Saddest Soliloquy

It is just so difficult to follow mathematics. I hate Algebra. Damn It! I haven't even memorised the volume formulae of cubes,cones and sphere. Inshallah Allah! These shouldn't be asked in the tests. Once the test is over ; we shall break for tiffin and I will eat Ammi Jaan's made mutton biryani. Yesterday she made me study so much,today I will definitely go home and play cricket out in the fields with Bashir. There is also some good anime to be shown on Cartoon Network if Abbu lets me watch it , and not sit down with his News on Paktv.
Ufff..Here comes the teacher. "Allah , please please let the questions be easy!! Please Please"
Okay so the first question that I can read on board  is 5 taps fill 7 litre  of water tank in 9 hours . In how many hours can 4 taps fill half the tank.   I hope my pen is working. This seems to be an easy question. The answer is ..........  .
Just a minute  "Why is Nila raising her hand? Oh,damn she already has doubts in the second question. "Riaz come on hurry," I say to myself.
   All of a sudden where is this sound coming from?
5 loud bangs. This is not the time for fire crackers. Oh my God! I can hear people shouting. The teacher asks us to continue writing test. She is gone but we can all sense the frenzy in the air. Bilal and front benchers rush to the door. There is too much of running around and stamping on the floor above.
" Gunshots " Bilal screams .
"There is an attack"Bilal cries again prying from the door to the groud in front of him  .
 "Ammi Jaan Abbu Jaan ,Please save us , Please save me"
" I want to go home and play. I was telling Ammi Jaan that I had a stomach ache. I wish I could have been at home"
Oh Teacher is back but why is she so afraid?
Teacher bolting the classroom from inside" Children hide below your desks"
"Why?"
We all make space under the desk but there is far too much of noise around with desks being shifted.
A man opens the classroom door with a jolt. Oh He has a machine gun,much like Abbu has in his army camps.
"No he just shot teacher"
"DRrrrrrrrrrrrr Drrrrrrrrrrrrrr Drrrrrrrrrrrr" He has shot the entire first two rows  .
 "Ammi Nooooooo"
"I dont want to die like Araf just did".
"Allah just save me"
These people ,who are they? They are in uniform like Abu"
Men in uniform crying out to children," Come out you rest of children,Follow me to the auditorium,Just shut up and come out"
Ohhh.. I must go to the auditorium. Maybe I will be safe. But I don't want to die. "Allah please protect me"
I leave the classroom just realising that I am still breathing while walking on the pool of blood. Nila had just finished answering her second question and now she is dead.
As I am making my way out of class ,along with my classmates I can see some 30 students from the second floor with their hands up making their way to the auditorium. Maybe these Shaitans
will spare us. Maybe they will just kidnap us. Maybe I just turned lucky. May be I will live to see Ammi and Abbu.
    Why are we all being asked to queue up outside the auditorium? What did these men get by shooting?
I cant just stop crying.
"Oh No... What is this?? Who is this person in fire? How did the person catch fire? I can only hear howls,shrieks and cries all around.
  " What!!! What!! So many armed gunmen? Oh no This guy has already taken out his gun again parallel to the ground. What is he aiming at?"
"Oh no...Drrrrrrrrrrrrr Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.."
Did he just shoot the first queue.
There are twenty of us in this queue. Are we going to end up the same way? But why?
 Abbu!! Ammi !! Please Save me Abbu!!
No...No...
"Drrrrrrrrrrrrr....Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...Drrrrrr"

 The next day journalists reach Riaz's class to see how humanity died that day in Peshawar's Army public School.

Why Knot?

Out in front of her eyes stood the vast expanse of the endless sea.Her eyes drifted from one end to the other . The salty breeze slapped her bony cheeks and her eyes  started to swell with emotions just like the sea frothing with humungous waves. The rains had started to patter and the petrichore grew stronger. The noolia started warning people inside the sea to come out. The tide was high and inclement  August weather was imminent. She had never wanted to come to Puri. She had told her husband that.Yet he insisted.   Now she could see him at some distance......

3 years back....

“We are all going to Puri . Don’t you want to come? It is a family trip. Dad and I along with Dada, Dadi,Bua ,Uncle, Kaku and KakiMa and your little cousin Shiv everyone will be there.” I told mom that I needed time to think. Eventually I decided to go.It would be fun after all. It had been quite some time since all of us had been together.The first day when we reached Bhubaneswar it was fun eating Dadi’s homemade condiments rich in ghee and sugar. Funny that Dadaji still needed Dadi to give him all his clothes and utilities. He would cry out Dadi’s name and ask for stuffs  and Dadi would chide him like he was 5 year old asking him why it was not possible for him to take care of his belongings. The place where we were staying in Puri was more of a holy shrine that in local parlance is known as Dharamshala with a big courtyard where priests sang hymns continuously.The first day we went for darshan to the famous Lord Jagannath temple. I have always had a grudge against the superstitious rituals that are done in the name of faith and religion. Can’t we pray in silence? Why is it that I need to tussle in and strangulate myself in a dense smelly crowd just to see a God’s image whose photo I see everyday? Ma as always asked me to shed away my need for reason and logic and strictly asked me to wear the garb of tradition . What an ordeal it was to get a glimpse of Jagannath,Subhadra and Balram. I felt sorry for my 10 year old cousin Shiv and was constantly reaching out to make sure he wasn’t crushed in this swarm of mortals. After that pandemonium of darshan  the next day Dad ,Dadaji ,Shiv, Kaku and I decided to go into the sea and bathe in it.

     I was given the primary responsibility of clicking pictures as I was the proud owner of a new smartphone. Dadaji who had taught me to take dip in the holy Ganges tried to recreate the same only to be sent ashore by the strong waves . Luckily Dad came to rescue at the right moment and we further asked Dadaji  to stay onshore. By this time 10 year old Shiv was in the sea alone jumping as each time the currents lashed against the shore. Shiv was a child and his curiosity was only making him take baby steps into the ocean. Another wave lashed out on the shore and while receding Shiv was moving along with it into the ocean. Dad and I left Dadaji onshore and darted towards Shiv. Luckily we rescued him. Poor Shiv was reprimanded by my dad  for his little adventure stint and even received a spank by his dad. As the sun uncovered from the clouds, the heat became scorching and we decided to go back to the dharamsala. Our room was on the second floor. Shiv wanted to see all the snaps I had clicked on the beach. Of course I was wary of handing the kiddo my smartphone. Nevertheless he asked for it, and I gave it to him. “Angry birds is my favourite game,How can I play that?” , Shiv asked. Irritated by his pestering demand , I taught him to play the game with the projectile aim.Shiv started humming his favourite song while playing on my mobile phone,sitting on the projected window sill. His  body  resting against the aluminium glass window. Meanwhile Dadi came into the room looking for Shiv. I was putting on kajal on the mirror. “Where are is my little Shivi? I heard about your mischief in the sea” . Shiv tried to hide from Dadi and leaned on further pressurising himself against the window.

In a moment my Kajal dropped and my eyes turned towards the window. I couldn’t believe what I had seen. Shiv was not there on the window sill nor was the window there. I heard a thud on the ground and the sound of crackling glass. What followed was Dadi ‘s screams of “Save Shiv, Save my child “ He has fallen down. The window broke along with the frame.” We darted downstairs. The child was covered in a pool of blood. The remaining description sends a shudder through my spine. His mom i.e my aunt was wailing. The ambulance was called and Shiv was taken to the hospital. The authorities confirmed what we all were anticipating with horror and disgust. Shiv was cremated then and there itself at Puri’s seaside cremation ghat.

Puri never will never be a holiday destination for her . She had told her husband that.Yet he insisted.   Now she could see Shiv at some distance......


That distance had made her look at life from a new direction.

MAKE A MOOC

When the Indian born Satya Nadella was announced as the new CEO of Microsoft this is what he said,"I am a lifelong learner who buys more books and signs up for more online courses than he could ever complete.I am just crazy ambitious in the 15 minutes I have in the morning. You know, I'm trying to listen to a neuroscience class or something,

         Self learning unequivocally has been the highest form scholarship.

Greatest geniuses and freethinkers were self taught in many ways. Eg. Aristotle,Da Vinci ,Einstein and even Bill Gates to a great extent. What astonishes me now is the amount that people pay to earn lofty degrees. On one hand we talk of the internet spreading its tentacles in every possible nook and cranny of our lives and on the other the skyrocketing costs of getting a higher education degree. In this day and age when Google has answer to every question. Why then go for the expensive alternative?
  My views have been contradicted by people telling me that computers cannot replicate the classroom experience . The best of the teachers come at a price and that the college and hostel accommodation and infrastructure need to be paid for. Clearly education in such a case is bound to be the privelege of the rich. The challenge of the time lies in making education accessible to everyone. This will upgrade skills and make the work force more employable which in turn will strengthen economy. It was probably because of  this reason why the former govt had launched the NPTEL stream on youtube where IIT professors were asked by the MHRD to upload their class lecture in video format so that the rest of the country could utilise it. Economist Jagdish Bhagwati had expressed that he was bullish in advising erstwhile Education Minister Kapil Sibal to harness online education to employ the workforce. It was probably this reason why the current budget emphasised using online training programs. “ To take advantage of the reach of the IT, I propose to allocate a sum of Rs.100 crore for setting up virtual classrooms as Communication Linked Interface for Cultivating Knowledge (CLICK) and online courses.” Said Mr. Jaitly

   In what is now known as the disruptive technology in education MOOC(Massive Open Online Course) is here to break such myths(or atleast I hope so). The sci -fi writer and visionary Issac Asimov had predicted long back that there will come a time when Man will use a tool that will disseminate information in waves and going to school will become redundant. I am not sure if Pink Floyd had heard Asimov while making the song "We don't need no education".

   What started with a few DIY (do it yourself) videos and Khanacademy is now burgeoning into the gen- next education tool. Having been an active learner and MOOCer ,I can't believe how befitting coursera has proved to be.While tomes were always available,the audio visual form of lectures is more comprehensive than any other form. I personally download these lectures . The courses are spread over a month or two. Each week is afresh with new lectures. On an average there are 6 lectures per week. Each lecture being only 10 to 15 minutes long. You can download them on a weekly basis on your smartphones. I personally spend 15 minutes after lunch or dinner and go through these lecture while strolling(multi tasking at its best!) . You could go through them while commuting on  metro or while sitting on the local bus en route office. Then take half an hour on Sunday to fill up the weekly  tests. The gamut of courses range from medicine,business,economics,philosophy ,statistics ,management and engineering.

  The websites certify you on course completion if you clear the cut off marks. Websites like coursera,edx,udacity,iversity have most of their courses for free. You get a certificate of accomplishment mentioning your name on these certificates. However If you want a verified certificate with your picture on it and a certificate of distinction with your final score  you may have to shell out a sum of 40$. This too isn't  much as most of the universities are of international repute.The courses have active forums where you can shoot a question to the professor or connect with international students and learn from each other.

     On the flip side,statistics also suggests that many students who sign up for these courses don’t always complete them. Though a lot of people enroll for courses,but only a certain percentage is able to sustain the discipline  and rigour to finish the courses. A few of my inquizitive friends roll into too many courses at one time,and end up finishing none.I would advise them to go for one course at a time.  This is because one has to be self motivated for learning through this medium just as is the case with other certification exams.Another issue lies with the  acceptability of these certifications.While the US is accepting MOOC with linkendin.com  hyperlinking your  certificates  to  add credentials to your resume,the trend has still to be accepted in India. Marissa Mayer's Yahoo has tied up with with coursera and is sponsoring courses for its employees and so has Mc Afee.

    Most Importantly,It is the passion for knowledge and learning that needs to be kindled. Freethinkers and self learners will get massive leverage through these programs.  Only then can we harness MOOC for skill enhancement and  nation building. Here is a TED talk that will provide you food for thought on similar lines . In a country teeming with below poverty lines families’ children,a concept like this would work wonders.

   

May Wave

  Nicky couldn’t bear it. It was getting excruciating now.She asked the chauffeur  to quickly switch on the AC straight after he opened the car door for her. “Just a minute Madam” .The sweltering heat at Moras in the Rajasthan-Gujarat border  had left her mouth scorched . Her polarized wayfarers were transmitting the UV rays that made her eyes dance. No sooner had she ensconced herself in the back seat of the SUV than she reached out for the Coke can to quench her seemingly insatiable thirst. Alas! The coke can had conducted the heat inside and the secret formula was no longer a “cold drink”.“Bhanu Bhaiya can we find some mineral water nearby?” Nicky Seth asked her driver.“I have exhausted all the five mineral water bottles  I was carrying”.
    Nicky thought again of her hectic morning.She had reached Moras early morning at 7 am . Since then she had given speeches at the local Panchayats,Gram Sabhas. The men were mesmerized by the glamour their upcoming Neta exuded in the humble but chic white Salwar Suit she was wearing . She had walked some 6-8 kms around the village schools and promised that she would ensure better education infrastructure if her father came to power. She had visited  the women self help groups and listened to their daily problems.The snake bites that had taken away the lives of children. The problem of men leaving back families at Moras while they went looking for work outside village and state. Her economics  education at King’s College had already made her aware of these problems. The last time Nicky had visited the place was when she had to present a paper on "Poverty and deprivation-How to create opportunities ".  She remembered how little had things changed over a period of 10 years. 10 years back she and her friends from College Colleen and Markus had accompanied her to Rajasthan. Indeed it was a romantic land for tourists.

    Nicky had fallen asleep in a jiffy and when the SUV buckled under the stony pathway  on the road she woke up to feel thirsty again. She glanced at her watch and saw that it had only been twenty minutes since they had started from Moras and her palate was crying out for water.
“Bhanu Bhaiya,can Is there no where we can get water?”

“Madam we have to reach Jodhpur for that or we could stop any passing car and ask for water”

Nicky didn’t consider that a safe option. She wished she had listened to her dad’s advice of landing at Moras on a chopper. Had she not been crazy and adventurous to have taken the austere option of travelling in the SUV. She was getting delirious. Suddenly she was struck by a bright flash in her mind. She reached her hands for her handbag and after rummaging through the inner recesses found out the chewing gum that had been  there . 

“How far Bhanu Singh from Jodhpur are we?”

“2 hours and half Madam”

“Damn It!”, She thought.  Nicky didn’t even have network on her cellphone.

The strawberry flavor in her mouth gave her some respite. Nicky switched on her I-phone and what a coincidence. I-tunes was streaming “The desert rose” . In a while Nikita Seth's rumination led her to a state of senselessness.Somewhere in the deep pockets of her unconscious mind she could see a water pond. As soon as she came near the water there was this barren stretch of land again. Mirage! and she fainted.
     "She is alive. She is fine now."  Nicky couldn’t understand the delightful cheer . It took a few moments for her to understand what was going on. Rhodopsin bleaching in her eyes. She rubbed her eyes to see 3 women cheering in Rajasthani  while Bhanu Singh stood next and asked her, “Madam are you fine?”

She asked Bhanu,” What’s going on?” Bhanu explained her that she had fainted on the back seat and luckily the bevy of women were travelling from one village to another carrying water. Hesitantly he asked for their help and they delightfully splashed water on her face to awaken her. Nicky thanked them with a mighty heart. She had avoided drinking in the village water all throughout the morning thinking it would be unhygienic and not  potable but now she could drink water from any source. She  gulped as one of the women poured water on her cupped alms.Nicky tried to thank them by tipping them with a 500 Rs note which they accepted  after initial hesitation.

  Nicky reached her mansion at Jodhpur in the evening . After a big sigh of relief  she narrated her story to her dad. She extorted a promise from her dad that if he became the MP again this year he would do something about the water issue at  Moras. Her dad said “The place is geographically handicapped Beta .There is not much that I can do” .  She argued that there must be some way.

Later in night she tweeted "Water is life. Thanks to the women of Rajasthan”and shared the photo on facebook with a caption “Incredible India!”

 After reading and checking the responses on her posts Nicky decided to relax and call it a day after her regular evening swim . She went to their mansion’s pool and  found the dewatering pump emptying the swimming pool.Irony she thought.
"Abundance in Scarcity or Scarcity in Abundance?" She tweeted standing next to the pool.

AWE SCAR!

My tryst with the Oscars dates back to 1999.

I had watched the entire ceremony as Shekhar Kapoor’s Elizabeth had been nominated . With such a direct Indian connect there were bound to be questions raised in the subsequent quizzes .Interestingly the etymology of the Oscars is disputed.One biography of actress Bette Davis claims that she named the Oscar after her first husband, band leader Harmon Oscar Nelson. Another claimed origin is that the Academy's Executive Secretary,Margaret Herrick, first saw the award in 1931 and made reference to the statuette's reminding her of her "Uncle Oscar" 

  Whoopi Goldberg I remember had hosted the 1999 Oscars but was hilarious enough to make a novice like me laugh.Sadly the  internet  hadn't seen its inception around in those days but the Oscar tag left me captivated. Dad would pick and choose English movies that we could watch under parental guidance. Whenever newspapers or magazines covered anything on the Oscars I would read the entire story and dig deeper into it.  After all these years of following Oscars so closely,I am still enthralled by them and will continue to be. The academy comprises of intellectuals who celebrate victory of human spirit. The Academy embraces all and loves movies with a social message especially that of an individual’s strength. The indomitable human spirit that transcends sex,nationality,colour .There is a joke that if you want to win the Oscars make a movie either on Holocaust,War, Gay rights or handicap. Jokes apart human rights remain the  the most important issues we face today.

   The beauty of each nominated movie lies in the fact that they are  surreal and sublime. Like most stories the academy votes for human inspiration and pushing boundaries and limitless thinking.They are mostly based  on true stories. Be it this year’s Philomina,Captain Phillips or yesteryear’s Milk, Mystic River,Frost Nixon,Argo and so many more. If not that then they adapt some of the greatest books written. Eg To Kill A Mocking Bird,Shawshank Redemption, Lord of the Rings. Each of these being specimen of great storytelling..

 The special category of animated feature film also gets special attention. Winning the Oscar awards is extremely good marketing for these movies when they start fetching millions beyond English speaking countries as they get translated and subtitled. The science and maths that go behind making these movies is also a different form of innovation. There is the special Scientific and Technical awards given by the academy that is presented before the glitzy award night. The mega bucks pumped into art direction brings out the best of creative geniuses. Imagine dolby sound effects and 3D cinema experiences as cornerstones of technology.

       The choice of anchors has mostly been great with comedians like Whoopi Goldberg,BillyCrystal and Steve Martin hosting it more than once and  pleasing everyone with their satirical humour. Ellen was a pleasant surprise this year too. Her style was queer. My favourite joke was the jibe she made at Jonah Hill.. Here  is the entire joke summary. I have  also loved the concept of best music scores of the year interspersing the awards.It is done in a very neat fashion. Even better was when Hugh Jackman was the musical host in 2009. Though we didn’t see Tom Hanks in the audience this year but we saw the real life Captain Phillips and Philomina. Barkhad Abdi was nominated in his debut role of Somali pirate after he gave up his limousine driver's job at Minnesota in real life. Contrary to last year there were no political surprises. Last year  Michelle Obama was videocalled to announce the best movie that left a lot of fans and audience in a tizzy. Never before had this happened.This year The academy announced that it would be unveiling its  museum in 2017. Now I know when to visit  USA and do more than just walk on the Hollywood walk of fame.

    If you are a documentary person make sure you watch the listed nominees for the best documentaries(both short and feature) in the Oscars as each is a masterpiece.Some of my favourites being Born in Brothels,Cove and Inside Job. One of the most contested title is that of Best foreign feature films that invites nomination from most of the countries around the world. French,Italian and Iranian movies have been regular movies in this category.

   For all those who think the razzmatazz is limited to these rich haute couture following actors, gulp the fact that Givenchy and Naeem Khan and other designers  use a lot of local artwork and craftsmanship including the Indian zardozi and chickon . I always find it sad that we take down Aishwarya for her wardrobes at Cannes,when she could simply sizzle the in one of her sarees. What is “art” and “crossover” movie in India is the normal academy movie. I believe a lot of our Indian especially regional movies have substance to put the Academy jury in awe. But why doesn’t it get such a large audience?

a)    If we make movies on gay rights/communal atrocity there is bound to be a national outrage and meaningless politics.

b)  We can never expect a feat like Meryl Streep. Indian actresses die their screen deaths once they bear children. Audiences and directors cannot give good roles to actresses in their 40s. Look at Kajol, Madhuri and Juhi.

In a country that claims to be outsourcing its brains to NASA ,MS and Apple are we intellectually that hollow to not swallow sensible cinema ?So you see why Aamir doesn’t need the validation of the Filmfare awards and the likes.Alternately many of us believe that as Indians we have just too many worries to fret in our real lives so  cinema should be dumb fun with no brainer scripts and of course hogwash songs.

As the famous twitteratti Ramesh Srivats tweeted today, “ We as Indians start finding our slimmest connects with the Oscars”. My biggest regret remains that Lagaan and Swades both didn’t  win the Oscars. Another regret is the fact that a movie like Slumdog Millionaire grabbed so many awards.I don’t think it deserved the kind of attention it did. Hopefully Anand Gandhi and likes will keep making movies like Ship of Theseus and raise our expectation in the future for bringing home an Oscar,irrespective of the lukewarm response at the box office.All that is popular doesn't need to be good.

  Now as a Girl Interrupted my google stats show that on  The Social Network shrillvoices has more readers in Pardes than in Swades.Maybe the blog is Lost in Translation or I don’t have a Beautiful Mind .Either which way I am not going to be  a million dollar baby!

  

P.S. I am still waiting for the day when they will make a movie on Richard Feynman.