Leslie's Laughs

 [First published in My Kolkata on June 12, 2024.  Read it Online  ] [This piece is close to my heart and based on over four decades of practical classroom teaching, observation and working with teachers across the country.] “Hey Teacher, leave them kids alone / All in all you’re just another brick in the wall” sang Pink Floyd. “If you wanted the sky, I would write across the sky in letters… / To Sir, with love.”sang Lulu in the movie. I’m sure we have all met both types of teachers.  But this piece is on what makes teachers tick. I was watching a shared video of students of a Kolkata school on an exchange program in Australia. Delightful, made even more so by the brief appearance of an accompanying teacher stepping up on stage and doing a namaste. This got me thinking about teaching and “teachering” - a phrase I invented to explain the myriad things that teachers do other than transact a syllabus. As schools reopen after the vacation, teachers are invited to attend ...

 Originally published in My Kolkata on June 3, 2024  Read Online Fading Sounds [The author shares quickly disappearing memories of the sounds of his youth, some of which are metamorphosed into new audible avatars today. Have fun trying to hear the sounds again in your imagination, while having a little laugh alongside.] The first inkling I had that I was actually going a little deaf was the kindly doctor who put me through a series of “hear that?” tests and sadly indicated that my hearing was a little less than it could have been. I did not mention the years playing rock music. Of course, as you would guess, there’s an earful  of options available on the market, mostly battery operated and of a greater nuisance than those persistent telecallers selling you insurance or personal loans. My mother was clinically deaf and used a hearing aid - actually a few dozen before she had tried them all.  Her go-to strategy was to switch off when she wasn’t listening actively....

 Originally published in My Kolkata on May 31, 2024.  Read online [As the excitement of Mother’s Day dies down and the anticipation of Father’s Day looms large, our resident dad takes a look at mothers and the things they do to make those wishes all worthwhile. This does not detract from the Dads in anyway - your turn is next month] “Mother of mine you gave to me/ All of my life to do as I please” sang the child star, Neil Reid, way back in the seventies. Not my mum. No way are you going to do as YOU please! She represented a bunch of tough mums back in the day. I don’t blame Neil Reid for trying. The song became widely distributed - an old name for viral - and everyone was singing it.  Even in churches, addressed to Mary, the mother of Jesus, it appeared as a hymn. It was catch and it was identifiable. After all, everyone has a mum or two. Or two? Yes, this gave rise to the authenticity of Mothers’ Day as an alternative use of the apostrophe.  The month of May is t...

 Originally published in My Kolkata on May 22, 2024.  Read online Come Fly with Me [The author, a frequent flyer of yore,  was reminded that the write up on train travel must be followed by one on air travel, something that’s now on everyone’s plate, especially as the holiday season breaks] “ Come fly with me, let’s fly, let's fly away” - sang Frank Sinatra oh so very long ago. And somewhere around 1969, to commemorate the moon landing, he changed the name of another popular song to “Fly me to the moon”.  I’m not sure if you want to end up in Bombay or Peru as the first song suggests, or if you really want to get to the moon, but everyone can and will fly these days - Vande Bharat and jet fuel prices notwithstanding.  “Now everyone can fly” - proclaimed Air Asia.  “Simplifly” was Air Deccan’s mantra. Singapore Airlines insists it’s “A Great Way to Fly”.  I could go on, but you would get as impatient as you would standing at the check-in counters in Ko...

Published in The Telegraph My Kolkata on May 8, 2024. You can read it online here or read the original below. A regular traveller of yore shares his flippant though backhanded view of how we travel for vacations. Any resemblance to existing entities are coincidental and purely for fun. “We are going on a Summer Holiday, No more working for a week or two” – sang Sir Cliff Richard, an Englishman who knew his India. The 42 on Chowringhee would never have imagined that it would become the yardstick for temperature. With the mercury threatening to pop its buttons on our thermometers, people are buttoning down to the serious business of heading for the hills - or hols anyway, if they aren’t that lucky. While the new school year, mentioned earlier, has just about started, the tickets for the summer vacation have already been booked, by train, plane, bus or bullock cart. We gotta get out of here! That’s a Calcutta thing. Lock, stock, barrel and greater families will all go together when we...

 Published in The Telegraph My Kolkata on May 4, 2024.  You can read it online here  or read the original below. “I hate to see the evening' sun go down I hate to see the evening' sun go down It makes me think I'm on my last go 'round” - from St Louis Blues, reputed to be the first blues song to become popular. With apologies to W C Handy, arguably the father of the blues, I would rather have “I LOVE to see the evening sun go down”. Wouldn’t you agree? Because, when the sun goes down in Kolkata, light balmy breezes replace the oppressive loo winds that have tortured us throughout the day. Because, when the sun goes down, the temperature goes down a notch or two. Because when the sun goes down, it’s sundowners with plenty of ice! Keep your cool. This is not just another joke on The 42. That building has seen its share of memes this summer. It’s time to go higher with the temperature touching 44 and higher in some cases. 44 is Lewis Hamilton’s racing number. It’s a pa...