Mercedes' Mind Mirror

Last week my chemistry teacher told us all to get lab coats and goggles. And this year we were going to have droppers in the reagent bottles. Yes yes, this year things were going to be safer in the chem lab. So on Tuesday we all walked to the lab, coat-clad, feeling proud. The chemistry lab has the aura of funeral meeting. It is deadly quiet even when a class of forty-two is inside. Then the once friendly chemistry teacher turns severe. She begins to talk in a hard stony voice. “You will not talk to anyone. You will look for reagents yourself and follow the procedure yourself. If any apparatus is broken you will pay. You are to put back the reagents where you found them. We’re short on reagents so don’t perform so and so tests.If I see anyone talking you will be out (pointing to the door). If you have any doubt don’t ask your friends.Come to me.” The last sentence after all instruction did not in the least sound comforting. “Start.” We took our positions according to roll order....

“Amiya okay now stand up!” I stood up slowly and hung my head, my face still red from laughing crazy. I stifled the treacherous torrent of laughter making its way up as Mr. Hussein said: “Okay now Anantthhha stand up okay now.” “Idiot!” hissed Anantha. The little embarrassment I had felt a second before evaporated as fast as it had come. Anantha Venkatraman was one of my best friends and partner in crime. We were the bickering twosome. All our fights usually ended in uncontrollable spurts of laughter. “Now okay if you continue this okay behaviour it will affect your okay performance. This is not a joke,” continued Mr. Hussein. I tried my hardest not to laugh when I caught sight of someone in the next row making tally marks on his desk to count the number of times Mr. Hussein said “okay now”. Anantha, eager to get back into the teacher’s good books, said: “Sorry Sir”, resetting his features to a grim and sorry expression. I feared he would get away with it because Anantha was one of Mr....

t’s always a little depressing that the smarter guy grabs the glory everywhere, be it at school or at workplace. We resort to all sorts of things to beat the smart guy. The little green monster takes over and makes us do either of the following. We work harder and score better, or simply continue envying and do nothing about it or the worst, cheat. Once after a particularly tough Maths exam I came home and dialled my sister seeking solace. She told something she had read somewhere. Every human brain has the same capacity. The smart people just keep theirs warm and working. I found this quite inspiring and ever since lessened the number of times I call myself stupid. Even when I score low at school I feel guilty for not having put enough effort but I also feel quite happy about the fact that what I have scored is with me and my brains alone. The conscience centre in my head works better than most people I believe or else I would have virtually been suffocated by wrong doings. We used...

I want to inspire people. Now you may think 'who's this little kid saying that big word?'. But I have a reason to want to inspire people. It's because I have been inspired by a few. I have been to four different schools since I first joined the crèche at Mary Nilayam and have been taught by a great many teachers or rather many great teachers. And when I left each school some of the people who left a lasting impression on me were my teachers. I was one of the average kids in the class since grade 8 at my old school - Indian School Al Ghubra - in Muscat. And definitely did not belong to any cliques and ‘popular gangs’. I was just another kid. Yet I still got those “good work”, “excellent” and “keep it up” remarks whenever I submitted an assignment or scored well in a test. I don’t know if the teacher meant any of it or if it was part of the protocol whenever a student did well. Either way those remarks produced the effect it was meant to have. It meant encouragement fro...

The first thing that struck me about this movie is the title.City of Angels. It sounds so heavenly. The next thing was it had my favourite song in it. I loved Iris by Goo Goo Dolls ever since my friend Rohit told me about it. The story is about how Seth (Nicholas Cage), one of the many Angels who watch over the human beings of Los Angeles , falls in love with a young doctor Maggie Rice (Meg Ryan). He is impressed by her dedication towards her patients and eventually falls in love with her. Angels have subdued emotions, they feel no pain or hunger, they can't feel,breathe or taste. They may choose to 'fall' and give up eternity to become a human.That's what Seth did after he realised he couldn't convince Maggie that he was a Messenger of God. The story end on a tragic note with Maggie's unexpected death. There is touching line where Seth says "I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss of her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without...