Where is, oh, indeed. whither(ed) is
Hope, any ray, in this hapless world
Even as earth has nothing fair to show
Rise in this wilderness bitter a row after a row
Even as armies clash while darknesses unfurled
Fear reigns supreme , a cat trots among geese
Obscenely splintered the center cannot hold
Rumble many an evil as anarchies unfold
Eagerly as I await the benedictions my childhood tales told!
pratima@life is a tale told by a fanatic
why, oh, why, yarns so satanic
The last day of Shravana is known as the "Matruka Day" as well. A very interesting story it is. According to the traditional tale associated with the day, a mother prayed to the eight local deities known as Matrikas for her child's life and welfare. She was, of course, granted the boon. Hence the fast to celebrate a child' s welfare.
I find this tale very interesting for various reasons. First and foremost, I find it indeed heart-touching that Shravana, the month of fasts and feasts, begins and ends with a prayer for child's welfare, from the jivati pooja to matrika pooja. In other words, our mother's day, whenever it arrives, celebrates a mother's love for the child rather than the child's for the mother. Most interesting is this fact!
Equally wonderful is the notion of including the local deities in the process. It shows that our way of life is made of a respect for the immediate, the present context, that makes our existence fulfilling, human(e). Interestingly, the ritual does not include any animal sacrifice or any other cruel crudity. It is simlpy a muted prayer, and I simply adore a lot this way of linking our very being/becoming, our very existence and the future of our next generation to the ambient universe.
It is in this context that I would like to look at the other celebration on this last day of Shravana. It is the celebration of the household pair of bullocks, the best friends of a farmer, who very strongly and quietly continue to help him even beyond death. Well, the local drums, known as "dafli", are made of the bullock's hide. As India is even today agrarian, I love this symbolic celebration of an animal central to the agricultural way of life. Like Nagpanchami, Bailpola is a touchimg tribute to the animal world that sustains our existence.
In this wider sense, too, it is the celebration of the mother feel, the feel for the welfare of all the togethernesses that make life worthy, and hence the title of the blog today!
pratima@let all be hale-n-hearty!
Who is `the' real teacher? On September 5, this question merits a debate. Whether the person teaches you a `subject' and/or `life skills' as the hip phrase puts it, (s)he has a few qualities bunched up. Shall we discuss some of them?
First and foremost, in the explosion of information era, a good teacher today must go beyond knowledge-ability. That is the skill students share with us, teachers, and to a much better advantage. In such a scenario, what does the teacher have as the `cutting edge' technique? Developing interpretive abilities of the students has to be the goal of the teaching/learning process. Such interpretive vision, analysis, and other such higher order `skills' (as many love the term, let us use it, too) would be the real abilities much in demand as the digital revolution is already on us with a frightening speed. If unprepared for this new world order, it is gonna be more corrosive than the dreaded Covid.
The decade old possibility of foreign universities gettting a foothold on the native soil is very soon going to be a reality. It would be world class education that our learning must compete with. Just check the futuristic online courses, their syllabi, their course material to begin with. It IS content rich. The internet accessible/available online material as I suggested in the last paragraph of our blog yesterday is being used merely as additional reference material and/or for creative assignment possibilities. Time we go beyond the pretty PPT hype!
When can education develop a critiqueing vision, nay, not the carping criticising surely, among the students? That would be probable if teachers always remain in the learning mode, and teach with passion, dedication, and joy. Who has these heartfelt, soulful qualities in abundance when dealing with us? Our parents! No wonder, it is said that our mother is our first teacher, and our teacher is our second mother!
pratima@teaching the teacher to teach!
It is that day of the year again, the eve of the Day Dedicated to Teachers. On September 5 at least, most all students remember their teachers/lecturers-cum-mentors. A great thing in my opinion because it proves yet again my faith that most youngsters are NOT what they are portrayed to be, callous, careless, casual.
It is against this background that I would like to open up a few issues. March 21, 2020 onwards, teaching/learning has assumed the online avataar. This version of learning actually gets the teacher virtually in the student's study room/corner. Of course, the disadvantaged students do face gargantuan problems. That issue can, at least partially, be addressed through making audio/video lectures available because televisions/radios and related electricity bills are not as daunting as a multi-media mobile and the inevitable data pack.
What I found truly distressing in the whole process, however, was the attitude to teaching and teachers. To give an instance, using Zoom/Meet/Teams for teaching takes at the most two sessions to get used to these teaching platforms, if explained with patience. One can learn the process step by step online as well. Surely, it is not rocket science or space technology.
It was, however, made out to be something oh-so-special if one used an electronic chalk instead of the traditional white chalk and blackboard. Initially, at least, there was an almost a new cast(e), the technologically disadvantaged teachers. Such `stupid' souls were made to appear antiques. God help you if your service provider shied away from providing broadband fast enough. Did you get an earful then, betcha!
Next in this line of acquiring useful skills was facing the camera while online or while prepaing video's. Well, despite multiple takes, even an Amitabh Bachchan or a Shabana Azmi gets conscious, fumbles, forgets, fidgets in front of a camera. So why minimise a teacher's sincere efforts if there were to be a minor glitch?
What was the much hyped online material anyways? Most often than not, it would be the ppt's made of available online materials, a little `beautified', as the wapp sharing puts it! So pre-lecture prep was less reading up critiques, nay, even the texts! Rather, it was more about looking up app's always already available on the net and/or breaking down available info in to pretty ppt's which once prepared could be used till the syllabus changed. Content took a solid backseat pitted against smart showmanship, indeed a great loss to the very notion of education.
What was much worse was that the next gen, tech savvy students anyways knew all such sources, youtube videos, all sorts of app's, online guides of all varieties,charts/figures of all types, and what have you, avilable at a click at the google or some such search engine. No wonder, they chose to remain absent. For them, too, learning got reduced to downloading (like earlier xeroxing was), and no longer a process of discussing, debating the text/the idea from multiple perspectives.
As a result, respect for teachers nosedived, too, since they felt that a lecture (moreover, `recorded', and hence available according to their convenience beyond the bunked lecture, easier done with the video/audio muted ) was available as online material beginning from the wikipedia onwards ad infinitum. So teachers started appearing as if they were a (not always) better dressed version of the internet booth owners who downloaded all you needed in case you do not have a laptop or a p.c.of your own.
All sorts of memes making fun of teaching/learning started floating around, and nobody felt any shame sharing them. Parents, who would attend online instead of the brat or the babe, found it convenient to mock, to take to task teachers. Teaching/learning got reduced to "money's worth" matter!
Much worse was the online exam. Proctored or not, finding answers online was easy because surely thousand of mcq's were anyways available, and locating these/browsing through these became prep for the exam because the students were sure the final paper would sure be from such material! As there, most often, would be one more instrument accessible, writing short notes kinda assignment was also short shrift. Corona was indeed corrosive as far as education is concerned!
Am I suggesting then that online material should not be used? Sure it can/must be, but not in the classrooms as the ever ubiquitous ppt's and/or downloaded video's, et al. Instead, creative assignments based on it could be provided. Online material has to be complementary, not supplementary to actual teaching. Online lectures, too, must be explication, discussion, analysis, stuff students cannot get downloaded. Otherwise, education, too, is sure to suffer a multi-organ failure, much worse than even a much suffering Covid patient!
pratima@alladin must be a mature `master' of the genie!
Why should a blog dedicated to Aai be always weepy? And especially when she was herself a very jolly, happy person, right? Laughter is anyways the mother of all cures, isn't it? Let us today discuss some mother related jokes and cartoons.
There is this lovely one in which a son is asking his mom, "Why is the computer so smart?" Pat comes the sharp answer,"because it listens to its motherboard".In yet another one, an irritated mother is scolding the ever naughty son,"If you fall off that tree, and break both your legs, don't come running to me.' How about teaching irony thus, a mother yelling at her children "don't yell!"
There is this superb one in which scientists are watching in awe as the mothership approaches just to hear the "Eat you spinach. Why are you slouching? Stand Straight!" In another stupendous one, King Arthur has at last found the great sword but to no avail as his mum goes,"Arthur! What have I told you about playing with sharp objects?"
How about this one? A mother is reading the daily horoscope "Your sun sign today" which says,"today your son would gladly make you breakfast in bed ...right after he wakes up around lunch time."
A harried mother is asking her friend a panacea for waking up her lazybones son. " I just put the cat on the bed," her friend advises. "How does that help?" "Well, the dog is always there anyways." This one is indeed worth a read. "Secret to a clean house. Never let yor children enter it".
This is real cute. "The mother firefly is always happy because her children are all so bright." How about this one? "Mom, what is it like to have the greatest daughter in the world?" "Well, I do not know. You must ask your Grandma."
The last three of the laugh f(e)ast! Mother's recipe for cold coffee : "have kids, make coffee, you will anyways have to forget you made it, drink it cold." The second one is about my favourite Dennis, the Menace, whose mum is cajoling him to eat because,"twenty years later, you are going to tell some unfortunate girl, how you adore this stuff." The last and surely not the least one. "My daughter asked me to do the 'in' thing, to get the names of my kids tattoed on my body. I told her I already have done it, and thrice. They are called stretch marks."
pratima@cheer is the child of chuckle
Yesterday we were talking about brands, right? Advetising plays a huge part in a brand creation. Most often, it is quite crass. Sometimes, the ad-n-brand equation can be a bit sensitive, too.
Saw this ad of Dominoo's pizza. Quite some narrative it was. A son leaves a mother at an old age home where the only thing she thinks of, talks of, is the son, his habits, his days. At the old age home, she earns a little money, sewing kurtis, and spends it all ordering a pizza for the son because he loves cheese pizza. Undoubtedly sweet!
Yet one wondered if old age homes are indeed necessary? I for one had decided that come what may, Aai would never go to an old age home. Sure it used to be truly tough. Indeed, the mavashi, that is, the female ayah, used to be of the Putna variety. However impossible the situation could be, my decision was firm. In her last illness, her geriatric specialist tried his level best, real hard, to convinve me to send her to the old age home. In fact, he was plain irritated with me for not agreeing to send her to an old age home. He has mentioned it in capitals in the hospital release certificate.
My argument was that she spent a lifetime in nothing but just caring for her family, her children. There was no way she would spend whatever could be her remaining days in any place but her home. Tried to literally recreate as many of the hospital facilities as much and as fast as possible. True, illness is extremely difficult to bear when one is old, fragile, bedridden with many co-morbidities. Why then compound the physical pain with the heavy interest rate of a psychological hurt?
Well, are old age homes indeed necessary? Would discuss it some other time. What is your opinion? Are old age homes inevitable? Well, the fun is I do not mind a hospice or an old age home for myself when I would be her age, but I could not imagine one for her or for Papa! Heart has reasons the head knows nothing of!
pratima@ Yeh dil hai ke manata nahin!
'Days' are common these days. Every Day, there is some Day or the Other. Today it is the Day of nutrition, it seems.
Nutrition has ever been the concern of mothers. While narrating nutrition, often nature is so quoted because even before the baby's birth, it is the mother who feeds the baby. Now, however, nutrition is not merely 'natural' in any sense of the term.
Market forces have overtaken every aspect of our life, including nutrition. If you were to remember how certain famous 'celebrity' pregnancies were presented in the media during the Corona, we realise that these were ploys to commodify certain 'stars' during the non-peak era, their personal lives, their exercise regimes, their special gowns, and, finally, their books based on these 'paid' experiences.
Not mere entertainment value the entire process had nor mere 'pass time' pastime/hobby of sophisticated gossip-mongering it was! After all this circus, they chose to hide the baby from the public glare! And, fans (who has so much time to keep an eye on others' privileged lives?) keep on chasing them for a glimpse, it seems. Wonders never cease indeed!
Days help in such 'brand' creation. Remember how the much touted 'private ceremony' celeb marriages have huge photo leaks that set the marriage ma(r)k(et)ing that season. At times, photo shoots of such celeb marriages have rights/rites auctioned! It could be the venue that is getting publicity as well! 'Trend' indeed!
In such a PR wor(l)d, where publicity/public glare alone matters, in a way, the days seem to focus on the affective areas of the 'modern' (wo)man. Otherwise, such affective aspects may get washed away in the flood of multiple quotients, eq, sq, and what have you. Children , for example, are forced to remember affectionately "Ma" and "Pa"at least on the respective days, right? The 'show' indeed must go on!
These examples I have analysed in some detail may prove that such commodification suits the MNC's, too. The MNC's and the TNC's use such Media Blitz to sell their products. In the process are obfuscated genuine issues.
Am I being a kill-joy? No, not at all. I feel instead of the momentary glimmer and glitter of a 'day' dedicated to a carve out convenient(ly) portion of our existences, we should sensitively and sensibly create our lives. No 'influencers', 'image makers' would thus be needed for any 'curated' 'make over'. Our selves would then be beyond sale!
Pratima@Thank God, Aai-Papa were not ad-deal! They were i-deal!And that has made all the difference, and forever n for better!
