Lovely gatecrashers

Resting on our old dining chairs,

we watched and awaited India’s win,

dinner waiting for long to be served,

lost all its steam over the plates.

suddenly, gate crashed chilling winds,

wind chimes singing the wind’s strength

they added pseudo as a prefix to summer

and then robbed us of electricity.

isolating the chairs, we marched outside,

into the balcony, into the wind’s empire.

the gatecrashers robbed us again,

this time of our stress, of our forehead’s creases.

the sky clicked our photo, then came a

late capture sound, we revised

light travels faster than sound!

yeah! Wise people in the empire!

they gate crashed our silence,

into our gloomy air,

to cherish us,

to be a part of their celebration.

Preserve the elixir of your life

March 22, World Water Day. It’s ironical that people have still got hues of Holi before water conservation messages have caught their eyes and ears on radio and social networking sites. To all those people, I urge to compensate all the buckets of water they spilled this Holi. Mentioning some statistics, by 2050, we would be left with below 100cu.kms of water with 550cu.kms in 1997 if we remain consistent on our current per capita water consumption. I quote the words of respected MK Gandhi that earth has enough for everyone’s needs but not for everyone’s greed. I know that it’s not out of greed but just irrational use of water that is turning the water bodies narrower. A family of four in my locality has a single water connection and another family of five has two water connections and is a weekly receptor of tanker service. These families need to be shaken hard so that they break out from their comfortable zone to get some reality hiccups. We have a long way to go in mass water conservation and turning passive at the start line will indebt us with 324 bcm of water 2050, so we have to take some quick and well planned steps starting at the lowest level. Inculcating the habit of rational resources’ use in our children from a young age will pacify the thirst of many coming generations. I think that there are two ways through which we can contribute in the water conversation campaign. The first way is to simply use less water but if you have an industrial work domain and can’t scale down the high usage of water then focus more on compensating that high usage. Executing any of the two ways needs a close and detailed analysis of our daily routine or of the complete procedure of work at our workplace. We have to figure out our flaws and then chalk out the conversation manifesto which can be both at the house level and at the society level. Our government has a critical role in water conversation because they have got the power, financial aid and authority to implement the latest techniques and technologies in bulk at different places in our country. It should constantly keep a tab on different conferences and summits to get know-how of various conversation methods and side by side developing water efficient technologies. Other than this, it should periodically roll out awareness drives in collaboration with the young generation. These drives and campaigns should stretch up to the remote areas and should be designed keeping in mind the location and the monetary condition of the people there. Recycling of water is another field awaiting its exploitation for water conversation. We should also bolster our energy production and management to reduce the load on our nature. Natural resource management department should be outsourced to enterprises which specialize in this domain and these enterprises should use cloud service so that they can apply the conversation techniques of one company to another. Hope we succeed in our attempt.

The colorful 17th march

Shouts, whistles, Honey Singh mashups, Holi playlists, water splashes and many more sounds converged together today to shoot the decibel and energy level around me and you, pleasantly high. I have fallen poor of the adjectives to engage your imagery because this atmosphere is a blend of all the synonyms of fun and happiness. The roads appeared to say that this time they were leveled in red tar and not in black, people’s faces covered with colors more than my color box, in number. Holi marks that historical moment when good triumphed over evil, when a true devotee’s belief conquered the pride of an atheist. I wish all the blessings, happiness and also the strength to tackle all the problems of your life for you on this ‘festival of gulal’. 

Happy holi, be safe and remember to compensate the buckets of water you empty today. Have fun.

A lesson from my exams -IV

From now on, I should see you watching movies of Christian bale only. I want you to learn cricket and watch its matches giving up on all your hobbies and leisure activities. 

A very good evening to all of you. What thoughts engaged your mind after reading the above lines or more precisely, orders, commands. You would have felt like a burden if you are not in a habit of the above activities. This is the last way of reinforcement, extinction. When you make a person do or adopt something that you desire without his consent although for his betterment, then you are seen as a dictator by him and you know that dictatorship never has followers. Ironically, the individual will develop hatred or anger for the desired activity or his surroundings and not for you if you actually hold an important position in his life because then he will always try not  to hurt you and will vent his frustration in surroundings and in his social life. Not at all  exaggerating, he will transform into a ‘touch me not’ type, Change his surroundings and he will just succumb down. Extinction has a direct effect on a person’s confidence and  attitude towards life. I hope nobody is enduring an extinction on him/her, talking especially of the child labor in different parts of the world. Please, let our children feel that slavery is just a word in dictionary and nothing else.

A lesson from my exams - III

India collapsed before the final of Asia cup after a loss to Pakistan, their tagged arch rivals. Sahara chief  Mr. Subrato Roy tasted black ink due to a non refund of money to their investors. LS polls’ dates have been released leaving the prestigious IPL in disarray with its head either in UAE or Bangladesh and tail in India. So, India has really a lot of activities going on. Amid all these, I try to make you sleep over the third way of reinforcement which is named punishment, a frequently used noun. Remember the second part of the series? This one is exactly its mirror image because in the second one we eliminated a negative situation while in this one we throw upon a negative situation, all for the same motive of a positive change. By now, parents must have relived the minutes of scolding their toddlers and teachers, the tight slaps to the mischievous students’ club of schools! Punishments are being used since the earliest of time to make the wrong doers realize their mistake. The Big Five punishments of ancient dynastic china were brutal and really can force a person to fear the wrong. It included tattooing, cutting off the nose, amputation, castration and finally death.

Punishments are an effective way to combat unpleasant behavior but they are like antibiotics, excessive use has dangerous side effects and should be used after correctly judging the requirement. When a sick throat can be handled with a handful of Tulsi leaves then antibiotics should be at a distance. Similarly when a wrongdoing can be rectified with mutual understanding or the previous two ways then punishment should be far off or you will blame yourselves for another wrongdoing, this time by you but side by side sometimes antibiotics is the only option left for us.  

The bangles are jangling loudly

Commencing with raising a toast for all the women there, giving respect and warm wishes to them on this women's day, I want to tell you what were the highlights of my day before today. I know that I am a day late on this post but this is according to the calenders. Yesterday, while running for the breakfast, I just braked by an irregularly thick copy of hindustan times which had the disappearance of a malaysian airlines owned boeing 777 over the south china sea as the front page filler. Inside were lots of articles and columns, all for and by our bangle bearers that got me engrossed in them right from the first line. Here, I want to particularly share some interviews' extracts of students, entrepreneurs, producers, directors, sportspersons and one of a gaffer. A student in her 15th year of life had a very inspiring collection of words in her synopsis ed  interview that "of all the days, it is today that we all get a brief glimpse of a true developing nation". Then there were mithali raj's words echoing her troubles leading the 11 women in blue. She said that belonging to a tamil family made it odd for her to take cricket seriously since no one in her family was into this. So, she had to face questions but was mostly shielded by her parents who always stood for her, financially and as her strength. She also recalled that while in train journeys, when the co passengers had the 11 acknowledged as their national women cricket team, they cracked all types of jokes, giggling and her team sat there as stooges. Then my eyes had the name of hetal dedhia on their retina. As a prelude, she is our bollywood's first female gaffer. I honestly had not expected a woman in this profession but she said that her father was her biggest source of inspiration. She enjoys her work, surrenders to stress somedays but dreams to reach heights.
so, the bangles are jangling loudly and can dominate any sound, be it the devil sound of rapists only
Kudos to all...     

A lesson from my exams -II

Good evening friends! it has been long since I have blogged last so let us start from a quick recap for which one statement would be enough, positive reinforcement has been proved to be a good way to make people change, adopt or drop a behavior. We had decided that we would be pondering over four ways or four stages of reinforcement. So, the next in the line is negative reinforcement. Starting from its definition, negative reinforcement refers to the eradication of a bad situation, circumstance or even a consequence from a person's life when he/she agrees for positive behavioral changes. This is in fact another form of positive reinforcement with the person being rewarded indirectly in this. Also, positive reinforcement works more on children and for our respected elderly generation, I give preference to negative reinforcement. Here I would like to make the meaning of reinforcement clear to all, it refers to the strengthening or regular practicing of a behavior in return of a direct or indirect reward. By now, you all would have situations running through your mind where you unknowingly had used negative reinforcement to take charge of the situation or you may be comparing negative reinforcement with the method you had used at that time. One situation in which I think our government used it, may be unknowingly is the provision of mid day meals during school hours. I cited this example because the biggest responsibility of parents in poor families is to make their children's stomach undergo digestion atleast two times a day. So, if their children are having a complete meal during daytime then the burden and tension of parents reduces to half which is the subtraction of a negative situation from their lives. The positive outcome from this indirect reward is the practice of sending children school daily to learn and make their future. I know that the problems of both the parents and children does not end here but atleast the light of education is lit to disperse the darkness. So, happy reading and may your wrong habits, if any find you a bad host.