Of Chloroform & Chemistry, Frogs & Football 😊
MCC School Days
7th February 1995 (31 years ago!)
#memoriesfromdiaries
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| MCC School today [clicked last month - January 2026] |
On this particular day - we had Zoology practicals. Since the lab attender (LA) didn’t show up with the frogs on time, our Zoology Master asked us to write a test instead. And right when we were about to start the test, bang came the frogs! 😊
The LA had collected 50 frogs for our class, at Rs. 10/- per frog. All 50 of us, dissected a frog each. It was indeed quite interesting to dissect the live frog, that was sedated with chloroform. Our Zoology master was a very conscientious teacher. He came up to each of us, and pointed out the mistakes that we had made. The lab class spilled into the Tamil class, and we were late to Jayaraman sir’s Tamil class.
And I remember this interesting incident that connects to our frog dissection!
When we had our frog dissection, usually the frogs were given chloroform, and we had to pin its legs to the dissection board.
All was well, for my friend Jaison, who was busy taking out the dissection board to pin the frog to the board, when, suddenly, to everyone’s shock, the frog suddenly having come out of its stupor, pounced out of the dissection board, and into the huge sink, kept in the table.
Jaison yelled out a shriek in his distinct nasal voice, which caught the attention of our Zoology master in no time! He came straight up to Jaison’s table, and gave him minus marks for shouting! Albeit for no fault of Jaison, the poor boy was awarded a punishment!
Post-lunch session, classes resumed. You see, hostel days were also days when boys always wanted money in our wallets. So it was, that my bestie and hostel mate Sunil had borrowed Rs. 100/- and he had just then returned Rs.70/- I was so happy to get the money back, and I was dreaming about how to spend it on a movie at Ega theatre for the weekend, when Prince gently approached me, and got Rs. 20/- from the returns. Yes, those were lovely days, when we all indulged in this borrow, repay, borrow, repeat schedule! 😊
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| MCC School - Football Ground |
Our school was known for our football team. So during PT hour, we all played football in the F1 ground.
In Chemistry class, we were taught about Aliphatic Hydrocarbons - organic compounds containing only carbon and hydrogen, structured in straight chains, branched chains, or non-aromatic rings.
Those were days when our teachers did not like students skipping classes, even for NSS or College events. They ensured that all students turned up for their classes. Nedumaran master was one such conscientious teacher!
He asked the class, “Is anyone here attending the NSS Camp?”
Nanda stood up politely, raising his hands.
You could have missed getting an observation sign from me, he remarked.
Don’t believe these politicians. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, once said, ‘Be Indian, Buy Indian’. But he himself took an Italian wife. Also, he always used to wear expensive foreign brands like Adidas and Reebok. So don’t be corrupted by the cheap words of the politicians, he quipped. The politicians and ministers declare that they serve the country, but in reality, they were only exploiting the country, he said, in a portmanteau word – which we call – structural nativisms, or regional idiosyncrasies in language usage – soranding! 😊
After school was over, I washed my clothes – from 3.25 pm to 4.20 pm - a habit that I meticulously follow all these years. I never give my clothes to the laundry. I ensure that I wash my clothes. Something that I also advocate in my students.
While delegating chores can save time, there is a unique set of benefits that come along with handling these tasks by ourselves. It also provides us with a “mental reset” in a high-speed world.
Moreover, manual labour speaks a lot to our personal character.
Matthew Crawford’s 2009 book titled, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work is one of the best books that speaks to the importance of the value of personal labour and personal accountability!
He discusses how fixing a machine provides “objective” feedback to us – and reinforces the idea that doing your own maintenance forces you to confront reality, building true self-reliance.
The book also discusses on how modern consumer culture always encourages us to be passive and dependent.
Modern devices (cars, iPhones, appliances) are designed to be sealed shut. We aren’t supposed to know how they work; we are just supposed to buy new ones when they break.
To Crawford, this makes us feel fragile and dependent. When we don’t know how our own world works, we lose agency (the feeling that we can impact our environment). However, learning to fix things (doing your own chores/maintenance) restores that agency. It transforms you from a passive “consumer” into an active “master” of your own stuff.
So in essence, Crawford argues that, when we stop doing our own maintenance, we don’t just lose out on money (by paying someone else), but also lose a connection to the material world. We become “ghostly”.
One thing that I particularly love about the book is the differentiation that Crawford makes between Autonomy and Agency.
In modern culture, we define freedom as Autonomy. This is the ability to make choices without interference. It is “freedom from constraints.”
We say, “I don't want to be tied down. I want to buy what I want, live how I want, and outsource the things I don't want to do.” And, we think buying a new car makes us free. We think paying a maid service makes us free.
Crawford argues this is a fragile freedom. You are “free” only as long as you have money and the system works. If your car breaks and you can’t fix it, your autonomy vanishes instantly. You become dependent on a tow truck, a mechanic, and a credit card. You are a passive consumer of your own life.
On the other hand, agency is the capacity to act on the world and see a result. It is not about escaping constraints; it is about mastering them.
You cannot “talk your way” out of a pile of dirty laundry. You must accept the laws of physics and the nature of the task.
When you submit to the task and complete it, you gain genuine power. You are no longer dependent. You have the competence to sustain your own existence,
he observes.
This, then, is the icing on the book’s philosophy: You
only gain Agency by giving up some Autonomy.
Crawford signs off by saying that, Autonomy makes us lonely and anxious because it disconnects us from reality. Agency makes us grounded and confident because it connects us to the world - we live in reality.
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