Enthralling Trails

 My cabin was filled with students. There was a lot of space outside the cabin where long benches with cabinets were lined for people to sit but none wanted to do that. They had their bags on their shoulders and it was stifling. I gently opened all the windows, switched on the fan and said, ‘One at a time, please leave your bags outside…’ They walked out and waited in the waiting area. The odd semester end-term submissions were due for numerous subjects for these undergraduate engineering students. As faculty, we were responsible for courses related to Humanities and professional development. Most of our assignments happen during class hours, but we do have end-term submissions to help students update their work and submit their hard copies. Their work is then organised in files and the students have to submit these, later these files are attested by the heads of the respective departments Due to the retreating pandemic, we are still getting used to the new schedules. It is also di...

  Every year, the month of January rings in the invocation of Lord Surya, the Sun God. We also welcome the year with a festival named Makar Sankranti that marks crop harvests, like rice, lentils, beans, sorghum, and millet. Some call the festival Maghi. This festival follows the Solar cycle and is almost constant, unlike the festivals that follow the lunar cycle. Makar Sankranti festival commemorates the transition between the winter and summer solstices with longer days and shorter nights as the sun moves towards the North. According to mythology, Sankranti is celebrated in appreciation of the divine who killed the evil Sankarasur and Kinkarasur demons. In Pune, the temple of Ayyappa located at Shasta Hills is surrounded by the Sahyadri Mountains. This temple celebrates the festivities with pomp and splendour. The temple is a replica of the Ayyappa temple in Pulmedu near the river Pampa in Kerala. The route to the temple at Pulmedu is a terrain path through dense forests. One has ...

  “Be the reason someone smiles. Be the reason someone feels loved and believes in the goodness in people.”― Roy T. Bennett It is often believed that Christmas vibes and feelings are triggered by Christmas love and evergreen trees. The Christmas lights, decor, and jingling bells create warmth on cold wintry mornings and a sense of joy among fellow humans. We have none of these in the building society we live in but we watch the Christmas splendour and feel it in the air when we walk into the market square. In our building society, plants are tended and watered regularly, and the building is swept and mopped frequently. I often wondered who sweeps the staircase. I leave home early and get back late in the afternoon. I am usually welcomed by a sense of stillness but a couple of months back I met a lady sweeping the stairs. She was young, clad in a sari and pretty looking. She carried a vibrant smile and was energetic. When asked who she was, she said she was ‘Prithuka’. A few days la...

  “There is no teacher equal to mother and there’s nothing more contagious than the dignity of a father.”― Amit Ray Devlekhaa’s greetings appeared on my social media post. Many years ago, she was a student of mine. My inquiry revealed that she was doing well and pursuing her higher education abroad. She sounded strong and confident, just like her mother Iraavatii. My first words were, ‘Congratulations on doing well, all credit to your mother who helped you do well. She answered, Thank you ma’am, but we lost her last year during the Covid’ I was thrown back to Iraavatii’s serenity and acceptance of life, and I saw many more faces of the young students and their parents. I kept musing about life…so short yet so long… I have worked as a school teacher for many years. In every place that I worked, I found one thing that students did not appreciate much was the Parent Teacher Meeting (PTM). I do not remember my parents visiting my school, they had great trust in my teachers. Occasionall...

  “The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.”― Lois Lowry After two years of the pandemic, the festivities in India began with greater fervour, almost as if people were making up for a lost time. It has been nothing different in Pune. The festival of Navratri is very special for an Indian. Every community has a different way of celebrating these nine days in the invocation of Goddess Durga but the most liked one is the Garba Dance. This is an Indian dance form that originated in Gujarat. Alagumuthu was past her seventies and had recently moved into the Vrindavan society. Though the name Alagumuthu meant precious gem, she was ordinary and had never found anything special about her. She was a tall strapping lady who sported saris with sports shoes. She would saunter at least thrice a day on the lookout for a smiling face to ease her loneliness. She lived alone but had many of the elderly ladies as her friends in the...

  “India is not a nation, nor a country. It is a subcontinent of nationalities.”― Muhammad Ali Jinnah It’s seventy-five years since India’s independence. During this time, India has witnessed splendour, poverty, pandemics, epidemics, droughts, floods, wars, peace, joy, grief, and many more. A 139-crore Indians will raise the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav flag for three days this year to mark 75 years of independence. Every street, every road, every shop, every vehicle, every house, and every heart will unfurl the Indian flag and sing the national anthem with great pride for their motherland. It reminds me of the days when the recent pandemic brought us closer, we had lit lamps to show our fraternity and rang the bells at home in sovereignty, as loud as we could and prayed that COVID 19 would end. There is nothing that happens quickly. COVID 19 stayed with us for two whole years when it mutated and propagated. Patriotism has been a strong value for Indians. It symbolises equality, loyalty...

  “The entire life is an exam that never ends until the life itself ends.”― R.H Ork After two years of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the University decided to switch to offline examinations. The news wasn’t new to the students. Before the judgement was approved, there were many discussions, arguments, and concessions. The students kept asking for multiple-choice examinations as they had during the pandemic. They felt it wasn’t fair that a part of the session was completed online during January and February early this year for a short period when there was yet another lockdown due to the brief third wave of the Covid 19 pandemic. The faculty feared that the Pandemic and the digital world would arrest the students’ brains. The students had forgotten to think critically and write. They could type text messages quickly with emoticons and alphabets in the shortest possible form. Many of them didn’t know how to spell basic words as they were used to the cellphone autocorrect. None of the p...