There was a time in life I new the top man in Southern Railway and I could barge into the cabin of the Railway Minister without an appointment. Great people, sheltered they lived. I realised that these relationshisp could never get me a railway ticket when I wanted one. My friend a TT was always there to help.
So big names, to me, make no sense.
My Dad was a wonderful man. He was joyous when my grades were good (rare occasions) and was dismayed when they were poor (most often). Studying was a bugbear to me. I found no meaning. And for a middle class home ‘academics’ held out the only hope for the future. This was drilled into me but my mind comprehended it not.
So when ever the report card, a colorful one at that, had blots of crimson indicating revulsion it brought out the prophet in my Dad. We were still living in agrarian times and hence he would say “YOU ARE FIT ENOUGH TO TEND CATTLE” . As a city bred boy I loved the fields and the animals and hence when ever these words were uttered the image of ‘David tending sheep and Psalm 23″ popped up in my mind. My report card continued to be colorful for long.
I longed for a quite life along the streams but the prophesy turned out in a more modern way. I had joined the media and got ensnared by the ‘rat trap’ and through sheer hard work within 5 years I had become a ‘manager’ of sorts. I had people report to me. And there came I time when I sat back and realised how true my fathers words were, I was actually tending the cattle. I felt proud of myself. Years rolled by till it dawned on me that I was making cakes of cattle dung to keep the kettle on the boil.
It was a training program on Emotional Intelligence… I surprised myself… I resisted Daniel Goleman, I have read his books and some more and did not find them stimulating as much as disceting…. so I gave it the pass. Now what else can I do… may be rely on my own emotions? thats what I did.
I surprised myself by starting out with ‘Story of Kannagi’ from Silapadigaram. The names ‘Kannagi’ her husband ‘Kovalan’ and the king “Neduncheliyan’ And there was some spice with Kovalan have a fling with Madhavi the dancer and getting back to Kannagi after realising his mistake. One must read it to see the emotions coming through.
Having set the tone, I moved on to Neuroscience on how the brain functions.
Started with explaining what emotions are, english language has nearly 600 words to explain various emotions types. The functioning of brain and the importance of emotions for learning. The power of listening and development of a good cognitive framework that can process rapidly.
I took 3 sessions overall.
Nobody should test a person to catch him doing wrong but to have him do the right. Test is bad if its purpose is to find the wrongs. Do we like teachers who are constantly putting us under a microscope to check the mistakes? It sure does not work that way.
On diwali day, I got to see the beginning of a debate (paati mantram) but had to leave. The moderator was narrating an incident which I though I must share. He had written his first manuscript, and wanted the then Chief Minister, C N Annadurai, to read it. It came back with most of the lines underlined in red. The man was surprised and when he enquired the reply was simple. The reviewer liked the book and the underlined portions that are red should remain and must not change.
I was in IIT yesterday.. and chatting up with my friend. Comparing and contrasting the campus to that of MCC, and finally surmised MCC is charming. Thats quite a prejudiced statement from an MCCian. Honestly, honestly I like the IIT campus. Its good and as I was singing praises my friend told me something that startled me and made me think.
The provocation was simple. I made this innocent statement ” So its difficult to get into IIT only the best make it I suppose” For which he said “not any more, there are training centres that specialize in training aspirants to crack the IIT entrance exams” he said “all they have to do is devote their time to crack the entrance exams, they may not have the quality, but by sheer hard work they may end up cracking it”.
It got me thinking, isn’t that true? its become some must part of our system. To take the short cut and get in some how. We have also institutionalized it, how gauche. I have heard of cars having a radar locating system to identify speed radars that are kept to catch overspeeding. This led to the cops developing a system that can bypass the car radars, then the car radars came up with a advance version…it goes on and on.
I wake up the next morning and I saw this new item in the newspaper, Eyeing IIT? Do well in class X12, Kapil Sibal suggests 80-85% in boards to qualify for IIT entrance. Great step indeed. But then there those bright sparks who are quite muted in school waiting to excel in college. What about them?
Strange how a Sunday Evening drive, at 10km per hour, intended to murder time can actually produce some thoughts or conversations of ‘high’ levels.
It was not just another sunday, the burst of crackers on saturday troubled my ears but it gave fresh meaning to normal sound, almost akin to Stockholm syndrome. The sunday after Diwali was silent, and I almost heard the birds and the crawling of the earthworm.
Good things don’t last they say, a medical doctor who was referred by a friend called up for an appointment to pick up some Golden nuggets from me. Her problem – her 4 year old son was a poor student. I had a really tough time gettig her agree on bringing her husband, over the phone she had quite a mouthful to say about him. I insisted…. its a family affair and moreover getting to speak to a lady alone is quite a task – walking across the twin towers on a rope is far less riskier.
It was 4.30 the lady doctor landed up with her husband. A stern looking man, with a fit body and a deep bass voice. Quite a nice guy. We got talking as the little brat was creating all sorts of noise and problems. Well you may wonder ‘how can a blind lead the blind’, and my answer is the blind may not see with his eyes but all the other senses are alert.
But honestly it was a blind giving direction to the blind. The conversation was inflamed, a typical diwali with fireworks and noise and then the huff and puff and then the walk out. The session so fruitless ended.
Then came my friend and we spoke and spoke. The conversation wandered towards Jehu and Jezebel. I guess I need to read about Jehu again. Jezebel was in her bewitching best, she had a track record of consuming men of all sorts, now it was Jehu on the platter. She plaits her hair, comes on to the balcony to feast upon the new hero – Jehu. History would have been different if Jehu had not done what he did… he went beyond Jason of Greek mythology.
God was pleased. And Jehu ruled for 4 generations.
Does evil become good when it matures? and does good become evil at its prime? Interaction with Jehu and Jezebel, and going beyond the moral perspective, can throw some interesting insights. Jezebel had used her charm and achieved all that she had to achieve, it was time to go beyond that, and she apparently did not realize that. All she could have done was to surrender to the man rather than trying to get the conqueror to surrender. Jehu was another cup of tea, a man who is just on his path to glory and has not achieved it yet, for him butchering Jezebel was part of the short cut to glory. Jezebel made it easy for him by enacting out her time tested harlots role. Thud was her fall. Evil ripened to the point of becoming rotten. And good had just hopped past better to become the best.
I was reading Patrick Barkham write about “Just how much TV should Children watch?” this article was written in specific reference to Australia taking steps to ban TV viewing by children below yrs. And how is this possible? one really does not know. TV wathcing has two problmes one is a moral and the other is the overall degradation of the brain. I was quite appalled to see a clip of a Japanese show for children. Basically, it’s a children’s show (geared for boys ages 6 to 11) called The Ancient Dogoo Girl, and it’s about a teen girl (who hopefully is played by someone older) with some sort of ancient magic bra that shoots energy weapons or spikes or magic beams or some such equivalent.
Am one who believes, or lets put it this way neuroscience has proved beyond doubt that any consistent activity to the brain can actually wire the brain and adapt to that environment. So if a child is exposed to too much of television, the wonder of the visuals can actually give the child a “slack-jawed look” , it can kill neurons and the synaptic connections that are made in order to discriminate signals from ‘noise’.
I have personally observed children who are termed ADHD at schools are actually those who are not able to processes sound on a sustained level, why they have this problem of distinguishing between signals and noise, and eventually find a problem in processing the target sound and rejecting the distractors. The teacher talking, is the target sound in class, children who have spent the early ages on high television viewing have a problem. For them target sound in most cases are accompanied by dynamic visuals if that does not happen the child rejects it, rather the child’s brain, rejects it as distractor sounds and starts processing other noises.
A good brain development for a child depends on a good environment at home. If a home environment is more conducive to reading over viewing then the conversation at home tends to be on a higher level and a child growing up in such an environment will surely be wired to take on academic challenges with ease.
I watched this movie over the weekend. Somehow, need to admit again, I am unable to make any sense or find any meaning out of all these flicks. I bores me no end. Here is the synopsis.
“Match Point” is a drama about ambition and obsession, the seduction of wealth, and the often discordant relationship between love and sexual passion. Perhaps most importantly, however, the story reveals the huge part luck plays in the events of our lives, refuting the comforting misconception that more of life is under our control than really is. A one-time tennis pro, Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) was used to falling just short in his life. But when he befriends Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode) and marries his sister, Chloe (Emily Mortimer), the doors are opened to the kind of money and success that Chris had once only dreamed of. Chris should have settled for happiness, but he is torn by his attraction to Tom’s impossibly beautiful and sensual fiancée, Nola (Scarlett Johansson). The attraction turns to an obsession that forces Chris to make a critical choice. Now everything in his life hinges on if Chris falls short again…and whether or not his luck runs out.
It had its Tamil moviesh intrigue towards the end, the two detectives conversing and takeing two different view points. Christ Wilton begging to keep the entire investigation a secret. The ring of Nola’s neigbhour who gets killed for reason at all is found in the pocket of a drug dealer who in turn gets implicated for the the murders…. allowing Chris to go scot free.
Yuk.. left a bad taste in the mouth… a rotten weekend.
I had come across this video 3 yrs ago… and I laughed it off. I saw this again in the light of what I have been working on – cultures. Here are a bunch of boys doing a good job of imitating and having fun and suddenly as a thud they are brought back to reality.
The reality hits when Munniandys paati (grandma) spots them in a busy city corner and talks to the boys in a typical Tamil lingo. Watch the faces of the boys and girls. Dont miss the tamil
It needs to be enjoyed and demands thought too.
Tilted Plus 