A different view

My teaching experiences with children

2008-09-13T09:12:00.000-07:00

It not about what I tought them, its about what I learnt from them. The experiences brought back the basic truth of life in front of me again. Far from the meeting rooms and all the technical talks; I was between those who were going to correct my altered perception of life. Life is far beyond just simple logic and explainations, they pull you back to the basics. Why is "M a n" is a man? why don't we fly? and so on, I stood there dumbfounded.

Before going any further let me introduce you to them.

Name: Laxmi,
Class: 4th std,
Mother tongue: Telgu.
Name: Sri,
Class: 5th std,
Mother tongue: Telgu.
... and many more...
School : GPS Tolichawki, an Indian public school running with bare minimum resources.
All these children belonged to the families from the lower socio-economic class. I went to them with the hope to give them the exposure to the so called "new Indian Middle class".

Now, let's resume the story.

When I entered the classroom, I got a Royal treatment; the way they will welcomed me, It made me feel as if I was the Prime minister of this country. So much warmth in their eyes and attitude and a loud good morning wish, I realised I was stepping into a bigger shoe. With all eyes watching me, I knew the next hour was going to be tough. On the other hand, the warm welcome gave me the required high and the energy to be stupid and act like a bird flapping my arms to describe a bird.
Yes! I was being kiddish, but that was me unlearning my development. I takes a child to be a child. It was a big change for them too, from their regular Maths and Science classes. They were seeing one of the most abundant yet one of the rare species, the Indian IT male. Yes, I was different from them, but when I look back, I was one of them, sitting on the second last bench, talking to my neighbor ,fighting with him, and yet good friends with him. Though I could not hear what I was talking, but I did feel myself there.

I was speaking aloud and was trying to get the attention of all, some were ahead of me, some following me, and few weren't bothered to listen to me. I was speaking in a language they barely understood, I was talking in Hindi and English, but obviously, for some it was no different than Greek. Yet trying to make them understand what a domestic animal is and why a Monkey doesn't fly.
Then we moved to group drawing. They all love group activities, that's the best method, I realised, to teach them. Indians are generally introverts, I dont know if its genetic or its the enviroment, but a group activity brings all of them forward. Its easy to get them follow what everybody else is doing, "Sir! should I draw a house?", if one draws a house, then everybody will draw a house. I dont know if I made them draw a house or they made me draw a house, But I will have to break this crowd mentality. Maybe, that's why I am still with the crowd. It's my own reflection looking back at me. Hopefuly, I can change it for them and myself too.

They all love attention, as I do. They loved showing me all the small details and my small-small appreciations and I loved being a part of them and yet different.
It's this small role reversal that I need to stand upto. Hope the small change, which I bring to them, on the weekends would help them and me to see the world with a broader view.

And it rained that day

2007-08-18T01:38:00.000-07:00

It rained that day, out of nowhere it rained that day, monsoon was long gone, and it rained that day.

So hard because the almighty got irate, so hard that he didn’t care if the clouds fell down; he had poured on with full throttle. As if he was angry on the little boy losing his bond with him, carrying a gun and killing the once which are still close to him; the little once who has just started recognizing the face of her mother; the unborn once who still talk to him about her mother telling her stories of the king and the queen.

It was hard lashings on the mother Earth. Though she is strong enough caring for so many sons and daughters, still it hurt being the target of his anger. It wasn’t her fault; she had no control over her own children.

Or was he crying; shouldn’t he care to wait for the air-borne to take a perch; it brought a few of them crashing down. It might have been a cry in anguish over the young mother groaning in pain, moments ago her tears were of happiness, but then they were for losing the one she had never seen before, and won’t even be seeing anymore. Nine months of bond had broken; was it he who couldn’t detach his feelings for the unborn and couldn’t let mother be the surrogate. Were those the tears of guilt or was he happy to see someone back? Didn’t it pain him when the mother cried? No, it cannot be just happiness that made him cry so hoarsely.

Or was the rain started somewhere else slowly and just the wind bought it on us when it was hard? Someone would have been the lucky one who had received the first drop of his tears, the first one who had felt the pain in the drop; the first one who consoled him; the first one who made him open up, to shed the pain and anger. Was that the little boy he got angry on or was she the mother he had been unfair too?

And then it stopped, the smell of the fresh mud was mesmerizing; water running though the surface. Kids playing on them, running over and over them, jumping and singing, like happiness was a child playing with them.

Are these the wounds after lashings, and we like the flies who are enticed by the smell of fresh blood and flesh? Are we parasites or really the children of mother earth?

Moments later the birds came out of their perch signaling to resume the flight; or, were they trying to wake the unconscious mother telling her that her lashings were over now, wake up and take care of the wounds.

And it rained that day, so hard that I sat riddled on my chair under the open sky, as if my roof had been ripped off to let me feel the pain in the first drop.

Do you like it.

2007-07-12T07:11:00.000-07:00

"All the world's a Program,And all the men and women merely classes.They have their constructors and their destructors,And one man in his time plays many objects,His acts being several derivations."
---Inspired from As You Like It (II, vii, 139-143) (William Shakespeare)

What it feels like to be in a program? Yes, a software program;
Once, I had a dream, a weird one.

I am in a semi sleepy state; lying on the bed, I see the flat world on the roof of my room.
A lot of known and unknown faces moving around, but their movement are a bit restricted, like in slow motion; moving, running, talking, etc etc…
When I watch closely, I can see different command of 8086 assembly language (low level programming language) in the air, each person is under execution of one command, including me. Just the processor seems to be 386 ( Intel 80386).

It was a surprise to me, but that’s our world, and that’s how we operate. Even our great Mr. William Shakespeare wouldn’t have imagined life being like this.

"What's in a variable name? That which we call a rose,By any other name would consume same amount of memory."
--Inspired from Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) (William Shakespeare)

Every one is following a code path, a lot of common code, just different instances; God is great; the most experienced programmer of the universe. He has been fixing bugs all over and will continue fixing and introducing some. So the product life-cycle goes. Bugs are reality; they bring in the factor of surprise, or rather the variation in our lives; they make God think, making him sweat run for his money. Definitely he earns more that Bill Gates does.

Everybody is in a loop, the mundane daily life is a loop within a module of the particular stage of your life. Go to office, come back to home, go to office, and come back to home…. Life goes on with you moving from one module to another, but the loop hangs around.

As soon as I realize that I was in a loop, I became restless, I started perspiring. Sleep is hell when you realize you can’t move and the fact is you even can’t wake up. I was in a hell; all drenched, search for the Exit command (mov ax, 4c00h ; int 21h).

"I am dying, Assembly, dying."
-- Inspired from Antony and Cleopatra (IV, xv, 41) (William Shakespeare)

This was the typical death module, where one realizes that he has reached his end, but the pain doesn’t end easily; it makes you feel the loop closely, so that you can feel the freedom of afterlife.
Well! that doesnt mean i am a ghost writer.

I don’t program in assembly language anymore, but still int 21h haunts me.

N2O cousin

2007-05-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

"There are few things money can't buy, for everything else there is mastercard."
Oops! (Brand awareness u know :))
"... , Smile is one them."

Neither Colgate nor Close-up can ever patent that laugh, an open hearted, carefree laugh.

Age: 11 yrs
First thing you will notice about her: A toothless laughter.

"Honey,! you laugh too much!"
"I won't let you get bored!" :)

People say I laugh too much, then she definitely is three much ;) (Smily effect showing off)

I guess she is also one of the firm believer in the N2O theory.
"There is abundance of N2O in the air around you , its just your ability to smell the most."

She is one living description of the famous dialog delivered by BigB in Namak Halal.
"I can talk English; I can walk English; I can laugh English because English is a very funny language."

Wide open eyes accompanied by a lot of facial expressions. who says you need language to communicate.

Rather, i should say for any language, laughter and expressions are incomprihensible.

Her laughter is raw, open ,loud and carefree though she doesn't laugh much in front of her father :).

A laughter is contagious, and definitely it is! I was laughing out loud too. All negative emotions drained out, you are free again, though it will cause a little discomfort in your stomach and cheeks, if you continue to emit the unlocalizable sound for long time :).
( "phoebe" ... "why is she making that funny sound everytime i ask her name?"...just a random recall ...refer friends series.)

Does it bother if you dont laugh... well yes it does.

("...she doesnt laugh, every time there is a funny sequence on the TV , she will say 'That's so funny' ... is that it! the expression of laughter is damned by it. refer: Scrubs).

Well to know more, you need to laugh three much :)

Dance like a Man!

2007-04-08T10:04:00.000-07:00

“ ..., dance like no one is watching.” --- Satchel Paige.
But the truth is people do watch and make one dance.

Dance like a man by Mahesh Dattani, deals with the dogma of being a man in the forties of indian society. Though the story revolves around the a dancer couple and their family, but at the emotions of the play lies in the emotional and social dance. Jairaj did dance to the tune of his father, his dancer and intelligent wife and to the tune of this society.
"Oh! He is a dancer."
"Oo! He is a great dancer."
the absence of one word destroyed Jairaj. We all laughed aloud when Viswas enacted Jairaj's father ridiculing Jairaj in the opening scene.

Viswas's character brought in the views of a common man which most of us could laugh at and also his character gives a comparative emphasis to the uncommon hero Jairaj. Viswas is part of the generation 3 of the act, along with Jairaj and Ratna's daughter Lata.

First generation of the act is occupied by of Jairaj's successful father and a freedom fighter, an eminent figure and the post Independence society. Back then, the only heirs of our ancient dance were prostitutes aka dev-daasis.

As the child's interest became the passion of the young man, it became more and more social stigmatic for his father. "Dance doesn’t make you a man!"
"You make me help Jairaj to grow up! , I will support your dance in the best possible way I can."
"What will he do if he leaves dance?"
"Make him worth you."

Ratna played the tune composed by her father-in-law. Jairaj danced and succumbed to his own weaknesses and the broken confidence. An unsuccessful husband and a drunkard father nursing his humiliated self.

The pick of the emotions is when Ratna cries over her daughter’s national acclaim by her dance performance. Ratna’s breakdown shows the jealousy and the mourning over her own failure.

Lillete Dubey’s direction has been lively, but the there were a lot too much differences between the characters of young and the old Jairaj. Both if viewed separately were good, but the only connection that seemed is a broken drunkard man, apart from that the character has lost all his identity.

All-in-all, the story and plot is a big win and it does make you laugh and cry and connects to you on the emotional level.

Cast :
Older Jairaj : Vijay Crishna.
Ratna : Lillete Dubey.
Lata : Suchrita Pillai.
Viswas : Joy Sengupta.

Jairaj's father : Vijay Crishna.
younger Jairaj :Joy Sengupta.
younger Ratna: Suchrita Pillai .

Directed by : Lillete Dubey.
Script: Mahesh Dattani.

Dated: April 7th 2007
Venue: Shilaparaman, Hyderabad.

Plot summary : http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/hindi/review/7306.html
References : http://inkpot.com/theatre/02reviews/02revdanclikeman.html

Historical facts: Dance was not restricted to women in pre Mughals era.
Bharata Muni's Natyashastra (literally "the art of dance") is the one of the earlier texts on dance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance#Dance_in_Indian_canonical_literature

Trapped inside

2007-01-08T11:54:00.000-08:00

Soul inside the body or soul behind the body, the fact is it's hidden; lying somewhere in the dark behind the wall, the body wall, the self covering wall.

Do “I”, “me” or “self” describe the wall or what’s behind the wall?Everybody knows but still they don't, when it's associated to others; it's their skewed eyes which always looks down at others. This “Everybody else” make my world.

The world seems beautiful, dazzling as the photo frame in the ordinary external light attached to the roof. It’s nothing but a perception of the human mind; the beauty is non existential, it’s just an expression which makes our brain get mesmerized.

The actual world is non-existential; for us it’s the only the sensible entities in the space around me, limited to our six senses. Our world is the virtual reality known to the impaired brain which comprehends the system.

People know me for what I appear in the light of the external perceptions; it’s the bulb, which lights up my wall and gives me a shape and a size. The non-figured, unsized entity, my own self, my identity, is opaque in this worldly light. It’s me who can see my soul in the mirror of my mind, it’s hazy but it’s there. It’s my mind’s inability to see the self, because its fluid, it ripples on a touch, it flows up and down, and nobody is master of his mind.

Some say the soul never dies, but I think he does. You have to keep him alive in you; he feeds on self respect, dignity and rightness. You have to hold the candle of light, to keep yourself alive.Once the Soul is dead, the wall will be broken and you will be lost in the world’s light.

It’s the self who is trapped inside the self, for “me” to live and I have to keep myself alive.

Symbolisms:
1> face in the mirror: soul.
2> candle in the hand: self perception/self dignity, honor.
3> hanging lamp: the external world's light / people's perception.
4> hanging eye: world's eye/ world perception.
5> photo frame of the eye: the external worlds dazzle and style.
6> right wall: the body.
a>behind the wall, in the dark the soul lives.
b> in front of the wall, the brighter and the visible self.
7> left wall: other people, the world.
8> mirror: the mind.
9> ripples in the mirror: fluid state of mind.
10> roof: sky / no entity.
11> angled photo Frame: looking down at you.

Void identity

2006-11-01T07:05:00.000-08:00

It was a sunny afternoon at the Delhi cant area; i was waiting for my school bus.
One of the fellow student asked me "where you there at kutub minar yesterday evening?".
"It wasn't me", i replied back. "He looked so similar to you. dude! you have a humshakl".

As a kid of 3rd grade, i was happy to believe that, the concept of identical faced people seemed a lot amazing to me. All the Bollywood movies having the fascinating humshakl concept ran through my head.

Some 15 years later, a cloudy evening in powai, Mumbai; a lot of people briskly walking towards a company guest house. Today was the reporting day for the new job, so everybody was carrying their luggage along with them. When i reached at the reception, i saw a lot of people waiting for the manager to allocate rooms to all of us. While waiting near the reception, I noticed a timing-table of lunch and dinner on notice board, while reading it, a discussion started between me and a stranger, this discussion didn't include any formal introduction, we talked about a lot of things like the place they came from, our previous companies and much more. After a bit of talking a third stranger got involved in our discussion.
After a while, the manager showed up; we all got our rooms. Me and the 1st stranger got to share the same room, then i said "hi!, this is Manish", he replied back saying "I am Manish too!"; what a coincident. It was time to rush to our rooms, we all three were going along, 3rd stranger said "Btw, i am Manish". What else could have surprise us more; with a smile, we said we both are Manish too. Then in the fit of surprise i shouted and asked "Is there anybody else named Manish here?". No there weren't any more Manishs around.

In almost every grade, i used to have atleast one more student named Manish. It's a very common Indian name.

These are mere coincidences, but sometimes, when i ponder upon these situations,a few questions pop-up in my head.

Is my name my identity?Yes.
Is my face my identity?Yes.
Is my gait my identity?Sort Of yes.

Lets put it in another way, all these are part of my identity.
But I am more than these;
can i perfectly explain the other factors? No.
That proves my identity is fuzzy.

"You are not the man, i had married 25 years ago".
"You are not the guy, i have know for last 10 years."
"You have changed, i didn't expect this from you."

I hear many such comments from a lot of people.
It's just the identity, its fuzzy and it changes too.
The Fact is nobody knows anyone completely, not even self.

By seeing all this, i can only say "Identity is fuzzy and it changes"
But, by definition Identity is distinct and a person is recognized by it.

so, isn't the concept of identity void.

Well!, i will leave the discussion open here for the reader's to build upon it.

Lost on the Web; search on Live.com

2006-10-30T10:22:00.000-08:00

I apparently seem to be marketing Live.com;
Am I? Yes.
Am I a marketing agent? No.
Do I have a network? Yes, I do.
Well! i am a common man, and it is possible for me to spread my feelings, thoughts and ideas to a lot of people. Its all because of web (aka internet). Now a days even a school kid has a global presence.
I have got a lot of power, though i am lost. I am lost amongst a lot of people, my thoughts are lost in the sea of thoughts,ideas.

Welcome to the small world with a lot of people!
Welcome to the named anonymity!

Do we realize, what have we lost here? I have a tons of online friends, but how many have i meet? Probably a few of them.
Do i go to social gatherings often? Not much.
Or do i prefer chatting with them rather than going over and meeting? Yes, its true.

The style of the society has changed, i have lost the closeness;there are many links in the social network, but they are sparse.
Its good that we are in touch with a lot of people, but it is required to meet them.

Do I see a lot of kids playing in the grounds nearby? Yes, but only a few.
Kids now a days preffer to stay inside house and play computer games, chat, the physical self is lost.

There are much more to be seen around outside the web, you cant find them at Live.com.
So, try not to Live at .com but only find stuff at Live.com ;)

Human think tank

2006-10-27T05:10:00.000-07:00

Not an enemy-Line, not a border, not a wall, not a line of control.

It’s not about two countries; not about neighbors. It’s about me; a single entity, divided into multi think units, grudging against others.

The tussle hides the singularity of this single functional unit. Me, my decisions are neither driven by any principle, nor do they follow any pattern. The ideas and decisions are an outcome of either one or a group of these think units. The outcome is just functions of speed and size of the think group.The description above forms the basis of the fuzzy logic, for which the human brain is known for.

All's good till now, but then the question arising out of it is how we get a consistent and correct decision out of this system. Let me talk about the correctness first.

1> The requirement of correctness is it self not true in the absolute sense. Correctness as a concept is relative and varies depending on the facts seen and seemingly true. All relies on a system of beliefs, which in turn varies from human to human. Well this differentiates human from a machine.

2> Now coming on to consistency; Consistency is achieved by training the think system. Our system attaches a weight value to each think unit. And the highly weighted think units are the ones that drive the outcome.

The consistency can also be called as selective filtering of think units. A new born carries a default genetic filter, but the functional filter is a modified copy of the default filter. The functional filter is the one developed by training the think system over the life time.Generally these filter trainings are gradual and slow but the functional filer may go under drastic change (modification / deletion) when there are shock conditions.