I struggled to update since the very first post. The question was always about what to post, what would NOT bore to anyone who was sweet enough to read my blog. When I did find a topic, it just never came down well on paper... writing my own thoughts suddenly seemed to be the most excruciating exercise. More than exercise itself (an activity I conveniently never find the time to do!)!
Mrs. Canteenwala helped not just me, but my entire batch in this regard. She's a rather nice looking lady. Presumably mid 60s. Has short curly hair (salt 'n' pepper) and dresses with the subdued class of a South Mumbaikar (always in a sari). The round glasses perched on her nose add so much character to her face. Frankly, I just can't imagine her without them.
She teaches us Effective Communication Skills (and is an epitome of it herself, if I may say so). 'You are what you eat' is a very oft heard adage. 'You are what you teach' is something you very rarely come across. And by this I mean a teacher who really knows her subject.
Fortunately, where I come to learn, everyone knows their job well (it's more than just a job for them). Mrs. Canteenwala is no exception. I remember feeling a sense of embarrassment in the very first Comm Skills class (or maybe even mild humiliation) when she gave us a large word from which we had to derive smaller words. Almost everyone around me had written more than 10 words. I was still doodling on my page, with only 3 or 4 words.
My heart (among a great many things) seemed to almost leap up my throat when she approached my desk and saw what I had (or had not) written. Back then, I mistook her benevolent smile for pity. Now I know she was just being helpful. I had never done such an exercise before and told her so. Mrs. Canteenwala suggested that I pick an alphabet from the word and quickly scan it to form as many word combinations as I could. It may seem like simple advice but it wasn't something that had occurred to me. Well, it's true. The runaway of my mind occassionally requires two take-offs.
It was the next exercise which she suggested that appealed to me the most. Ma'am would give us a word, and tell us to write our thoughts about it, or pen down a string of thoughts that were triggered by just one word. In the first class, I remember her giving us a simple word - Wood (in the first class). Most people had written a paragraph on the word. Me? I wrote about it in points (something like Wood - brown, tree, furniture)... Do I feel stupid thinking about it now? Uh...heh heh...well...a little...
But it was a practice I began to find most useful. Every class she would walk in, write a word (any random word) on the board and tell us to write something, anything on it while she took the attendance. Although she expected us to write our thoughts on the word, I would launch into narratives. Basically, I'd begin to pen down a story around the word rather than voice my thoughts on it.
Mrs. Canteenwala did it to open up our minds, think out of the box and beyond all that we see or are so accustomed to in our daily lives. I remember feeling a little nervous when this exercise was initially introduced. Creative freedom in an academic class was a bit of a novelty for me. It became most liberating once it became a regular feature. It encouraged us to do what we hadn't done....in a long, long time. Think for ourselves. To be a little more original each day. To begin every lecture...with a clean slate. :)
