The A's and C's

A sunny ride

With bumps and glides

Loving the ups

and the downs

as they appraised with their A's and C's

Changed my ways

my smiles and strides

keeping alive

the dreams and joys

there...toasting for some more A's and C's

had covered up my flaws

and honed my skills

from the Admirers

and the Critics

Alas! never approved by the A's and C's

let me be stamped, starred and judged

just break the mould

and discern them all

reflect within

for I am my Admirer and the best Critic

The masterpiece...

I cherish that famous Picaso fable where a man wonders how he is going to make a lion out of huge piece of boulder...and Picaso effortlessly replies "I'm going to chip off everything that doesn't look like a lion". Sometimes I wonder He is also expert at chipping off everything that doesn't look like me to make a masterpiece called "I".

Please, don't judge my baby...

With all those complaints about her restless and stubborn nature and poor fine motor skills...yesterday her teacher shared that Lakrishna got first position in drawing and GK in her class...Not that it sounds like an achievement for a small kid who should not be judged at such a tender age....but it has always been about me scoring as a mother on by guilt and satisfaction scales...and there is more to it which had been disturbing me since late...

Before I had admitted Lakrishna in her playschool when she was two...many friends and folks had told me not to do so as that might put her under pressure. This was incomprehensible and way too opinionated for me to understand. She was the only kid in her class who always used to be excited about going to school...thanks to her school for making her first school experience fun....But this fun was short-lived I guess. I had promised to myself that I'll never pressurize Lakrishna for her studies until she is five...but with all those complaints about her incomplete homework, comparisons with other kids notebooks...I ended up pressurizing her for "homework"...and suddenly "homework" became a dreaded word for her...at the age of three. I was loosing it....totally....and wait, there were exams too...
I knew Lakrishna was not lagging behind....her fine motor skills are evident on her room's walls and in precision with which she cuts her butterflies...only issue is she doesn't like doing "homework"...why?? because "homework" is not fun...and my "now" four years old kid wants everything fun...and I dont see anything wrong with it...
what bothers me is....even with schools pitching the word "fun" with their education system....they end up killing it....
what bothers me more is....when all her peers are conditioned to this pressurized way of life...will she be accustomed to the tag of being relatively "stubborn" and "mediocre" student in her class...
I only have one request to contemporary education system...please dont judge my baby till she is five....let her have fun with her play and with her education...

Flowing with the flow...

Uncertainty is scaring, for we have dreams to live that are dependent on everything uncertain. Or that’s how a fear is born in our minds.
I wandered for years looking for certainty, looking for stability ...sometimes taking shelter under a weathering rock and sometimes playing with grassy terrains but I knew I was not destined to be stable.
As I flow on my course from steeps to grounds I was pampered and I was abused. Little did I know that my meaning is to flow!
Yet I attached myself with the places, with the people – the good and the fanciful; and scorned the abusive ones. Did I know that my meaning is to flow!
I made dreams with things that didn’t belong to me, with people that could not be in my flow...and wondered why I am still suffering, still longing for my liberation...forgotten totally that my meaning is to flow...to be one with my world and to love what I am and whatever becomes mine and where I take myself to! This uncertain flow of my life is my dream...
I shall end in a boundless sea for certain. It is to be seen how beautifully I live my dream...

Ramanujan's Ramayana...

Having renounced facebook and other social activities to avoid accumulation of negative energies in me…in little time that I have, I decided to redirect my randomness into some passionate web contents like economic political weekly, livemint.com, information weekly journal and tehelka.com. I considered these options as to keep me alive and abreast of happenings around me in my non-happening world... for coming few months. This will also help my grey cells from succumbing to numbers and logics that my thesis is!

So as expected, when I opened my eclipse IDE, I had this craving for facebooking and posting some arbit and attractive thought coming to my mind (which I am not able to recall now…interestingly). I channelized myself to epw site where I caught up with an article on banning of Ramanujan's essay on 300 versions of Ramayanas by DU. This is an old news I remember. Essay's exact title is "Three Hundred Ramanyanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation". Author of epw article elucidates (in a bit abstract manner… due to lack of space I guess) five examples and three thoughts. Few excerpts from the essay were cited giving hints of an analytical, unbiased and crisp…and very academic language that Ramanujan applied.

Five examples in the article mentioned some interesting differences between versions like that of Valmiki, Thai, Kampan's (Tamil), Jain's etc….differences like those of style of writing (e.g. symbolic meanings of characters), facts (like Sita was Ravana's daughter via some indirect context) etc….and with such differences, reflecting upon different versions of Ramayanas to observe what actual Ramayana could have meant for us. Not having read either the Ramayana or the Ramanujan's essay on first place, I feel incomplete but nonetheless let my bounded rationality reign for now.

Just imagining the merit of such an article I too agree with epw author that banning such piece of analysis is not only a big loss for students but also foe understanding our culture. Culture must be studied, analysed…not with a closed mind and senses. To put it to use….one must dismarry oneself from the rigidities and blind faiths that are side products of a culture which is older than the oldest banyan tree alive….to let the culture understand contemporaries and vice versa and let the new wind blow….otherwise both the new and old beings dwelling on our earth will be lost in their own worlds without accepting and learning from each other...

I think I have started thinking monotonously these days whenever it comes to our culture...but I stand for it...always!

Deny being Dependent

I lived my life in my way
And taught you the same each day
Today as my vitals start to retire
I deny I deny
I deny being dependent for the rest of my way

My eyes are giving up on me, I know
But my vision soars high with every blow
With this energy and experience of years
I deny I deny
I deny being dependent on things I don’t know

When I had life, you were my dream
I lived you and struggled to make you true
But as this night sets on me my Son
I deny I deny
I deny being dependent on the shadows of your light

Like I nurtured the light in you
And loved to see you gleam and glow
Now it is time you cultivate these weakening roots
I will I will
I will live this life for the rest of my way


(with love to my elders)

Preaching Mode and I

There goes a panchtantra tale of maina and a monkey with maina coming in preaching mode and monkey reacting to maina’s undesired pack of advices by destroying her nest. Recently, one zealous gentleman broke my nest of peace when I came in a preaching mode inadvertently. I don’t wish to repeat such an incident in my life as that brings toll to one’s peace of mind. And latter at back of my mind, I kept asking myself what exactly went wrong! Actually many things were wrong! I did come in a preaching mode, at wrong place with wrong people.

I realized that I do come to preaching mode often. And maximum times, that preaching is undesired. I am thankful to my friends’ generosity for bearing such advices, and also for not bearing.

People share their state of affairs, worries or tensions as this is the way some of us like to connect with each other – but it never means that they are seeking our expert advices. And coming in preaching mode is a normal thing for anybody (but getting a destructive reaction may not be that normal …), but it is seldom the right thing to do! We all are packs of experiences and information. When this pack becomes overloaded, we tend to shed our loads here and there – discounting our pack’s value, sometimes irritating sometimes helping others. One may like to do it to boost their egos, or to share superiority of their information and experiences, or to wear an empathetic role if one really feels for it, or to do it as a job¹. It is the last option that makes a striking equilibrium in the world of preachers².
I believe only doctors should come in prescription mode. Why? They advise patients who have faith in them (patient has no other choice when it comes to doctors); they have every right to be well informed about the situation (patient cant hide his/her issues), and most importantly they are getting paid for it. Other groups falling in this category are teachers and consultants.

1. …, or if you are Nana Patekar and you are getting paid for yelling in a movie.
2. Personally, I don't remember myself disliking anybody's advice in my life. It is always a pleasure to know what others have to say on any issue. And for those occasional waste-of-time kinds of preachings – I have big filters; and I do have better methods of avoiding such occasions. This note is, with due respect, for those people whose advices I really loved - no matter right or wrong