Great kids: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

(January 27, 1756 -  December 6, 1791)

The first notes of Mozart

HE lived just a brief 35 years. But he filled those years with 626 compositions, ageless music that still brings brightness and beauty into our lives. Among his works were 50 symphonies and 19 operas, including much-loved works like The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute

This famous European computer was ~ yes, you’ve got it right ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!

He was born in Salzburg, Austria, in 1756. His father, Leopold, was the choirmaster to the Archbishop of Salzburg.

It was while Leopold was giving lessons to his older daughter Maria Anna that he noticed that little Nannerl, as the family called Mozart, was totally enchanted by the music. By the age of five, he could play long pieces without a flaw and even created his own shorter compositions. Isn’t that remarkable?

A letter from the Salzburg court trumpeter to Maria Anna in April 1972 recalls this scene. Leopold, on his return from a church service, found four-year-old Nannerl very busy with a pen.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Leopold.

‘Writing a concerto for the clavier. It will be done soon,’ replied Nannerl.

‘Let me see it,’ said Leopold.

Nannerl: ‘It’s not finished yet.’

When Leopold picked up the sheet of paper, he found a scribble of musical notes, most of them covered with ink-blots. That’s because Nannerl dipped his pen to the bottom of the inkwell every time he needed to, so that ink blots fell on the paper each time. But the boy wiped his palm over it and went on writing. Does that sound familiar to you?

After he’d read the piece through, Leopold noted that it was so difficult that no one in the world could play it. But Nannerl said, ‘That is why it is a concerto. It must be practised till it is perfect.’ And then the little one began to show his father how to play it!

In 1792, Leopold took Nannerl to the court in Vienna, the Austrian capital, and then around the courts of Europe for the next three-and-a-half years. Soon, he was the most famous child prodigy in Europe.

When he played, Nannerl’s delicate face was dead serious. But during concert breaks, he behaved just as you probably would. He was even seen running around a royal court with a stick between his legs, pretending that it was a horse!

In Europe, city after city sang the praises of the young Mozart. At Bologna in Italy, he was made a member of the famous Philharmonic Academy ~ though officially only those over 20 would be admitted. In Rome, Pope Clement XIV decorated him with the Order of the Golden Spur. At Milan, he wrote his first opera, Mithridates, which was composed so quickly that Nannerl’s fingers hurt! It was such a success that the performance was repeated 20 times before packed houses.

But what was Nannerl like at home? When he was about eight, Leopold fell ill with a bad throat ailment in London. The children were forbidden to make a noise, even to play a piano, until he was better. To keep his itching fingers busy, guess what Nannerl did? He composed his first symphony ~ K 16 ~ for an entire orchestra.

Until he was about ten, Nannerl hated the sound of the horn. When it was played solo, he shuddered. Leopold wanted to cure his son of this fear, so he asked Maria Anna to blow a horn towards Nannerl. But he turned pale at the very sound, as if he’d heard a pistol shot, and would have fainted, had she not stopped at once. Doesn’t it remind you of all the strange fears that you have, too?

One day, at the Austrian court, two archduchesses were leading little Mozart up to the Empress. The floor was slippery, so he fell down. One archduchess took no notice of this, while the other ~ who later became the infamous Queen Marie Antoinette of France ~ lifted him up and mollycoddled him until he cheered up.

Looking up, he declared, “You are very kind. When I grow up, I will marry you.” Later, her mother asked Nannerl what made decide on this, he said, “From gratitude. She was so good.” He was vexed because her sister paid no attention to him at all.

Today, all of Salzburg seems like Mozart’s town. Its dramatic cupolas and spires seem to call out his name. The house where he was born is now a famous museum, a shrine for music lovers. The city even hosts a Mozart Week every year, when the master composer’s works are showcased.

Now that Mozart is a legend in the world of music, does his childhood seem unusual to you? Or do you recognise yourself in some aspects of his life?

Great kids: Mother Teresa

( August 26, 1910 – September 5, 1997)

The bud that blossomed

YOU’VE heard of all that Mother Teresa has done for the children, the poor, the dying, the homeless, the unwanted ~ in India and dozens of other countries. You’ve seen her in photographs in a simple, blue-bordered white cotton sari, one end draped over her head, her face creased in a beautiful smile.

You’ve read about the Missionaries of Charity, the order that she founded in Calcutta, and that she adopted Indian citizenship in 1949. You know that she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979.

But who was the girl who grew up to become Mother Teresa? What were her early years like?

Agnes Gonxha ~ Gonxha means a flower bud in Albanian ~ was born on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, Albania. She was the youngest daughter of Nikola and Dnanafile Bojaxhiu, both staunch Catholics. Her sister Age was six years older than her, her brother Lazar three years her senior.

Agnes was a plump and tidy child, if a trifle serious for her age. For instance, she was the only one of the three children who would not steal jam! If Agnes heard Lazar hunting for desserts, she would remind him not to eat after midnight, specially if they were to attend morning mass. “But she never told on me,” Lazar recalls.

The Skopje of Agnes’ childhood was marked by five centuries of Turkish rule ~ a busy bazaar, soaring minarets and the muezzin’s regular call to prayer. Catholics, including the Bojaxhiu family, were just a tenth of the Albanian people.

Nikola, a prosperous contractor and wholesale importer of food, actively campaigned for a free Albania. He was “full of life and liked to be with people,” Lazar remembers. Unfortunately, he died suddenly when Agnes was just nine and his business partner cheated the Bojaxhius, leaving them nothing but their home.

The children called Dranafile Nana Loke (or ‘mother of my soul’). Supported by Nikola, she would never turn away the needy. Explaining that the unwanted were part of the Bojaxhiu family, Dranafile would feed anyone who knocked at her door. Often, she would visit the poor with food and money. Can you guess who went with her? Agnes, of course.

At elementary school at the local Sacred Heart Convent, Agnes’ lessons were in Albanian, with Serbo-Croat being taught in the fourth year. A fine student, she later attended the Skopje Gymnasium or secondary school.

When Agnes was not studying, helping friends, enjoying social or church activities, she was buried in a book. She read all she could find in the local parish library, including Dostoyevski’s works and those of Henryk Sienkiwicz, including Quo Vadis.

Agnes and Age, with unusual singing voices, were known as the nightingales of the Albanian Catholic Choir of Skopje. Can you imagine Agnes singing solos in Christmas plays, as she frequently did? On outings with their friends, the sisters would even sing on the road in horse-drawn carriages!

Some of Agnes’ friends would visit the open, happy Bojaxhiu household for extra tutoring from Agnes. “I love to teach most of all,” Mother Teresa, who taught at the Loreto schools in Calcutta when she first came to India, later said with a smile.

Even when young, Agnes was moved by the work being done by Jesuit missionaries in faraway Bengal. When her cousin Antoni gave free mandolin lessons to three girls, Agnes urged him to charge a dinar for each lesson. “Give it to me for the missions in India,” said the girl, who often wrote poetry in a notebook. She was just 17 then.

A year later, Agnes Gonxha told her Nana Loke that she wanted to become a missionary. As they bade her farewell, her friends gave her gifts and hugs, her family offered their understanding as they watched their precious bud set out for India, where she would blossom as Mother Teresa.

Secret Lives: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

(October 2, 1869 - January 30, 1948)

Once upon a Mahatma 

HE’S  been called the Mahatma, or the great soul. He’s the man who taught the world to fight winning battles with non-violence, a weapon that proved stronger than all the arms that had clashed in wars down the centuries. He inspired Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and others who fought for people’s rights.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, whom the world came to regard as a special person, was born on October 2 in the old sea port of Porbandar on the coast of Gujarat. His admirers showered him with praise because he changed our world in many basic ways.

But even the Mahatma was a little boy once, a lad whom his family nicknamed Moniya.

Around their small, white-washed house, he wasn’t much trouble to his parents ~ Karamchand Gandhi and Putlibai ~ because he rarely stayed at home. Except for mealtimes, Moniya spent all his free hours playing outdoors. Does that sound like you?

But what he was he like, this boy named Moniya? Was he as naughty as you are? Let’s find out.

Moniya was the youngest of six children, and everyone’s pet. He was extremely fond of his mother. She was a warm-hearted and wise woman, who visited the temple daily.

Moniya was close to his father, referred to as Kaba Gandhi by many, but was terrified of his bad temper. Kaba’s father, Uttamchand Gandhi, rose from a humble merchant family to eventually become the Dewan of Porbandar.

The Gandhi family had lived in Porbandar for generations, where people admired both Kaba and Uttamchand for their strong character.

In appearance, Moniya was small, dark and a trifle shy, like millions of children all over India. But even during his growing years, he had ideas of his own.

Perhaps Moniya inherited some traits from his family. But while he played with his siblings and friends, he hated it when others teased him or pulled his big ears, even in jest. He’d run home at once and complain to Putlibai.

When she asked why he couldn’t defend himself, he replied, “Mother, do you want to teach me to hit others? Why should I hit my brother or anyone else?”

His father left Porbandar to become the Dewan of Rajkot when Moniya was just seven. He didn’t take to his new home easily. He missed the smells, the sights and sounds of the sea, and the harbour filled with ships.

Besides, Moniya was sent to a primary school at Rajkot. Born shy, he took a while to get used to a class filled with new faces.  On most days, he’d get to school in time, sit through the lessons, and run back home as soon as classes were over.

At school, where boys were crammed into windowless classrooms and made to learn lessons they hardly understood by rote, the threat of the rod always hung over their heads. And Moniya hated nothing so much as the rod lashing out at him.

He hated to be scolded, especially when he felt he’d done nothing to deserve it. As an adult, he wrote, “I did not so much mind the punishment as the fact that it was considered my desert.”

Moniya believed in justice for all even then, and often told the truth, no matter how high the price he paid for it. Though he respected his teachers, he didn’t always listen to them. Is that the way you feel, too?

Once, during the visit of a school inspector, he turned a deaf ear when his teacher whispered that he should copy the correct spelling of an English word from a student by his side. Of course, Moniya was scolded for this later, but he recalls, “I never could learn the art of copying.”

Moniya didn’t enjoy learning by rote, and did badly at Sanskrit as a result. Guess what his favourite subject was? Geometry. Because it allowed him to use his powers of reasoning.

He considered himself an average student and was surprised to find he was being awarded both prizes and scholarships.

Didn’t he have a close friend, just like you do?

He made friends with Uka, a sweeper-boy of the ‘untouchable’ caste, whom he often played with. Given plenty of sweets one day, Moniya ran to Uka to share their delights.

But Uka shied away, saying, “Stay away from me, little master.”

“But why?” asked Moniya, puzzled. “Why can’t I come near you?”

“Because I’m an untouchable,” Uka explained.

In response, Moniya filled Uka’s hands with sweets.

Watching the scene from a window, Moniya’s angry mother summoned him home at once. She tried to explain to him that a high-caste Hindu was forbidden to mingle with an ‘untouchable.’ But he disagreed with her and argued that he saw nothing wrong in their friendship, until she sent him away to have a bath and say his prayers.

Two stories from Indian lore left an impression on young Moniya. He resolved to be like Shravana, who was so devoted to his parents that he carried them ~ both old and blind ~ on baskets slung on a yoke. And the tale of Raja Harishchandra, renowned for his love of truth, made Moniya vow to be like him.

When Moniya was just 13 ~ at an age when all of you are busy playing cricket, Scrabble or Monopoly ~ he was told that a marriage had been arranged for him.  The pretty, lively Kasturbai lived in Porbandar, and was about as old as Moniya.

After week-long wedding festivities, Kasturbai and Moniya returned to Rajkot. Often, they played together. He tried to teach her all he had learned, but didn’t quite succeed. She didn’t like books, but preferred housework instead.

But Moniya loved books. He spent every free moment deep in the world of words.

One day, when Karamchand Gandhi was ill in bed, Moniya stole a piece of gold because his brother was in debt. But his nagging conscience told him he’d done wrong. He scribbed a confession on a sheet of paper, which he placed in his father’s hand. To his relief, Karamchand tore up the paper and lay back in bed. That made Moniya cry.

He loved his father even more from that day on. He’d rush home from school each day to sit by his father’s bedside. Yet Karamchand grew weaker by the day, and died when Moniya was just 16.

Moniya, or the boy who grew up to be Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was very much like you, wasn’t he?

Perhaps you’ll grow up to chase a dream, or shape our world anew, or bring hope and joy to millions, as he did. That shouldn’t seem impossible because, to begin with, Bapu was just a child like you.

Secret Lives: Roald Dahl

(September 13, 1916 – November 23, 1990)

The chocolate test 

IS ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ among your all-time favourite reads? Have you sailed through ‘The BFG,’ ‘Matilda’ and ‘James and the Giant Peach’ time and again? Is it news to you that the man who penned these popular works was born in south Wales to a shipbroker named Harald Dahl and Sophie Magdalene Hesselberg, both of Norwegian origin?

Let’s check out the life of best-selling author Roald Dahl. Did you guess that after a short stint with the Shell oil company, he was a fighter pilot with the Royal Air Force during World War II, later posted to Washington as part of the British intelligence (yes, the guys who dig out all the hidden truths). So, he wrote only in his spare time!

Roald was lucky to have an unusual father like Harald, who supplied ships with all they could possibly need at port, and loved climbing Alpine slopes, despite an arm amputated at the elbow. But Roald (the fifth of six children by two wives) lost his father when he was just three. Sophie was determined to fulfil Harald’s dream of an English education for their children, so she took them to Norway only for vacations. 

At six, an excited Roald rode his tricycle to his first kindergarten at Llandraff, alongside his older sister on her bicycle. A year later, he joined the Llandraff Cathedral School, in the shadow of the Welsh town cathedral. At eight, can you guess what Roald’s greatest wish was? To go whizzing down a hill on a cycle, with his hands off the handlebars!

As a schoolboy, the Llandraff sweetshop was the centre of his life. But he and his mates were terrified of its owner, Mrs. Pratchett. She hated customers who bought nothing. So, they hatched the Mouse Plot. What’s that? One day, clutching their clammy pennies, they trooped in. As they bought a Sherbet Sucker and a Licorice Bootlace, Roald popped a dead mouse into the great glass jar of Gobstoppers.

To their horror, Mrs. Pratchett turned up at their school one morning. She pointed out the five culprits ~ and the headmaster caned them for their petty crime. Upset, Sophie vowed to shift Roald to an English boarding school, St. Peter’s at Somerset.

But before that, the whole family took off for Norway. In Oslo, they met Sophie’s parents, Bestemama and Bestepapa, who treated them to a huge poached fish and mounds of caramel ice-cream. Then, off they went by boat, up the Norwegian fjords (remember those from geography class?), to the island of Tjome. They even learnt to laugh as giant waves tossed their little motor-boat atop their crests, for all the Dahls were super swimmers!

St. Peter’s seemed a typical boarding school, complete with stuffed tuck boxes, terrible food, a strict matron and letters home every week. At nine, here’s the first one Roald ever wrote:

“Dear Mama… I’m having a lovely time here. We play foot ball (sic) every day here. The beds have no springs. Will you send my stamp album and quite a lot of swaps? The masters are very nice. I’ve got all my clothes now, and a belt, and a tie, and a school jersey. Love, Boy”. That’s what Sophie called Roald, her only son.

How did he cope with homesickness? By turning his face towards the Bristol Channel and his missing family while in his dormitory bed. By keenly observing the weird ways of the ‘ancient’ matron, probably 28. By pretending to have appendicitis, so his mother had to rush him back to Wales. 

By 12, Roald was sent away to the Repton public school, near Derby. That’s where Cadbury’s used to send cardboard boxes of their new chocolate bars for pre-teen boys to grade on enclosed sheets. The firm knew these were the world’s greatest chocolate-tasters. No wonder one of them went on to write ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’ That doesn’t surprise you a jot, does it?

Great kids: Pele

The man with the magic feet

DO YOU sit glued to your television set through a whole nail-biting, free-kicking, heart-stopping football match, especially when the World Cup is on once every four years? Have you set your heart on being a Diego Maradona, a Zinedine Zidane or a Rivaldo one day?

If you have, you no doubt revere the legendary Brazilian whom most footballers consider the greatest of the great ~ Pele! He’s helped his country to lift the World Cup thrice! He’s scored over 1,000 goals in first class football. He was voted the sportsperson of the last millennium. Can you bear that? In his No. 10 jersey, he could fill stadiums across the globe. He scored two goals in his first World Cup final against Sweden ~ and he was just 17 then!

Who is this amazing man with magic feet? Where did he come from? How did it all begin?

Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pele’s real name) was born on October 23, 1940, in the poor town of Tres Coracoes (Three Hearts) to a father ~ Dodinho ~ who lived by football, though he hurt his right knee badly at the outset of his career.  Brazil was a great country to be born in, for most children there learn to kick a ball as soon as they can stand. Walking often follows later! And so it was with Pele, too.

Pele was just seven when his mother, Dona Celeste, allowed him to first visit a football stadium. He was to shine shoes there, but his eyes were glued to Dodinho on the field. Later, while helping his father to clean a health clinic, Pele heard of the wonderful teams Dodinho had played against, the great players he had met. Pele was enchanted. He could think of little else.

Pele and his friends soon set their hearts on forming a real football club. The boy was ten then. They hawked peanuts at railway stations to pay for their shirts. But there was no money for shorts! What could the team do? Their mothers solved the problem ~ by making them shorts out of empty flour sacks. The children even found a rejected football to play with; it was better than the ball of rags they usually kicked around!

In every free minute, Dodinho and Pele talked of football. He watched every match Pele’s team played. “Learn to kick with both your feet, not just the right one,” the father would urge. Pele loved his father so much that one day he got into a fight at the stadium because someone had decried Dodinho’s football skills.

Back home, Dodinho cautioned him: “If you want to play football, you must not get angry. The Chinese say that when a man makes a fist, he’s already lost the fight. Besides, if you get angry on the field, they’ll throw you out of the game. That hurts your whole team. So, kick yourself if you want to, but don’t start fights with strangers.”

Pele’s team ~ “the shoeless ones” ~ played well. Their popularity surged. They were thrilled when the local mayor announced a football tournament. But then their spirits drooped ~ for they didn’t have the uniforms and shoes needed to participate.

They needed a saviour, and one appeared in the shape of the father of three boys in the team. He talked the manager of another football club into giving him all their worn-out shoes. Did it matter to the boys that the shoes did not fit well? Not at all. At least they could now play. At the tournament, 12-year-old Pele, the smallest player on his team, displayed his superb skills. His team kept winning! And 5,000 people in a real stadium watched the mayor present the championship to the winning side’s star ~ Pele!

Within a year, the Barau Athletic Club asked the boy to join them. Pele now had shoes that fit perfectly and a brilliant coach, Valdemar de Brito, who taught the team every football secret he knew ~ and they won the championship. Soon, Valdemar came to visit Dodinho ~ with an offer for the 15-year-old Pele from Brazil’s famous Santos club.

At Santos, Pele became the complete footballer. Though he was homesick, he learnt much. The club’s footballers were men Pele had admired for years. They were kind to him. They behaved as if they had played with him all along. When the coach said he was too light, his new friends fed him well to make him grow. The professionals often asked young Pele to run errands for them, nicknaming him Gasolina, for he was speedy, like engines run on petroleum!

The youngster surprised them by scoring in his first major match. “Don’t call me Gasolina from now on,” he told his teammates. “Call me Pele.”

That wasn’t just a flash-in-the-pan. By the end of that season, Pele had scored more goals than anyone else in Sao Paolo state.

On a visit to his family at Tres Coracoes one day, Pele couldn’t believe what he heard over the radio: “These players have been chosen for the Brazilian national football team ~ Santos… Mazzola… Pele…” He flew to Sweden with other top players to weave magic spells on and off the field and to return to a hero’s welcome in Brazil, to cities mad with joy!

That’s when the world began to talk of the Pele legend ~ and it didn’t stop till he became the most famous, the best-loved footballer of all time.

Before he finally hung up his football shoes in 1977, Pele had one last mission to fulfil. While playing for the Cosmos team in New York, he did what he’d always enjoyed most ~ he taught American children to play the game he loved. Don’t you wish you’d been there, too?

Great kids: Nelson Mandela

A dream of freedom

HE was set free on February 11, 1990, after spending 26 years in prison because he wanted to liberate South Africa from the white man’s rule.

In 1994, he became the first coloured president of a country where blacks and whites were finally allowed to live as equals, side by side, shoulder to shoulder. The previous year, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with then South African president F. W. de Klerk.

He was the chief guest at the Republic Day parade in New Delhi in 1995. He was honoured with the Gandhi Peace Prize in the Indian capital in March 2001.

Can you guess who he is? Why, former South African President Nelson Mandela, of course.

But life wasn’t always easy for a child who was named Rolihlahla by his parents when he was born on July 18, 1918, at Umtata in the Transkei. Do you know what his name means? ‘Stirring up trouble’!

I’m sure his parents never guessed how aptly they were naming the child who would spend the better part of his adult life fighting against the terrible apartheid laws, under which the blacks were no better than second-class citizens in South Africa. Upset by what he saw around him, he joined the African National Congress (ANC), which he later led with Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo.

Nelson and other ANC members protested peacefully against the apartheid system at first, but decided to change their means of protest when thousands of ANC supporters were arrested in the 1950s. Did this stop them? No, they continued to use non-violent methods until 69 protesters were killed by white police in 1960, in what is now known as the Sharpeville massacre.

Disgusted by the white man’s arrogance and power over them, Nelson and others formed a secret organisation that attacked government property. That’s called sabotage. They called themselves Umkhonto we Sizwe or Spear of the Nation.

It was in 1962 that Mandela was first arrested and sentenced to five years behind bars. Just two years later, he was given a life sentence. At this trial, Mandela spoke for himself:

“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die…”

But all that’s much later in Nelson’s life. Where did the boy spend his childhood? In a white-washed hut amidst several that formed a kraal or settlement.  All around was a valley, through which the Mhashe river flowed lazily past maize fields and a wattle or acacia plantation, continuing its journey past cattle grazing in grasslands. The valley was surrounded by the rolling hills of the Transkei.

Nelson was born into the royal family of the Thembu at Qunu near Umtata, the capital village of the Transkei ‘reserve.’ A reserve is a specified area where South African blacks were sent to live, often crowding thousands of people into a tiny area, filled with shacks.

His father, Henry Gadla Mandela, who was the chief councillor to the Paramount Chief of the Thembu, had four wives. Nelson’s mother, a dignified woman of strong character, was named Nonqaphi, though most people called her Nosekeni.

Though neither of his parents had had a western education, Nelson studied at a mission school where a white teacher, who couldn’t pronounce his tribal name, Rolihlahla, announced one day, “You will be called Nelson!” What a strange way to acquire a name! Don’t you think so?

At school, Nelson was puzzled to find that only white men were heroes in their history textbooks, in which all blacks were seen as either savages or cattle thieves! These texts also referred to the legendary battles between the AmaXhosa and the British as the ‘Kaffir’ wars. Kaffirs are a group of grains native to Africa. Even then, the boy felt the history on those pages wasn’t fair at all.

While at the karral, each of the children had daily duties to attend to. While others herded cattle or looked after sheep, Nelson had to lend a hand in the fields, especially with the ploughing. But everyday life had little appeal for the boy, who longed for adventure.

To him, the night was the best part of the day, when they all sat around a huge campfire, while tribal elders related tales of “the good old days, before the arrival of the white man.”

Many years later, when Nelson became an international leader, he recalled those days as a child:

“The elders would tell tales about the wars fought by our ancestors in defence of the fatherland, as well as the acts of valour performed by generals and soldiers during the epic days. The names of Dingane and Bambata among the Zulus, of Hintsa, Makana, Ndamble of the AmaXhosa, and Sekukhuni and others in the north, were mentioned as the pride and glory of the entire African nation.”

Did he dress like all of you? Mabel, his sister, recalls that Nelson had to be content with his father’s cast-off clothes, with the sleeves cut to fit and the trouser legs shortened, of course. But far from shying away from the laughter that came his way, he kept going to school because he knew he wanted to learn, no matter what the other children thought of the way he dressed!

At home, the elders kept him in touch with recent history which had not yet been recorded in books. Nelson was horrified to learn of how, in 1921, the then South African Prime Minister, General Smuts, had sent an army to Bulhoek in the Eastern Cape. The troops massacred 163 men, women and children because they, members of an Israeli sect, had refused to move from the site where they were camping. How could adults behave in this cruel manner, he wondered. Didn’t all men have an equal right to the land?

Nelson also learnt of how Smuts’ planes had bombed the Bondelswarts people in Southwest Africa. Why? Because they refused to pay a dog tax they could not afford at all. Over 100 people were killed in that attack.

For years later, Nelson was haunted by the names Bulhoek and Bondelswarts, like so many other Africans on the continent.

One day in 1930, Henry Mandela fell ill. He knew he didn’t have very much longer in this world, so he sent for his relative, the Paramount Chief. Taking young Nelson by the hand, he said:

“I am giving you this servant, Rolihlahla. This is my only son. I can say from the way he speaks to his sisters and friends that his inclination is to help the nation. I want you to make him what you would like him to be. Give him an education. He will follow your example.”

Mabel, who was there at the time, heard Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo give his word to Henry Mandela. And so, after his father passed away, 12-year-old Nelson went to live at Mqekezweni, which was the Great Chief’s place.

The Chief, who had great affection for the bright lad, brought him new clothes and allowed him to grow up with dignity.

Four years later, when he was 16, Nelson and other young men of his age were sent to the mountains for several weeks while the tribal elders prepared them to take part in tribal councils through various rites. While in the hilly area, all the boys painted their faces white and wore grass skirts! Can you imagine that?

Once he’d became an adult, Nelson was allowed to listen to the Paramount Chief conduct the court in which minor chiefs submitted their cases. Though most coloured people didn’t count in South Africa then, the Paramount Chief retained some powers, as well as the respect of his people.

As Nelson watched the tribal council in progress, he made up his mind to become a lawyer and fight for a fair deal for his people.

Even at Healdtown, the Methodist school that Nelson was to matriculate from, students thought more about politics than about their examinations. Isn’t that ever so different from all that you and your friends talk about at school every day?

But little did young Rolihlahla realise at that time that he was to become the President of South Africa. Would you have guessed what life had in store for him when Nelson Mandela was as young as you are today?

Grow up with... Galileo Galilei

(February 15, 1564 – January 8, 1642)

The earth and the sun 

In the famous Italian town of Pisa, two boys dressed in short balloon pants, loose, soft shirts and colourful, quilted jackets, sat watching a flock of birds fly past.

“I wish I could fly,” said the younger one.

“People can’t fly,” said his friend, laughing.

“I know ~ you need wings to fly. But if someone could make a machine with wings, just like a bird….”

“Listen, Galileo, if god wanted man to fly, he would have given him wings! Why do you always ask such foolish questions and meddle in things you can’t understand!”

Galileo Galilei kept silent, but wondered why it was wrong to ask questions.

His father always encouraged his curiosity, specially during lessons, when he taught the child Greek, Latin and how to play the lute.

At nine, Galileo had a new teacher, Master Borghini, who also encouraged his brilliant pupil. Galileo first learnt maths from him.

Two years later, Galileo’s family moved to Florence. Galileo was very excited and loved his new school, which was actually a monastery called Vallambrosa.

But he did not stop asking questions or reading. He read Aristotle’s books on science and was puzzled by the learned Greek’s statement that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones.

Galileo asked his teacher if this was true.

“If Aristotle has written it, it must be true,” said the monk.

“But why? Has no one proved it?” asked Galileo in surprise.

“Aristotle was a great man. He does not need proof!” said the angry teacher and walked away.

This was just one of many facts that Galileo disproved. But in his quest for the truth, he made many enemies in the powerful Catholic church, and suffered, too.

But this did not stop Galileo, who later proved that the earth moved around the sun. And went on to invent the thermometer.

Grow up with.... Thomas Alva Edison

 

(February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931)

Let there be light!

CAN YOU imagine a world without lights that come on at the touch of a switch? Well, that’s the way it was in the world until a little over a hundred and fifty years ago. At that time, there were no lights to be switched on ~ only smoky, weak lamps till, one day, an American boy was born in Milan, Ohio, on February 11, 1847.

He was not only frail, but very dull, too. Thomas Alva Edison, with more than a thousand inventions to his credit, “would never amount to two pins,” said his neighbours.

But his mother, Nancy, decided her son would be a credit. When he failed at school, she taught him at home, answering his questions and encouraging his often unusual experiments. How did she know so much? That’s because she was a former teacher!

Can you guess what kind of models young Thomas built? Among them were a working sawmill and a railway engine, both powered by steam.

Once, when he was quite young, Thomas ran in from the garden, breathless. “Mama, why is the goose sitting on her eggs?” he asked in a rush.

“To hatch them,” replied his mother.

“What’s hatching?”

After his mother had explained, Thomas ran back to the barn to wait for the goslings. Suddenly, a thought struck him ~ he was bigger than the goose and could keep the eggs warmer! So, he shooed the goose away and sat on the eggs.

You can imagine what happened next…

But his other experiments, in his laboratory in the cellar of their house, were quite successful ~ he even made two tiny machines which would generate electricity.

Thomas was only 12 when the Grand Trunk Railway across the United States reached his town of Port Huron. The excited boy immediately volunteered to sell newspapers, sweets and sandwiches on the train between Port Huron and Detroit. Guess what he did with the money he earned in this way? He invested part of it in his little laboratory at home.

Soon, however, he had a lab set up in the luggage cabin of the train. When the American civil war broke out, Thomas wrote the Weekly Herald, a newspaper, and printed it on a small hand-printing press, which he set up on the train ~ the first newspaper ever to be printed on a train.

One day, a stick of phosphorus fell as the train bumped on its way. Can you guess what happened next? The wooden cabin caught fire!

Though the train’s conductor rescued Thomas at the next station, he was off-loaded ~ press, lab, newspapers and all!

This curious, accident-prone boy 15-year-old boy saved the son of a telegraph operator from the path of a railway carriage. The grateful operator gave Thomas telegraph lessons, which resulted in amazing progress for humankind. Later, Thomas began working as a telegraph operator for the large Western Union at Port Huron.

This young boy grew up to be known at the ‘Wizard of Menlo Park’ where, in the spring of 1876, he set up a huge laboratory outside Newark. From within its walls came inventions like the telephone transmitter, the cylinder phonograph, the filament light bulb!

If you just remain curious enough and ask zillions of questions, perhaps you’ll be walking in the footsteps of Thomas Alva Edison! Don’t give up on your experiments, will you?

Grow up with.... Sunil Gavaskar

Of tests and tall scores

IN THE 1930s, if you’d spoken of a Gavaskar playing cricket for Mumbai (then Bombay, of course), guess whom you’d be referring to? Manohar Gavaskar, the Indian cricket legend’s father, who was a popular club cricketer.

Cricket ran in the family, quite naturally. By the time Sunil was born, his uncle Madhav Mantri had already played for India.

Early in life, Mantri taught Sunil a very important lesson. Whenever young Sunil visited his uncle’s house, he’d caress his Test pullovers with great longing. Months later, he picked up enough courage to ask Mantri if he could take one.

Mantri replied, “You have to sweat and earn the India colours. They do not come easily. There is no short cut to the top.” That’s when Sunil decided that he had to work hard to earn his own India pullover.

But I must tell you about the famous mix-up first. When Sunil was born on July 10, 1949, a sharp-eyed uncle named Narayan Masurekar noticed that the baby had a tiny hole near the top of his left ear-lobe. When Masurekar returned the next day, the hole was missing! How could that be? The nurses found that there had been a mix-up while the babies in the hospital nursery were being bathed. Soon, Sunil was found, fast asleep beside a fisherwoman!

If it hadn’t been for that observant uncle, Sunil Manohar Gavaskar might have been just another fisherman today!

Sunil’s mother loved cricket so much that she regularly bowled a tennis ball at her little son at home. One day, the boy drove a ball back at her. His strong shot broke her nose.  Did Sunil get a scolding? Not at all. His mother just washed away the blood, and returned to bowl!

As a schoolboy, Sunil decided that he wanted to be a batsman. His refusal to get out, which the world watched while he was at the crease, was obvious from the very beginning. When he played with his friends, he’d get so furious when he was declared out that he would stomp away with the bat and ball. Imagine the  fights this caused because he was the only child in his group to have either!

As they grew older, his friends planned another way to get him out. They would all appeal at a particular ball they had agreed on earlier ~ and Sunil would be given out by popular demand!

How did Sunil get to play in his first Harris Shield inter-school tournament? His friend Milind Rege, who later became a Ranji Trophy player, went down with chickenpox. And who do you think took his place? Sunil, of course, who scored an unbeaten 30 runs.

The next morning, excited at the thought of seeing his name in the papers, Sunil woke up at the crack of dawn. Can you imagine how sad he felt when his name appeared as ‘G. Sunil’?

At first, Sunil’s poor fielding kept him out of the regular school team. But he decided to train himself to do better. He chose to concentrate in the slips, where catches come swift and hard. This finally earned him a place in the exclusive club of cricketers who have taken over a hundred catches in Test cricket!

In the 1965-66 season, the Sunil Gavaskar of the tall scores arrived. In the quarter-finals of the Cooch Behar Trophy for schools, he scored 246 not out, and added 421 for the first wicket with Anwar Qureshi. In the semi-finals he made 222, and 85 in the final. He was later selected to play for the All India Schoolboys team in London.

In his first ‘test’ against the London Schoolboys, Sunil made 116. In all, he totted up 309 from four ‘tests,’ though he missed the last one because of his final examinations.

His proud parents had an arrangement with Sunil. They gave him Rs. 10 for every century he scored. Would you like a deal like that?

But he wasn’t allowed to neglect his lessons at school. Once, after a poor report, Sunil was refused permission to play in an inter-school tournament. His parents changed their minds only after the principal of the school personally promised to look after Sunil’s studies. There were no major problems after that.

That’s how the legend named Sunil Gavaskar took his first steps on the road that was to fetch him over 10,000 runs in Test cricket.

Secret Lives: Charlie Chaplin

(April 16, 1889 – December  25, 1977)

Cheering for the Little Tramp

WHO’S THE funniest person you’ve ever watched on screen? A comic actor and director who could raise belly laughs without speaking a single word? I’d pick Charlie Chaplin.  How about you?

The Little Tramp, the unforgettable character he invented, was born purely by accident in 1915. While rushing to a film shoot in California, Chaplin grabbed clothes other people had left behind in the changing room. And when he emerged, he found he had created a personality everybody loved. A little guy in a bowler hat, a close-fitting jacket, a cane, outsize shoes ~ and a brush-like moustache!

Before long, with the release of ‘The Kid,’ ‘Gold Rush,’ ‘City Lights’ and ‘Modern Times,’ Chaplin found himself a star. That puzzled him, for he saw himself essentially as a shy British music hall comedian on an American vaudeville tour. “I can’t understand all this stuff. I’m just a nickel hall comedian trying to make people laugh. They act as if I’m the king of England.” The US acknowledged him as its king of silent film comedy. Soon, so did crowds all over the world.

But life wasn’t always a laugh for Charles Spencer Chaplin, born at Walworth in England on April 16, 1889. Both his parents were music hall artists, who separated when Charlie was very young. His childhood was very sad, for his mother Hannah never earned enough to look after Charlie and his older brother, Sydney. On occasion, Chaplin had to sleep on the London streets and forage for food in the garbage.

Charlie took his first bow on stage when his mother made her last appearance. It happened when her voice broke during a song. Her son stepped onstage and sang a popular song. That’s when a star was born.

But soon Hannah was declared insane. So, her boys had to spend time at the asylum, then at an orphanage. Through all this years of success, Charlie never forgot his troubled childhood.

In 1933, while on a European tour, this is what he yearned for: “I want to capture some of the hurt and joy again. To see the orphan asylum where, as a child of five, I lived two long years. Those cold bleak days in the playground! I want to see the drill hall where on rainy days we were sheltered, sniveling around half-heated water pipes; the large dining-room with its long tables; the smell of sawdust and butter as we entered the kitchen.” Can you imagine a cold, loveless childhood like his, in the life of a cine celebrity, whose friends included Albert Einstein and George Bernard Shaw? 

Chaplin did visit that bleak workhouse school at Highgate. It made him recall a Christmas when he was denied two oranges and his bag of sweets for breaking a rule. That would have broken his heart, if the other children had not offered him a share of theirs. Spontaneously, the adult Chaplin gifted the orphanage with a motion picture machine and insisted that each child should have as many oranges and sweets as they pleased.

Chaplin’s memoirs recall an incident when he was three. He swallowed a halfpenny while trying to copy one of Sydney’s magic tricks. He was held upside down, shaken, slapped and probed under the glaring sitting room lights. Soon afterwards, he discovered his mother’s ankle bone under her skirt. Suspecting that she had swallowed a coin, the child enquired, “You must have swallowed a big one, to have it stick out like that.” Isn’t that hilarious?

The star travelled to Venice and Bali, Paris and Singapore. But the US did not appreciate Chaplin’s politics. So he died at Corsier-sur-Vevey in Switzerland on Dec. 25, 1977. 

Isn’t it amazing that out of such troubled beginnings emerged a man who still fills our lives with laughter? Through his creation of human dignity in rags, a battler against the evil in our world.

Secret Lives: Ravi Shankar

Live notes from the sitar

IT WAS in Benares on April 7, 1920, that a young boy was born into a Bengali brahmin family. He left for Europe about a decade later, to work with his famous brother, the contemporary dancer Uday Shankar. The child was an untapped mine of talent. He could have been a brilliant dancer, artist, or perhaps a writer. But his soul longed for music, no matter how tough the route to his dream.

He chose to learn the sitar under Ustad Alauddin Khan in the tiny town of Maihar, where the calls of jackals and wolves kept him awake all night. He learnt to call his guru Baba. For this, he gave up the luxurious lifestyle he had grown up with. The boy’s name was ~ Ravi Shankar.

Yes, he was honoured with the Bharat Ratna and several Grammy awards. He’s the one whom George Harrison of The Beatles learnt the sitar from in 1966. He popularized the instrument in the west, boosting exports phenomenally. He learnt to fuse the music of the east and the west together. 

Ravi Shankar has other claims to fame, though. He scored the music for Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali.’ He won the prestigious Silver Bear at the 1957 Berlin film festival for his music for ‘Kabuliwala.’ His talented daughters ~ Anoushka and Norah Jones ~ were both up for Grammy awards, which the latter won.

In his autobiography ~ ‘My Music, My Life’ ~ Ravi recreates his days with Baba, who loved him as a father would. Initially, his guru felt that the boy, with his fancy clothes and dandy ways, would never master the sitar. In 1936, while Uday was choreographing new ballets at Dartington Hall in idyllic Devonshire, Ravi concentrated on scales and exercises with Baba. That’s when he decided he would opt for music over dance.

Two years later, on a July day, Ravi ~ with a tonsured head and simple clothes following his sacred thread ceremony ~ set out for Maihar. Settling into a small house next to his guru’s, Ravi stayed awake on his bamboo-and-coconut fibre charpoy, listening to a chorus of crickets and frogs. Of their lessons, he wrote, “When Baba was nice to me, as he usually was, I learned very quickly and well. But when he was angry, I got stubborn, thick-headed, dull, and refused to learn. It must have been because I had never been scolded by anyone, even as a child.” Does that sound familiar to you?

At Baba’s, Ravi led the simplest of lives. He ate meagre meals, practiced for hours on end, and still trembled when he played for his guru. Though Ravi’s keen mind absorbed the music, his untrained hands often refused to keep pace. With the basic ragas, Baba taught Ravi by singing to him. Because, by imitating the voice with the instrument, he could understand the music more deeply. 

Baba was as famed for his brilliance as for his temper. Each of the 30-odd boys who shared Ravi’s cottage soon fled ~ because their guru would beat them if they were inept. Even with Ravi, Baba once lost his cool. He smacked his student’s hands, proclaiming, “You have no strength in your wrists! Go and buy bangles to wear on your wrists. You are weak like a little girl. You have no strength. You can’t even do this exercise…”

Hurt, Ravi rose and stumbled to his cottage. He hurriedly packed and rushed to the railway station. While he waited for the next train, Baba’s son ~ now the famous sarod master Ali Akbar Khan ~ persuaded him to return. When Ravi visited Baba, he found him found cutting out a photograph of his favourite student to put into a frame!

After that, there was no looking back. Ravi Shankar was so moved that he learnt from his guru with even greater zest. No wonder the world listens to his incredible sitar with awe, even today.