Leslie's Laughs

 Published in My Kolkata   https://www.telegraphindia.com/my-kolkata/lifestyle/the-changing-face-of-teachers-day-celebrations-and-an-educators-journey-through-time/cid/2045308 [With Teachers’ Day around the corner, an experienced educator - formerly known as Teacher - gives us his view of the day and all it signifies or hoped to, now and in the past. Any resemblance to  teachers you might know is purely coincidental and predictable.] Picture this: You pack up your books for the day, strip yourself of the necktie, slip into a loud shirt and head down to the local pub to play the guitar onstage when some older kids walk up and say, “Hi Sir!” with a knowing wink.  There are few professions which are “always on” like good WiFi - one of them is the Doctor and the other the Teacher. It’s a profession you can’t escape but we have designated just one day in a year to celebrate it - the birthday of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, philosopher, scholar, politician, President of In...

 Published in MyKolkata   https://www.telegraphindia.com/my-kolkata/lifestyle/opinions-and-talking-points-of-2024-paris-olympic-games/cid/2042058 [An armchair sportsperson airs his views on what people talked about during the Olympics, paving the way to a new sport - Opinions!] The Olympics are unfair.  In addition to all the sports at which we do not excel, they could have introduced an ancient event - Olympic Opinions.  We might have won Gold if not Silver, Bronze and Fourth Place too. We could have been Lord of the Rings, all five of them. The Greeks shared their opinions at the Parthenon, which is back as a background on Olympic medals after a brief spot featuring the Roman Colloseum.  But, alas, we are confined to sharing our views in Olypub - name changed from the original Olympia which has nothing to do with the Olympics either. In the past, the views would be bolstered by “evidence” such as “they said” and “I overheard”.  But today we get far more d...

 Published in MyKolkata https://www.telegraphindia.com/my-kolkata/lifestyle/how-ai-and-chatgpt-are-affecting-teachers-and-students-in-kolkata-schools-and-around-the-world/cid/2034104 Intelligence - Natural and Artificial The author, an educator for four decades plus, takes a look at how teachers, especially Language teachers, may be viewing Artificial Intelligence and their own futures. “Well, we got no choice / All the girls and boys / Making all that noise / 'Cause they found new toys /. . . / School's out for summer / School's out forever / School’s been blown to pieces” - Alice Cooper’s School’s Out, was released in 1972 and so was I, from school.  The ISC done, most of us were rocking to the song, and the words and we thought we’d never come back like the song says.  But I did.   A few years later, I was back in school as a Teacher. And I rued the day I sang, “No more pencils, no more books / No more teacher’s  dirty looks / Out for summer, out 'til Fa...

 Here's the link to the published piece in My Kolkata : https://www.telegraphindia.com/my-kolkata/lifestyle/beyond-the-screen-my-five-year-experience-without-tv-in-the-age-of-smartphones-and-streaming/cid/2032629 [No noise, no outage, no calls to cable operators and plenty of Kindle - that’s how I would describe the last 5 years of my life without TV. No, I do not live under a rock, but I choose what I watch!] My son is an expert.  We suddenly decided to watch the T20 World cup finals last week - well, apparently it’s the done thing, even if you don’t watch cricket, to watch your country do stuff on TV. But we had no cable, no dish and no account. He managed to get a live telecast on his mobile phone and then he ‘screencast’ it to the TV set. Every alternate moment the picture refreshed itself, so you actually saw Chaplin type movements jerking across the screen. Not cricket!  After a bit more fiddling, he got a Tab to work and we watched the match in all its 11-inch glor...

 [Published in My Kolkata on 23rd June 2024.  Read Online .] Oh the games people play now  /  Every night and every day now Never meaning what they say now  /  Never saying what they mean Inner Circle made that song memorable for me. After an exhausting brace of election months we know we’ve been a part of these games, often as spectators or pawns. But that’s political.  This piece is about the games that we played in our youth and how they have transformed over the years. Facebook University informs me that for some 72 days which began a week or two ago, we are going to be treated to sports like never before - ICC World Cup, UEFA, Copa America, the Olympics - and for armchair sports persons this is good news!  Better news for TV channels and advertisers. In the good old days of 2-colour TV (Black and White) we preferred to be outside, missing the ads, lowering the TRPs and playing physical games. Or even indoors. At a friend’s house the other nig...

 [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....