Soupçon, In Memoriam Series, IV. i

                              Soupçon III                                                          In Memoriam Series                                                         IV.i                                         International Year of the Woman Farmer                               

Historically, it has been surmised that the nomadic cave man became a settler, once farming was introduced. In the ancient times, it was women who took care of farming. Somehow, it seemed to jell in with the reproductive associations of womanhood,too.

No wonder, in the ancient texts as well as in the the folk tradition, we have female deities galore who are inextricably related to the agrarian production cyclicity. 

Women have been working in the fields since time immemorial, in brief. Even today, they continue to do all the back-breaking work such weeding, for instance. Often there are newspaper stories of how the farmer's wife even pulled the plough  as the family could not afford a bullock. 

Women continued to be the fulcrum of the field work till the feudal era. It was the onset of the Industrial Revolution, which took away men's jobs, that pushed them within the household, reducing them to 'the angel by the hearth' not allowed to cross the threshold. Even then women continue to be central to the farming sector. Hence our Soupçon inputs would look at their unique output. 

Pratima Agnihotri

Stand up for yourself! Please, GenZ!

 Yes, you read the title right. Ah, GenZ, poor, poor, GenZ! Enough of targetting them! Well, that precisely is my argument. Let me explain how n why.

Let us first decide who exactly GenZ is. Prima facie, it is a chronological description. According to the definition provided by the PEW Research Center, Gen Z is short for Generation Z, a group of people born roughly from 1997 to 2012. They come after Millennials and before Generation Alpha. They are also called "Zoomers".

As per this age-bracket, no mean mediocrities are the Indian GenZ.  Let us look at a few representative examples. Let us begin with sports. Not only do we have Gukesh ( Chess) and Anant Singh (Squash), but Sheetal Devi makes us 'para' proud! 

We have a Maithili Thakur, young politician who is a good singer trying to revive the traditional folk music. Manya is an eco-warrior, while Tilak Mehta and Pranjali Awasthi are teen-age AI entrepreneurs  whose start-up's are a success. 

In other words, India's GenZ is by no means just the ugly cuss-words spitting gang up to extremely weird indecent gestures. Insensitively, the real indian GenZ would not party so as to honour the grief of the parents of those NEET aspirants who committed suicide. 

Instead, the Indian GenZ is authentic. It does not need to buy question papers or to pressurise parents for such weird options or for high fund coaching fees. Nor does the GenZ download questions and answers on the 'Telegram' groups! 

Instead, they actually attend the Junior College lectures, care for their teachers whom they do not forget to call up/send a message on either on the Guru Pournima Day or on the Teachers' Day. They study genuinely, do not get discouraged by a failure or two, instead explore new avenues. Hence the appeal to stand up for themselves! Otherwise, the poor show in extremely ugly taste would define them, right? So, GenZ, 'arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached'!

Pratima@ Every generation has its own unique problems, especially because there is no individual control over the massive  social/political/technological changes. Grace indeed lies in assimilating and adapting intelligently, sensitively and creatively. 

Quote of the day:                                                               "Youth is not just an age; it is the courage to imagine a better world." Thus asserts Vedantu General Knowledge, a tuition class site! 

Word of the day: authentic                                           Authentic means real or genuine, true and accurate.

Soupçon: In Memoriam Series, IV. i

                             Soupçon III                                                          In Memoriam Series                                                         IV.i                                     

Let us begin this week with some explanation of the title. The Soupçon began with discussions of literary issues. That was Version Number 1. Next came Soupçon II. It consisted of some hundred mcq's discussed in detail so that the NET aspirants might be provided some support. 

The third version  of the Soupçon is back to literature and related themes. For two weeks, we looked at "Gulliver's Travels", though I would keep on refining these discussions further.

The year 2026 marks the 115th Anniversary of International Women's Day, and the unique declaration of the International Year of the Woman Farmer. 

As the IWD is already much discussed, this week I would explore the woman farmer issue in some detail. Hence the IV.i as a new topic emerges within the third version of the Soupçon!

Pratima Agnihotri

IVF Issues

 On October 3, 1978 was born "Durga", the world' s second test tube baby. Many childless couples thus found a ray of hope, though Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhay, the Calcutta based doctor who made her birth possible, got more brickbats than laurels, and soon died unfortunately, his heart and spirit broken. 

Yet the advent of the IVF soon became a deluge so much so that now, a day, July 25, is world wide celebrated as the IVF day. The technique is getting more sophisticated by the day, too. 

In the nineties, for example, the female egg and the sperm mixed in a laboratory, once it would grow many embryos, would be so put back in the womb that a triplet might be born, often with some congenital defects. 

Now the technology has so developed that the consulting obestrician/IVF expert chooses the best embryo to be put in to the womb for further growth. Unless the single transfer embryo itself splits, multiple births, experts assure, are not possible, and instead a healthy baby is born. 

Such experts also assert that the medical technology has so progressed that the mother-to-be, too, suffers minimally. The bloating, the abdominal cramps, the harmonal shifts, the mood swings apparently are temporary now. Very rarely, apparently, complications such as ovarian overstimulation occur! 

The causes leading to the IVF treatment, however, are social and life style related. Late marriages, a consumerist lifestyle and the PCOD are the culprits. Luckily, however, simple lifestyle changes such as healthy home made food, some daily exercise, weight control and the obestrician's advice/treatment can result in a  healthy baby! How fast does the medical technology change! No wonder, every year a day, July 25, is celebrated as the IVF day! 

Pratima@ As a rookie journalist with the "New Indian Express", I had written an article for the Features' Desk about the IVF treatment. Though the hospital considered the IVF treatment a tribute to their glorious uniqueness, their patient had found the treatment to be a medical invasion of her privacy as an individual.

 The mindset has so completely changed in the meanwhile that the IVF is no longer a taboo or a tension. There are very many such clinics, and right in the heart of the city, too, while women, too, are absolutely okay with freezing their eggs till they deem it viable and necessary to be a mother, most often with the cesarean section, minimising the terrible pangs of the actual child birth! There is no knowing, moreover, how the AI (r)evolution may impact such areas. Some Gen(erative) spirit!

Quote of the day:                                                             "A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on," declared Carl Sandburg. 

Word of the day: med tech                                        Medical technology, often known as med tech, means the use of tools, devices, and systems to prevent, diagnose, and treat diseases. It helps doctors care for people and make life better.    

Friends:An Acrostic Afterthought

Fatuous convention followed                                  Roar all with bonhomie blithe                                    Imagined togetherness sans truth                            Eager to prove to the world                                         Not in the soul felt.                                                     Depth of friendship                                                     Show shallow is not! 

Pratima@More and more the designated  'days' seem to be a show for the eyes of the world rather than a true fraternal feel; a usual ritual to be followed, typically 'the trendier, the better', right? In such times, any space at all for friendship with the self, the best camraderie ever! 

Quote of the day:                                                            "True friends are never apart, maybe in distance but never in heart." Helen Keller is sure to know!!! 

Word of the day: fatuous                                             Fatuous is an adjective that means silly, foolish, and inane, often combined with a smug or self-satisfied lack full of empty awareness.

Truthful Tale

 It is August 1 today, Lokmanya's death anniversary. Hence this tale which has many a moral for times today! The story goes back to Lokmanya's school days. Once, during the short break, a few students ate turnips. They littered the classroom with the shells. 

The teacher was very angry with the dirty classroom. As nobody was ready to own up, he started caning one n all. When it was young Bal's turn, he refused to be punished as he had not committed any crime. Nor was he ready to rat on his classmates, to tell tales. 

The matter reached his father who supported his son's version as Gangadharji never gave any pocket money to his kid. So he buying stuff by the road side was out. Sure shows the story Lokmanya's sterling qualities such as truthfulness, bravery, solidarity, rebellion against injustice, and so on. Equally laudable is his father's response. 

Now compare the story with the narratives today. Here are thousands of students who download questions and best answers from "Telegram" groups. Here are parents who are ready to shell out monies for helping their wards to dodge the system. Here is the tuition mafia ready to leak the question papers. And here are God's plenty to take political advantage of an ugly situation. We sure need Lokmanya's galore! 

Pratima@ It is necessary to add some quotient of punishment to students who download leaked question papers, and to parents who encourage their children's wrong behaviour. Since there is such demand, there is the ugly supply!                                                                      How about all the non-scholarly teachers who do not teach the entire portion, despite being paid lakhs in salaries? Instead, they prefer to directly and/or indirectly leak the probable questions! A lot is indeed rotten in the academic arena! 

Quote of the day:                                                             "A hero is someone who knows that responsibility comes with his freedom," says Bob Dylan. 

Word of the day: Tuition culture                                   Tuition culture is defined as  a widespread system of private after-school coaching driven by intense academic competition, high societal pressure for top grades, and gaps in regular school instruction. It operates as a parallel education sector ranging from local group classes to massive commercial coaching institutes.

Soupçon III.x

                              Soupçon III                                                        In Memoriam Series                                                        III.x

How to read "Gulliver's Travels" in 2026 when the Elon Musk's and Jeff Bezos of the world are busy exploring the space on a private company basis? Indeed, if one were to possibly afford a seat on the SpaceX or Virgin Galactic vehicle, one might visit simply unthinkable  planetary worlds which, like Swift's fantasy territories, may help one critique the twenty-first century crudities, cruelties and culpabilities from a space-ial vision, right? 

Yes, Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels' remains relevant even after three centuries. His flying Island of Laputa, for example, is like the IG Nobels awarded to crazy inventions every year. 

His Lilliputians fighting over which side of an egg to break may find a mate in contemporary tussles of leaders over trivial issues that loom large for decades. An example might be the Putin-Zelensky-Trump tiffs, not to forget the Iran issue which forever threatens to turn/blow in to the third world war! 

Similarly, Gulliver's travels, especially in the last book, show us how current communication is nothing but different echo chambers being extremely happy with their own unique reverberations and replicas! 

Unlike Daniel Defoe's almost contemporaneous novel, "Robinson Crusoe", a tale of survival via the Protestant work ethic, "Gulliver's Travels" does not exhibit colonising and/or proselytising tendencies. Nor is Gulliver's viewpoint instrumental. Hence, by contrast, it shows up the exploitation of all sorts of resources rampant now. Hence the relevance of reading today this three year old narrative, despite its rather heavy style! 

Pratima Agnihotri