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??