak, and still others were kind enough to tell the stupid girl their stories.

Love, life and poetry

 Three poets, quite different from each other, came together to share lines, straight from the heart

Poets Srividya Sivakumar, Shobhana Kumar and Minoo Vania. Photo: M. Periasamy THE HINDU

It was an evening of soft lights, meaningful poetry and congenial souls at ‘Straight From The Heart’, a poetry reading organised by Coimbatore Art and Theatrical Society at That’s Why On The Go as part of Coimbatore Vizha 2013. Three city poets, Air Commodore Minoo Vania, Shobhana Kumar and Srividya Sivakumar read the poetry they had penned over the years in their distinctive styles. Besides their love for words, they were united by the publisher of their debut poetry collections — Writers Workshop, Kolkata. Shantini Diaz moderated the session.

Your Magic Spell and Nature’s Love Lesson by Minoo launched the evening. The first was Minoo’s response to the overuse of the word ‘love’ and the second, introduced the audience to his comfort with writing verse on Nature in uncliched terms. Shobhana began with Awakening followed by Greed, which interestingly linked the ‘need to see’ as the root cause of greed. Srividya opened with Someday, and Moody 1, reflective of her prowess in erotic poetry.

“Is there a purpose to poetry?” asked Shantini, and Minoo responded with Friends and I for India both nursery rhymes written for his wife’s school. Srividya admitted that she needed poetry as it was her space of absolute honesty. Merry Widow, her incorrigibly blunt poem about a woman scheming her husband’s death, had everyone stepping back from Srividya. Shobhana spoke of poetry being her refuge when deadlines drew near. Her poem Kafka wished that the publishing industry had not commercialised poetry so thoroughly.

The evening progressed to explore the poets’ take on Coimbatore, love and humour. Minoo’s Democracy opened the first category. The bone-chilling piece was written on February 16, 1998, the day Coimbatore was ripped apart by bomb blasts. Shobhana wrote Beauty about cotton, from her experience of documenting South India’s textile industry and Srividya read Lullaby, an observation of a Coimbatore day winding down.

Shobhana’s Stories From an Old Sofa inspired by her neighbouring furniture shop traveled some beautiful lines: “But look past their once glorified lives/And watch a thousand histories come alive.”

On love, Minoo narrated Comparison, a warm short note juxtaposing Nature with love, ending with “When experience is bliss/ pine not for a dream”. Shobhana displayed craft within structural constraints through her double nonnet A Kite’s Love Story and Srividya read If Only Once, encapsulated thus: “For one single night/for complete pleasure/for a few eternities/to explore at leisure”.

“Parachuting and poetry have nothing in common,” said Minoo but they met in his first poem in the humour section Two Guys, about men who kicked the bucket on ill-fated parachute jumps. His St Peter’s Tip to Mortals was less morbidly jovial in its blatant propagation of life’s earthly pleasures.

Poetry on Nature, spirituality and philosophy followed. Before the audience left though, Shantini had a point to make. “All it takes for poetry is a couple of words to come together,” she declared and went on to collect random words such as outrage, single malt, eccentricity, laughter and love, from the audience.

The poets had to string the words together to make spot poems. Incidentally, ‘single malt’ turned out to be the collective thought trigger.

The poetry reading concluded with an excerpt from a letter to Minoo by the Director of Writers Workshop, Ananda Lal. “Coimbatore seems to encourage the poetic spirit more than any other city,” it said. The evening proved that it sure did.

January 29, 2013

http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/society/love-life-and-poetry/article4354006.ece

Under the blue skies and far away

Children who live outside urban settings seldom get an opportunity to learn or even watch Bharatanatyam. But dancer and teacher Karuna Sagari V. is changing that through her rural outreach programme. Esther Elias reports.

Karuna Sagari: “Right from the first adavu, children are taught the abhinaya for ‘words’. In the beginning, they dance out basic ‘sentences’. Over time, they graduate to interpreting poetry through Bharatanatyam.” Photo: M. Periasamy THE HINDU

It’s a windswept afternoon in Anaikatti. Twenty children sit cross-legged on the cold brick floor of Vidya Vanam School’s open-air hall. Bharatanatyam dancer, teacher and director of Bhakti Natya Niketan (BNN) dance school, 23-year-old Karuna Sagari V. sits opposite them, her expressive eyes closed as she dances a tree sleeping in a gentle breeze. “Pluck the flowers that fall from the tree,” she tells the children. Backs arch up, taut arms stretch out and a dozen imaginary flowers are plucked, some off the branches, some off the ground, and some more from the tree’s top. “What will you do with the flowers now?” asks Karuna. Some of the boys place one behind an ear, the girls tuck it into their hair and one girl cups a flower in her hands, closes her eyes and takes in a rich fragrance. Every movement reflects the 10-year-olds’ comfort in speaking Bharatanatyam’s articulate language, and their versatility in interpreting it. It’s class as usual in BNN’s Rural Outreach Programme.

“Classical dance has become a privilege enjoyed only by the elite,” says Karuna, “And right from BNN’s conception, we wanted to break those barriers and take dance back to the villages.” The Programme began in 2008 with Karuna teaching the children of Vellalore town. In 2010, it grew to incorporate the tribal children of brick kiln workers in Anaikatti and now includes the children in and around Eachanari. “Not only do few children from the villages learn classical dance, their access to viewing dancers perform too is extremely limited,” adds Karuna, who graduated with honours from the Kalakshetra Foundation, Chennai. Hence, Karuna often performs in villages, under open skies. “Once, in Poochiyur, I danced to a 1,300-year-old Tamil poem before children who’d never seen Bharatanatyam before and they understood the meaning of the dance so beautifully! There are hundreds of such Government schools across our villages, where dance and art are never prioritised.”

Karuna’s approach to dance emphasises teaching Bharatanatyam as a language first. “Right from the first adavu, children are taught the abhinaya for ‘words’, such as the mudras for trees, birds and water. In the beginning, they dance out basic ‘sentences’ such as ‘I went to my house yesterday’. Over time, they graduate to interpreting poetry through Bharatanatyam,” says Karuna.

Interpreting text is a collective brainstorming affair. Rarely does Karuna choreograph entire pieces for her students to imitate. “In our times, why is Bharatanatyam still talking about Nature, and about the fight between good and evil? These stories must have a relevance in our current lives. And that relevance can be brought in without diluting classical dance because mythology offers a space for debate. We perform a piece only if children are thoroughly convinced of the story and of its depiction,” says Karuna.

BBN’s Rural Outreach Programme runs over and above its centre for urban children in Coimbatore city. This way, Karuna hopes not just to work for rural children herself but to sensitise her urban students to the issues rural children face. The beginnings were sown right at BNN’s annual summer camp which was partially conducted with the children of Anaikatti. “It opened the urban children’s minds to how their counterparts far away live,” says Karuna. The camp was also the site were both urban and rural children were taught to hand-make their chellangai and garlands. It is also BNN’s principle to dance only in simple cotton saris, without expensive accessories, following the age-old Kalakshetra tradition. “I want to make classical dance accessible to the urban poor as well, even as a viable profession,” says Karuna. Her helper’s daughter, Priyadarshini, once a student at BNN, now teaches there professionally.

Karuna knows not every student who passes through her doors will become a professional dancer though. “Some of them are born performers, others want to learn the skill of teaching and some others have an excellent sense of rhythm (nattuvangam), so we enhance the strengths that they come with,” says Karuna. For those who don’t take up dance professionally, Karuna says the approach gives them a sense of direction and most importantly increases their sensitivity of observation, from the way clouds move to how leaves rattle, for they must express the same nuances in their dance. She adds, “Even if my children go on to become Collectors or Secretaries, if they nurture and promote dance and art, that in itself is the victory.”

January 28, 2013

http://www.thehindu.com/arts/dance/under-the-blue-skies-and-far-away/article4350722.ece

Story behind the story

There is most certainly a positive correlation between throwing up and finding a satisfying story. For those of you who know the route from Coimbatore to Anaikatti, it’s a wuss of a climb but clearly my stomach is frightened by wusses too, for in the hour’s drive up I was too dizzy to talk and too worried I’d throw up in Karuna’s Scorpio. The tragedy of it all was that she made such interesting conversation all through and I could barely get a worthy word out of my muddled brain. Writing notes was as much as it could do. Reach Anaikatti. Throw up. The hours we spent there were beautiful – the children, the mountains, the conversation. Karuna is a year older than I am but has a powerhouse more of energy and purpose than I do. My brain settled down and took it all in. If only my stomach did too. Climb down Anaikatti. Throw up twice. On the way that too. For the record, this is the third story I’ve thrown up on while reporting. And apart from the churning stomach, they’re all been wonderful experiences (here and here). Dear medical universe, please to be sending magic cure soon…