I was in 8th class, when our Physical Sciences teacher resigned and we had the Department Head Mrs. Radhalakshmi substituting in her place for the last term of the year (Jan-March). I remember, it was a chapter on Carbon, in chemistry. The teacher had been through a couple of hours on the introductory part of the chapter and decided to have that chapter assigned as a seminar (for self-reading). Students were divided into groups and were given a sub-topic (not more than a page long, in the book). We had "Sugar Charcoal", while a friend of mine had the introduction to my section on the types of charcoals.
Now, that we were expected to do something more than mere reading of the material at hand, I tried to prepare sugar charcoal by heating up a cup full of sugar on the stove top, lest I had realised that charcoal is made out of dehydrating sugar in the absence of oxygen!, I ended up making a molasses out of it (ofcourse after having ridiculed amma's warning that only molasses comes out of heating sugar crystals and nothing else). I then picked up an old medicine bottle, half filled it with sugar and went to the chemistry lab asking for a conc. sulphuric acid, to pour it in to dehydrate. We were laughed at and sent back. I finally had to end up with a paper cutting of a retort set up and marked the retort content as sugar + acid and blotched up my turn, but my friend who went in earlier in the hour with the "Types of charcoal", is the real matter of interest here.
He is known to be a real smart fellow, and a kind of a teachers' pet for his hyper behaviour and for being the smallest one in the class. He read out some 3-4 lines of introduction from his notes and took three pieces of some strange dark things & a spoon full of powder in a paper wrap, and laid them down as "1) Wood Charcoal, 2) Animal Charcoal, 3) Sugar Charcoal and 4) Powder Charcoal (not sure about this last one)". I was stunned! As and when I was trying to stand up (from the first bench) to have look at the teachers desk to see how sugar charcoal looks, a loud voice came from the last row -
"டேய் ஸ்ரீனிவாசா, நாலு துண்டு அடுப்பு கரிய கொண்டுவந்து டேபிள்ல வெச்சுட்டு இத Wood charcoal, Animal charcoal னு அளக்கரிய?". The whole class burst into laughter but there wasn't much to blush about, as all of us had a giggle about how smart he could get and the hour went on.
Coming to the state of affairs today, in the public discourse, if at all there is any - be it a (entertainment) TV debate, a TV Chat show, middle-class movies of the 80's, how often you have gotten vexed with the shallow talk that people make without having made the slightest of efforts to understand the defining identity of individuality or a group or a community and assuming the unexplained, seldom critiqued, hollow terminologies, of which they have no knowledge other than the assumption that everyone is happy to ascribe the same sense to the word which they themselves haven't made real sense to their own satisfaction in the first place?
Srini tried to sell the story by placing four pieces of cooking coal as four different types of charcoal, while the so-called Intelligentsia is trying to put four pieces, of which they have no clue about, together, and thrust it on to the public discourse with an envelope identity of their choice. I would prefer calling Srini's as some integration while the later is only a shallow integration.
Now, that we were expected to do something more than mere reading of the material at hand, I tried to prepare sugar charcoal by heating up a cup full of sugar on the stove top, lest I had realised that charcoal is made out of dehydrating sugar in the absence of oxygen!, I ended up making a molasses out of it (ofcourse after having ridiculed amma's warning that only molasses comes out of heating sugar crystals and nothing else). I then picked up an old medicine bottle, half filled it with sugar and went to the chemistry lab asking for a conc. sulphuric acid, to pour it in to dehydrate. We were laughed at and sent back. I finally had to end up with a paper cutting of a retort set up and marked the retort content as sugar + acid and blotched up my turn, but my friend who went in earlier in the hour with the "Types of charcoal", is the real matter of interest here.
He is known to be a real smart fellow, and a kind of a teachers' pet for his hyper behaviour and for being the smallest one in the class. He read out some 3-4 lines of introduction from his notes and took three pieces of some strange dark things & a spoon full of powder in a paper wrap, and laid them down as "1) Wood Charcoal, 2) Animal Charcoal, 3) Sugar Charcoal and 4) Powder Charcoal (not sure about this last one)". I was stunned! As and when I was trying to stand up (from the first bench) to have look at the teachers desk to see how sugar charcoal looks, a loud voice came from the last row -
"டேய் ஸ்ரீனிவாசா, நாலு துண்டு அடுப்பு கரிய கொண்டுவந்து டேபிள்ல வெச்சுட்டு இத Wood charcoal, Animal charcoal னு அளக்கரிய?". The whole class burst into laughter but there wasn't much to blush about, as all of us had a giggle about how smart he could get and the hour went on.
Coming to the state of affairs today, in the public discourse, if at all there is any - be it a (entertainment) TV debate, a TV Chat show, middle-class movies of the 80's, how often you have gotten vexed with the shallow talk that people make without having made the slightest of efforts to understand the defining identity of individuality or a group or a community and assuming the unexplained, seldom critiqued, hollow terminologies, of which they have no knowledge other than the assumption that everyone is happy to ascribe the same sense to the word which they themselves haven't made real sense to their own satisfaction in the first place?
Srini tried to sell the story by placing four pieces of cooking coal as four different types of charcoal, while the so-called Intelligentsia is trying to put four pieces, of which they have no clue about, together, and thrust it on to the public discourse with an envelope identity of their choice. I would prefer calling Srini's as some integration while the later is only a shallow integration.
