One Litre Mugs, large Pretzels and the huge Bavarians in Dirndle and Lederhosen

It was a chance visit by Sven Heymann, a good friend, from Landheim Schondorf school near Munich, to Paris and an invitation to participate in a Round Square regional conference from Mr. Helmuth Aigner, The Head Master that took me to to the land of Beer, pretzels, Bavarians in traditional Dirndle and Lederhosen (literally 'leather pants').

It was a short flight from Paris to Munich, the nearest big city to Landheim Schondorf about 40 kms away. The countryside was lush green broken by spots of brown and white Bavarian cows. The German Autobahn was a mind-blowing experience where the cars have no speed limits at all and one could drive as fast as 250 kph without batting an eyelid. I suddenly realised, while on the Autobahn, in Germany cars decide the speed while in India, roads decide the speed.

France and Bavaria are a study in contrast. The French are suave, sophisticated, arty, finely featured people who drink wine and are fashionably late. The Bavarians are huge, relaxed, traditional, technically oriented people who drink large amounts of beer and are, painfully (for me!), punctilious.

We were treated to humongous amounts of Bavarian Beer, huge salty, pretzels and deliciously creamy milk. The food at Landheim was extraordinary in the fact that it consisted of fresh fruits, nuts and dry fruits along with traditional German love of pork and other meats.

The school was a 'paradise' in progress. The facilities were state-of-the-art, the science laboratories were remarkable and the dining hall was exquisitely designed. High quality wood was used abundantly everywhere. It was a 100-year old school with a hoary tradition. During my short stay at the school, The school-leaving batch, the year-13 students, celebrated their success in the final exams. The Germans have a unique system where secondary schooling is completed when children are 19 to 20 years old.

The table below might give a good idea;

Grade	Average ages of Pupils	School level (Berlin/Brandenburg)	School level (rest of Germany)
1	6/7	primary	primary
2	7/8	primary	primary
3	8/9	primary	primary
4	9/10	primary	primary
5	10/11	primary	secondary
6	11/12	primary	secondary
7	12/13	secondary	secondary
8	13/14	secondary	secondary
9	14/15	secondary	secondary
10	15/16	secondary	secondary
11	16/17	secondary	secondary
12	17/18	secondary	secondary
13	18/19	secondary	secondary

The school is situated in Schondorf, a small town on the banks of a large lake, The Ammersee, where students go sailing and swimming. The lake was idyllic and the area breathtakingly picturesque. The air smells of pine, birch and beer(!). There are similar towns dotting the banks of The Ammersee.

During the Conference, we were taken on a visit to Munich and visited The famous BMW headquarters and were taken on a guided tour in BMW Welt ('World'). The stunning architecture is to be experienced to be appreciated. We spent a whole afternoon ogling at the latest BMWs (and when the occasion demanded, at Bavarian blondes!)

We also saw the jail where Hitler wrote his Magnum Opus (sic) Mein Kampf. It was still a functioning jail and had a sombre atmosphere.

Monet Between Windows

A beautiful poem by a beautiful person I had the privilege to teach...

i do not understand art,
but with Monet, it's a different story.

i vaguely know he's what a critic would call
"impressionist";
the word that creates impressions
like that on a half ripply lake.

i do not understand art,
but i want Monet on the little stretch of wall
between my box windows.

yes, his pictures to me
are a whole lot of swirling colours,
all in little strokes and shades here and there

when i come close to it,
i realise i don't understand it all,
except that it seems to be made of
millions of beauty beaded together in a string of thought,
just like the human brain perceiving beauty
(is his canvas the human brain?)

but what is so stunning when i look at it
from the opposite wall, just like a view
from my box window?

that's why i want it,
a Monet between my box-windows,
Like a third painted window on the wall

which reminds me
when i come close,
i do not understand it at all.

Ishani Ghosh

The Paris Indian Quarter Experience

We visited the Indian Quarter in Paris last week in order to experience its ambience and taste authentic Indian food too. The moment we landed at The La Chapelle Metro station, we were surrounded by familiar-looking faces and smells. To my pleasant surprise, most of the pedestrians looked and spoke Tamil. The boards of shops bore tamil signs. We even saw a complete tamil family in traditional wear, crossing the street. One could, however see that some looked unmistakably Sri Lankan and spoke their distinctive tamil dialect. A few shops prominently exhibited pictures of the slain LTTE Supremo, Prabhakaran. We had a sumptuous meal consisting of Idly, Vada, Doas and Sambar at Cafe Bharat. The food wasn't great to write home about but, hey, the whole experience of eating tamil food in Paris was a novel experience. The filter coffee was excellent, though. The whole ambience made me feel nostalgic as I merrily chatted with the shop-keepers, to the amused bewilderment of my two Hindi-speaking students. We visited a Ganesh temple and even an Amman temple. I believe, the residents celebrate Ganesh Chaturti with great fan-fare. The Indian Tamils in the Quarter primarily hail from Pondicherry, the erst-while French colony in India, and have been living for generations. The kids there seem to speak Tamil with a 'French accent'. Sounded strange to my ears.They should call it 'Fremil' (my coinage, and a poor one, I know). The streets bore a strong Tamil mark. Some streets had tough-looking men huddled together and giving suspicious looks. I realised that the neighbourhood wasn't too safe, even for a 'Tamil'. Some people even dub it 'Little Jaffna'. Uncomfortable associations...

Palace of Versailles - Pomposity and Conspicuous Consumption at its extreme!

A visit to The Palace of Versailles gives you a grand view of how the French Kings perceived themselves and their Empire. I have never seen so much of opulence in my life. The Palace exhibits pomposity and conspicuous consumption at its extreme to the point of being almost obscene. But what a grand and glorious obscenity it was! Gold is splashed everywhere generously and during our visit, the gold shone so strongly on the sunny day that it hurt. You are first in awe and later realise the that it must have been a labour of love for those countless unknown artisans and craftsmen who must have toiled to keep their kings in such grandeur. But all your questions on why the French Revolution happened, disappear with one look at the Versailles. Probably, the Indian kings were smarter in not wanting to provoke the anger of the masses and lived under less ostentation (relatively speaking!) The History teacher here opines that a revolution could never happen in India. And it did not sound like a compliment. Are we Indians too servile, to the point of obsequiousness, to authority and power? And is that why we still tolerate and even graciously accept the shenanigans of our corrupt politicians? Are we Indians truly exercising the liberating power of Democracy? My own response to these questions have become muted and mellowed with time. Sad...eh?

If you are planning to visit Paris, don't forget to visit Chateau De Versailles (http://en.chateauversailles.fr/homepage). You will be enchanted or repelled by the grandeur and luxuriousness of the French kings, depending on where you see yourself on the economic/political spectrum.

The sublime world of Monet and the intensely disturbing Van Gogh

A visit to The Musee d'Orsay was a dream come true. To be in the midst of grand works of Impressionists and Post-Impressionists is something worth dying for.

The d'Orsay has an incredible range of the 19th and 20th century's greatest works of art, ranging from the pulchritudinous Monet, the graphic eroticism of Courbet and Manet, the powerfully disturbing Van Gogh, to the quintessential bad boy of the Art world, Andy Warhol. The collection was made complete with Paul Gauguin's mystical Tahitian women.

What more can a Man ask for.

The d'Orsay, these days, has put up a special exhibition of the greatest artists of modern times, from Goya and Gericault to Lautrec and Picasso, representing the classic theme of Crime et Châtiment (Crime and Punishment). The paintings and the sculptures were, how do I put it, grotesquely beautiful (!?).

The collection also had important sculptures of Rodin but his legendary works like The Thinker and The Kiss are housed in an exclusive Rodin Museum.

There is so much to see, to savour, to fathom the deep recesses of human consciousness. But, as they say, after all... tomorrow is another day.

All this would have been impossible without Chris and Hansu. A special word of thanks to them.

Teaching Biology - The IB Way!

I have been teaching Biology to the Advanced High Level (AHL) Group in the I.B programme offered by Ermitage and discovered a wonderful colleague in Dr. Elizabeth Webb. Elizabeth has a Ph.D in Ecology, is an earnest teacher and a sensitive person. We have been working together in setting up investigatory projects and it has been exciting as the sky is the limit on what we can do. The curriculum is essentially open-ended and I took this opportunity to link digestion of lipids with dispersal of the oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico. Sounded wacky initially but could make it fly. And, the kids loved it. And Elizabeth even designed a thought-provoking assignment on the environmental fallout of the BP oil spill. Cool, eh?

I have been helping Dr. Jason Hearn, a Physics teacher who also happens to be the head of the IGCSE programme, with his classes in Physics and Chemistry. The French system has a unique set of terminology where the 12 year-olds are in 'Cinquieme' and the 13-year olds are in 'Quatrieme'. The kids in these classes are extremely enthusiastic and have responded well. Their understanding of words and their etymology was amazing, But they found my 'Indian' accent amusing. There is definitely more elbow room for creative teaching. One realises that your Indianness is more pronounced in a foreign country. The relationship between student and teacher is cordial but not personal. Children keep to themselves, with a few exceptions.

The Enigmatic Mona Lisa Smile and other wonders

Visited the Louvre and rushed to the Hall of the Renaissance Italian paintings. In the middle of the hall was the iconic Mona Lisa, surrounded by a gaggle of American and Japanese tourists looking in awe at La Gioconda and clicking away furiously. It was a dream come true, after years of gawking into the illustrated coffee books. The painting is placed behind specially-made bullet-proof glass, amidst high security. But, one thought that the painting was seriously ageing as the Mona Lisa looked darker compared to her earlier photographs.

I was in for a pleasant shock when I discovered my favourite childhood painting at the Louvre - Self portrait of Elisabeth Louise Vigee LeBrun and her daughter Julie. I used to collect biscuit cans and match boxes bearing this image. Remember falling hopelessly in love with it.

The Louvre is a gigantic museum showcasing more than 30,000 pieces of great art and sculpture and even after spending two whole days, I have covered less than one-third of the Louvre. I know people here who have been visiting the Louvre for the last 20 years and still end up learning something new.

The Glass Pyramid, completed in 1989 by the famed Chinese architect, I.M. Pei, is a provocative contrast to the Louvre and a piece of art in itself.

The Egyptian Art section was fabulous with its array of artefacts like The mummies, sculptures of Pharaohs, the hieroglyph tablets and other rare pieces. The most famous art piece was The Seated Scribe of Saqqara