THE USTHAD OF MNEMONICS

 

Students often use convenient tricks to remember what they learn. These are known a mnemonics. There are universally accepted mnemonics like “BB ROY of GREAT BRITAIN has a VERY GOOD WIFE” which students use in Electricity / Electronics. Unlike these there are locally developed ones also. Also there are smart students who develop such tricks for themselves. We had such a smart boy in our school.

                                   

As a teacher I know how the examiner’s job has transformed over the years. Suppose there is a question, “who is the author of Veena Poovu?”. The examiner will have to give full marks even if the student writes “Komaran Aasaan”. The argument is that the student knows it is Aasaan. We should be testing the student’s knowledge and not their ignorance. Similarly G Sankara Kurup can easily be G Sukumara Kurup! If two stanzas of Veena Poovu are asked to be written, even a remote resemblance with the original would suffice. No problem. No problem at all.

But alas, during our times these were big problems. During our times the “Veena Poovu” should be there in original form with all the punctuations in place. It is here that our R Radhakrishnan Nair emerged as a saviour. He never hesitated in sharing the tricks he invented with his friends. A philanthropist indeed. He used to remember punctuations in the following way. “ Kuthu, comma, kuthu comma, double kuthu, double coma, vara kuthu, chodyam” It went like this. What he meant were respectively full stop, comma, semi colon, colon, inverted commas, exclamation and question marks. I want to put several varakkuthus here. “HOWZZAT?”. Wait a minute before saying, clean bowled. The master piece is yet to come. Once after a mathematics class he appeared very depressed. He could not get a mnemonic for LCM (Least Common Multiple). He remained depressed for a day or two. I advised him to remember the full form as such, that not being a big thing. He could not heed to my advice as he felt his prestige was at stake. The next day he came running to me shouting “Kittiyeda” (In Greek Kittiyeda means Eureka). The proud Archemedis told me, LCM means “Lalitha Cherian’s Mother”. I remained breathless. This boy was an usthad of mnemonics indeed.

*Lalitha Cherian was our class mate.