attempt for resurgance

you might(not) have noticed that i have not been very active blogger. but recently i turned into a dead blogger(as not a dead blogger but dead who was a blogger). i tried to find out reasons and the only one thing that i could think was that i was bored with this whole blogging thing. so i kinda tried to reinvent myself with a new name. lets hope this name motivates me to blog more.

aapka,
miyan fatte

Glimpses of Arunachal

I was brought up in a place called Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh. Now, whether or not I like the place is an issue for another day but there is one thing that is unmistakable in Arunachal Pradesh- its scenic beauty. Every day, this State is first to witness sunrise in India hence it is also called 'the land of rising sun' and that’s how it gets its name- ‘Arunachal’. Like other Himalayan states, this state too is generously gifted in terms of Scenic beauty and hence has a large potential as a tourism hub. In fact the place could well be country’s signature in wild life tourism, adventure sports and most importantly- Hydro electricity. But why the promise in all these fields is still only a ‘promise’ and why any attempts towards fulfillment of this promise are thwarted is again a debate for another day.
What I’d like to share with you are a few stills of Arunachal Pradesh displaying God’s genius at aesthetic.
The photographer is not a professional and the pics have been taken using a cell camera… hence probably might not be awe inspiring (mind you, the place has potential to give awe inspiring stills). Also the photographer has a bias towards taking sunrise pics, he has clicked a lot of them so bear with me :P.
















PS: The photographer happens to be my brother and i'm publishing the pics without his permission... so i thought might as well acknowledge him :)

AGNEEPATH

I have this awesome poem collection by Shree Harivnsh Rai Bachachan- Meri Shrestha Rachnayein at my home. while going through it, i came across this most brilliant poem by the master poet... its a very motivating sort of a poem. i actually like to read it if i'm kind of in need of some inspiration. so here it goes.

अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ!
वृक्ष हों भले खड़े,
हों घने, हो बड़े,
एक पत्र छाह भी मांग मत, मांग मत, मांग मत!!
अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ!

तू न थकेगा कभी,
तू न थमेगा कभी,
तू न मुड़ेगा कभी,
कर शपथ, कर शपथ, कर शपथ!
अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ!

यह महान दृश्य है,
चल रहा मनुष्य है,
अश्रु -श्वेद- रक्त से लथपथ, लथपथ, लथपथ!
अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ!
---श्री हरिवंश राय बच्चन

down the one side lane...

Again I’m on the forbidden lane. Why does this happen to me? I saw her, didn’t feel a thing. She’s a Normal girl u see… just like any other girl u meet in Indian towns. Then I talked to her and I realized she’s not that normal after all… the girl has got brains(ok, I admit though with the fear of being called sexist- girls with brain is a rare species), she can talk and in fact can debate aggressively. And the moment I realized all this, I entered the forbidden lane. This lane has one way traffic and I have entered it. There seems to be no end to end to this lane and the possibilities of the lane being open for both side of traffic is nearly null. So basically I’m stuck. The lane is one way so I can’t take a U turn. Only hope is praying for the traffic to get open from the opposite side. But why did this happen. When I reached this lane there was a bold signboard- “One way Traffic” and still I entered. Why did I? Sometimes I feel, despite being seated in the driver’s seat I’m not the driver… the car is driving itself on its own. That’s the worst part… this car, which I’m supposed to be driver of, is acting on its own accord and I can’t decipher the algorithm on which it works. If I’m the driver I should be allowed to drive deciding which lane to enter and which not to. Ok let’s see… entering the lane was not my choice but the speed of the car was certainly my choice. Maybe I drove too fast; could have driven a little slow and after some time the traffic from the other side would have opened. But that was just not meant to be... god!! do something.


Too cryptic post eh? Didn’t get it? Don’t try… u won’t get it

मत कहो आकाश में कुहरा घना है

recently, while surfing the net i came across this poem... this is one of my favorite poems. hope you like it.

मत कहो आकाश में कुहरा घना है,
यह किसी की व्यक्तिगत आलोचना है.

सूर्य हमने भी नहीं देखा सुबह से,
क्या करोगे, सूर्य का क्या देखना है.

इस सड़क पर इस कदर कीचड बिछी है,
हर किसी का पांव घुटनो तक सना है.

पक्ष और प्रतिपक्ष संसद में मुखर है,
बात इतनी है की कोई पुल बना है.

रक्त वर्षों से नसों में खौलता,
आप कहते हैं क्षडिक उत्तेजना है?

हो गयी हर घाट पर पूरी व्यवस्था,
शौक से डूबे जिसे भी डूबना है.

दोस्तों अब मंच पर सुविधा नहीं है,
आजकल नेपथ्य में संभावाना है!!
-दुष्यंत कुमार

Three idiots- seriously?

This Christmas we had another Aamir Khan movie uplift the benchmarks for revenues generated by a movie to stratospheric heights. The immense success of this movie- 3 idiots, has not only left vidhu vinod chopra(producer), raj Kumar hirani(director) and Amir khan laughing their way to banks but also won them the much aspired critical acclaim. This movie has specially been popular among the youth and the songs “aall is well” and “give me some sunshine” have acquired the cult status of campus anthems. But let us see what this movie directly or indirectly surmises.
There is little doubt to the fact that three idiots is an amazing movie. But it is an “amazing movie”-full stop! Nothing more than that… you’ll get the worth of your money- go buy the ticket, spend two and a half enjoyable hours at the theater, laugh your posterior off and come back. For this movie I might suggest a statement from our campus lingo “dil pe lene ki zaroorat nahi hai”.
If you give it a proper thought, you’ll be able to see that the two biggest sins committed by this movie are- its tendency of stereotyping and its polar nature. Though different in nature, both the sins are interrelated.
The movie stereotypes the higher education system in India and pushes it to a pole where it is totally rubbish- there may be a lot of truth in that but it is not completely true. Indian economy has been one of the fastest growing economies in the last decade- no nation can sustain that growth rate of its economy with a completely hopeless system of higher education, there has to be something good in it. True, our education system doesn’t have a lot of room for originality of thought and creativity but it’s not as though it has none of it!! The fact that I am a part of this education system and still thinking on my free will to write this article is itself a proof enough that there is still a lot of room for creativity too- without descending to the level of being a complete academic disaster. And apart from all of this, one good thing about the Indian education system that u can’t deny is that it instills a good work ethic among the students. It makes the students understand that there is no shortcut to success and the only way to attain and retain excellence is hard work- whatever may be type of excellence u desire.
The movie is culprit of stereotyping the teachers as fanatic, heartless and impractical bunch of jokers through just one character- professor Viru S. What it fails to remind is that such caricatures may be one in a thousand. Any average teacher may be anything but he certainly does not have any iota of resemblance with the character of Viru S. Ask any educated Indian- he/she will tell u about at least one (if not four- five) teacher who, at some stage of his education motivated him and would be a source of inspiration for rest of his/her life. This proves we do have a substantial amount of good teachers. Yes, this substantial amount might not be enough, we may need many, and many more of such teachers but this fact doesn’t make every teacher a Viru Sahastrabuddhi. The glass is also half full my friend.
The polar nature of the movie is depicted by its characters:
Rancho- incredibly talented person who doesn’t study even a little and is topper.
Chatur- Cramming expert crams everything and everything in front of him and is second topper.
Raju- doesn’t study even a little, second last person of batch according to grades.
Farhaan- again doesn’t study and is last person of batch according to grades.
It says nothing about the average people. The people who are moderately talented put in a sufficient amount of hard work and get average grades. These people make majority and hence it is these people who run our economy.
The movie tries to establish that you should be naturally gifted in any field in order to pursue a career in it or study it. You should not study engineering unless you are as gifted as the character Rancho. In case you are not as gifted as rancho- go about doing things like wild life photography. This sends wrong message- wild life photography is not some sweet hobby which does not require hard work. No one is a born wild life photographer, though one may be extra ordinary talented in wild life photography but even he has to get a proper education in the subject in which you have to put an equal amount of hard work in order to make a good career. So it again boils down to that tedious routine of classes, exams, results, projects doesn’t it?
Some might say the underlying message of the movie is “everybody has his strengths” and pursue your strength. But everybody also has his standards. What if my personal strength is academics but because I am not as gifted as some Rancho of my class is and I can’t top. What should I do- commit suicide as a character, fed up of his principal does in the movie? The phrase “I Quit” from that particular suicide scene in the movie seems to have become quite fashionable these days- I saw it in the orkut display image of one of my juniors and in orkut tagline of another ones. It leaves me wondering are we so feeble, unmotivated and inspirationally bankrupt lot that we quit on life just because we don’t have the life going our way?
Similar to 3 idiots, a Marathi movie titled “shikshanaaka Aicha Gho” has been made and if you ask a Marathi speaking person for the meaning of the title, he’ll tell u that it literally means “shiksha ki maa ka” (screw the education system)!! Do we want the future of our country in hands of people who hate education?? Do we want our next generation to have this notion that our education system completely trash and deserves to be screwed?
I don’t claim that our education system is perfect. It sure is in need of urgent reforms to relieve the pressure and strain and help develop more multidimensional personalities. But then we have to be the change that we want to see; only complaining is not going to help. Why can’t we work out solutions for the shortcomings of our education system.
Also we have to aware that any change in the education system can’t be carried out overnight. Our HRD minister Mr. Kapil Sibal has carried out educational reforms for class 10 board exam- these reforms are indeed very visionary in nature and similar(or even more extensive) reforms might be needed at the intermediate and higher levels. The media might be much more constructive if it suggested some reforms. No change in the education system is going take place overnight it will come in its due course.
Criticism is welcome but it should be constructive. What these movies do is instill a thinking into children that anything that causes ‘stress’ is evil- it should either be attacked or not even be attempted.
This incredible popularity of the movie in campuses across the country depicts only one thing that the youth of our nation is in no mood to study. If we keep hyping the movies like 3 idiots as we are doing now- we might soon become intellectually bankrupt. The tales of India being a global giant in outsourcing IT services might become only a glorified part of Indian history. Let’s not let that happen!!

being at the wrong side of the table!!

Hi guys… I am sure if you happen to be reading this post, you might have appeared for a viva at some point of your life or other. If you are from my college; well then you know what a horrifying experience can these turn out to be. Most of us lesser mortals have by now understood the Pranjal’s law of Viva. Now let me introduce you to pranjal’s law of Viva. This law is like the first law of thermodynamics (energy can neither be created nor be destroyed) - everybody knew this but then suddenly someone came and said this is a law, big deal!

But anyways you all also may be very much aware of the Pranjal’s law of Viva but I hereby claim the credit of forming this law which states that “It is immaterial whether you prepare or not, if you are a lesser mortal appearing for a viva, you are invariably going to get screwed.”

And for your reference, “lesser mortal” in this law is defined as any student appearing for a viva who is not a fanatic psychopath doomed to be immersed in sordid melancholy of text books all his life. But considering this definition, your general perception may be that no nine pointer can be lesser mortal. But here I’d beg to differ with this general perception. U need not be a “fanatic psychopath doomed to be immersed in sordid melancholy of text books all his life” to be a nine pointer, sheer brilliance may also suffice. The grade sheets of a couple of nine pointers of my batch, whom I’m proud to say I know closely, are the testimony of this fact (I could give you the names if you asked for ‘em).

Anyways mathematically,

If you are x such that  x Є A, you are screwed.

A is a set defined as, A= U-F

And U and F are sets defined further as,

U= universal set of all the students appearing in viva

F= set of fanatic psychopaths doomed to be immersed in sordid melancholy of text books all        their life.

So people next time you screw your viva, just recall the “Pranjal’s law of Viva”, you may find some solace in the despair.

Disclaimer: My work does not account for the breed of people we call toady or more popularly known as arse licker. The Pranjal’s law of viva may be applied to everyone else.

 

PS: This law has been drafted on the basis of experimental observations made during my last three years at the wrong side of the table. And as you would have concluded from the taste of this law, those observations haven’t been very merry. And the fact that the sadist butchers at the other side found bliss in our state added insult to injury!! But that was when I had not formed the law. Now that I have formed the law, I too resonate in the bliss of the sadist butchers!! Because as they say- “pain is inevitable but suffering is optional!!”