Whispering Shadow

Ailments are many, but none trouble you as much as the simplest of all, yet the one with the potential to cause the maximum disruption in your routine – cold. There were many things happening around me last week, which I felt I should write about, but my incessant cold has beset me to such an extent that it demands the priority. I have had two kinds of problems with this intriguing common cold virus. First of them is the sneezing fit, which I attribute more to my hyper-allergic nature than the virus itself. Staying in an environment which Mumbai offers only makes things worse. Second is of course, the issue of a blocked nose. You feel choked, heavy under and above the eyes, and are often left gaping for reasons not worth it. Worst of all, there are no medicines which guarantee a cure for cold, except time. As the adage goes, “If you take medicine, your cold will cure in a week, if you don’t it will take 7 days.” Now I have no intentions to explain what Wikipedia can about common cold. ...

There used to be a time when the word ‘teacher’ used to evoke a sense of admiration, respect as well as authority. Even now, it brings to mind the same emotions, but the trouble is that you don’t find someone worthy enough to call a ‘teacher’. On this teachers’ day, I pay a tribute to some of the wonderful people, who have entertained me during the three years of my engineering, who at times have made life miserable for me, and who in this process, have always tried to ‘teach’. I’ll call them teacher here on, just because of the status attached with their job and not because I associate any of the above mentioned emotions with them. I will be doing great injustice if I say the same things for everyone. It is only fair that I categorize my teachers before talking about them. So here goes: 1>Dedicated teachers who know their subject and how it is to be taught: This is the rarest of the rare breeds, almost nearing extinction. Out of the 30 some teachers that I have had, barely 2 qual...