Refractive Thoughts

“God only made a few perfect heads, and the rest covered with hair” – Anonymous quote An ordinary hair-cutting experience morphs into a hair-raising experience and a natural way to mitigate this risk is to orchestrate a fall with a grand entry into the bald club.   The world has only two types of people: one who are bald and the other who are not!   Many from the former strive for an entry into the latter via a wig here and a toupee there, and modern clinical interventions.   Receding hairline has known benefits - time & money saved; vis-à-vis the clan members who enjoy or suffer a copious full-head of hair - extravagantly spend on a multitude of products such as hair gel, oil, combs, curlers, colors, shampoo, not to mention the high-spend on styling options like the now ubiquitous mohawk cut. Who said the hot chair is a politician’s prerogative?!   There is indeed a hot chair in a barber’s shop.   One enters the shop with a head held high but once sea...

  “Gurubrahma…guruvishnu” and “Acharya devobhava” – are engraved values with high reverence in our dharma for our gurus right from our student days.   Several instances stand as a testament to the ‘marked respect’ – an inoculation by Indian birth.   Are there situations, as students where we disrespect our teachers to the extent, we annoy them? Many like me hesitate to pass a judgement about our teacher who stands in front of a classroom to impart knowledge, leave alone annoy but well circumstances can be different!  Propensity to exploit the inadequacies of some who pose they have abundant subject knowledge or who do not show empathy towards their students or do not fit a ‘teacher’ stereotype, is but natural.  Lack of grip on subject matter and inability to answer precocious students’ questions is a common ‘root cause’ for many a pandemonium in the classroom!  A mishmash of a few anecdotal incidents but from my student days… Idiosyncrasy was a stand-ou...