Stationery Items/Office supplies .....

These two words are obsession for me. I hoard them, give them away, use them, see them, feel them, smell them (yes .. smell!!!).... the list is endless.

I have tried to figure out why and how and when this passion started, no answers till now.

Venus pencils (bottle green, hexagonal pencil with black stripes), in a carton is my first memory. My father got these for me from Thirumalai Stores in T Nagar. This shop used to be close to Nalli. I checked for these pencils two weeks ago and they are 14Rs each. I asked myself as to why did my father buy these for me. I know that he was very proud of my handwriting.

Then came the pen days - camlin pens - these had a transparent part just below the place where the cap ends. You could check how much ink was in the pen through this. It is so funny that my cousin and I, will get these from my mother and immediately - dont be shocked - press the nib on a hard surface and make the nibs get crooked. Since both of us had taken a fancy for a particular kind of handwriting, the deformed nib could only produce the best form. If it is a blue pen, my cousin will smear manja podi/vermillion on the pen and produce a dirty green color - I used to be thrilled with it.

Then came Hero pens. Dark maroon and black were my favorites. These nibs were small and a much smaller part of it will only be visible. These wrote really well, smooth flow .... they had a gold cap.

These days my passion is with paper mate, schwann, Bic etc. I do look at monte blanc, cross etc, but these dont give the same high as the plastic pens. Dont know why.

It is a ritual everyday to choose a pen to bring to work and by the end of the day give it away to someone who says it's a nice pen and then I buy some more. I am not sure if I buy to give or give to buy more.

Inclusive Education

NDTV's show had Bharka Dutt holding a discussion on inclusive education.

Latha Vaidyanthan from Modern School Delhi spoke about the readiness of these schools to take children with impairment of any kind.

My mother taught in a government aided school and she had two children who had hearing and speech impairment in her class and her colleague had one girl who was spastic.

One of my classmates was totally blind and the other was a polio afflicted child who could not walk. These were ordinary schools with nothing fancy to cater to the special needs of these children. Teachers and the headmistress used their hearts and not their heads while dealing with us and therefore never thought of 'readiness' and use that as an excuse to deprive some section of the population, their right to education.

Tell me something - in India , how many homes have special toilets, how many places have ramps and dont people with impairment manage. It is an appalling state of affairs that we dont have facilities to cater to special needs and we need to change it , but the reality is that people manage.

Wont kids and parents be happy that a school is catering to the educational needs and find a work around for other needs? In the process of making every thing ideal, we tend to lose time and several children get impacted.

If we use our heart and not head we can make things happen like the headmistress and the teachers of a government aided school did and continue to do that .