Sutradhar's Sutra Pain is
Sutradhar's Sutra
Pain is when we act out a tragedy, bliss is when we know we are in a comedy.
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Sutradhar's Sutra
Pain is when we act out a tragedy, bliss is when we know we are in a comedy.
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Paying to Advertise
As I finished folding 3 loads of laundry, it struck me that more and more of my sons' tees are looking like newspapers. Each and everyone of them had either a sport's team or the name of the "brand". My sister in law, who shops in the "best" stores for the "best" bargains for her favorite nephews has bequeathed the boys with non-generic articles of clothing that now make their closet look like a magazine rack. The younger one being a Spiderman fan gets Warner Bros' branded clothes including socks!
The adults aren't behind, they are more subtle of course. One needs to be on the look out for that evident and yet not- obvious little monogram be it on a Hillfiger or Ralph Lauren. There are so many of those fashion "Gurus" now, that I dont remember which monogram matches with what name! And the blokes forget to buy that generic shirt for $5 and end up paying $50 for the same, for a monogram subtly embroidered on a cuff or pocket. And to pay for that difference have to work 3 times more to get that value- ad: Brand. What value ad is that monogram on that shirt? Value ad for the seller or the buyer?
How much more foolish can we be? We pay for the ad and advertise further. All boils down to the Emperor's New Clothes and no one has the guts to call out that the Emperor is going naked!
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Conspiracy Theory
It has been more than 2 months since Deepavali dawned with the news of the Shankaracharya of Kanchi getting arrested on some charges straight out of a Tamizh Padam. Our dear Lady of TN who orchestrated the arrest has a great history with Tamizh cinema. After much sensationalism in the media, the Tsunami washed this over- Sort of an unexpected wrinkle in the main storyline. Anyways, the news is now relegated to the invisible sections of the newspaper. As someone rightly said, The Hindu should be renamed The Christian Monitor.
3rd planet from primary star.
Today has been 2 new moons and 1 full moon since we stumbled upon an amazing planet. There are several species of living creatures that abound on its solid surfaces as much as in its liquid depths. The most predominent species appear to be bipeds that wear different skins. They call them clothes. They also group themselves into different sub categories called religious groups, racial groups, political groups and many more. The most interesting group that we studied were the ones who grouped themselves in these huge and small structures which had a common feature- 2 sticks perpendicular to each other. This group is the largest scattered group across the planet. More of these structures are going up each day. We understand that the ultimate vision for the World is getting the entire planet to group under the 2 sticks.
On the last full moon, the planet presented an amazing display of its young age. It is still very active and its planetary age confirms it. It has only gone around its primary star some 4.5 billion times. There was much liquid displacement owing to some slight shifting of its solid plates and this destroyed many of these two-stick structures along the liquid's edge. Strangely many non-2-stick structures with fewer creatures were spared from the liquid displacement. Many 2 stick groups rushed to help the affected "shores". In one part of the planet, another group that groups under the symbol of a cresent moon sent the 2-stick groups back. In some other parts, the 2 stick groups were openly welcomed and embraced. The welcoming groups had random structures that cannot be easily grouped. This planet demands further investigation as this concept of groups is very fascinating.
For now, we have to continue on with our journey as the primary star here is not sufficient to power our ship.
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He is coming...
Incomplete and Infinite
" Love is incomplete. And it will have to remain incomplete.
If it is complete, it finds an end. Whatever is completed,
whatever is full, total, that means you have marked the
boundaries, you have found its limitations.
For love to be infinite, it has got to be incomplete.
Whatever is incomplete is infinite."
HH Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
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Body Language
When I signed up for the SriSri Yoga class I was excited about coming out of it leaner and lighter. After day 2, the prognosis is will I even get to finish the stipulated 5 days!
I knew from school biology that the human body has an endoskeleton nicely padded wih muscles. Within these 2 days, I have truly gotten to know each of those muscles intimately! Each of them have done enough anaerobic respiration to squeeze out every molecule of unwanted fat or whatever there is stored in them. And the instructor insists that as long as there is no pain and only soreness, it is good- very good. The point is when does soreness gets to be called pain? On the 1st day, I got into the car all tall and straight. the 2nd day saw me slightly bent forward. Today shall see me crawl into the car!
Of course it is heartening to see that there are 80 others who are experiencing the same or something like what my body is undergoing. The body indeed has a language of its own!
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Tamil or Tamizh
Yesterday ushered in the 1st day of the month of Thai or Makhara Sankaranthi. Scientifically, the Earth's tilt now makes the northern hemisphere hog more of the Sun's light. In Sanskrit this is termed Uttaraayana, the ascent of the Sun's light to the North. The dark months of winter are behind us and hence it makes sense to rejoice, celebrate.
Tamizh Nadu also celebrates its harvest (just like Punjab and the rest of India- Sugarcane, Til/ sesame being the primary crops) when the countryside and urbanites make the humble but holy Pongal on this day of Thanksgiving to the Sun. A proverb in Tamil says- Thai pirandhaal vazhi pirakkum ie~When Thai comes along, new avenues open up.
You could say that was the case with me in a way! I actually got to teach a class to 3 adults who are interested in learning Tamizh in the Bay area. It was a new path as I had originally collected material to teach kids and owing to poor or rather lack of enrollment, it got morphed into an adult conversation class! Every thought of known pedogogy of teaching Tamil got scrapped- I definitely hated most of my Tamizh classes as a kid. I had to write that darned paper to get through school! And these are discerning adults who could just walk out and demand a refund from the center. The mind moved towards mass-media. Sun TV, though beamed into the continental US, is a pathetic channel with terribly biased news and worse stories in their soaps. That left Tamil Movies. I did a quick stop at the center's video lending library and searched for a Mani Rathnam film- His script is clear and the pronounciation of Tamizh is clean and across the board. Tamizh is a lot like Japanese. The usage of certain words, pronounciation and diction are determined by one's socio-economic level. For an untrained ear, some fo these "dialects" can actually sound like totally different languages! Good directors like Mani Rathnam make magic by using a language that goes down well with most sections of Tamizh speakers. Unfortunately none were on the shelves. Then the eye honed in on "Kandukondein Kandukondein" *ing Aishwarya Rai, Tabu, Mamooty and Ajit. Needless to say, it was a hit with my adult learners. We watched the same scene at different times of the class and within an hour there was more Tamizh spoken than anyone had planned! Phew! That was well begun but definitely not half done! We have a looog haul to get to Tamizh Pecchu!
The politisation of Tamizh as a language (from way back in the 60s) combined with dirty caste-based partisan politics in Tamil Nadu has made access to this beautiful language rare. Tamizh lovers have to be fanatics to prove their love for their tongue. All this crap can put off anyone from the "outside" to learn this languge. Even blokes such as I who had to learn it in school hated the lessons. Every Textbook was scrutinized through a fanatic, "dravidian" lens systematically removing every possibility of enjoying the language. If not for the odd Tamizh teacher who brought in her personal passion to her language teaching and my father who once-upon-an-idealist-youth wrote poetry in that langue, I doubt I would have ever revisited that language. Every Tamizhan wants to find fame and fortune by learning English. Political ideology has ensured the exclusivity of this language that makes it inconsequential in the world. But an unparalleled treasury of literary and linguistic works awaits discovery.
To my brave 3 musketeers who brave me and my pedagogy to learn an amazing language.
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Bribe and Prejudice
Doing the rounds in Blogville, the latest buzz is that people who initially donated oodles of dough out of humanity for the Tsunami relief are now worried about the ultimate beneficiary of all that lovely moolah. This post is to lay to rest some of those concerns. We shall review what I call the money cycle.
The story goes that a sage comes up to a rich man who was also a miser. The miser begins his readymade speech to send away those useless mendicants. The sage cuts in and says, sorry friend, I havent come here to ask you for a thing, just to give you something. The miser is astonished. He is excited about receiving something from a pauper! The sage tells him that he could only trust the miser to take good care of his property as he has kept such tight control over his own property. He gives him a needle and tells him to keep it safe until the time he returns from heaven.
Years go by and the needle needles the miser's conscience and one day realisation dawns. He understands that he would be unable to take anything away from this planet least of all the needle. ( It is said he later became a great philanthropist and gave away all his hoards.)
That said, here is the cycle: When I used to watch these films in the 80s with the corrupt politician taking money indiscriminately, my blood would boil at the social injustice being perpetrated at the loss of basic values. Then one day I was watching this film *ing Rajnikanth, when realisation hit me- The bad politico inaugurates a hospital and school in his name. Apart from hiring the goons (the poor), he had evidently spent his money on building some infrastructure. Then I expanded that theory to the rest of the world. What if the politico doesnt spend his illgotten gains in his own country but in another by way of "tourism"? Again, the airlines he uses and the airport taxes he pays, employs different people at all levels, starting from the sweepers who keep the toilets and lounges clean to the pilot who flies that plane. Then he buys all these things, designer wear maybe, whatever, goods produced around the world and marketed and retailed through a complex network of human endeavour and greed. Somewhere along that network, some part of that money has to be getting back to where it came from.
See what I am saying? Money cycles are hard to perceive initially, but if you opened the world to it, its pretty strightforward. And ultimately if we did have a fat bank balance at the end of the day, we need to leave it behind for our inheritors to fight over shamelessly! And the saga continues.
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In Response to Schooling in Rural India, Opinion section, The Hindu dated 01/11/05
Dear Mr. Krishna Kumar,
Thank you for your article. Rural education is a very interesting topic. What is needed is a curriculum that makes these children realise the wealth of knowledge already in their posession and give them the "scientific" enquiry. Eg.- a farmer and his child will know more about agriculture than a graduate from the agri university. However, he cannot know what makes pepsi a good insecticide. Likewise, the potter, the weaver and all others who know that if rain comes, or if the sun shines so much something goes wrong with their product but they dont know why! I am writing very general thumbnail sketches here.
You talk of "hands-on", already most of their learning is hands-on, unfortunately that can never be tested with the current system of examination. Further the current education policy along with NCERT that creates frameworks for mainly the Central Board of Education goes down well with the Government and army kids (read urban yuppies), not with the rural kids. As you so rightly pointed, who are on these committees?
For many in the rural area, learning English is a great mark of achievement. I can personally vouch for this as I toured our country interacting with teachers in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, while sharing my Educational Leadership workshop with them. The most political teachers were found in Tamil Nadu.
Interestingly I have also worked with the NSS when in college way back in the eighties and can tell you some horrendous tales that are perpetrated in the name of education right in the middle of metropolitan cities like Chennai.
MGR had a grand vision of a well integrated public library system throughout Tamil Nadu in the 80s. It is now languishing as open urinals in most parts of the state. Libraries and easy access to information is the demand of the day. This problem is faced all over the country. It is ironic that many BPOs in India are busy scanning and classifying documents and books for the US while our own country doesnt have any proper resources on the internet! The MA I did in JNU ( one of our supposedly premier institutions) and the MA I did in San Jose State University ( a good but ordinary state university not an Ivy league for sure!) had one huge difference. When I went to the library in SJSU, there were actually books INTACT on the shelf. Pages were not missing. Books were exactly where they were supposed to be. I remember Mr Mallik the librarian in JNU for the languages section- he loved his work and kept a neat floor. The people working at the check out counter were more interested in guzzling tea than do work for the salary they earned. Given the telecom revolution that has happened and the way many village blocks around the nation plan to have internet access very soon for virtual medical help, agri help etc, it is time to invest in elibraries. That should make information more accessible to every child, rural or urban.
The system is quite ok for the most part. I met some amazing teachers from village schools around Bhopal and the commitment they showed to getting "literacy" into their villages is inspiring. What it needs is political commitment. Teachers in Tamil Nadu were more interested in tweaking results to get that lovely pension rather than really see a qualitative "educated" society.
Following the Nehruvian dream of IITs and IIMs, we are way off the mark in Civic education. What makes a rest area cleaner in the middle of the Mid West region of the US who would not really be "inspected", do his job as opposed to a school teacher who, with all benefits of having a government job with UGC scales and security, short changes the system by not providing a "qualitative" education to the children given into her charge? She will give you a earful of woes and inadequate facilities and excuse herself and her inability to do anything. This is the core issue that needs to be dealt with.
I have been observing the public (read Government) school system of the US for the past 8 years and can tell you that the way they go about introducing civics from Kindergarten is amazing. They integrate it with economy and it starts with My Family in Kindergarten and slowly expands with each grade level. Children in Kindergarten get to play postman for a day. They learn to write a note, and address it properly. They learn to put the stamp in the right corner of an envelope. They learn that it needs to be addressed and have information of the sender. Likewise a visit from a police officer or fire fighter makes a dream come true to many children who want to be these guys when they grow up. This is one side of it.
The other is the facilities. The recent outpouring of funds for the tsunami survivors is proof that our country does not lack in money or committed individuals. The problem is getting it passed through the system. This is where the political aspect of things comes into play. Just as very few politicians come from next to no background in Public Administration, so too do teachers. Most people with 2nd or 3rd class marks with atleast a correspondance course, get a B ed degree and they are in! Very few have the talent inherently needed to teach. Even less are those who are passionate in their art. I can assure you some very committed teachers get the facilities they need. It is truly amazing. Call it Karma or whatever, their zeal to make a difference in their children's lives is such that they will do anything to get stuff for them. And they get it. Like the teacher in Kairi, the film that won a national award.
I sincerely hope that you do make a difference in NCERT. From my last visit there, to its library in 1999, I can assure you that time has stood still there since the era of Shri PV Narasimha Rao who was Director way back in the 60s. I hope you are able to smooth over silly politics and get down to the task of education of our country's future citizens.
Sincerely,
Blokes Ablogin,
Education Consultant
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The Geography of Swades
Ok I am a sucker for Shahrukh from his Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman days! (Nana Patekar stole a piece of my heart too in that film). Anyways, getting back to Swades, I coaxed husband dear to come and watch a Hindi movie. And thankfully for the no-nonsense script, we actually discussed a movie in like ages! The last one that drove us through a discussion was The Terminal.
India is a difficult idea to script. One can never start at the very beginning as there is no beginning (anaadi) and impossible to end (anantha). Ashutosh Gowarikar has done a creditable job of using strong symbols to represent a country that has a jaggarnaut of a tradition and a great resource- its people within its geo-political fold or spread across the globe as part of its diaspora. He throws in Kaveriamma fought over by two people (or two states?!). Of course it would have been more credible had the movie been set in the areas of Dharwad (north Karnataka/ Maharashtra border). I dont know if the Konkan railway has changed the accessibility of that area. But when we toured Goa in the early 90's we had to shuffle from broadgauge to meter and see some really "rural" sites. The southern areas of Goa, like Mangeshi and such villages truly retain much of their rural flavour. Getting back to the credibility of the film- as a piece of theatre, it is unparelleled, but on celluloid, mis-en-scene is very important. To make the cellphone/ wireless not function properly, UP and 200 km away from Delhi is a bad choice. The Gangetic plains have some of the best tracts of connectivity in India. Get into a train from Delhi to Kolkota and u can see people chatting in their mobiles from the beginning to the end of their journey! Go to the Deccan Plateau or the Chambal valley for poor connectivity. Tamil Nadu (Dharmapuri/ Salem district)as an option is out as no brahmin worth his salt would ever dare to give a lecture or even involve himself in the village panchayat- he will be arrested under souped up charges (if not killed by the PMK first) and both the DMK and AIDMK will do enough brahmin bashing to finish off the entire film crew. Mohan Bhargava, you lucked out being a brahmin from UP.
Geethli, the village school teacher, symbolises the post Aishwarya India- manicured nails and all in the middle of the village- hey we watch cable too, yeh dil mange more would be the reply. I remember watching this ad the last time I was in India, for some cola where this guy goes in search of drinking water and gets off his vehicle walking towards a village belle with a pot. She opens the lid and he cups his hands and lo and behold gets a soda bottle! Kewl u say, sick i say! Well, MNC's have for sure put their "chaap" on the rural belt even if it has not been appropriately documented in Swades. Even in the "poor, undeveloped" interiors of Orissa, kids know what Pepsi and Coke are (from my visit there in 2002). They would rather spend their ill earned or hard earned moolah on that bottle of poison than drink coconut water.
Unless of course Ashutosh wrote this script before Manmohan ji brought about economic liberalisation. And the irony is that he couldnt produce this script until after economic liberalisation and Lagaan's success! LOL!
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Personal Shopper Experience
Having lived in the consumer Mecca aka USA for over a decade, it took my hubby's constant comments and my sister's act to get my wardrobe rehauled to suit the cooler climes of the Mid West.
To start at the beginning: When I got married and moved from India to California, I happily continued wearing my Indian outfits in all their glory of colour and custom-fit tailoring. The teachers and children at the local public school were boulverse by the patterns and prints. My sandals and handbag and jewellery went well with the clothes. Why cant I just be left alone with my tailor-made custom fit brilliantly coloured salwar kammez and saris screamed the rebel within? My husband had this fixation of seeing me in jeans and I kept postponing the innevitable- after the birth of two boys, the waist and hip lines were just that bit unflattering to carry off a pair of jeans, said I. The drapes of the kurtas happily kept the pounds of flesh camoflauged. Dont forget the tiny closet space. Where would there be place to handle a new set of clothes cried the practical self?
Finally this winter, we got it into our heads to visit my sister in Minnasota aka the ice box to experience our first white christmas. She vetoed all my clothes calling them inappropriate for the cold. So there I was, a total novice, not knowing what women's and misses meant, going shopping! My sister insisted that I should do well with a size 12 and I insisted that I had to be a size 14 if not 16! (She won of course). She made me look through the Misses and said that I was not a woman's size- you've got to be kidding me said I. I left school years ago I reminded her. Nothing above $10 I reminded her and she promised. She went right ahead and pulled out tops and trousers from overloaded clearance racks. Liz Clairbourne is ideally cut for Indian figures she went on. I looked at the original price and remarked- people actually pay $100 for this top? That was almost a soverign of Gold translated my baniya mind! My 4 year old wanted to play peekaboo with me while in the fitting room and I wasnt too pleased with that. After all the effort put in in good faith by my sister I felt silly postponing the inevitable. I stepped out of the fitting room cubicle in a turquoise blue trouser and a black top (petite medium?!) and saw a slimmer self. The black bindi and the diamond nose pin went well with the color and the cut. So what was I cribbing about I asked myself?
It finally dawned on me: The images and reports of all those piles of clothing sent to the red cross for the survivors of the Tsunami in Asia. I wondered at the amazing flow of "wealth". The "designer" designs and gets the stuff stiched cheap in Asia and Africa. Puts a price tag and sells as much as they can. The rest get shipped to clearance racks for a tenth of their original tag and from there, they make it back to Asia and Africa when consumer conscience battles with human concsience and loses. And the people in Asia and Africa are least pleased with the "designer" wear. Give us bread not cake plead they!
Money is neither created nor destroyed- so true, dont you agree?
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