THREE YEARS GONE……..
No person who spent his/her Christmas in this part of the globe three years ago would forget the day they woke up to on the 26th of December in 2004. Like many people in Chennai, I also woke up to that day with a rocking bed. Yes, an earthquake at around 6 in the morning! As it usually occurs in all earthquakes, it created a lot of movement coupled with fear and anxiety. After sometime all the commotion died out and people were back to what they were at (sleeping!!) I had to go for my class on that Sunday. (It was a physics class at 10 in the morning at a place about 5-7 km from my house.) I went there and before my teacher could start his lecture on mechanics there were voices from different places around announcing a sudden rise in the water level at Marina beach threatening to flood Chennai!!!
That was Tsunami for me before I watched the television news after reaching home quite happy at getting a day off without classes! The disaster and damage due to Tsunami has been described in great detail at various places. I don’t want to repeat. But I want to tell you something that I saw.
I happened to visit the famous Velankanni shrine early this year. The bus goes through Nagapattanam which is believed to be the most affected place in India due to the giant waves. Believe it or not, that was when I could see the real effect of the deadly catastrophe. News reporters standing at the shore never give you the right picture, but a vast stretch of barren, abandoned land with no life, in a country of billions, does explain it all. These places, where there was active life, are now nothing but a stretch of red earth with lots of stories to tell about the red blood of people who are underneath them. Another thing that I could notice then was that the tallest building in that vicinity was a three storied orphanage! And the houses that the government was supposed to give the affected ones were in the same state as ever before. I don’t know about them now though I heard they have been distributed.
At this anniversary of that unforgettable day, I wish to join the world in its prayers for the souls of the people who are no more with us ; and also for those people who are living with memories of their loved ones and in whose life, the Tsunami has left a permanent mark (of agony and pain).
Thursday, December 27, 2007
ARE YOU SICK?
“How frequently do you get sick? Or do you get sick at all?”
Many of us have hardly ever answered this question, nor have we thought about it.
Just read through and see if this does mean anything.
Many people get headaches, fever, infections, pain and a lot more things in our day-to day life. If you are one of them, please do go through the text carefully, even otherwise.
I don’t want to say that people fake illness but I do feel that you get sick at times because you want to. Or I may put it this way that if you miss appointments, office or anything important, it is simply because you would want to miss them.
1. How many times have you been down with fever or headaches in the recent past?
2. Did you miss anything important because of that and did you do ‘anything’ to not miss them? (A paracetamol (crocin) does not do much harm in this case)
3. Did you find it to be a major disease, something to the extent of being bed-ridden and highly dependent on others?
4. Would you have done the same thing if it occurred in a period when your loved one is hospitalized?
Ask yourself these questions for all those diseases that don’t disable you and you may find, quite surprisingly, that you are not sick at all. It is not over yet. If you still believe that a fever can get you down, think again of those millions who fight fatal diseases and enjoy every new day with the same zest for life (there was this article yesterday on a body-builder who won state level championship fighting HIV-AIDS). How better placed are you when you look at them.
There is one more thing I must say before I wind up this post. The purpose of me writing this is not to advise anyone. I don’t believe this serves that purpose either.
I have observed that people tend to cultivate this as a habit ‘-to feel ill’, which develops into laziness and results in low productivity due to the reluctance to work.
And I feel that such a mentality (of not prioritizing work over illness) is one of the main reasons why India is still a part of the developing nations in spite of having the most treasured human resources.
If you find this argument convincing, always remember to PRIORITIZE WORK OVER ILNESS WHENEVER IT CAN BE and I am sure, it will help you develop a lot as an individual first, as a citizen next.
THE OBSERVER
25-12-2007
“How frequently do you get sick? Or do you get sick at all?”
Many of us have hardly ever answered this question, nor have we thought about it.
Just read through and see if this does mean anything.
Many people get headaches, fever, infections, pain and a lot more things in our day-to day life. If you are one of them, please do go through the text carefully, even otherwise.
I don’t want to say that people fake illness but I do feel that you get sick at times because you want to. Or I may put it this way that if you miss appointments, office or anything important, it is simply because you would want to miss them.
1. How many times have you been down with fever or headaches in the recent past?
2. Did you miss anything important because of that and did you do ‘anything’ to not miss them? (A paracetamol (crocin) does not do much harm in this case)
3. Did you find it to be a major disease, something to the extent of being bed-ridden and highly dependent on others?
4. Would you have done the same thing if it occurred in a period when your loved one is hospitalized?
Ask yourself these questions for all those diseases that don’t disable you and you may find, quite surprisingly, that you are not sick at all. It is not over yet. If you still believe that a fever can get you down, think again of those millions who fight fatal diseases and enjoy every new day with the same zest for life (there was this article yesterday on a body-builder who won state level championship fighting HIV-AIDS). How better placed are you when you look at them.
There is one more thing I must say before I wind up this post. The purpose of me writing this is not to advise anyone. I don’t believe this serves that purpose either.
I have observed that people tend to cultivate this as a habit ‘-to feel ill’, which develops into laziness and results in low productivity due to the reluctance to work.
And I feel that such a mentality (of not prioritizing work over illness) is one of the main reasons why India is still a part of the developing nations in spite of having the most treasured human resources.
If you find this argument convincing, always remember to PRIORITIZE WORK OVER ILNESS WHENEVER IT CAN BE and I am sure, it will help you develop a lot as an individual first, as a citizen next.
THE OBSERVER
25-12-2007
Saturday, December 15, 2007
the first post....
Hello everybody! I was thinking of what to begin my blog with, when my eyes fell on the book “PANCHATANTRA”.
The first page read like this…….
Whoever learns the work by heart
Or through the story-teller’s art
Becomes Acquainted
His Life by sad defeat-although
The king of heaven be his foe-
Is never tainted.
Like in the case of most of the ancient literature of South Asia, the Panchatantra also presents richer knowledge when studied than simply read. The stanza above (the book has got hundreds of such ones) is nothing but an excellent example to justify my claim.
It says,
“Any work when learnt by-heart or through a story teller’s art is understood well and knowledge thus acquired will never let you down”.
Let us analyze this.
What is “work” in this context?
It can be the work as in today’s terms, also the knowledge base for one’s life. All the university education and skills that one learns is represented by “work”. This is because earlier in India one learnt the work and not the means to find the work as we do today.
What is to learn by heart?
As kids we are told “Don’t learn things by heart; try to understand it!”
Well, here “by-heart” means nothing like mugging up. This has something to do with memory and retention. Science has always argued undisputedly that the more you demand from your brain, the more it supplies. Earlier, people learnt things by heart by repeated chanting.
What happens in such a form of learning is that the idea is permanently etched in the brain and this allows us the freedom to think and analyze the idea all the time. This led to great thinkers who could fish out innovative ideas from existing scenarios.
Today, we hardly learn anything by-heart. I have observed around me that some people who get excellent grades seldom think about what they are learning (or writing in the exam paper for that matter!). They are happy and contempt knowing things and hardly bother about anything else.
Such learning is worthless and is the main reason for the falling standards of education.
What is the story teller’s art?
A story teller’s art is to make you imagine a sequence of events. Today’s educationists and learning experts claim a better understanding of things when reading is clubbed with multimedia tools (audio and visuals). What really happens is that we find it easier to retain a picture or a sound (say, a song that you like). In the same way, the story teller’s art is to tell an event (a tale) in the most animated ways such that all his actions and sounds help us remember the content of the story.
Now, coming to the present.
This stanza has got a lot of things to help us even today.
A lot of times, we find ourselves trying to convince people about something or the other.
And many more a times we do presentations. In all these cases, the simplest work we are doing is to get something into someone’s head. We cannot make them learn it by heart but we can make use of the story teller’s art! Most of the times, a story or anecdote helps conveying an idea. And as far as this example is concerned, lots in there for teachers and academicians.
This book is a must-read for all people because it has got something for all!
Aah..Realizing that I have been typing for very long, I thought its time I close the book and end the post.
Who likes to read long essays, even if they are nice??
The first page read like this…….
Whoever learns the work by heart
Or through the story-teller’s art
Becomes Acquainted
His Life by sad defeat-although
The king of heaven be his foe-
Is never tainted.
Like in the case of most of the ancient literature of South Asia, the Panchatantra also presents richer knowledge when studied than simply read. The stanza above (the book has got hundreds of such ones) is nothing but an excellent example to justify my claim.
It says,
“Any work when learnt by-heart or through a story teller’s art is understood well and knowledge thus acquired will never let you down”.
Let us analyze this.
What is “work” in this context?
It can be the work as in today’s terms, also the knowledge base for one’s life. All the university education and skills that one learns is represented by “work”. This is because earlier in India one learnt the work and not the means to find the work as we do today.
What is to learn by heart?
As kids we are told “Don’t learn things by heart; try to understand it!”
Well, here “by-heart” means nothing like mugging up. This has something to do with memory and retention. Science has always argued undisputedly that the more you demand from your brain, the more it supplies. Earlier, people learnt things by heart by repeated chanting.
What happens in such a form of learning is that the idea is permanently etched in the brain and this allows us the freedom to think and analyze the idea all the time. This led to great thinkers who could fish out innovative ideas from existing scenarios.
Today, we hardly learn anything by-heart. I have observed around me that some people who get excellent grades seldom think about what they are learning (or writing in the exam paper for that matter!). They are happy and contempt knowing things and hardly bother about anything else.
Such learning is worthless and is the main reason for the falling standards of education.
What is the story teller’s art?
A story teller’s art is to make you imagine a sequence of events. Today’s educationists and learning experts claim a better understanding of things when reading is clubbed with multimedia tools (audio and visuals). What really happens is that we find it easier to retain a picture or a sound (say, a song that you like). In the same way, the story teller’s art is to tell an event (a tale) in the most animated ways such that all his actions and sounds help us remember the content of the story.
Now, coming to the present.
This stanza has got a lot of things to help us even today.
A lot of times, we find ourselves trying to convince people about something or the other.
And many more a times we do presentations. In all these cases, the simplest work we are doing is to get something into someone’s head. We cannot make them learn it by heart but we can make use of the story teller’s art! Most of the times, a story or anecdote helps conveying an idea. And as far as this example is concerned, lots in there for teachers and academicians.
This book is a must-read for all people because it has got something for all!
Aah..Realizing that I have been typing for very long, I thought its time I close the book and end the post.
Who likes to read long essays, even if they are nice??
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)