Is All Well

I am rarely ever pissed out or disillusioned by the system. I believe members of the system sort things out pretty well and by the end of it imbibe what is necessary and important. Smart people get noticed no matter what. And the not so smart find their niche. At least eventually. But last week I was left sightly perturbed. And this was because the system was changing for the better.

Though it sounds ironic it is completely true. Two incidents occured which were the cause of the disturbance. And both were related to the fact that though the policy makers were trying to push the system towards the better, either due to inertia or incompetence the system was resisting this change.

First incident happened in Pune. I was visiting my cousin's family, which consists of him, his parents, his wife and 2 kids. My nephew, who studies in senior kindergarten, is an extremely smart and talented chap. I was playing with him in the garden and while playing he started singing All is well from 3 Idiots. He sang it till the third paragraph without missing a single word and from what i can understand of music, in tune.

At school he was being taught the spellings of the days of the week using some new high funda system called phonics. Essentially they are taught to spell according to sound of the words. Great! But the concern came from when my sister-in-law started her daily teaching/ homework routine.

Point 1: I thought CBSE banned homework for anyone below class 5. I raised my eyebrow but didn't say anything.


So they start their routine. She asks him the spelling of Tuesday. And he starts T - E _. Before he says anything more my S-I-L asks him is it T-E. He thinks and says T-E and before anyone can react dude gets one tight one on the back and is told its tuesday. So obviously its T-U-E-S-D-A-Y. Dude gets this into his head, and when asked again says T-U-E-S-D-A-Y and writes it down three or four times. Then they go to some other stuff. Just to test him she asks him spell tuesday. And what do you know, dude goes T-E and get another tight one. I see this get pissed and say please don't hit the child. And she snaps back, Well, don't teach me how to teach my children!

I leave the room and say nothing else.

Point 2: In my opinion T-e-u-s-d-a-y sounds as the correct spelling to my phoneticaly challenged brain. And in either case i wouldn't give a fig if I were in senior kindergarten.

My sister-in-law in general is a very nice person. Extremely friendly. She is amongst the people i am closest to , in spite of the fact that I must have interacted with her at any considerable length maybe 10 times in the last 7 years. But she wants to push her child to succeed.

So once she is done with her son she comes over to me and starts a discussion telling me why she thinks she is right. She tells me what I absolutely abhor is a child making a mistake because of his carelessness. He knows the right spelling but is saying the wrong stuff only because he is careless. I tell that is exactly my point. You know he is smart. You know he gets what he is being told. So one day he will know the spelling of tuesday. He will learn all he needs to anyway. So why push him in a brutal manner.

She retorts saying, what you say may seem nice in Utopia, but not in India. If someone wants to shine he cannot afford to be careless. Careless today, careless forever. I was like you are missing the point. A 5 year old kid is expected to be careless. Hell, when the system is trying to change for the better (I mention point 1), when the system is trying to move towards Utopia, why don't we let it move.

She put in a rider as well saying do not tell me not to hit him when he is present. He might lose discipline. I was like you are making the case weaker for you, aren't you. Anyway she continued with her arguments (stuff like when he has the memory to remember songs so well why not spelling) and me offering the usual counters (so you want him to mug stuff. And isn't it a great thing he can remember the songs in the first pace. After reaching heaven why do you wish to be God as well).

Finally I was like we hold completely opposite view on this. And both of us are stubborn. It would be completely pointless to take this argument further. I see you yourself think my system would be utopia and shift to this. Till then you can have your system, I will keep hope for mine.

After this I reach Mumbai. Another nephew (7 standard dude.) comes home and says he has an assignment and needs to download some pictures and stick them onto his book. I am like, Cool! using technology to understand stuff better.

But I think I had the thought a little to early. He opens his book and opened wikipedia. Fair enough. So his assignment was to get examples of various sub classes of chordata and further the subclasses within mamallia. Stil fair enough. So I assume he will enter the class in wikipedia and see what he gets and proceed. But instead he sees some vague example his teacher gave him, downloads and saves. I tell him why don't you search some more. See what wikipedia tells you. I mean you are using technology might as well use it well. He was like you don't know my teacher. I try acting smart, she wont understand. She won't even know or appreciate. So this is better. I insist he search more. So when we get to the sub-classes of mammals he somewhat relents. Searches a bit and uses unique examples. He used a capybara, which are apparently the biggest rodents, instead of the usual rats or squirrels. I was supervising till then. I leave the room, and when i get back he has downloaded giant panda for carnivora. I tell him dude are you sure the giant panda is carnivorous. It after all eats only bamboo and see your teacher has not mentioned it either. He thought about it for a moment, bulbed, thought about his teacher and was about to remove it from his examples when wiki saved him with the fact that the panda are almost completely vegetarian carnivores.

So he continued. For Primates I told him to use my pic. I said I am human enough. He said no, I have already risked being failed by my teacher. I will not do that. I will prefer an Orangutan. I tell fail for what? For learning great stuff?:

At this my brother enters and says don't bug the poor fellow. His teacher surely will not what a capybara is, and won't even care that the giant panda is a carnivore. So just let him be.

I let him be, but felt bad for my cousin and his ilk. Though they are encouraged to use the comp so that they can show off with fancy print outs they are absolutely discouraged from thinking originally. They were using technology worse than the way we were using books.

Surely blaming the system in this case is unfair. Therefore I would prefer it go back to old rigid version. In that case at least the system would have been a nice fall guy. Now all we can do is feel bad that inspite of having so many factors pushing us ahead we are trying to waste away and actually move backward!!!

The Devil of Brat's Hill

Three little bed-bugs decided to go on a trek
and to their delight noticed Brat's Hill 15 Degrees South by Southwest
In their excitement to conquer the hill they created quite a mess
And woke the notorious devil who till then peacefully slept.

Now,the devil though dangerous, was extremely clumsy
More so when he was tired and sleepy
He tried swatting the bugs but ended up hitting the hill
Creating caves as though bored with a drill

The three bed bugs marketed the caves as a tourist spot
And this brought more bugs - a dozen every lot.
They said," In addition to being a place of great leisure
Missing the devil's hits by a whisker is an amazing sport of adventure."

This the devil took to his heart And vowed to destroy bugs near and far
He prayed to the ghosts of pest control who sent in ammo by the hordes.
The devil fired indiscriminately and destroyed bugs and eggs
And leaving their homes a complete wreck

Music gives you wings

Last night, was randomly surfing channels when the I reached a channel playing Vennilave, from Minsara Kanavu. The tune is a well known intoxicant, and as it played through I got a kick I am sure even people addicted to potent drugs don't.

It had all symptoms. My mind felt relaxed. I was smiling for no particular reason. Other people speaking made no sense. The mind was completely immersed into the song. The next song that played was average, and i switched off the TV halfway through that song. The next dose in other words, had to be at least equally potent, if not more so.

Being addicted to Rahman's music is something great and I really do not mind being a peddler of this drug.

My biggest regret!!!

I have been thinking about it and have found my biggest regret to date. NO! Its not the fact that I haven't netted a girl in four years of college. Neither is it that I did not get a PhD admit. Its not even something like not being able to find a place in the Indian cricket team.

Its something far more substantial, and something I had full control of. Not having failed a single exam in my entire academic career till date. Forget an exam, I haven't even failed in an unit test.

I came mighty close on two occasions, but yet failed to fail. One was a unit test in electronics in my 11th standard. That was the only time my bad handwriting helped me pass. No one, not even the teachers knew the answers to the questions set. For most people in my class, who had good handwritings, the teachers would have felt extremely guilty to give marks to something obviously wrong. But in my case they wouldn't have been able to decipher what I had written, and would have come to the conclusion that there is a possibility that he has written some sense, so lets just ignore and give him pass marks. I got something like 22/50 and thus passed.

The second instance was in college. Bioprocess II. Here I had hardly any clue on what was happening, and the professor did. And very technically I failed the assessments. But this was in our 6th semester, the semester after which we are placed. The professor turned out to be a good guy, who didn't want an arrear to mar our chances to get a job. So he gave us a second chance. For all the people who failed in the internal assements, including me, he put the internal assessment score as 25/50 and thus essentially making us pass out assessments at least. So on record I still passed.

Well anyway I am mostly done with exams in the school or college sense, and will have to carry this regret with me till the end. Even if I do have to take such exams, looking at my record I hardly doubt that I will pass each of those.

The only silver lining in this dark cloud of regret is that I have never managed to cross 90% marks overall in any exam ever. I have been a consistent Mr. 80 - 90 %. And that speaks decently of my consistency!

Free Advise... Freely Given

It is so irritating. I am slowly becoming the old thatha that everyone fears. I hate people advising me, and I rarely if at all take up that advise. Unless that was the route i would have taken anyway. And similarly unless asked I would never give any suggestions. And even then only say what I did in a similar situation.

But when you are jobless and have nothing to do, you end up offering advise, that probably has no use to the person, but who listens to you anyway, as they have no other option.

I really hope that this does not get extrapolated and when I am really a thatha I don't pick random people and start off, "You have taken Biotechnoplogy, start searching for projectys and aim to do a phd. Its very easy to get through, I wqas a weird case. GRE is not important and you can score well anyway."

Oh! Hell! The thought is scary!

Maksat

I got thinking. What are my options ahead? And I came to the conclusion that there aren't too many. Its pretty irritating to realise for sure, that what Naseeruddin Shah says in Iqbal is true. "ज्यादा तर लोग, अपनी पूरी ज़िन्दगी बीता देते हैं यह जाने बगैर कि उनके जीने का मक्सत क्या हैं!"


Option 1: You have come so far and it hasn't hurt you yet. So makes sense to continue research.
Pro: Its a double positive. You'll have two careers. A researcher and a teacher. The odds favour liking both options and in any case definitely the latter.The second option being something that has always seemed like a calling. I have been doing it in one way or the other since the 9th standard. And it is I must say attractive. The changes of getting a position as a research scholar are also extremely good. No immediate financial liability either.
Con: In case it messes up you cannot even say the money is good and that is why I am in it.


Option 2: Get into the career of selling stuff or selling and buying companies selling stuff or a part thereof. Do an MBA.
Pro: Money will not be the issue ever.
Con: I really do not think I'll like selling stuff.

Option 3: Thanks to the education system and also honestly a natural disposition, the mind fits into the bureaucracy. So work for the government.
Pro: Odds favour job satisfaction being good.
Con: Too many people think the same way. The competition will be killing and the subjects that I have had to pass to become a B.Tech will not help me write the civil services exam. So getting the job will be almost impossible.

All other options are not pragmatic to consider at this juncture. Maybe a day will come when I am forced to consider them.

Till now option one and probably teaching seem to be जीने का मक्सत। 100 % conviction is still not there, but I must admit it is the closest to that figure that I have got to in memory. Even more convincing than, probably the feeling as a 7 or 8 year old that my ideal career would be an rail engine driver. The only issue is that though I know getting in would be a pain, option 3 still tugs a bit at the heart strings.

Thankfully I can sign

Today I will be giving my driving test to get my liecence. So was checking that my learner's liecence was in order. Well on seeing I was so thankful that ilearned to sign. See the image. I needn't say more.