Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

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A House for Mr Biswas

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When I was 12, I studied A House for Mr Biswas, a novel by V. S. Naipaul who passed away on 11 August 2018. The book tells the story of “Mohun Biswas, an Indo-Trinidadian who continually strives for success and mostly fails, who marries into the Tulsi family only to find himself dominated by it, and who finally sets the goal of owning his own house” (from Wikipedia).

I have to be honest though. At that time, 33 years ago, I didn’t like the book too much. I thought Mohun Biswas was old-fashioned and I could not relate to him or his family.

I loved the class though. Our English teacher, Mrs Girdhari-Fulena, was fantastic. Pity I was too young and too stupid to appreciate V. S. Naipaul then… One of these days, I’ll read A House for Mr Biswas again.

PS: V. S. Naipaul is also known for The Overcrowded Barracoon, published in 1972, in which Mauritius is described as “an overcrowded barracoon where tranquility recedes and escape routes are closed”. The Mauritians “have no sense of danger.” Fortunately, he was wrong.

Liverpool will win the 2018-2019 Premiership

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Ok. I’ll say it. I think that Liverpool, with the players and manager the team now has, can challenge for and WIN the 2018-2019 Premiership.

The team looks very balanced to me with world class players and some pretty good youngsters. Of course, there is no guarantee that the team chemistry will be good but, if there is one manager in the world who knows about instilling team chemistry grandly, it’s Klopp!

On 20 July 2018, Liverpool named a 29-man squad for their USA tour to play against Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City and Manchester United which includes Karius, Clyne, Fabinho, van Dijk, Wijnaldum, Milner, Keïta, Mané, Salah, Gomez, Sturridge, Grujic, Klavan, Moreno, Lallana, Shaqiri, Robertson, Origi, Solanke, Matip, Phillips, Jones, Markovic, Ojo, Woodburn, Kelleher, Camacho, Chirivella, Grabara.

Notable absentees (except, of course, WC players still on vacation) include Simon Mignolet, Connor Randall, Ryan Kent and Danny Ings who will surely leave Liverpool this year. Mignolet and Ings are simply not good enough to play in a top team and Randall and Kent have failed to impress as youngsters and they are both 21+ now. It also looks like the young Allan Rodrigues de Souza will leave after failing to earn a work permit for so many years…

Among the 29 are five academy players accompanying the first team to the USA:

Among the first team players are the following four young players who will try to push for a place on teamsheets this year:

Some of them will probably have an important role to play this year, whether it is in the leagues, in cup games or in the Champions League. It is going to be an interesting year for Liverpool supporters and players.

I’m am very confident that Liverpool will excel this year and will win the 2018-2019 Premiership.

Teachers of RCC around 1989-1990

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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)
  • +
  • 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?