Humor

No one knows exactly what it is that makes a person laugh or why any thing funny should cause us to make such a peculiar noise.

By far, the greatest amount of humor is told rather than seen. Humor of words can be gentle and kind, or it can be harsh and biting. Most humor produces a smile, but wit usually causes people to breakout into laughter.

Comedy is one form of drama that deals with ridiculous aspects of human behavior to make people laugh. Many famous humorists like… Nash, Oscar Wilde, G.B Show etc. made satirical comments on society and ridiculed foolish behavior. For them humor was the best means of surviving is a difficult world. To summarise “laughter is the brush that sweeps away the cobwebs of the heart.”

By: Amy Irene Mathew, St.Teresa's College.

My Ages And Mothers

My Ages And Mothers

4 years of age = My Mummy can do anything.
8years of age = My mom knows a lot; a whole lot.
12 years of age = My mom doesn’t really know quite everything.
14 years of age = Naturally, mother doesn’t know that either.
16 years of age = Mother! She is hopeless old fashioned.
18 years of age = That OLD woman! She is way out of date.
25 years of age = Well, she might know a little bit about it.
35 years of age = before we decide, let’s get mom’s option.
45 years of age = Wonder what Mom would have taught about it?
65 years of age = Wish I could talk it over with Mom.

Article By: Sinjini.V, St.Teresa's College

The Mirror That Cracked

The Mirror That Cracked

Staring at my reflection in the cracked mirror I wondered about the fate that had conspired against me. I wondered why that overpowering benevolence which some call God gave me this loveless existence. Tears streaked away the cheap powder on my cheeks. Quickly I redid my make up but even my best efforts couldn’t hide the pain, misery & hunger in my eyes.

Bright red lipstick, low cut chollies and pleated lehangas can no longer attract customers in the old age. Sitting alone in the verandah in the cobbled street I slowly slipped back to my reminiscences…. So sweet… yet so bitter…

I feel my biggest misfortune was being born into a family of overachievers. My Dad was a prosperous business man in his sixties. In my eyes he was a charmer, a creature as vile as a snake, never to miss an opportunity to make illegal thousands in shady deals. Appropriately his favorite axiom was ‘The end justifies the means’.

Mom, who ought to be synonym for love and sacrifice, was to me like the rude step mothers in fiction. My Mom was an alien in my life; she was no more than a visitor in home. High society world of glitz and glamour was her home and hearth. To my dad she was another trophy to be shown off before others.

My sister was always busy either winning beauty pageants or scholarships. I always watched with amusement tinged with jealousy at the number of boys who queued at her feet ready to slay dragons for her.

I always felt like an intruder in this family. While my sister was stunning I was just a plain Jane. I had neither beauty nor brains neither charm nor charisma. Once I openly heard my dad remark to his friends that I was his little mistake. His friends roared with laughter.

Love seemed like a forbidden fruit to me. The harder I tried the farther it seemed to be. Even God seemed to be playing a joke with me. I was always afraid of dreams. In my dreams I saw people loving me, a family loving me. Everything was beautiful and everywhere I found love. I dreaded waking into the cruel reality. I had shed tears late into the night for love. In those hours I seriously contemplated if my existence was really a mistake.

I vividly remember the day I left home. I had not planned it before. It just happened. Servants had retired to their quarters. Bored of watching. T.V. alone, I loitered to my parent’s room. On a sudden impulse I opened the bed side drawer. I was more than surprised when I took my mother’s diary from it. I never knew she had even kept one. Flipping through the pages I realized, not for the first time, that she was ashamed of me…..ashamed of being seen with me…. Ashamed of being known as my mother….ashamed of giving birth to me….

Though I had sensed it before, reading it from my Mom’s diary written in her own hand was a blow from which I never recovered. I knew then that hopping things would look up one day was akin to my unattainable dreams about love.

Looking back, I don’t remember much about the ensuing events. I left home penniless, walked to the bus stand in mild rain and my drenched clothes attracted a lot of hungry stares. I got into the first bus I saw. Somebody bought me a ticket and some food which I later realized had been drugged.

I found myself in this brothel when I woke up. My body was badly battered and bruised. Here I saw women shed all pretences of dignity, displaying their ample wares to get a mouthful of food a day. Like me the others here don’t know what love is.They foolishly craved for it once, and like me had left home in pursuit of it and found themselves here. So I am home….in a sense…lost among loveless souls….

Big isolated raindrops wake me from my stupor. No sign of customers…another day without food. Slowly…sadly I retreated to my hovel…nobody is there waiting for me…I am wedded to loneliness and poverty. Yet I thrive in pursuit of love…because I am in love with love.

Article by: Sherbin Salim,St.Teresa’s College

Miracle Of Smile

Miracle Of Smile

Every year on September 5th we pay tribute to all our teachers. Once when Mother Teresa could not go to a school to deliver her teacher’s day message, the authorities went up to her. Mother said, “What message should I give? If the message exceeds in length, the interpretation will not be effective. Hence I would like to be simple and practical. ‘S*M*I*L*E’ that’s my message to all teachers. For if they smile, the children will smile, when children smile, the whole world will smile”. I cannot remember till date any other anecdote as powerful as this. It speaks volumes of the miracle of smile.

What is the significance of smile? Take my word; there is no healer as happiness for diseases afflicting mind, body and soul. ‘smile’ reflects inner happiness. It is an effective tool to gauge your happiness quotient. There was a time when you immediately recruited on the basis of I.Q. (Intelligence Quotient). Today E.Q. (Emotional Quotient) has taken over. Tomorrow H.Q (Happiness Quotient) will be in demand. So the ability to put all your pressures and worries on the backburner and being cheerful has assumed paramount importance.

All parents today expect their wards to be masters of all trades. Children hence practice the uphill task of juggling all the activities with time. Even an error of the smallest dimension leads to their nervous breakdown. They should learn to take failures in their stride and move on. Marks and ranks can take you to places, but it is your character that’ll give you respect. ‘life is lived but once’, ‘life is like an ice cream, enjoy it before it melts’ – these are the adages that great men have gracefully accepted and put into practice. There is a vital fact that Lord Krishna effectively conveys through Gita even, and that is:
‘Wise men endowed with equanimity, renounces the fruits of action. An action without a desire for its fruit will bear fruit. Suppose a farmer sows seeds without selfish motives, will he get corn? Yes he will.’

Only by enjoying what you do will you be able to remain happy. Happiness acts as a stress buster. It exudes positive energy giving others courage and confidence. According to experts, Priyanka Gandhi enjoys greater mass appeal than Rahul Gandhi. Reason? Her charismatic approach to life. There have been many leaders from time to time who have topped popular charts with this approach. Bill Gabriel Okara in his widely appreciated poem, ‘Once upon a time’ describes the shifting and changing morals and values of people. He says, there was a time when people used to laugh heartily. Whenever they met one another, their joy knew no bounds. There eyes and hearts reflected sincere laughter. He goes on to say that frankness has gone out of their lives. Now they seem to laugh ‘with their teeth’. Their cold eyes tell a different story. Their may be times, when you run into people, who take you for granted. it is at these times that you should have the courage and sincerity to stand up to your conviction.

  Life is all about making memories and hence let those memories be sweet and lovely so that when you look back the world must be smiling with confidence at you. It is not important how many times you fall down, what is important is how many times you pick yourself up and carry on.

Hey friends, pardon me if it was a long sermonizing talk. What you need to remember is so very simple SMILE. It can cure your sadness, madness, illness, loneliness and eeriness. I had a wonderful time writing about SMILE; hope you had a great time reading it too………………………………..!

By, Neethi Jayakrishnan,St.Teresa's College

Computer

Computer

Is it meant only for the ‘hi-tech’ brains or for the layman too ? Read the article and decide….
The creative genius in man has striven to make life easier and as a result we had adding machines, cash registers and then calculators. Nowadays, we have the computer. The idea of the present day computer was conceived by men like Blaise Pascal and Gottfried Leibinitz way back in the 17th century.

Anything to do with computer has always been related to people with ‘hi-tech’ brains. This misunderstanding has created a wide gap between the ordinary man and computers. We have to bridge this gap to move ahead and go into the 21st century as a country capable of keeping up the traditions of excellence that our forefathers have shown ever since the beginning of civilisation.

To operate a computer, one does not require ‘hi-tech’ brains. The computer is made of ‘hi-tech’ stuff but the whole field has advanced so much that it has literally become childs play. One does not need even a little bit of electronics or a science background to use it. The computer is separated from the user by so many sets of circuits that one can talk to it in simple commands in English to instruct it to do certain tasks. The computer itself understands only the digits 1 and 0. One couldn’t hope to feed in commands in 1’s and 0’s. It would to run millions of 1’s and0’s. So we have a machine language which has commands in the form of ADD, SUB etc. But this is also complicated and so a high level language is used for Eg:-BASIC, FORTRAN, COBAL, PASCAL etc. These languages have been developed with a specific type of user in mind. The degree to which a language interacts with a user is called user friendliness BASIC is an all purpose language which can be used to do all kinds of work but FORTRAN is basically a language meant for scientific calculations. COBOL is a business oriented language and it would be easier to use COBOL for business calculations rather than BASIC.

Consider the following program which is in BASIC. 1u=5, 20B=10, 30C=A+B, 40 PRINT A, 50 PRINT B, 60 PRINT C. We feed this programe to the input/device which is as in most cases, a keyboard very similar to a typewriter keyboard. This programe is typed and it comes simultaneously on the video screen so that we can moniter what is going to be fed in. After all the 6 lines have been typed in, we print RUN on the screen and input this command also. When this is done, the computer processes the 6 lines that have already gone into its memory. The numbers 10,20 etc, are given at the beginning of each line. So as to give the give the computer a sequence to process the program I .e . it process line No. 10 first, then line No. 20 and so on. So at first it reads line 10 and when we say A=5, we are assigning a constant value of 5 to the variable A. On processing line 20, the value 10 is stored as the value of B. In line number 30 we ask the computer a simple task of addition of 2 variables A and B of which the values 5 and 10 are known to the computer. This value is stored as C. Now line Nos. 40, 50 and 60 are PRINT statements which mean that the computer is expected to print the values of A, B and then C on the video screen as it is stored in the memory. So on the screen we would see 5, 10 and 15. This is a very simple program to illustrate how simple it all actually is. When one has to do a repetitive and time consuming calculation a computer can be very handy. In eg:- quadratic equations are frequently encountered in all sorts of calculations. Some of these equations take a bit of time to solve. If we were to program a computer to do the work, as soon as the coefficients of n, n etc., are fed in, the answer is on the screen. This kind of program would be very useful to a science student. So every time a quadratic equations is encountered we can have the solutions in a couple of seconds rather than in a couple of minutes.

So programs are essential for a computer to function and programs can be made for any of those usual repetitive jobs that we face daily.

Now we go on to how a computer is used in the office of a small scale industry which would need, say, one accountant and one typist. If the propreiters have sufficient funds to buy a capable computer and an equally appropriate program, he could save a lot of man hours spent on account books and typing not to mention the space saved by storing all the records on floppy discs (thin discus- 51/4” in diameter) rather than on paper. He could do a lot more to work to improve production at a factory rather than at a desk waiting for a bill which has gone for typing or an account statement which the accountant is preparing. The major advantage is that he will have all the data he needs at his fingertips. So he could replace his typist and accountant with a couple of data entry operators who have a commerce background.

To create a program all one needs is pure logic and reasoning. It is just a matter of learning the commands which are feasible on a computer and learning to write programs as short as possible, there again it is not essential to have a science background. Only the person who repairs the computer needs to know the circuitory inside.

We are now coming to an age where computerization is almost inevitable in view of the time saved. It now being widely used in banking, ticketing for railways, airlines, police records and many other fields mainly to store data so that it is easily accessible. So all you prospective scientists and Managers, get off your backsides, learn all you can about computers and hitch this wagon to the stars.

Article By: Zacharaih George,St.Teresa's College

JESUS AND THE WOMAN CAUGHT IN ADULTERY: HER STORY (JOHN8:2-11)

JESUS AND THE WOMAN CAUGHT IN ADULTERY: HER STORY (JOHN8:2-11)

I was the good girl growing up, the shy one. I was the only daughter my father didn’t have to worry about. Now, look at me- caught in the act of adultery, pulled by the temple’s high officials, most likely to be stoned. I didn’t care though; there was nothing to live for anyway. The one I was trying to hurt didn’t even show up. Surprise. Surprise. The good for nothing, my husband…. He probably was revelling in his luck of getting rid of me.

When I married him, he gained status and wealth through my family. His family wasn’t as high as my family was, but our fathers were friends. In the year of our marriage, he was a true gentleman, a good son-in-law, a great scholar… he had us all fooled. I started to notice changes in him and his family as my father began to get sick. He wasn’t a great husband anymore nor was his parent’s great in- law. He started to get irritated with me over trivial things. In my father’s weak state, they manipulated him and got all our property. Soon, I was kicked out of our bedroom and into the kitchen. One of his favorite girl slaves took my place in the bedroom.

Later, I realized they were poisoning my father, but by that time it was too late. My father had died, and in my crazed mourning state, I decided to take revenge. But it didn’t exactly work out…
The Pharisees pulled me into the centre of a crowd and approached one of the taller men saying, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.”

I wonder what they do to men who commit adultery, abuse and kill… Their friend, my husband did all of that.“So what do you say?” I glanced at the man they were talking to. So he was the final decision maker. Strange. The man didn’t look like the others. He didn’t have elegant robes or golden rings on his fingers. He looked more or less like a common shepherd or artisan.

Instead of responding, the man bent down and started writing on the ground with finger.What an unconditional person. The hypocrite (I mean, the temple’s official), looked almost irritated when he continued to write in silence. They asked again and again until the man stood up.
“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
He said calmly before bending down and continuing to write.

After hearing this, one by one, they all started moving off. When only he and I were left, he straightened up and asked, “woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one,” I replied. With an afterthought I quickly added “Sir”. He did save my life. He smiled. “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.”
As he started to leave I couldn’t help but ask,” Who are you?”
“Jesus,” he said simply as if that would answer my question. “Jesus of Nazareth.” With that said, he left with his entourage.

I walked over to where he was writing. I started to read. Mathew, son of Issac-steals from the poor. Luke, son of Zachariah-abuses his wife and killed his father…. I stopped reading. How could he know that? He couldn’t possibly be just “Jesus of Nazareth.” I had to find out who he truly was.I started to head in the direction he had taken.

Article By:Lincy Elezebeth John,St.Teresa's College

Yoga

Yoga

Human beings are made up of three components body, mind and soul. Corresponding to these needs that must be satisfied for a contend life: the physical need is health, the psychological need is knowledge and the spiritual need is inner peace.

Yoga- at the physical level gives relief from countless ailments. The practice of Asana strengthens the body and creates a feeling of well-being. It enhances muscle strength, co-ordination, flexibility and help in the cure of back-aches. From the psychological viewpoint, yoga sharpness the intellect and aids in concentration. It steadies the emotions and encourages a caring concern for others. Spiritually the practice of pranayama calms the mind. With meditation – inner peace is experienced.

Regular practice of yoga helps to keep our body fit, controls cholesterol level, reduce weight, normalize blood pressure and improves cardio-vascular performance, reduces stress, tension, and tightness. It also a tool of self–healing.

Ayurveda - the ancient science, time tested and unique understands the essence of long living. It enhances your body’s natural capacity to cope with stress and strain, while catalyzing the rebuilding process within the organs. Researchers the world catalyzing over are concluding that yoga and pranayama go a long way in preventing many a dangerous disease.

Article By: Simi George,St.Teresa's College

A Love Letter in Physics

A Love Letter in Physics

Mr. D.C Shock,
Einstein Building,
10-Coulomb,
Stat Volt.

Dear Miss Magnet, 

With my cell of love, I first saw you across the field of vector yesterday, accelerating with the r m s value with uniform velocity. Then my heart started beating with twice the normal frequency. With respect to my field of vision from sin, cos and tan angles, you looked so beautiful that I couldn’t resist myself. I wanted to meet you with same moderating frequency as radio waves. The north pole of my heart was attracted towards you and I was charged with the image of your eyes, which reflected on the concave mirror of my heart but since Mr. Joules and Mr. Newton were with you, the idea of approaching you repelled me.

Please come to Wheatstone bridge at mega kilohertz per hour sharp. The circuit of my heart will break, if I don’t find you there. So please don’t find you there. So please don’t disconnect the circuit and don’t discharge me.

With multiplying love,
  Yours chargeful
  Mr. D C Shock.

Article By: Daisy Kurien,St.Teresa’s College

Memories a Piece of Paper Brought Back

Memories a Piece of Paper Brought Back

“Some like golden ships
Some like silver ships
I like one ship…
That is friendship.”
Does not sound familiar? You must have written these words in greetings cards on different occasions when you were say 7 or 8 years old. Definitely not after that ! These words must have found a prominent place in the cards you made for your best friend. And that’s how I got these words too. When I was in the std II my friend wrote these words in the New Year Card she made for me. It was the first time I was introduced to this ‘friendly jingle’ and I was full of awe for my friend whom I believed to be a great poet (I was so naïve…). But then I realized that my friend was no great poet because the same day my sister received those words on a card her friend made for her. And so my sister and I began using the rhyme profusely in whatever we wrote. Not anymore. In fact we stopped using it the moment we got the next one! It went like this:
“I don’t like Sunday,
I don’t like Monday,
I like one day,
That is your birthday!”
And that became a regular in every birthday card I made for my friends. But with time these cute little poems got tarnished (due to overuse of course) and I stopped using them. I even stopped making cards “Why should I make one anyway?” was what I thought. Especially when Archie’s or Hall-mark cards were available. So I switched to tailor made cards perfect for any occasion. So did my friends. No more did we have to write the same old symphony (or cacophony?) of ‘I love your birthday’ on cards made out of middle pages torn out from a notebook. By the time I was ten I had stopped this business of making cards for my friends. And each one of us would look forward to New Year and Christmas to buy beautiful cards for each other. My favourite was the one with the baby Jesus in mother Mary’s arms, in a stable with the lambs and three shepherds standing nearby and cute cherubs floating above.
And I would buy something like that for my friend hoping that I would also receive a similar one from her! And we used to be in such a frenzied state buying cards for uncles, aunts, and teachers…
It used to be much fun. Being on the receiving end gave greater pleasure (it’s the same even now) and the joy used to be greater when a card arrived by post, especially if it was addressed to me instead of my father. It made me feel important and I could proudly say,”It’s mine!”
I have a collection of such cards I received on different occasions. There are more than hundred of them I should say, all preserved and kept in a red paper bag. (That it lies in the store room is another matter altogether! ).
The other day as I went to get something from the store room my eyes fell on the red paper bag, full of dust kept on the top most shelf, and I thought it would be fun to go through the mess! I took the bag gingerly from the shelf trying my best not to sneeze ( It was so dusty).
I took out the cards one by one and glanced at them. There were so many that I started rummaging through them as I began to lose patience. Suddenly I spotted a very dirty looking yellowish paper lying twisted disgracefully among the ‘once upon a timeelites’. I took it out carefully and opened its folded ends. It was hand written. It said, “Happy New Year… May your every morning come with new happiness.”
The ‘almost perfect’ grammar and spellings told me that it was at least ten years old. It was a middle page torn out from a small notebook. On the front, the maker had drawn a potted plant with a single stem, a single leaf and a single flower.There was a sun smiling above it too. It was made for me by Ramya, my childhood friend whom I barely remember now. She had given it to me just before I left my school, my home and everything and everyone I knew before I came to Kerala.
And I went on a tour down memory lane. I remembered how we used to play ‘chorsipahi’, ‘blind man’s buff,’ etc, how we used to fight over silly things, how we used to patch up. Waking up from my reverie I turned back the card to find the same old lines written on it:
“Some like golden ships,
Some like silver ships,
I like one ship,
That is friendship.”
And I had to laugh. After all these years of alienation from that lovable rhyme, I was introduced to it all over again!What I found worn out and clinched long ago, now brought a smile to my lips.
This card was the only thing I took back to my room after I put the red bag with all its contents back on the shelf in the store room. The simple card conveyed much more than any other beautiful card in the bag. It brought back memories of bygone days, sweet friendship, and innocence.
That card now rests in the middle page of my personal diary, which is kept among my most prized possessions! And guess what I am thinking after I recovered that card: “Should I gift my friend an Archie’s card on her birthday after all???”

Article By:Veena M.B,St.Teresa's College

A Little Understanding...

A Little Understanding...

My best friend is always in trouble with my teacher. Her crime: she’s always late to class in the morning. She’s so bad at being punctual that none of us, teacher included, expect her in class before half the class is over. All of us have flaws. Tardiness is her imperfection. Sometimes we wonder if it’s physically impossible for her to come to class on time. But friends are supposed to be understanding right? And the only way to understand is to find out why. Why is so late to class every single day? What are the road blocks on her path to becoming a teacher’s pet?

Now, my friend’s a typical teenage girl (although with enough brains to know that Europe’s not a country). Anyways, she lives in a typical teenager’s world where many things are expected of one as a ‘typical teenage girl’. After class, some unwritten rule insists that all of us friends hang around chatting about everything and nothing for at least two hours in our class room or at the bus stop or the friendly neighborhood shop cum restaurant, which means that she reaches home a full three hours after class.

Once home the beast in her takes over and she spends some time nourishing her body, tired from her efforts at fulfilling her typical teenage duties. Being a girl and eighteen, she’s doomed to spend the following two hours taking a bath and grooming her hair, skin nails and eyebrows. She painstakingly scrubs, plucks, waxes, tones and moisturizes. At the end of this tedious routine, she’s left with very little time to do her home work and more importantly, to watch TV to enrich her head with very important pieces of information which every teen should know if she’s to sustain any two minute conversation with her peers. She dutifully spends her time enlightening herself on the lives of reality TV stars, actors and other ‘celebs’. In the midst of these come urgent calls from her friends- boyfriend problems, movie on Saturday? She multi tasks and manages them all. And if, God forbid, any of her friends has a birthday coming up, she has to spend hours deciding on a gift and making plans to bring out that ‘surprise’ every birthday girl expects. After all this exhausting work she logs on to her orkut/facebook/whatever... Account to do the mandatory amount of social net working. She spends hours replying to all those annoying scraps and scribbles and fending off irritating friend requests from either boring people with no profile photos or hyper active ones with 900 friends. Then at last, past midnight she shuts her laptop with tired eyes only to suddenly remember that the assignment given a month ago was due the next day. Ever the responsible pupil, she dutifully finishes it and collapses onto her mattress after another round of combing, scrubbing and moisturizing.

She’s shaken from her slumber by the faithful phone alarm which shouts out some annoying tone. Snooze. Five minutes. There it goes again. Her mom pokes her head into the room. My friend pretends to get up and goes back to sleep. Then a pair of hands, her mom’s physically removes her from the bed and shakes her till she wake up.

 My poor friend, with only an hour and a half till begins, takes a ten minute bath and proceeds to dress. An act of no consequence which would take five minutes you’d think. But you’d be very, very wrong. She’s about to make the most important decision of the day in our typical teenage world. That unanswerable question: what should I wear?? She spends half an hour contemplating and trying on different sets of clothes. Then she puts on her favorite pair of jeans and a carefully picked top and proceeds to makeup and do her hair. She tries on different hair dos and then takes a look at the clock and puts it all into a pony. She carefully draws her eyes and lips. She hunts her drawer for earrings and other paraphernalia and puts them on. And voila, she’s done, ready to face the world. Thirty minutes to class. What else? Books! She outs her texts and notes into her bag and stuffs her lunch in. No time for breakfast; she has to catch that last minute bus. She races towards the bus stop; the bus is already there. She runs. The bus jerks forward and stops again for a lady. She waves wildly. The bus passes her by. The conductor grins.

 She waits for the next bus. Ten minutes till class begins. Where have all the buses gone? The next one takes another five minutes to arrive. She jumps in. She prays for the bus to over speed. The conductor looks her up and down as she gives him her student ticket change. ‘Card’ he says….She fishes out that scrawny little yellow card. The guy looks at her photo and scrutinizes all the little details in it. He gives it back with the ticket. The bus is over flowing. Guys hang on to the door handles with their life. The driver goes slowly lest he should accidentally shake off some of the people dangling on one side. Old ladies push and shove and mess up my friends carefully combed hair. The bus plods through the dirt tracks which lead to the city.

 After twenty minutes of torture my friend is pushed out at the college stop by a torrent of humanity. Her dress is crumpled and she realizes that the bath she took in the morning had been a waste. The class has already started. She rushes with other late-birdies and risks her life crossing the road with no zebra crossings or signals. She walks as quickly as she can. The campus is eerily quiet. She almost slips and falls while climbing the stairs in her clumsy slippers. She runs to class and is joined by other late comers to our class. They wait at the door in embarrassment, as the teacher tries to figure out what to do with them. “Oh, just come in…” she says in exasperation. “The next time, I will send you to the Principal. Why can’t you come to class on time? You’re only students. What’s keeping you so busy that you can’t make it to class on time?”
With all due respect ma’am, you have no idea…

Article By: Nandini M.Thilak,St.Teresa's College

From Cocoon to the Butterfly…

From Cocoon to the Butterfly…

My life started in a country abroad – in a place of sunshine – the Middle East. To me, that was my country … My native place… My home. I saw India as a strange and foreign land. A place of everlasting rains, mosquitoes, bad roads and overflowing drains. Kerala consisted of people who used a language I spoke with an Anglicized accent. Was this my motherland? Oh no, not at all. I belonged to the Land of Dates, the Island of Pearls – Bahrain.

I had everyone and everything I needed there. My family, friends, a good school and most importantly, a wonderful climate. I was happy. But despite the sophisticated foreign culture, I was a silent, shy girl.I was a s loud as a car horn at home but always as quite as a as mouse outside. My friends were just as quiet and well-behaved in class as I. I was comfortable only with them or my family. I was enclosed in a cocoon and too timid to come out of it. Neither did I try coming out because I was happy where I was.

But then came the day I always dreaded in my life-the day I had to bid farewell to my home. The day brought a river of tears and a heavy heart. I simply could not say good bye. I could not believe that it was all over so soon.

I was plucked out of the country I loved and planted in the land; they call ‘God’s own country’. I did not know anyone and no one knew me. I was very apprehensive about joining an Indian School. The first day of class greatly disappointed me. Everyone, including the teachers, spoke Malayalam. I kept struggling with the language. But a month or so in St. Teresa’s School made me realized that it was not that bad. As opposed to what I expected, I made good friends. Some of them even found my English flavoured Malayalam amusing. Contrary to my friends in Bahrain, the ones here were pretty jovial and fun- loving. Probably because girls schools provided an atmosphere for students to express themselves freely in contrast to a coed institution where girls generally tend to be reserved amid boys. I was used to studying in such a 
school. The nature of my friends here influenced me. Next thing I know, I ‘m talkative and fun-loving like them. Life here was better. True, the place had all the flaws I saw in it before, but the characters in my life in India made up for it all. I began to love this place. Now I see it as my country … My native place… my home. My home- away- from home? No, home itself.

But it is not just my friends that changed me. My growing older must have been another reason behind it. I entered teenage – that phase of life where you crave fun, freedom and attention. I began breaking the silence whenever I was among my friends. In high school my name was almost always found in the class perfect’s list of the talkative. Even now some of our good old families friends from Bahrain listen to me speak in amazement. “Is this the real you?” they sometimes ask. “Since when did you start talking?”. “Since 1945 love story…” I say. They laugh more out of wonder than at the ridiculousness of my so-called joke.

But I am not entirely out of my shell. I’m more of an introvert than an extrovert. But looking at the past and comparing it with the present, I see that I have come a long way and I still have a long way to go. It is probably a step-by-step process. I believe that a day will dawn when I will break loose completely. After all, every cocooned caterpillar one day breaks free, spreads out its wings and flies, doesn’t it?’

Article By: Jisha Davis,St.Teresa's College

A Promise

A Promise

Ask me what my greatest wish in life is and I will tell you that it is to see my father’s family in 
Kathmandu. I often dream about going to my ancestral home and meeting my aunts, uncles, cousins and everybody there. People often ask me whether I am a North Indian and I reply in the affirmative. Because if I say otherwise,the next question will be, “Have you ever been in Nepal?” and here I’m silent. What can I say when I have never met my relations nor even spoken to them. Moreover, I don’t even know if they realize I even exist.

I know of them when my Papa tells me his sister is very caring, that his brother are very serious, that his nice had won the Miss Nepal title, that his Mom was very strict and so on. I know through the media that Kathmandu is a very beautiful place but inspite of being the daughter of a native of Kathmandu I have never been to the place. It sounds ironical.

On festivals like Diwali and Holy when my Papa talks of how they used to celebrate them in his childhood days, I can sense a touch of regret and sorrow in his voice. I know he misses his relatives when he is far removed from them here in Kerala, and this feeling surfaces at times when he shouts at me. Being the only daughter, I know what loneliness is. I know how lonely Papa feels in his strange land away from his people.

So this is the resolution I have made. One day, when I am independent enough, I will take my Papa to his motherland and my Mamma to the in-laws she has never met. This is my promise…to myself.

Article By: Tenzing Noryan,St.Teresa's College

Weighing My Life

Weighing My Life

Last April, when my best friend Jenny arrived from Mumbai, I organized a get-together for all our close friends from school. Everything about this get-together was fun, except, the reaction of my family on seeing my photos with my friends. It was as if my folks were waiting for some evidence to bring up this new issue: I was putting on weight.

Early next morning my Papa woke me up, make me drink a glass of warm lemon juice with honey. We did some exercise for about 45 minutes and then it was ‘counseling time’. My mom couldn’t resist this opportunity and joined in this grant event. My Papa (a journalist) who loves playing with language started talking endlessly about how a lifestyle change would benefit me. I had to do everything in the right way (from taking up the right breathing techniques, to how much water I drink, to posture of sleep …) and thus bringing about a positive vibe in my life. This was new information according to which I must freeze immediately no matter what I’m doing and start all over again. “This will wear me out, if not anything else “, I thought to myself. My mom jumped into the conversation at the first opening she got. She, being a doctor, went on with the medical aspect of being ‘overweight’. Oh, the very term shook me to bits and at the same time I was amazed how many times she used the term ‘endocrinology’ and ‘hormones. For the first time in my life I started hating Biology.

I didn’t understand the necessity of this conference over ‘lil old me’. My friends always described me as a ‘warm, lovable, plump and cheery ‘person. I don’t think I could have described myself any better. Though my vital stats are not 36-24-36 (I think only Barbie has this ratio) I am not horribly overweight either. I believe I am a cheery person who loves to laugh and who eats when hungry. With anorexic looking girls running about the city, should I starve too? (Not in this life!) I can walk, do everything I love and more, and I am comfortable with my own self. “I need to lose a few pounds here and there, but I can’t stop living my life for that “. I shrieked... The only thing I probably cannot do is to lie on the beaches of Goa in bikini (when my buddies and I go to Goa after college is over). But I think I can live with that!

For my defence, I rang up my big brother (a journalist) who is in Pune. ‘’Chetta, our folks are going wild with the thought of making my waistline perfect. Save me please.’ Little did I know that I was adding fuel to the fire? Let me brief you on the background details of my brother. ‘A fitness freak’ is not an exaggeration when describing him. He loves his proteins, biceps, 6packs and thighs and to top it all, he is crazily in love with me. I got half an hour talk on gyms, proteins consumption, calories and ideal weight. 

So here I am now, 5kgs down and more to go. Listening to the endless lectures of the three most loving people in the world, drinking 10+ glasses of water daily and doing exercise are all part of my routine. Don’t get me wrong when I say, “I love myself and the way I am”. But I guess I live my family and my peace of mind more.

Article by : Lauella Amy,St.Teresa's College