Mauritius

We all had a lot of fun watching Powerless

29 May 2018 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

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On our trip to Greece and Turkey and back, Christina and I discovered Powerless on our Turkish Airlines flight, a TV series which aired on NBC from 2 February to 20 April 2017 and which was cancelled shortly after.

The story is as follows:

Powerless takes place in the DC Universe and follows the adventures of Emily Locke as Director of Research & Development at Wayne Security, a subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises based in Charm City, that specializes in products for ordinary humans who are poised to be victims of the battles between superheroes and supervillains.

The storylines in the television series are not directly based on storylines in the DC comic franchise, including the Batman franchise. Rather the premise imagines stories that run parallel to the plots in the comic franchise.

In other words, it is the story of normal people who happen to live in a world where superheros exist.

On our return to Mauritius, we introduced Powerless to Anya and Kyan and I have to say that, despite its simplicity compared to, say, the Good Fight or Person of Interest, we all loved it… probably because of, precisely, its simplicity but also because Vanessa Hudgens, who portrays Emily Locke, is so fresh. Alan Tudyk, who portrays the abysmal cousin of Bruce Wayne aka Batman, is hilarious!

Give Powerless a try and tell me what you think.

Teachers of RCC around 1989-1990

4 February 2018 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

I have just stumbled upon that photo in the Royal College Curepipe Friends group on Facebook.

What can I say? The photo brings back a lot of fond memories. Having spent eight years in the college, I had the pleasure to have a lot of them as teachers. Let me try to remember their names:

Miss Dupont (who really understood immature boys),
Miss Gopaul (Ruby or Castafiore pour les intimes),
Mrs Runghen (one day I will remit to her the tens of French essays due…),
Mrs Nabheebuccus (who I didn’t have as teacher but who, as you can easily imagine, we were all appreciative of…),
Mrs Jeewoolall (who did Social Studies with us),
Mrs Chunnoo (who was the mum of one of my classmates),
Mrs Girdhari/Fulena (who we all revered when we were Form I kids),
Mr Mungur (a very nice Economics teacher who I still meet from time to time),
Mr Subadhu (an excellent Chemistry teacher who knew how to deal with rebels),
Mr Boolaky (whom I liked a lot even though I don’t remember what subject he taught),
Mr Ng Wong Hing (an excellent Physics teacher who now is at the Ministry of Education),
Mr Law Pak Chung (who was my Biology teacher in Form V),
Mr Beeharry (Carlos pour les intimes who I am ’cause we are related),
Mr Ramsurrun (the very well known Hindi teacher — he saw very very little of me…),
Mr Harmon (the hood aka wood teacher),
Mr Amandine (the desperate music teacher who played guitar really well),
Mr Saverethiar (a very severe Maths teacher),
Mr Mawjee (an English teacher if my memory is right)
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Mr Wan Hok Chee (a formidable Maths teacher who does not seem to appear in the photo)

And, of course, the rector and his deputy:

Mr Gopaul (who was instrumental into making us Royalistes. I distinctly remember him coming to our Form I class on admission day and telling us: “You are the future of the country”. From very early, we were groomed to (depending on the point of view) become spoiled brats or people with the capacity to contribute a lot for the development of Mauritius.)
Mr Rampadaruth (the enforcer of discipline except that, if I remember correctly, we all knew how to disappear when he got near. But I have to confess that he managed to get me twice: (1) when I was in Form II, I left school on the sports day to go and play Pac Man. A friend, Henri, told him and he came to fetch me. I got a Saturday arrest. (2) In Form IV, I showed Hansley how to break the legs of a table to fabricate a drum kit. For some reason, he gave both of us an arrest for “damaging school property”.)

I wonder whether it would be possible to organise something where we could all meet again. Maybe for the next Old Royals meeting?

Merry Christmas to all of you

25 December 2017 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

Today is the 25th of December 2017 and Christina, Anya, Kyan and myself wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Interestingly, do you know that Father Christmas originally wore green and, in fact, appeared to announce the coming of spring? This would imply that he came around March every year. But he became red when Coca-Cola decided that it would be good to have Father Christmas on an advert for them and that he should wear red instead of green. That’s a pity because well, I believe, green looks much better than the overwhelming red… As you can see below, Google agrees:

A second thing I would like to mention is that I hope you all got the gifts you asked for but only if you asked reasonably. According to statistics, most Mauritian households have massive debts and it would be a pity if, for the sake of having the flashiest phone or the flashiest car, people keep on taking more and more debts. I wonder what percentage of the population has a positive net worth in Mauritius? That’s a study which needs to be made because I was reading an article the other day about the fact that, the less net worth you have, the more stressed you are.

A lot of studies show that, generally, those who have positive net worths, i.e. the millionaires, are not flashy at all. They don’t drive the latest BMW or have the latest iPhone. Real millionaires are frugal. Heck, that’s why they are millionaires. This would imply that those around us who like to show off are, as a matter of fact, poor.

Merry Christmas!