Happy Diwali

Are we done? No, one or two more days to go before I can roam around freely, talk and listen to people clearly and  stop feeling victimized. Two more days to go before I can stop getting depressed thinking of  the children who have toiled at Sivakasi, a lot of whom might not be healthy enough to celebrate Diwali. Two more days to go before the animals and birds can start feeling safer. Our immune systems are already busy, bitching about us for being such fools.

To me, Diwali is all about reaffirming myself that burning crackers is not the right thing to do. You don't have to be an atheist to dislike it. You just need common sense and more importantly, you need to be non-reluctant to use that sense. As I write this, I appear to myself as a loser. My voice against this cannot be even heard in the midst of noise around.

I keep debating with people on why you should stop feeling frustrated about what is going on in our country because for most of the mess, we are the ones responsible. I've noticed that they usually they get pissed off with the corruption, politics and inflation. I completely understand their frustration. We pay taxes, yet the country isn't "growing", all because the taxes aren't being used properly, because they go into the wrong hands. We are extremely judgmental about politicians. We are the best judges. On the other side, though it isn't necessary to read a research paper to understand that burning crackers isn't good in any possible way, we still do it! There are a lot of  these things that are so simple to follow for the sake of ourselves, yet we don't. Tomorrow morning, when I see "intellectuals" talking about how much the traffic was when they were driving to Hosur to buy crackers, how much discount they could get,  boast about how their kids aren't scared about bombs and when the conversation gets boring, shift to their most favorite topic and say "This foreigner is ruining our country man", I feel more hopeless. 

I spent some 300 rupees to watch "Jab tak hai jaan" today. When I was just debating on whether I have to be choosy about movies and resist the temptation to watch my favorite actors on screen no matter what the movie is about, I saved my verdict for some other day and felt proud and relieved that I didn't burn my money on crackers.

Kokkarebellur

I hate myself for being so late in writing this. A few days back, one weekend, I had been to this magical place called kokkarebellur. Having heard about it from a couple of reliable sources, I wanted to visit the place and when I did, it turned out to be one of my favorite places. If you atleast have any remote interest in birds, this place is a treat. You can see colonies of Painted Storks and Pelicans nesting on trees, both of which are said to be in "near threatened category" as per IUCN Red list. I could also spot few Egrets, little cormorants, herons and kingfishers. The village has large water bodies and that explains why you should be able to see many of these birds.

According to few villagers that I met, the best place to visit the place is Jan-Feb when the storks and pelicans migrate and are seen in plenty here. A guy told me that in January, they find it hard to sleep because of the sounds these birds make all night. The villagers believe that these birds bring good fortune to their village and hence they make sure that these birds aren't harmed. D and I were discussing about how better it is to not educate people sometimes. If you convince them that what they are thinking is just a blind belief, they'd probably start eating these birds the next day.

Most of the storks that I saw there were juveniles. I learnt it from two sources. One, through D's bird book that I carried and two, from a local boy who is 8 years old. I showed him the pictures of an adult stork and a juvenile and asked him what are they and he quickly identified them as an adult and a juvenile correctly. He also said "If you want to see their "ammas", you should come in January". The kid earned a few chocolates before I left.

Memorables with A

A: I'm not finding a good group medical insurance scheme man. None of them meet my expectations.
Me: oh ok..
A: What have you opted?
Me: The one that our company provides.
A: oh is it good?
Me:  I felt so.
After sometime....
Me: I think you can go for the one that I've opted. It had proved to be beneficial to a lot of people I know.
A: (In a louder tone) It's OK man. I don't want anything to happen to me or my parents.
Me: (to myself) Yeah and we all want one or the other illness at home.


S: Fasting for a day with drinking a lot of water removes toxins from your body.
Me: Yeah I've heard that. Hard to practice though.
S: Yes it is. Or you can have only fruits and lots of water. This you should do for three days. If you aren't eating anything, then doing it for a day is enough.
A: Hmm what if I eat too much of fruits? (In a debating tone) I'll eat them more often. I'll eat them a lot throughout the day. Then?
S: Doesn't help.
A: Then? what's the use of fasting then! I won't do it. Won't help. (in a tone of victory of defeating S for god-knowing-reason).
Me: (to myself) F**k. it's you who are going to eat or not eat and you are going to decide if you want to fast or not fast. Nobody here gets your point.

Two days later..

A: I started fasting.
Us: Hmmm
A: It's very hard.
S: I know
After sometime..
P: Hey guys we'll go out for lunch. My treat is pending. Where shall we go?
A: Barbeque Nation!
Me: You are fasting. Eating at Barbeque Nation would be a synonym for the antonym of fasting.
A: I booked slots already. We'll go at 12:30!


U: I don't eat pizzas. Have to reduce weight. Have gained.
Me: Hmm they contain a lot of fat I know.
A: he he.. It's ok. You are not a model!
Me: I don't get your point dude. Again.

Keep waiting. I'm sure lots of shit coming up which I'll keep posting.

English for Specific Purpose

I had been to an Engineering college in Avadi, Chennai with my mom for a conference where she had to present her paper. While I was too pissed off with heat, dust, filthy buses, fancy posters and silk sarees all over ( I dislike silk sarees for reasons unknown to me), I found some reason to be happy.

There was a healthy panel discussion on whether English for Specific Purpose (ESP) is a better option than teaching English by 'General English approach' for the Engineering students. Apparently, Anna University has been using the ESP approach in its Engineering colleges and they follow a definite syllabus. They claim to have analyzed the requirements for technical students and have set the English syllabus accordingly. So the whole point of ESP is to teach English for the students in such a way that their professional needs are met. For technical students they apparently teach report-writing, writing requirement specifications, communication skills required for meetings and phone calls etc.

All those who were in favor of ESP argued that students are taught English through stories, poems and plays at schools and there is no point in doing the same during professional courses. They also made a point that ESP helps the students understand why they need to attend English classes. Their opponents argued that it is difficult to analyze the exact requirements for a profession because they keep changing and that ESP will only narrow down the scope for improving skills. I initially found it hard to judge what is better but later thought that we should stop drawing these boundaries and keep things simple and enjoyable.

Anything taught at college will be useful if and only if students can have fun with it. The problem with us is that we debate on how English can be taught effectively but we don't worry much about how to make it interesting for the students. Setting a syllabus shall make students feel that the teacher just wants to complete the syllabus. There would hardly be any surprise element in the class. We are forgetting that English is a language. A language can never be taught like mathematics or physics by setting a definite syllabus. There can be no formula to memorize. There cannot be any fixed pattern to be followed. We do this mistake at schools by making languages appear like any other subjects because of which a need to again 'teach' English for professional courses has come up and while addressing that need, we commit the same mistake.

Why do students from Bangalore talk better English than those from Shimoga even if you make them study the same syllabus? It's because they read, listen and talk English more for some reasons. So it's actually an environment that you create that helps the students more than the syllabus you set. When we talk of creating an environment, we quickly think of making it mandatory for students to talk in English. Crap. Unless reading, listening and talking are encouraged, I don't see any major changes happening. The biggest challenge is to make students go mad about these. Students with almost no motivation from anyone watch movies, talk about movies, read about movies and few even write about movies. It is indeed hard to expect same kind of self motivation always but what are schools for if they cannot take up challenges? If we put half the effort that we put on making them mug up formula on encouraging them to read, write, talk and listen English, it would be more than enough. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there should be no exams for languages. I'm pointing out that the way language is taught and the evaluation of skills is done need to be amended. Lot of steps can be taken among which I'll list out few.

* Remove the fixed syllabus or at least hide it from students. Let there be surprises in each and every class.

* Make attendance compulsory.  Yes, if I want to motivate a boy to read or write, the least I need is the boy in my class. If you make it compulsory initially and if you really are a good teacher, nothing would stop them from attending classes later.

* Let the school library have hundreds of books of all kinds and let them be rotated among students. Each student should have read a minimum of five books per each academic year and should be able to write the summary of all of them in his own words. Suppose you start this from 5th std, by the time a student comes to 10th, he would have read at least 50 books. That helps a a lot.

* Encourage discussion among groups, note down the grammar mistakes they predominantly do and correct them at the end of discussion.

* Play videos on you tube and let them catch and repeat the sentences they hear.

* Encourage story-telling, story-writing, listing new words with meanings, making sentences with new words, correcting mistakes and so on.

*Allocate marks for each of them as a back-up! Just in case if you fail to motivate them without marks.

One can find a lot of such ideas. It requires proper planning and dedication to implement them. We aren't short of experts. We just aren't ready to come up with something more challenging and new. All these can be done at home too.

I liked reading as a kid. I still do. I remember reading all the lessons in the English text books much before they are 'taught' in class. I always appreciated the different forms of sentences and words that I encountered while reading. I never practiced writing letters or reports or essays. Without my notice, whenever there was need , I used to write them more comfortable than others at class. I still regret that if only I had pulled my saturation point a bit higher and made friends with people who read and wrote more than me, I would have improved better. I feel I still suck at English. I get frustrated when I find it hard to grasp the meanings of poems that I read.

I don't support ESP. I just don't understand it. English is a language that brings people together across the globe. Let's not draw boundaries for it.

TCS does wrong.. always!

I've somehow reached a stage where if I get an offer from TCS telling me that I'd be paid double the salary I'm getting now and the work there would be more interesting and challenging besides the offer meeting all my other criteria, I think I would still think thrice. I hope I'm not offending anyone who is happy to be a part of the company. My opinion is totally based on what I've seen and experienced so far.

They've hardly done anything right so far when it comes to employing my batch-mates all over the state. First they blackmail all colleges telling them that if they allow any other companies to conduct interviews for the students before TCS visits the college, they'd not visit their college. This ofcourse, is accompanied by a more-likely-false promise that they'd take maximum number of students possible when they come. Worse, they even assure the minimum number of students they are going to employ. This, they do without even knowing how good the students are! Few colleges which consider themselves capable enough of meeting their 'target' even without TCS don't care while other poor colleges whose placement officers generally lose hair worrying about how they would meet the 'target' set 'just-like-that' by their college's Principal or Secretary considering that the number of people who get jobs on campus this year would largely determine the demand for their college next year will completely surrender.

Second, they do not inform the exact date of interviews for each college till the nth moment. Students at college though not necessary, suffer from anxiety with plenty of rumors adding to their confusion. At my college, they said they'd come by November and they kept postponing and finally arrived in January. The number of people they employ would be always lesser than the number they promise. The placement officer, happy on one side that students under him got a job somehow, sad on the other side that TCS didn't keep up the promise, wouldn't know what to answer if someone asks him what emotion triggered him to drink so much that night.

They go around employing people in various colleges and once they are done, they start giving joining dates in 'batches'. Then the next phase of confusion begins. A was selected much before B but B was called first. X was too good in coding and was put into infrastructure services whereas C can't write C code and was taken for development team. The joining dates and the domains assigned are extremely random. Plus, they take almost a year and sometimes even more to announce joining dates.

Students on the other side complete their B.E/Btech, sit at home, waiting for the joining letter and gain weight. A few, somehow find a way to get a job outside and escape while most of them decide that they are going to stay at home till they are called thus wasting a year. Even worse, those who try to get a job somewhere else, if are expected to obtain a letter or something from college do not get it from college because TCS blackmails the college that if the students that they have so mercifully selected in a college join somewhere else, TCS shall not visit that college next year! So the placement officer tells ( this happened with me) "No No, I can't give you the letter. Go join TCS or get into some other company on your own if you can".

All those who get selected are entitled to sign a Rs 50,000 bond saying that they'd not leave the company before two years but generally, it is said that it wouldn't be a big problem if someone leaves in between. So I assume this whole bond-thing is only to scare people. Now one of my friends left the company after 3 months of training just before they were about to tell her the post-training work location. (TCS doesn't train people! they outsource it, at least for infrastructure services). She did it deciding we'll 'handle' whatever happens later. Now while I was waiting to see how TCS would react to this, there was no reaction for three months after which she got a notice saying she had to join immediately failing which action shall be taken. Not surprising I thought and asked her to ignore it. The surprise was something else. When she checked her salary-account balance just to see if her account is still active after three months, she noticed that her beloved company has been actually crediting her salary every month though she hasn't even reported to job! Poor kid, she doesn't know whether she can withdraw the amount now.

I've seriously doubted their standards right from my college days. There are hell lot of loopholes in their functioning specially when it comes to recruitment and post-recruitment formalities. I just hope they get them right someday. I'm waiting to see how they would deal with her now.

Laxman and Dravid - The easy targets!

The time has again come when even people who did not know that a test series was about to begin before they heard that India lost three matches awfully have become cricket experts. All of us have an opinion today. We either want x, y, z to be dropped or l, m, n to come in or the captain to be changed or the coach to be sacked or the practice sessions to be made compulsory  or the go-carting to be banned. If you ask me what my opinion is, despite being a test cricket fan, I'm confused. So I chose to question the opinion that others have and try to derive some logic out of what I've been hearing if not for all, for few.

On Dhoni's captaincy - True. The guy did well as a captain. Though the world cup was won here in India where our players are too good, it looked like Dhoni played his role quite efficiently.. The same players in Australia or South Africa appear almost like their favorite Sharad Pawar at an international conference.. It looked like the captain had less to do in the world cup tournament, he had lesser to do in Australia. Yet, he is given credit for both the results. However, yes changing the captain would be a good idea since you never know, the captain must have had something to do in Australia which he didn't!

On Dravid and Laxman's retirement - Whenever results have been horrible, there's tendency to target the older ones, more specifically, Dravid and Laxman in the current squad. They are easy targets. Both of them are being asked to retire mainly  for one of the following or both.
i) They are aged and their performance has come down. Dravid has come 'down' because he has been bowled five times this series, and Laxman has to retire because his average has been too low.
ii) It's time to bring in new guys which is the first step to ensure better performance in tests.

Laxman played well against West Indies both in West Indies and in India and Dravid has been doing well consistently and was the only batsman who scored runs in England. So, it hasn't been the case that they have been performing badly for a long time and they are still there in the team. They've had one bad series. Just one. Considering the batting averages of other batsmen, Dravid's average isn't too bad. I'm not forgetting that Dravid has been bowled out five times in a series but I'm also not forgetting that Sachin was bowled twice, was out for lbw twice. He repeatedly got out for lbw in England and nobody asks why he hasn't worked on it inspite of being the best batsman in the world. Nobody questions his form. Yes he has a better average this series but it hasn't been as good as Dravid's average in England. Dravid's fans can say "Out of five, he was bowled out at least twice for deliveries that were too good for any batsman".

If we are seriously thinking about the future and that is why we want the fresh blood to come in, why didn't we think about it when Dravid or Laxman were playing well? When Laxman made 170 odd runs against West Indies, why didn't we tell him "That was great dude, now better retire. You are 37, so go gracefully, we need to look at the future as well and you hanging in there still won't help the nation anyway." When everything is going well at present, nobody cares. When something goes wrong, we are suddenly worried about future! Why aren't we asking Sachin to retire? He's aged too and if he retires, another place gets created for a youngster. Okay, we want that 100th 100 but do we ask him to retire after that. Definitely not. We allow him to play as much as he wants. Also, why do we care to wait for the 100th 100!? Does it do good to Indian cricket anyway?

Like I said earlier, I've no opinions. Laxman's retirement might help the team. I do not know. The point is that I've just noticed that we people criticize according to our convenience. All those renowned critics who have been shouting aloud that Dravid or Laxman should retire on social networking sites and blogs know that it's not a good time to ask Sachin to retire considering that people would stop reading them if they write so. However, logically, if you are asking Laxman to retire, there are no enough reasons to why Sachin shouldn't.

There's a certain amount of selfishness in all the opinions that we encounter. I being a die hard Dravid fan, would want him to play forever. Sachin's worshipers would want to see him making a 100 partnership with his son at MCG. Such opinions, despite being illogical, demoralize the players too. It's quite interesting to study how our thought process go and despite having loopholes, attempts to make strong points.