Perks of being a teacher

Listen to the MUSTN’TS, child.

Listen to the DON’TS

Listen to the SHOULDN’TS

The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON’TS

Listen to the NEVER HAVES

Then listen close to me-

Anything can happen, child,

ANYTHING can be.”

Shel Silverstein

Being a teacher might seem like a piece of cake. But trust me, it isn’t. As it has been rightly quoted, teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition. Teachers are educators who make the things easy; who teach the children about self-awareness and in the process- become aware about themselves too.

But is it always just limited to imparting education and knowledge? Or is there a deeper meaning attached to this job?

There are numerous benefits of being a teacher- you have so many holidays, you get vacations, you can hone your speaking skills, you learn to interact with a child, you strengthen your social and emotional bonds and the best part- you get paid! But other than these perks, there is a different feeling of satisfaction that you get being a teacher; the feeling when you realise that a child who did not want to speak in front of his classmates, has started feeling comfortable when you are around and has started sharing those little things with you; the satisfaction when you realise that your small motivating actions have had an influence on the most notorious kid and that he has started changing; the satisfaction that you get when you feel accomplished after having taught a lesson; a satisfaction that you feel when you find the children happy when they have your class.

These small/ little pleasures might not seem big but their impact on your personality is immense.

More to be shared soon…

Book Review: Bharathi and Her Theory of Everything by Anil CS Rao

Bharathi and Her Theory of Everything

Author: Anil CS Rao

Publisher: Cyberwit.net

Rating: 2/5

Blurb

To Bharathi, this was utterly horrific. If it were indeed the case then she was conceived the same way she saw Aryaraj molest older inmates in the encampment. As a result of this mischievous Roopa’s revelation, Bharathi fell into a depression for (she had counted) forty days and forty nights. In her dreams, she recalled a very ancient story Roopa had shared with her a year before: about Noah, who bought two of every living thing on his arc when The World had been flooded by God’s anger at human being’s conduct on Earth. What would God think now about the semi-robotic people that inhabited Aryraraj’ s World? And worse: who was this God? Aryaraj often professed that he was eligible for this status or title.

Grab your copy to know more.

My opinion

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds! Marcus Garvey

‘Bharathi is a young girl who drifts away into a world of her own. There she decides the flow of the story according to her own will. This world of hers has so many different characters and Bharathi is related to all of them.

The title of the book seems too long, yet not catchy. The cover is baffling. The book lacks a blurb and I had to go to Amazon to find out the plot summary because the narration is confusing. The overall idea is no doubt, very creative. But something is amiss.

The typesetting and font (style, size) are fine. The narration is lucid but it lack the inter connection. The first few chapters expose the readers to questions like- Who is Arun? How is Bharathi related to him? If she day dreams, then how does she dream of Arun? Has she met him before? The failure to get answers for these questions for quite some time may act as a turn off for the readers. Other than the plot, there are grammatical errors as well.

Overall, the concept is good. I wished the content was put forward in an easy way.

Buy this book at:

Amazon

Book Review: The speaking ghost of Rajpur by Priyonkar Dasgupta

Ghost anecdotes with a Bengali touch!

The Speaking Ghost of Rajpur

Author: Priyonkar Dasgupta

Publisher: Thought Balloon Books

Rating: 3.5/5

Remember those wonderful days of Enid Blyton and Ruskin Bond books? Those were the days that successfully blew away the cobwebs. But alas! The sweet pleasures of life do not last for long. With the increase in the number of authors and their debutants, the only hope that the readers can have is to wish for a genre and a story that really is out of the box.

‘The speaking ghost of Rajpur’ is the first novel by Priyonkar Dasgupta, who hails from Kolkata. With this book, the author has successfully proved his caliber. Writing with the heart of a child is not a piece of cake. But Priyonkar has aced the test. The book appeals to the light- hearted people like me who prefer reading books that are picaresque.

The story begins with lucid and simple narration of the events. With exemplary vocabulary, the first person narration by the protagonist- Shoumo, acts like a cherry on the cake. Shoumo is a cordial teenager, who seeks solace in his brother, Shoumik’s company. Shoumik, unlike Shoumo, is an intrepid kid who seeks adventure. It is when these boys meet in the city of Rajpur and decide to spend their summer holidays in a unique way that the things change from being funny to being supernatural.

The plot is woven finely, but the lengthy descriptions acted as a speed blocker for me. The characters have been given due weight age and the chronological selection of events is also good. Amidst, minor punctuation errors and a different (not so legible) font, the story is one that helps you reminiscence the childhood.