World is changing, and so is Everyone

Have you seen kids on the streets, everybody has got at least one mobile. Do not know what and whom they are talking to, but it has to be something important. I think future generation has already taken the responsibility of world on their shoulder and they are talking their way to create better future among themselves. They just have not got enough talk time to deal with the situation. Parents in vain preying intentions trying to get clues from their confidential discussions, but our little masters do it better than our Union Home minister P. Chidambaram.

In coming years mobile will become such a necessity, that God will understand the basic need and create human models with inbuilt cell phones. Imagine a kid just born talking to God on his phone “Do not worry, I came out f9. Do u want 2 talk 2 my doctor? No, OK. GTG. It is shower time.”  

Call me old fashioned, but I do not welcome change easily. I like the things old ways, the way I am used to it. Technology is intimidating to me. By the time I got used to Nokia 1100, already E series, N series and God knows what, was already in the market. Someone told me about some “BlueBerry” phone, on which you can do web browsing, internet faxing and many more. My friend was showing me a mobile phone which had inbuilt camera in it. Can you believe that? It is just too much to catch up.

I joined Orkut in my first year of under graduate study. After four years of hard labour I made somewhat 300 friends. I never wrote a scrap to nearly 2/3rd of them, but that was my society. Somebody caste a spell on my society, it is loosing touch. All my friends are moving to some new social group called Facebook. People say it is better than Orkut because you can give tests to find out answers of various complicated questions like “Which Harry Potter Character Are You? Does She like me?  What is the First Name of the Person You Will Marry?” etc. May be Facebook is better, but I am not the one who leaves the sinking ship behind.

Technology might have solved various challenging problems like – Here in Australia, you can SMS “NAME B or G” (B for boy and G for Girl) at 5555 to get suggestion for your baby’s name – but have generated new problems too. These social network websites may provide us global exposure, but are we sure we know who our next door neighbors are? We are dependent on greeting cards to express our emotions. I always buy my calling card from an old man’s shop. One day my flat mate asked me, “Why do not you buy your cards online? It would be easier.” I told him, “You know he is probably the first Australian who knows me by my name. Whenever I go to his shop, he smiles at me and without asking me anything gives me my card. I do not want to miss such precious human feeling.”

So what if I do not like the change; it is just too much activity for me.

A History Lesson Never Learnt

Almost a year ago a surge of anger run almost every Indian’s mind and here we are, a year after Mumbai terrorist attack, already ready to forget every thing at its first anniversary. After media will remind everybody, few will bother to light candles and mumble few words while for rest of us it will be a nightmare which never happened.

For almost a week, India has never felt so helpless and vulnerable. Ten people took whole India ransom at the point of gun. Apart from manslaughter and mental scar, it brought unrepairable damage to Indian stature in the world community. Many brave men lost their life fighting those terrorist while deputy chief minister of the state was busy giving statement “Bade shahron mein aise ek adh hadse hote rahte hain”. I remember tension among the public was so high that Government was on its toes pretending to take strict and strategic action for future. Among many things promised, sacking of Shivraj Patil is the only visible difference which seemed to be actioned. But is that enough? Then chief minister of Maharashtra Vilasrao Deshmukh is a Union minister now and two weeks before 26/11 anniversary, R. R. Patil is reinstated as home minister of Maharashtra while martyr Hemant Karkare’s bullet proof vest investigation seems to reached an impasse after bullet proof vest went missing. How conveniently politicians can make break promise, while people like Karkare foolishly romantic in the idea of patriotism, without fear sacrifices their lives. Many people lost their lives just because our Government did not care. Bullet proof vests were substandard and repeated request of police reinforcement help was not actioned.

I remember the rage in media, public and everyone united, shouting “NO MORE of this shit”. I called my mother on 28th and asked her how is atmosphere in India. She said “Everybody is shocked and full of anger. If Government does not do anything, there will be a riot.” I wonder what happened what happened to that anger. With time that anger turned into fear, fear to go out, fear of bomb blast in trains and fear of our lives. We are OK as long as it is not us. When will we care as a nation? Do we need another attack to wake us up again? How dumb we are that we are selecting same rubbish people again to represent us in governing bodies. We need quality Government which care about us and for that we as a nation have to care about whom we are selecting. How come irresponsible man like Shivraj Patil could stay that long as home minister of India even after his repeated failures? Why we are always back stabbed every time we extend our hand for friendship to Pakistan and still we do not learn from it? Is it enough to just remember martyrs of Kargil and Mumbai attack for a couple of years and then forget about them? Just burning candles is not enough for somebody’s memory and their families. Problem needs to be solved.

In the memory of Shri. Hemant Karkare, Shri. Ashok Kamte, Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan and many more.

Did you see the result of the Ashes!!!

God bless England. You can not get a better opportunity to rub salt on Australians’ wound than this. Combo pack of an a$$ whopping defeat by 197 runs and Australia slipping to number 4 in test ranking, came as delight to me this morning and I knew it has made my day.

Now you will think what an Indian has to do with Ashes. In my team of 8 people, I am the only Indian and rests are Australians. So, whenever I get opportunity like this when I can kill all of them with one arrow, I feel like Abhimanyu, fighting against Kauravas in Chakravyuha and with my every sarcastic remark one by one Kaurvas are going down. When I can feel their speechless misery behind their meaningless grin, then only I leave them for my cold served day long grin which is enough to annoy them for the whole day.

Last 10 months have been very generous to me as Australian cricket team has been performing very poorly. With their every defeat my grin gets wider and wider. Ashes defeat was special because it holds very large sentimental value to Australians and along with that now India is above Australia in both test and one day cricket ranking.

Last night when Ponting got out, I knew defeat was just matter of time. So, I had already started to make plans for tomorrow. When I reached at work, I could see people shying away from me, but I kept quite and just gave them a smile. Every body knew that I am going to break the news at sometime, “but when?” was hunting them. I left them haunted for a while and talked to them without any purpose. I knew my presence was enough to make them uncomfortable. I have realized that best time to break such news is morning meeting, when everybody is there and they share same humiliation, and you are the only one laughing at them. Apart from making fun of Australian team, I put up a poster of England team with the trophy and news clips quoting “Australia slips down to test ranking 4” on the meeting discussion board. I changed my desktop wallpaper to the poster of England team with the trophy. The whole day I never missed any opportunity to remind them that they have lost Ashes to England.

Today was a fine day. I have seen hunger for revenge in their eyes, but let me enjoy this victory till they get their chance.

Another Brick in The Wall

Childhood is most beautiful and innocent stage of life where every touch makes you tickle, small things make you laugh, love is true, hate is volatile and friendship is unshakable. Every moment is full of energy and joy. It is a state free from tension, deceit and competition. Their world is, as it appears to be.
Life does not need to be a race for positions, if you want to enjoy it, you have to let go the race, take a stroll and enjoy every moment of it. You might not win the race but certainly you will make most of it. Life has a lot to offer apart from competition.

Few days back, I was watching TV news on Kapil Sibbal’s proposal to make 10th board examination optional. After an interesting group discussion, news channel was showing responses of parents and students on the same topic. I was shocked and disappointed by some of the parents’ and students’ reactions. Couple of shocking responses were:
“It will discourage competition among students and there will be no difference between the topper and rest of the good students. We will never know who topped the school”
“What will be difference between two students who score 97% and 95%?”
Above responses made me realize how steep cut throat competition is in 10th standard. Should a child of fifteen years old be exposed to such level of competition? Isn't it the case that every year number of students committing suicide is increasing? Earlier students used to commit suicide because they used to fail, but now students are also committing suicide because they could not top the school or they could not achieve 95% marks. This is madness. The idea of a student scoring 97% is better than a student scoring 95% is simply absurd. This defeats the purpose of education, which to educate and gain knowledge; and not to outscore someone in the examination.

I personally welcome the idea of making 10th board examination optional. Grading system will continue to provide healthy competition among students and will remove unnecessary fight over 1 or 2 percent. Other good thing about proposal is students will be accessed over the year and not just on the basis of a day’s performance.
I am in favor of keeping 12th board examination as there should be a standardize school leaving examination to bring all students on same platform. Anyways, 10th board marks had no real significant career value except getting admission in a good higher secondary school.

Now, I want to focus on why I condemn such cut throat competition. Firstly, it puts extra pressure on child throughout the year and it keeps mounting till results are declared. After that either his ego gets boosted or he has to face never-ending sarcastic remarks about how somebody else did well in examination than him.

Parents are the sole reason of this pressure. Their constant nagging to do better and how it is related to their prestige generates a fear among student that they can not fail their parent’s expectation. You can always find some parents bragging about their child who tops school in first standard or disappointed for their child not doing well in second grade. Parents start making their child’s performance their prestige and social status as soon as a child enters the education system. To feel proud of one’s child performance is one thing but to make it a social status and ego is dangerous. From beginning parents start pushing their child to the limit and with that starts no more child time. Decreasing number of children playing on streets and spending more time with home tutor is the sad picture of reality. Last Holi I was shocked to see my neighbors’ kids studying during Holi. When I asked my neighbor, he told me his examinations are one month after so he has to study. I do not know how these kids will learn any other human emotion apart from competitiveness.

Life is too competitive but one's childhood should not crumble under this pressure. Let us not disturb their world. Let kids be kids and have them their moment which they will cherish forever. Let us not steal their childhood for our false pride.