Of Mr Winter, theatre and discipline

I was leafing through my old Creative Writing book a few nights ago. Those pages are a result of many afternoons spent with Mr Joe Winter in the 11th and 12th. He was a towering man, sixty years old with light-blue eyes and a booming voice. An Englishman who fell in love with Rabindranath Tagore and Jibananda Das. And the word kobi (Bengali for poet). The classes were quiet. He would come in, read to us, or talk about a topic we could write about. We wrote about light. Blindness. Once we wrote about The Cave. Nobody knew what cave we were writing about - it didn't matter. I wrote about a psychiatrist, a professional explorer of the dark cave that is the human mind.
There were afternoons just before exams when nobody would stay back for his classes. It would be him and me. I liked his classes. He encouraged gentleness, he pointed out cliches. He got me up on stage to recite William Blake.
Nobody could ask to leave the class without getting a droll 'Going for a quick smoke, are we? Off with you then.' He would check our writing individually - read out some that needed to be heard. It was like being back in kindergarten where we lined up at the teacher's desk with our exercise books. In many ways, it was what we needed. To show up on time. To write steadily for 45 minutes. To respect silence.
Towards the end of the year, our class performed Harold Pinter's Mountain Language. Pinter isn't about gentleness, and we shocked a lot of our audience, including Mr Winter. There were scenes where a prison guard assaults a young woman. We had full creative control in the play and we made it brutally vivid. There were scenes where an old woman (me) is whipped. We didn't have a whip handy, we used a metal-tipped belt, but it was enough to elicit major gasps from the audience. And leave bruises on my neck and arm after every rehearsal.
I don't think Mr Winter was overtly happy at the direction we had taken. But I liked that he admitted to being shocked. I miss so many things about those two years. I think I was more of a writer as far as discipline and regularity goes back then, than I am now. A lot of what I wrote was sloppy, sappy - I cringed quite a few times while reading.
But I was there. I sat down with paper and pen and got moving. I was a writer.

Dear Airbus

My grandparents arrived back from the US a few days ago via Dubai. Their flight from JFK to Dubai was aboard the Airbus-380.

Here's the mail Dadu sent me about it:

I must tell you about our new experience while returning from NYC this time. By our two and a half trips by Emirates, we had earned enough extra miles to upgrade our JFK-DXB 13 hr flt to Business Class which in the latest Airbus A-380-200 means flat bed with ready made soft bed with a shoe-box and a shelf containing bottle of water, 3 brands of soft drinks. When the bed is made, the becomes a separate cubicle with just an entrance. The Bus Cl is a separate entity with separate entrance and - hold your breath - a wholetime buffet counter which serves almost any type ( within limits, of course ) of drink and snacks. As the flt took off at 2300 hes, one stewardess handed me themenu-card for dinner and breakfast, wine-card and info about the buffet which they preferred to name ' Anytime Titbits '. Thammi ordered a salmon grilled with some soft drink while I ordered a complicated cocktail ( which the lady took down punctiliously ) with grilled prawns. The service was perfect. I repeated the ordered as both my items were excellent. After this, the Economy Cl trip DXB-CCU was so disappointing. Anyway, it was an experience. Unfortunately, we probably won't have another opportunity to enjoy it.

Love, Dadu

When my grandfather says 'complicated cocktail', he means complicated. And he has been living on my grandmother's cooking for the past 53 years, so if he compliments culinary skills, they must indeed be superlative.

Airbus, trust me you'll never receive higher compliments :)

In Gratitude

'Serious, thoughtful and drawing attention to and trying to open windows that are closed or ajar. From that point of view, out of the ordinary and brave.'
~ Dadu

'I read your piece and it was a thoughtful write-up. I hope to get more of that in the future.
.....a genuine prayer to the elements that you write more, for some like you write, and the rest, like us feed on it. '
~ The Professor

When my book(s) are published, these are two people whose opinion I would like printed on the front cover.
Thank you, gentlemen.