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  Govinda, Govinda!

  Atul Sabnis posted a photo:

  

  1 day on
  Uploads from Atul Sabnis
• 

  The Indian Tablet Triangle

  Three Indian tablet devices are gathering newsworthiness.

  “At least three different gadgets — all tablet PCs — have captured the imagination of geeks across the globe in the past few weeks. Two of the devices are staking claims to becoming the lowest-priced tablet PCs, while the other is a stunner that promises to take on the best in the game.” (Via The Hindu : Sci-Tech / Gadgets : Indian hardware market abuzz with tablet PCs)

  Sakshat: The much talked about and debated $35 device announced by the Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development, recently. There has been significant debate on this device – primarily concerning the ability of the government to keep the cost within the limits of what was announced.

  Adam: The iPad killer (but then, which device isn’t). The website (under construction is at http://www.notionink.in/, but you will find more information on their blog. With a price range of $399 to $498, it seems targeted to the retail segment, and the news is that it may not be launched in India, to begin with.

  Stamp: Relatively unknown, so far, the i.MX233 based STAMP (Specs and Video) platform from AllGo is the third platform that is in the low cost segment. Pegged in the $50 range, this device is expected to make its debut, primarily in the B2B segment and they are not ruling out education.

  I hope I am soon able to write a similar post about folks who are thinking right about creating content and services around the platform.

  
  Filed under: mLearning, News Tagged: 35dollar, Adam, EDUCATION, Indian, Low-cost, Mobile, Notion-ink, Stamp, Tablet

  1 day on
  Kenfinity
• 

  Elementary Schizophrenia

  For a while now, I have stayed away from my schizophrenia posts. People have liked them, asked for more, yet it has been a while since I wrote those type of entries. A while is defined as eleven months. I wonder now, what makes people want to read this level of abstraction, for a post that is so personal, what is it in the post that they identify with. Words. Madness. Form, or the lack of it.

  There’s water shortage in Mumbai. Yet abundant flowing water finds a way to push through the walls of my house and eyes that try hard to stay dry and strong. This month, the city lakes are full, my empty heart finds some happiness in that.

  Disaster movies, I think, are a round-about way of making us respect natural powers. I think they only cause further fear. Of all the disaster movies that I see, the ones inspired by water are the most boring. I hate to sit through two-three hours of watching water wet the screen. The ones inspired by fire, are another thing altogether. Fire has an ability to reduce things to nothing.

  I have seen fire at close quarters. I have fought with it, and I live under no illusion that I won against it. That day however, it was fire’s nasty cousin – smoke – that I was really up against. If the fire hadn’t chosen to retreat that early morning, I would have lost some things.
  

  I have a love for mountains that I am unable to explain. I have often heard from folks about how the enormity of a mountain or the sea makes the human look so small and insignificant. Earlier, when I did not have an opinion about it, I approved; considered it to be a an interesting thought. Not anymore. I always feel I carry the enormity of nature within me, for only I can recognise it. To look at the mountain or the sea as a separate reality is to distance itself from you. If it’s within you, you are as significant as it is.

  I loved the mountains the most on 8th December 2009 at 6:44AM. I embraced it with my heart. It held me in a tight bear hug. We had conversations as we watched the wonderful view. There was no awe, just love – infinite love.

  I have promised myself a drive. A long one. It has yet to materialise. I’d like to go alone this time. I hate the rules that confine driving when I am with someone. Their rules. The need to get to a place, to eat at certain places, avoid night-driving, worst – to close the windows. I love the wind in my face. I’d like to keep driving, if only to feel the wind in my face.

  The smell changing every ten kilometres or so. The branches swaying in slowmo. The musical wailing as it passes through ridges, valleys and over the plains into the mountains.

  But I am where I am.

  We never crave for proof of life. That’s an axiomatic assumption, if there is something like that, well-supported by philosophical premises and academic arguments. Standing on the top of a mountain, watching the sea below, the wind blowing against us, to kindle the fire within, and being where you should be – that, perhaps, is the proof of life.

  4 days on
  Gaizabonts » Elementary Schizophrenia
• 

  Escaping Rehab: A Blogging Adventure

  I could see the single sheet of the consistent grey sky through the iron bars of the small rectangular bare room. It was, perhaps, a precursor to the day that was ready to be born. A clear blue sheet beckoned. I felt like holding the bars in my hand, imagining that I could pull them and that window could be the gateway of my Great Escape.

  I had many and good reasons to escape the BARC (Blog Addiction Rehabilitation Centre, not to be confused with the stuff that addicts you to particles you can’t see). I had as many obstacles as reasons. The first of course was getting out of the room.

  I once asked the fine WordPress folks to offer Marathi as one of the supported languages for WordPress. They now support it. No hassles there – I told you – they are fine folks. Now, obviously, there needs to be some translation done to get your WordPress bits and pieces showing up in Marathi. That’s what the users do. And most of us have been doing it, a bit slowly (could you help?). But to get a mail from the WordPress Digital Entomologist, checking with me on the progress, makes me feel closer to the world of blogging, makes me feel that I belong.

  I knew for sure now, I had to get out. I had been there far long enough. Over 24 hours. The second obstacle was the strait-jacket: I couldn’t do a thing to help myself out of the dark cell of the rehab centre. The very hands that punched the keyboard were now crossed out in a bound canvas across my heart like a knight’s resting pose. I racked my brains for all the ideas I could think of, right from The Great Escape to T2. The rehab police haven’t given me an audience yet, so, unlike Sarah Conner, I have been unable to stick a pin in my mouth.

  I think of the tools for blogging and I search for even more. I have now been reasonably addicted to Windows Live Writer (WLW), (talk of multi-substance abuse), except that it doesn’t support spellings the way folks like us in the UK would like it to spell. You would think that the Microsoft Word group in Microsoft would lend them the libraries. But no. Then of course, there is this new kid on the block, Corel Lightning, a quick note utility that allows you to post directly to WordPress. You will be amazed at the snapshot tool that it has – I was. Then of course there is good old Microsoft Word and the WordPress editor. WLW is cooler than the WordPress Editor is because it gives you the sense of posting right “inside” your blog. Oh yeah, you can add categories, dates, even add Flickr images right in there.

  So maybe if I scraped the jacket against a sharp corner of the wall, and I could get a few threads to come off, I would be able to manage the rest. Then, I have to think of a way of getting the fat slob doing the rounds to open the doors. Now, I have seen many movies to get ideas about doing that – of course I had to find something to hit him on the head. But then, I didn’t need anything, really, I would just cover his head with this torn strait-jacket and get away.

  I see the cool things that people are doing with their own versions of WordPress. I am motivated to re-learn to code. Plug-ins and mash-ups, pull-ups and count-downs. I could get a font from here and a comment form layout from there and do a whole lot more. Right now, I yearn for more than simple redirection from http://www.gaizabonts.com

  I’d then give him a gentle push towards the window that motivated me in the first place (nah, I am not the violent kind of a guy). Run out of the room and lock him in. But this is becoming very similar to Sarah Conner’s adventure. I think I’ll be creative hereafter.

  The RSS reader and the blog have a strange relationship. While it started, I believe, as a news reader, I have more blogs listed. Funny blogs, serious ones, incisive writing, work-related, of course the news papers (papers?), friends’ blogs, tech posts, gadget news, great photos, political comments, philosophical magazines – all of them come to one place and “feed” me for the day. I chose to move away from web-based feed readers – because I haven’t yet found a good one that can read secure feeds and do more than just feed you. RSS Bandit on the other hand, allows you to post a comment directly through the feed, blog it, email it, flag it, save it, group it colour it, customise it and even turn it into easy-to-carry-gold-ingots. RSS Bandit and Outlook are the rivals of the year. Each vies for my attention. The Bandit is catching up, if you must know.

  Now, he is locked in and can’t yet raise the alarm because he is struggling with the torn canvas knotted around his head. So I walk as if I am in a hotel lobby, so that no one will suspect me and I head towards the gate. It is locked of course. There is an electronic lock on the gate. It says I have to punch an 8-digit code that represents today’s date to open the door. But, I don’t have the code! I take out my BA membership Card (Not British Airways, I am in a rehab centre, remember? They took away all my mileage cards), and insert it into my phone, and punch *#* (only because it looks good). I had seen Jason Bourne do something like that. And there on the two-line display I get the eight-digit code – 05082007 – that will unlock the door. I punch it in. The door silently slides out and I peak out and see the guards at the main door. They are heavily armed with bananas peels. To the right is the peel armoury. I make a mental note to tell my artist friend about the emotions that yellow on the green evoked – in that precise moment.

  I know, what you are thinking. This is all bullshit. How did I manage to insert the BA membership card (which looks just like a credit card) into my phone? Seems you have never heard of Motorola Flare. I have, and I have used it even. It was the late 90s and we were all much stronger (and younger) then – we could carry those phones. You didn’t break the chip out of the SIM card to insert it into the phone: you inserted the entire card – as you would do in an ATM. A highly futuristic phone; had SMS functionality when SMS services didn’t exist (in India). This does bring me to the point of moblogging and WordPress; that is the only thing I miss in WordPress. With Blogger, you have the email functionality, through which you could moblog (however, that is prone to being spammed – happened to me once). How about a small and basic mobile application that works on Windows Mobile or Blackberry? Something that works – not a work-around. How about integrating Skype and WordPress? If Skype and Twitter can be integrated – why not WordPress? In any case, people don’t quite fancy longish posts. No one would write long posts through a mobile. Our attitudes are being twitterised, facebook poked and orkut scrapped. Having said that, the neatness, the simplicity and the power of WordPress continue to amaze me. My addiction shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone.

  Just on the wall opposite there is a Carlsberg vending machine. Somewhere far away I can hear the purr of a bag-less vacuum cleaner being used. I knew exactly what I would do. It would take all the resolve and energy and acquired Scottish wit I could muster. Malcolm Wallace’s words echoed then, “I know. I know you can fight. But it’s our wits that make us men.” This was the final challenge.

  The stats-checking-frenzy is now dead. WordPress helped me overcome that, in a way. The stats are built-in. In any case, I have learnt the hard way that stats are a waste of time – it eats into your valuable blogging time. The comments, I get them on my P310. I hate anonymous comments. Partly because I have to rack my brains to guess who it is, assuming it is someone I know – but mostly because there is one less blog to read. Someday I will write a book – All I Wanted to Know, I Learnt from Blogs – I haven’t had a TV for the past six months now. I am not missing it. I have rediscovered the Radio. But I digress.

  I used my transformation skills and turned myself into an intelligent vacuum cleaner – you know – the one that doesn’t need humans to tell it everything that it is supposed to do. Purring softly across the desk where the guards were sitting, I pretended to clean around. As I approached the gate, one of the guards, who looked like Xerxes in a green uniform with a loaded banana-peel gun, asked me to turn back. I almost felt like Clint Eastwood in Firefox. I had to think of something fast. I looked in my pocket. I had just one transformation card left. There was no time to be spent in analysing what-if scenarios. I would cross the bridge when I came to it. After all Kwai was a long way off. I invoked my last transformation card and transformed into a lawn mower. The burly guard gave me an approving nod and punched eight buttons to open this door. It was past midnight. I wondered if the codes had changed. The door opened slowly. Mozart’s Overture from Le Nozze Di Figaro came on in 5.1 DTS Dolby and that stuff. I knew exactly how Andy Dufresne felt. I was going home. With all the speed of a lawn mover – I hurtled forward – mowing down the small plants and bushes on the way. The Ents didn’t mind. If I am not mistaken, I almost saw a smile on their face.

  On the best summer day so far on the 4th of August, as I sit alone at the Ground – The Burger Store – wishing that my love and my friends and my family were with me – a few of them 4477 miles east and a few 3456 miles west – there isn’t much that you can do. Except perhaps, write a post. We have so many means to be in touch – yet so little time – while we gather those means.

  Only a blog post can tell you how much I missed all of you today. It was a pilgrimage to those times.

  When we created silly stories together

  When you choked on your drink at her stupid joke

  When we were silent because words were escaping the punishment of being spoken

  When we rededicated our love for Paul Simon

  When we went inside and spoke, for I had fractured my leg

  When I attended the only bachelor’s party with a broken leg

  When we grabbed microphones from half-celebrities because it was our karaoke request

  When you made excuses to stay back

  When we talked of ambitions lost, modified or postponed

  When we wondered whether the truth facing us was our truth

  When the night stayed long enough with my bad instant coffee

  When tomorrow wasn’t a cut-off based on the watch that you wore

   

  Yes, blogging is addictive, but this is (yet another) addiction that I don’t bother about. I could have called one of you or two or even three of you. But my blog and this post will tell you how much you are missed. I greedily crave the moments when we can be together.

  Living in a global village has been cruel and kind at the same time. Even my mother is proud that I have a blog in Marathi – the one language that is mine, yet I never learnt. My Sahyadri has helped me learn. Lifelong learning takes on a completely new meaning.

  I am happy and relaxed now, having OD’ed on some more blogging. I’ll head out to my RSS reader to see what you have said. Hope you have said something.

  5 days on
  Gaizabonts » Elementary Schizophrenia
• 

  A Bout of Schizophrenia

  from the freedictionary: schizophrenia: A situation or condition that results from the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic qualities, identities, or activities

  I got an ‘honourable mention’ on Ganga’s blog – he has nice words for a blog and posts that are wayward thoughts discovering structure and attempting meaning. He says I am a senior blogger – I hope it is not an age thing. This is the second time my blog got mentioned on someone’s anniversary post. Bishwanath did it first – it was his 75th post anniversary. I apparently scare him. Then there was also a mention about my blog on E&U’s blog once – something to do with a tag. Well, thank you all for the mentions that Gaizabonts has got at various times; to be brutally frank, it is very nice to read about oneself – as much as any of us may deny it – thank you for the kind words.

  It’s only my 167th post and only two-and-a-half years since I started blogging.

  Then, the only blog person with whom I have ever spoken with asked me how I find the time to write eight, forget one blog. (Well the secret is that the other seven don’t get updated as often – so it’s not really that much of an achievement). After the call was over and the compliments done, I got wondering if that seemingly innocent remark had larger implications. The perception obviously would be that I have a lot of time on hand to write and maintain eight blogs. The Merovingian said it best, “Yes, of course, who has time? Who has time? But then if we do not ever take time, how can we ever have time?” Life kind of changed for me after Matrix Reloaded – this particular dialogue. But then, I guess, Anil Kapoor said it way back in Tezaab, “Time hota nahi hai, nikaalnaa padta hai.” Oh, but then, we were just a bunch of kids who had all the time in the world.

  He spoke about time as a commodity that could be traded on the stock market.

  When I first heard of the phrase “work-life balance”, I recall, I was smiling on the outside and hysterically ROFL on the inside. I have never known what there was to balance – as if work and life were two different things. It did sound so much like a Big-5 consulting term (and I had read it on a Big-5 recruitment site – where I was applying for a job). Treat everything as work or treat everything as life – it sorts itself out? Maybe. Maybe not. A boss I once had, had a poster thingy on his soft-board – “love your job and you won’t have to work a day in your life”. If you have a problem with work-life balance – then you need to change your job.

  If work is worship, why do we so distrust “God”?

  We all become wise when we grow; we talk of work life balance, affirmative action, appeasing government – like the most adored IT company in India – suggested that the IT industry should start paying taxes now; shut the tax holiday. Right! You been there done that; reaped the benefits of a tax-free regime; listed yourself so successfully that you now have to split your shares in decimals – you big boy darling of the stock market and the government – screw the small guys. Let’s pay taxes. Life itself is taxing anyways, what are a few more rupees to the GoI? Benjy said it right – “Nothing is certain but death and taxes”. Maybe one more thing is certain – love. But that’s another potentially schizophrenic post.

  Age, experience, and knowledge are not regressive, are they?

  One last thought – do you write the title of your post (if you do) before you write the post or after you write it?

  5 days on
  Gaizabonts » Elementary Schizophrenia
• 

  Another Bout of Schizophrenia

  The first one occurred here.

  Blogger hasn’t yet invited me to their beta. Did I screw up in extra-anticipation by using the same email address to create a test-beta blog? Does it matter? The only thing I want to know is what people reply to what I say on their blogs. Does it matter?

  If, according to Richard Bach, love is the most mangled word in the English language after God, then Madhushala (by Harivanshrai Bachchan) is the most misunderstood poem in the world.

  Before helping someone – ask – if they “really” need the help. Don’t demean their struggles and insult them with your help, just because you can. If you really have to, help yourself.

  ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ is not a great film, less the wonderful performance by Arshad Warsi. You should still see it. It will teach you one thing (if you are willing to learn) – philosophy changes with the nature of human being. Don’t take it at face value. It is preachy. You and I don’t have director who is on our side.

  Home is where you belong. Where you belong is your decision.

  Don’t curse Mumbai if you haven’t lived here long enough to feel its soul. Make neutral comments; let it be. Be Richard – the Lion-hearted; forgive the city. Don’t armchair-fight it from Pune or anywhere else.

  How many times you ask the same question doesn’t matter. If you ask a question once you’d like an answer, ask it twice, you are concerned. If you ask it the third time, you are an idiot. Silence is an answer in your favour. It’s your license to learn.

  “If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him” is a book by Sheldon Kopp, a psychoanalyst or that kind of a person. Not by a Zen Master. Read well and remember – Readers’ Digest.

  Love has different dimensions – if it works – help the other person know what your definition of love is. Don’t leave it to interpretation. If the meaning changes in between – be brave enough to make that statement. Truth and respect is encompassed in love. Love is an all encompassing word. Be careful with its use.

  Any financial investment as told by your financial advisor is safe and worthwhile. Ask yourself, however, do you know why you want money? Do you have your own personal philosophy for investments and returns? Tell him or her (as the case may be) what you think money means for you.

  Keep an open mind. Do your analyses later.

  Not all people are as expressive as you are. Not all of them are as bohemian as you are. Learn to respect that. Thank them for the little time you get with them. It is precious – don’t demean it by cursing unspent time. Thank them for the moments that were available.

  File your tax and bank papers properly. Keep records for seven years. It’s a legal requirement. Close bank accounts you don’t need. Remember what a thousand Rupees meant to you when you just left college.

  If you can’t respect the National Anthem, enter the theatre when the anthem is over. It is not mandatory to respect the anthem even if the politicians say so. Respect the feelings of the people who respect the anthem. They are human, so are you.

  Theorems are built of axioms. The only reason a theorem holds true – is that an axiom is consistent. Build your axioms. Axioms aren’t questioned. Be consistent. An axiom can’t change because it suits a theorem.

  Pray.

  If you can’t respond without offending, shut up. Making a point is not as important as knowing the point. People don’t always intend to insult. Sometimes they are the idiots. Let them be.

  Listen to Sunscreen at least once in your life. Don’t assume that guys are contend with friendship. Being best friends could be a possible compromise for him.

  Don’t mind this post; like ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ it’s preachy.

  5 days on
  Gaizabonts » Elementary Schizophrenia
• 

  Yet Another Bout of Schizophrenia

  I willed the bus to go faster.

  I wasn’t in a hurry, the couple, standing in the space for the buggies and the wheelchair, really needed to be elsewhere. Eventually, they got down. I was happy. For them and for me. I wouldn’t need to count tile-flakes on the bus floor, avoiding eye-contact.

  I was reminded of “Duncan”, by Paul Simon:

  Couple in the next room
  bound to win a prize:
  they’ve been going at it all night long!
  Well, I’m tryin’ to get some sleep
  but these motel walls are cheap:
  Lincoln Duncan is my name,
  and here’s my song, here’s my song.
  

  Full Song

  It was an interesting day, I had had. One thing led to another and all that we were led to, was proof of life; tomorrow was worth all the troubles of today.

  One exciting and animated conversation was aborted when we arrived at Victoria. People must have been watching me, my mate was probably relieved at seeing the doors open (for me) at Victoria. Thirty-six free newspapers lay on the floor on the connecting tube on my way home. News isn’t the purpose anymore – when most people don’t pay for news. The problem with free, is the problem of choice – the lack of it. Paper is environmentally friendly, waste it as you please. Waste anything that’s bio-degradable.

  A fellow blogger and I have had arguments about translations. Which reminded me, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Mahalaxmi Iyer’s song, “Bol Na Halke Halke” is in-translatable. Yet there was this question of how I would tell you the experience of that moment.

  YouTube video to the rescue.

  I wouldn’t dare translate it in English. Watch it.

  If you don’t know the language, just think of the moon, its light, how you would steal it; light threads on a beautiful night, of being shy, in your lover’s arms, speaking softly, kissing softly. Trading all night with the currency of dreams, how two-three words took ages to be uttered, their simplicity not withstanding. Perhaps, asking her why I took so long to say the most simplest of the phrases – I love you. She saying, I always knew.

  But, suffice it, for now, that even a tomb is a possible sign of love. A signature. The final expression of a love that has been and will remain forever. I have seen many benches in parks in the UK that I have treated with respect. So small in structure, so heavy in expression.

  So, while, “Bol Na Halke Halke” (Say it, softly, softly) rings in my ears, I pick on of the thirty-six newspapers on the floor. The newspaper is an instant flashing view of the world around me. Personally, I have been too disappointed with newspapers to give them any credit. Yet, out of habit, I pick this one newspaper that survives on advertisements – and sells for nought.

  The world in your two hands for nought.

  “Britney must survive on GBP 745 a week”
  “LA gangs come to London”

  Then an advertisement at the bottom of the newspaper: “YOU could be the next Mayor of London!”

  I am immune. Another fellow blogger wonders why I never comment on her posts. She writes about things that are socially relevant – to you and me. To the world that we live in. She makes sense. Perhaps she may understand, now. 2 billion pounds is the amount that, “Churches, mosques, synagogues and other faith communities” contribute to the economy. (We are talking only UK here)

  I am 22 pages past, “The God Delusion.” I have to stop. The book questions my ‘acquired beliefs” and those that I held as true.

  Just below the above excerpt, a model admits she is “addicted to cheeseburgers – and that’s the real reason she quit Los Angeles to return home.”

  Why does Britney have to survive on $1500 a week? Father now controls her spending, but they did allow her to have a credit card, “so she can have her freedom and make choices about how to enjoy her life.” Right. She earns the money, you get to control it. And only because her behaviour is unacceptable. When you buy your next CD – you know who is getting the money. Be aware, small changes around us. Like Britney? Pay her father. She doesn’t deserve it, the immoral calf. A moral code. Your moral code. Her father’s moral code. The social code.

  It is 31 degrees C in Goa, India. The heat is on. Scarlett Keeling’s murder. They covered it, we covered, they were negligent, we screwed up, they screwed up, let’s have intellectual fog in 31 degrees. Fog. Any fog is nice.

  Control

  Parents

  Blame

  Shift

  Responsibility. Rather assignment of responsibility. What is responsibility? Who is?

  Brian Paddick promises not to have high rises in London. Ken promises more. Ken promises cycles for free (first 30mins only) in London. Green. Whatever happened to the phrase – paint the town red. We will soon see a different colour. Let’s borrow two bikes for 30 mins. Let’s paint the town green. Cities yearning to be a village.

  I am now a believer. I wasn’t, before. I believe: global warming is a serious problem. It is a problem of extreme magnitude. The amount of attention we give to this problem obscures the real problems. Poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, disparity, urban crowding, cultural misunderstanding, and such. Global warming affects us all. It blinds us to the real problems that truly affect us all.

  Budget is due – the highlight – it is a green budget. “Despite fears that voters are losing interest in eco-friendly issues, he [Alistair Darling] will target high-street chains such as John Lewis in the greenest ever budget.” Oh, and of course, “Above-inflation rises on cigarettes and alcohol.”

  Statistics.

  The new open-source toy that we discovered. Open and indifferent to abuse. “3m – the amount of plastic waste (in tonnes) generated annually in the UK.”

  But enough about the newspaper. Your newspaper doesn’t look any different. And you know so, yet we fight about issues.

  The mood is discordant. The music in my ears, “Bol Na Halke Halke” (now on repeat) is incongruent with the world I live in. I see movies like “Love, Actually” and the next morning I step into a different world. I have been to Heathrow more times than I have ever taken a flight. (here is some trivia for you – I have never been received at Heathrow) I have my own scenes of people meeting their loved ones (think: last scene of Love, Actually) and that has been far better than the ‘voice-overed’ scenes of the film as true as they may be. Yet, the constant “will destroy your unattended luggage; don’t smoke here; report suspicious items” announcements are as real as the tears of the grandmother seeing her grandchild for the first time. Believe me, 99% of people I receive at the airport turn up 45 minutes later than they are supposed to. I get to see many scenes. So many scenes of people meeting people as they cross boundaries.

  We know all is real. All is important. Why this dissonance? How do we survive this simultaneous irony? Did we miss something? Something important?

  In an effort to set the world right, we are living in a world that is terribly going wrong.

  PS: Earlier bouts occurred here

  5 days on
  Gaizabonts » Elementary Schizophrenia
• 

  Proof of Life

  Chanced upon a not-so-innocent-song about the rains. Needless to say – it brought very happy memories from the days when life was a possibility. Not as artificially predictable as we have made it to be through anxiousness and concerns of security.

  When I was in college (1989-92, yeah, really long time go) there was this tea-stall at the Pune University Circle — run by this diminutive, yet regal, man who went by the name of Anna. He made good tea. Notice, the subtle emphasis on the word — good. Like the smell of your grandmother’s unique recipe and the mesmerising visions that your father could paint with words, flowing with ease; this is one such taste. It remains with you forever.

  My analytical mind, unfortunately, takes over.

  Since Anna’s chai, I have had tea at a gazillion tea-stalls, all over the MH state. I am sure I have had as good tea in at least one of these stalls. It makes you wonder, if it was really the way that the tea that was brewed that keeps the memory alive.

  It wasn’t the brew.

  It was the environment. There is a word, maahoul — which, I doubt has an equivalent English word. Chai at Anna’s was a concept that we were in love with. One Skid-prone-Kinetic, a Bajaj Scooter and a black Yamaha 100cc bike, if he chose to ever find time for us, from his why-does-he-have-such-an-ugly girlfriend. Conversations of today that were heavily punctuated with loud laughter (in the days when LOL or ROFL weren’t invented and you had to use facial muscles to “Laugh-out-Loud”). Building dreams of tomorrow with almost-Italian-style-waving-bare hands in the thin air of Pune’s December. The clinical dissection of emerging role-models by brash arrogance that was nurtured by fearless dreams.

  There isn’t a University “Circle” anymore.

  The circle has been sliced and bled dry by sharp and stoic grey plates of thick concrete fly-overs that help you get quicker to where you will not stay anyway. I often go to Pune, and every time I take the fly-over to head towards the Expressway, a late-eighties cell-and-tissue-combination in my heart dies a lonely death. Some psycho-somatic mechanism almost denies entry to those memories.

  But, coming back to the point, I hate the rain.

  I really do. And ironically, my self-proclained-and-personally-discovered roots are in Konkan, and I spent formative years in Goa. Imagine, I call Mumbai — Home. I think, since I started driving, rains in Mumbai have banged in the last nail in a rotting coffin. But, I try and remember, and, I have never liked rains. Not as a kid, because you couldn’t go out and play. Not as a commuter, because I start two-hours earlier for a thirteen-kilometre ride (and yet I am not sure). There is something about rains that seems so “arresting”.

  Go out, get wet!

  Right. Water in my mobile phone. Fading driving license; thrice wet since it was issued. Wet currency notes that need to come under an iron. Soggy cigarettes that are anyway useless, because the bloody match-box is a hopeless lump of phosphorous, devoid of a spark, even. They still haven’t invented practical wipers for the glasses on your nose. Can’t take photographs – ever heard of a working wet camera? There isn’t even anything really romantic about the rains, unless you are on film set and have a director who can manage your smallest action. In real life, the girlfriend is always on the 5:56pm Karjat-Slow that is late because of the rains. (And she couldn’t call you because she had water in her mobile phone. Imagine this scene as you wait and watch the shoe-shine boys at Ghatkopar station, for ninety minutes, creating a ruckus with their wooden implements. Continuously. Without a break!)

  Rain and wash-outs, have an illegitimate relationship.

  I have seen the freshness and the squeaky-clean sense that you get after a rain. Rains clean everything. They affect your thoughts, if you are in the rain. I have had, many opportunities to be in a dry place with large windows and a very comfortable chair. Those (very few) instances where I did not need to get somewhere in the same dry state as when I started, when it was pouring outside.

  I love watching the rain.

  

  When rain doesn’t touch me, it does not wash-out anything. It brings back a-small-smile-on-your-face memories. And that dry place that you are in, with a glass of chai that reminds you of Anna (and his well-oiled moustache) and reminds you of Abhijit who can never laugh with his eyes open. Or the glass of Old Monk and Thums-up stirred with your ring-finger, that reminds you of Mahesh’s theory of how love really happens. That place and time is my happiest place and time on the face of this warm and parched earth.

  It is not nostalgia. Oh, hardly.

  It is not raking in the past like cleaning up the dry leaves orphaned on the ground. It is not a time-traveler’s wish. It is not the pangs of wanting to get back to those times. Neither is it the craving for a carefree life. It definitely is not a judgement on living a life of responsibilities. It is an acknowledgement of how beautiful a life we have led. This life, not any other.

  It is proof of life.

  5 days on
  Gaizabonts » Elementary Schizophrenia
• 

  A Sane Voice in the Noise

  Someone seems to have understood it!

  When the laptop goes to the head – Views – livemint.com: “What we want from advanced technology is that it should enhance educational productivity. But just as often, if these studies are any indication, they enhance procrastination and delay. In this way, technology is no panacea and can actually be a distraction. A student’s character is what really counts.

  And that’s what should worry us about the techno-boosterism. It distracts us from the real obstacles to educational achievement.“

  (Emphasis, mine)

  This is one sane voice in the $35 noise.

  The most interesting questions being asked about the $35 tablet are the ones that are the most difficult to find. So far, I’ve found only one pertinent question, to which I added a few of my own thoughts.

  It amuses me to an extent that all the arguments, counter-arguments for this low-cost device are only about how this device will come to market, about how the government is making a PR exercise of it all, and how impractical it is. What’s more interesting is, no one from the education field is questioning the educational raison d’être for the device.

  We seem to be in a hurry to build the hardware with no concern for the software.

  8 days on
  Kenfinity
• 

  PPP in the Indian Education

  Rather than a simple listing of models — currently there are over 30 variants within the broader literature on PPPs in infrastructure — what would be timely and helpful is for the MHRD to set out how the investment of the private sector in schools would operate in relation to the current flow of government educational funds from the level of district, to block- and cluster-level institutions. The implications for ownership of schools in the note on PPP aren’t clear — and this when we already have the categories of government, government-aided private and unaided private schools in usage. Under the new models being proposed by the MHRD, would it be the case that if a private organisation takes over the entire educational operation of a school, it’d change its status from a government school to a private school (through an opting out of the state system for new academies, as is being suggested by David Cameron’s government)? Also, if private finance was only for the upkeep of the building, would it create a new category of private-aided government schools? Via Let’s go by the book – Hindustan Times

  The MHRD is really in a fix trying to decide the manner in which they would like private participation in education. The article lists the three “broad” ways in which private enterprises may choose to participate, however, the government is stuck hard on the premise that education needs to be run by the state. 

  

  8 days on
  Kenfinity
• 

  Blog Overlap? Perhaps

  I started a new blog with great amount of apprehension. Another education blog, so to speak. I already have this blog – which in spite of it’s vague description (more due to its evolution) and all-inclusiveness has tended to be blog related to education, nevertheless.

  I have recently started pursuing my MA in Education from IGNOU. Along with the obvious excitement of putting in some structure all that I think I already know (and of course finding out that I don’t really know), I was equally excited about being in the experiment of evaluating the use of online tools in an educational setting — as against observing the practice of the use of these tools as a non-participating entity. I think that makes a difference

  I had to start that off with a blog.

  Also, though I have great respect for IGNOU, this institute has a long way to go. So, the objectives for this new blog are two-fold: one, to get my learning online and see how it really works, and two, to share my experience of a distance education course and the institution itself.

  To my mind these two blogs will have a certain level of overlap, but for now, I am going with this overlap. This one has got more to do with the business of education, as such, while the new one is specific to the course and the institution.

  The MA (Education) blog is at http://edmasters.wordpress.com/

  
  Filed under: Social Networks Tagged: EDUCATION, Masters, Personal

  10 days on
  Kenfinity