Happy Meal

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:58:29 +0900

It’s a fine thursday morning. I wake up early, get ready and head for nearby Kizuki primary school. The principal is waiting for me and others in his office. I park my bicycle in the school campus and reach his office. The principal welcomes me and hands over today’s lessons. It’s my first day in the school as a part time English teacher. I am pretty excited as I haven’t seen a Japanese primary school before. Two ladies whose kids study in the same school accompany me as volunteers and we head towards the classroom.

We enter a fourth grade class. There are some twenty odd kids in the classroom. They seem excited to see a foreigner. Me and the other two ladies introduce ourselves and we exchange greetings with the kids. I ask some questions to the kids but the response is dull. The Japanese teacher accompanying us asks the kids “genki nai no ka?” (don’t you have energy?) after which the response gets little louder. Most of the kids seem shy, but as with every class, this class also has two-three naughty members who keep troubling their neighbors without paying attention to teacher’s warnings. I start introducing months of the year. The students seem reluctant to learn them initially but as we start playing card games they seem enjoying. We divide into four groups and exchange cards. The students have to ask each other the months and gather cards. The game is in its peak when the bell rings. The period is over and we have to stop the game. The students say goodbye greetings and we leave. It’s the short recess. Some kids surround me as I step out of the classroom. They have many questions on their faces. A girl takes the initiative.
“sensei wa nan sai?” (how old are you, teacher?)
“nan sai ni mieru?” (how old do I look?) I reply to see their reaction.
There faces turn perplexed. The next few seconds, I hear all the numbers between twenty and thirty. A boy turns happy when I say his guess is correct.
Now that the ice is broken, the bombardment of questions starts.
“Are you married?”,
“Do you have girlfriend?”,
“Do you eat curry everyday?”,
“How many brothers and sister do you have?”
“Boy, kids these days are becoming smart.” I say to myself as I answer their questions. The recess gets over and I enter another classroom. We repeat the same sequence and finish remaining two classes. It’s lunch time! Best part of the day as I get to eat lunch with one of the classes.

Some of the students are assigned duty of distributing lunch to everybody. They do it in turns every month. I join a group of six. The menu is simple but healthy. Gratin with bread, salad and milk. We continue the question and answer session left during the recess. The talk comes to Mango and I tell them that I have a Mango and a Coconut tree in the backyard of our house in India.
“How big is the mango tree?” A girl asks curiously.
“It can grow as big as a Sakura tree.” I answer.
“A tree as big as Sakura in your backyard? You must be very rich!” They don’t seem to believe their ears.
“No, no. It is very common in India to have mango trees in the backyard.” Kids in suburbs of Tokyo don’t have a chance to see houses with huge backyards.
As we talk an interesting boy in the corner grabs everybody’s attention. His friend tells that he is very good at ‘monomane’ (mimicry).
“Ramen, tsukemen, boku ikemen!!” the boy mimics a popular TV comedian so gracefully that everybody bursts into laughter.

This is the first time I have come to any primary school after I left mine. The kids take me into my childhood days and I enter their world. But the happy hours come to an end soon as we finish the lunch. I say goodbye to the kids and return to the university thinking about the next ‘Happy Meal’.

Happy birthday google!

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 12:02:28 +0900

Our beloved Google is turning 10 today! Can you imagine the life without Google at today’s date? Let’s acknowledge Google’s contribution in our lives and wish it a Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday Google!

DVD DEBUT!

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 21:12:39 +0900

Family’s 2008 Japan trip DVD debut

“Japan Unlimited”
Locations : Hiroshima, Kyoto, Hakodate, Tokyo, Hakone, Yokohama.
Appearance : Mr. & Mrs. Vinayak Kulkarni and family
Pictures and video shooting by Vishal & Madhura Kulkarni
Editing and Cover design by Vishal Kulkarni

Travel cost : $4000
DVD creation cost : $45
DVD postage to home : $6.5
Creation time : 96 days
Smile on face of Mr. & Mrs. Kulkarni :
PRICELESS!!

(Available at nearest DVD stores)

Magic of corot

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:17:45 +0900

Spending all of the summer holidays in writing paper, I got just last one sunday for myself. I pretty much utilized it by visiting Ueno museum. (Now some of you may think it’s a waste. But not for me.) Although, I’d visited the museum once three years back, I did not see the paintings section and special exhibition section that time. (being a painting lover I don’t know why did I miss it). But this time, I specially visited the special exhibition gallery in the national museum of western art. The occasion was COROT - souvenirs et variations With the collaboration from Louvre Museum in Paris, the National Museum of Western Art in Ueno has put selected paintings of Camille Corot in Louvre for exhibition.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a french painter in19th century. A pivotal figure in landscape painting, Corot created some landmarks in landscapes during his lifetime. There are some 110 paintings of him kept in the exhibition. This was my first time to see real paintings of someone so legendary. It is hard to describe any of the painting of Corot in words. ‘Marvelous!’, ‘Awesome!’, or even ‘Unbelievable’ are not enough. His every painting is so realistic that you get completely mesmerized. ‘How can somebody put so much detail into one picture?’, ‘how long it must have taken to create this?’, you keep asking yourself as you go from one painting to another. And when you come to the ‘Woman with a pearl’ you just loose track of time. That’s the genius of Corot. Some people call this painting as Monalisa of Corot. Although his mastery was in landscapes, Corot created some masterpieces in portraits like ‘Woman with a pearl’.

I didn’t even realize that we spent half of the day inside the hall. But it was worth it. Watching art exhibition gives a kind of joy one cannot describe in words. It has to be experienced it by one’s own. So next time you get an opportunity to catch an art exhibition, don’t miss it!

Independence day Gift

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:56:03 +0900

हम होंगे कामयाब एक दिन मन में है विश्वास, पूरा है विश्वास हम होंगे कामयाब एक दिन

What could be a better independence day gift than a gold medal in olympics for a country that has been shy of olympic gold for as long as 28 years!!

Yes! Finally, the lines have come true. Abhinav Bindra has created history and made us all proud. Time for celebration, folks!

Still four days to go for India’s 61st Independence day. But I wish all fellow Indians in advance a Happy Independence Day!!

Long live Abhinav Bindra and long live Republic of India!