The sweet sound of `mami’

In Mumbai, there is a simple way to know how old you look. If any stranger – a shopkeeper, a neighbourhood child or a college student – addresses you as `auntie’, you can be sure you are perceived to be above 40, married and having a child/children.  This appellation also presupposes that you are at least 15 to 20 kgs more heavy than your ideal body weight.  Life is simple this far. The women who maintain their slim figures – irrespective of what happens to it by way of pregnancy and child birth – are the ones who complicate things.

The same shopkeepers and neighbourhood children are unable to place a slim woman – when her body belies the mature looks of her face.  Such lucky women are called `didi’, which somehow doesn’t age you so much as `auntie’.

I know several women who dread the day when they become `auntie’s in the eyes of strangers. I have seen many a face go into spasms of pain when the dreaded appellation is called out to beckon them.

I for one am not one such `auntie’. In fact, I love the sound of being called the tamil equivalent of `auntie’ – which is `mami’.  In fact `mami’ places you even more correctly in the whole spectrum of things. It is an appellation for a married Tamil Brahmin woman.

Being away from my native place for more than 25 years now and having hardly one or two Tamil friends who are also second generation Tamils, I yearn for any piece of my roots.

For the non-Tamil Mumbaikar, I am an anonymous auntie. But for every Tamil shopkeeper, fruit and flower vendor and temple priest I encounter in Chembur and Matunga, I am a `mami’.   They see me for who I am and don’t make two ways about it. When they address me as `mami’, it sounds as sweet as when my father calls me by my pet name `umy’  or when my mother used to call me `ummu’.  

These compatriots of mine see me as who I am – someone I have left behind and I like being reminded once in a while of who I truly am.

Kings and Kingmakers

On teacher’s day that just passed us, I woke up to many warm messages from my students past and present. Being a professor in higher education, I find our celebrations typically ends with forwarding self-congratulatory messages to each other and getting on with the day’s work. Teacher’s Day is a big deal in schools, really. Well, it is about teachers. In higher education, we are teachers only 20% of our time with rest of our time spent in administrative work and knowledge creating research.

Our history is replete with legendary teachers like Chanakya who made it his life’s mission to make an emperor out of a common boy Chandragupta Maurya, or Dronacharya, who took his greatest pride from creating the best archer the world has ever known. Many of our Gods are worshipped in their teacher forms. Lord Krishna, for example, has by far the most colourful life among Gods. But he is most revered as the jagadguru who delivered the teachings of Bhagwad Gita. The wrathful Lord Shiva is revered as Dakshinamurthy for giving the highest knowledge of wisdom to his disciples.

Teacher’s Day is one day in the year when I introspect about my own choice to change two professions to become a professor – I started as a journalist and then went on to corporate communication before arriving at the noble profession.

While I took the path to teaching, there are many who started as teachers and moved on to more lucrative, powerful, creative professions.

The very Teacher’s Day is the celebration of the birthday of former President of India Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan who was a professor of philosophy before moving to public life. Then there is Pranab Mukherjee who became the President of India and the famous economist and professor Dr Manmohan Singh who became the Prime Minister. These illustrious public servants spent years in teaching before moving to public life.
The current Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was an elementary school teacher of mathematics and French and Former US President Barack Obama was a Law faculty for 12 years before he moved to public life.

It is not just the politicians, but many in the showbiz seem to have had a brush with teaching. Irish actor Liam Neeson trained for 2 years to be a teacher and found it more difficult than acting. Ranked among the best looking men in the world, actor Hugh Jackman was also a teacher for a few years. Sylvestor Stallone of all people was a gym instructor and bouncer before he moved to acting. Singer Sting was a teacher for years before he found his footing in the music world. Teller (of the magician duo Penn & Teller) was also a Latin teacher before turning to magic full time.
Talking of magic, J K Rowling spent years as a teacher while plotting the magical tale of Harry Potter and the world of Hogwarts, a school of witchcraft and wizardry. Stephen King eked out a living as a high school teacher till he sold his first book and took up writing full time.
Teachers are no doubt king makers, but if they choose to, they could be great kings themselves.