CHUCKLE THINKING

recollections Teacher’s Mood: The Stark Reality of 70s Classrooms When I open the bundle of my school-day memories, several startling incidents come to mind alongside the many beautiful moments. The lessons in discipline that teachers gave us back then might seem like mere stories today, but at the time, they were significant challenges in our lives. The education system of that era was a unique blend of fear and reverence. One such incident from my ninth standard (sometime in September 1970) at Sarada Vilas High School, Mysuru remains vivid in my memory to this day. Our Physics teacher had once taken a class on the workings of the camera. He was generally a very grave person and exceptionally strict. In his classroom, no one dared to utter a word; he would simply come, finish his lecture, and leave—his world revolved entirely around his teaching. However, the following day, for some unknown reason, he suddenly began asking questions about the previous day’s lesson. Unfortunately, not ...

  recollections Navigating the Educational Crossroads of 1970s Mysuru The late 1960s and 1970s marked a transitional phase in the Indian educational landscape, where traditional systems were slowly making way for modern career paths. During this era, the concept of professional "career counselings" were virtually non-existent, leaving most students to navigate their futures through a mix of intuition, peer influence, and family expectations. Families often operated on limited resources, making the choice of a study stream a high-stakes decision driven more by pragmatism than passion. Looking back at that pivotal time in Mysuru, it is fascinating to see how the academic structure shaped our identities and our long-term professional journeys. Until the late 1970s, parents were largely unequipped to guide their children through the complexities of academic streams. Even students who harboured specific career ambitions rarely discussed them with friends, likely due to a burgeonin...

  recollections How Mysuru Found Its Pulse on the Playground Reflecting on the Mysuru of the mid-twentieth century evokes a sense of simplicity that seems almost alien in today’s hyper-connected world. Those of us born in the 1950s and early 1960s grew up in a landscape where the rhythm of life was dictated by the seasons. The city was then a smaller, more intimate space, where every residential layout felt like a natural extension of one’s own home. As I sit back and recollect those golden years, the memories of our unconventional education and the vibrant street culture paint a vivid picture of a cherished bygone era. In those days, the formal structure of schooling was far less rigid than the "preschool-to-professional" pipeline we see today. Many of us bypassed Kindergarten entirely, as, such institutions were virtually non-existent, often entering the first or even second standard directly. My older siblings, for instance, transitioned straight into middle school, while ...