We are celebrating 60 years of INDEPENDENCE...........though we have got freedom,
but have we really improved with time?
Are we absolutely free from the shackles of castesim?
Have we really abolished child labour?
Are our systems free from corruption?
Is it safe to walk on an empty street be it day or night?
Have we got all our population above the poverty line?
Does every child have the right to education and stomach full of food?
Are we free from slavery?
Is there actually NO reservation or quota in our educational institutions?
Is a Female foetus protected from being aborted even before she arrives?
Is there really equality between the sexes?
Then I wonder What are we celebrating our Independence from?
Monday, August 13, 2007
Waiting..................
Waiting.........
The most hopeful and tragic think in our life is 'waiting'.
...........the child waiting for its parent who has gone shopping promising him some yummy goody
...........the newly wed bride waiting for her husaband to come home from work
...........the mother waiting for her child to return after a long day at school
...........the father waiting for his salary to be credited into his bank account
Waiting for a new morning which heralds the begining of a new day
Waiting for a call from your lover after a night spent in his thoughts
Waiting for a mail from your parents to know all is well and how much they love you
Waiting for a big hug from your little baby
Waiting for appreciation from your better half for a good meal cooked
Waiting for your friend to call and say how much they value your friendship
Waiting for a pat in the back from your boss
We can also wait for the most mundane of things........like
Waiting for a hot cuppa tea
Waiting for the pressure cooker to whistle
Waiting for the washing machine to finish
Waiting for the rice cooker to switch off
Waiting for water to come to have a bath
We humans have this enormous ability to WAIT as we are always hopeful ..then
Why is it that when we can patiently wait for all these things to finish their cycle ,
We dont seem to have the same level of patience to wait for life to just go on.....
there we always seem to be in a hurry
We want instant messages,instant food,instant treatments,instant gratification,instant dating also .............
When will we learn to just wait ,sit back and relax and take things as they come.
The most hopeful and tragic think in our life is 'waiting'.
...........the child waiting for its parent who has gone shopping promising him some yummy goody
...........the newly wed bride waiting for her husaband to come home from work
...........the mother waiting for her child to return after a long day at school
...........the father waiting for his salary to be credited into his bank account
Waiting for a new morning which heralds the begining of a new day
Waiting for a call from your lover after a night spent in his thoughts
Waiting for a mail from your parents to know all is well and how much they love you
Waiting for a big hug from your little baby
Waiting for appreciation from your better half for a good meal cooked
Waiting for your friend to call and say how much they value your friendship
Waiting for a pat in the back from your boss
We can also wait for the most mundane of things........like
Waiting for a hot cuppa tea
Waiting for the pressure cooker to whistle
Waiting for the washing machine to finish
Waiting for the rice cooker to switch off
Waiting for water to come to have a bath
We humans have this enormous ability to WAIT as we are always hopeful ..then
Why is it that when we can patiently wait for all these things to finish their cycle ,
We dont seem to have the same level of patience to wait for life to just go on.....
there we always seem to be in a hurry
We want instant messages,instant food,instant treatments,instant gratification,instant dating also .............
When will we learn to just wait ,sit back and relax and take things as they come.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Happy Birthday Enid Blyton
Yesterday was Enid's birthday ...........one of the Best Children's author that the world will ever know was one of the 20th century's most successful story teller. There is no child who has NOT< been influenced by her numerous stories.
As small kids I remember my mother reading stories from 'the Noddy' series and a number of her Coloured Story book series 'The Red book', yellow , blue etc. The stories used to really make us enter the world of that Boy or Girl and all of them had a lesson and also made our imagination run wild .
When we started to read ourselves we would devour the "The Famous Five' The Five Find-outers' and 'The Secret seven' they sure made us want to go on an adventure solving mysteries at places where there was nothing and the best part were the yummy Picnic basket filled with loads of great goodies too but it basically also taught us to be fearless.
For those of us who never went to a hostel the famous' Malory Tower's''St Clare's' The Naughtiest Girl' series was really the Ultimate how they were up to pranks, bonding between friends and the midnight feasts they had were worth dying for. These were all things that made us jealous and made hostel life sound very exciting and enviable.
But the greatest thing to say about Enid Blyton is that after 30 years of my starting my association with her now my daughter who is four has started the same trend all over again as she enjoys NODDY ( the TV Cartoon also)and The Red Book etc.
So here's wishing the adorable creator of all these characters and who has nearly 800 books to her credit"Happy Birthday to you and May you live through your works live for ever and ever".
As small kids I remember my mother reading stories from 'the Noddy' series and a number of her Coloured Story book series 'The Red book', yellow , blue etc. The stories used to really make us enter the world of that Boy or Girl and all of them had a lesson and also made our imagination run wild .
When we started to read ourselves we would devour the "The Famous Five' The Five Find-outers' and 'The Secret seven' they sure made us want to go on an adventure solving mysteries at places where there was nothing and the best part were the yummy Picnic basket filled with loads of great goodies too but it basically also taught us to be fearless.
For those of us who never went to a hostel the famous' Malory Tower's''St Clare's' The Naughtiest Girl' series was really the Ultimate how they were up to pranks, bonding between friends and the midnight feasts they had were worth dying for. These were all things that made us jealous and made hostel life sound very exciting and enviable.
But the greatest thing to say about Enid Blyton is that after 30 years of my starting my association with her now my daughter who is four has started the same trend all over again as she enjoys NODDY ( the TV Cartoon also)and The Red Book etc.
So here's wishing the adorable creator of all these characters and who has nearly 800 books to her credit"Happy Birthday to you and May you live through your works live for ever and ever".
Friday, August 10, 2007
Hand that rocks the Cradle
When I read about another Infant being abandoned outside a building in Mumbai it made me wonder 'What have we come to? .............it is extremely shocking, repulsive, sad , heartbreaking to know that we as human beings who are supposed to be the most advanced of God's creations can behave in this callous way.
What has our society come to? Yesterday a New Born Female infant only 4 days old was found at the Entrance of a Multi storey Building in Mumbai ...........and on tuesday a 3 day old baby was abandoned in Kalyan and on Wednesday a 6 month female feoutous was found in a dustbin near a fish market in Sewree (it may be noted that in the past week all the children were Female)
This is the 3rd such instance when an abandoned infant has been found in the last week........isn't it sad And please note these are only the details I have of Mumbai we will never know how many children/infants are abandoned around the country or for that matter around the world. And surprisingly these are the statistics of ONLY this week. God only Knows how many have been abandoned and will continue to be abandoned over the next few months /years.
I always wonder what that woman must have felt who first conceived the child went through the full pregnancy and then had the heart to abandon it after it was born.......it must be very difficult for her.
I can only imagine the various circumstances which could have culminated in her making such a CRUEL and HEARTLESS Decision.
-It could be either that she wanted a Son and so having a daughter would be more expenses and more Mental and Physical torture from the Family so abandoning her would be in 'the Child' and 'the Mother's' best interest.
-It could be an unwanted pregnancy where children due to lack of Sex education and the curiosity to know more and taste the forbidden fruit do so and then the girl has to Bear the consequences of their action.
-It could be an outcome of a incestuous liaison where the girl fearing the family may have kept her lips zipped and had the child.
- It could even be a case where the Girl was forced like Rape where she has NO say.....
What ever the reason may be that still doesn't justify the child being left in a garbage dump or a garage or for that matter outside a building.
There are so many places like NGO's, Hospitals etc where a newborn can be left and where it can be looked after or sent to safe custody instead of leaving the child out in the wild as food to stray dogs and wild creatures..........
And the saddest part of this story is that there are so many childless couples who undergo so many tests and hormonal treatments and go through so many artificial procedures like IVF etc to have children and are still not successful and here there is a lady who has had a healthy child is actually having the heart to throw it away.
While these childless couples who go to adoption agencies to adopt are asked to fill numerous forms and produce many certificates proving that they cannot have children and even if they agree to adopt this abandoned child they are given only Guardianship.That is the SAD IRONY of the whole situation.
What has our society come to? Yesterday a New Born Female infant only 4 days old was found at the Entrance of a Multi storey Building in Mumbai ...........and on tuesday a 3 day old baby was abandoned in Kalyan and on Wednesday a 6 month female feoutous was found in a dustbin near a fish market in Sewree (it may be noted that in the past week all the children were Female)
This is the 3rd such instance when an abandoned infant has been found in the last week........isn't it sad And please note these are only the details I have of Mumbai we will never know how many children/infants are abandoned around the country or for that matter around the world. And surprisingly these are the statistics of ONLY this week. God only Knows how many have been abandoned and will continue to be abandoned over the next few months /years.
I always wonder what that woman must have felt who first conceived the child went through the full pregnancy and then had the heart to abandon it after it was born.......it must be very difficult for her.
I can only imagine the various circumstances which could have culminated in her making such a CRUEL and HEARTLESS Decision.
-It could be either that she wanted a Son and so having a daughter would be more expenses and more Mental and Physical torture from the Family so abandoning her would be in 'the Child' and 'the Mother's' best interest.
-It could be an unwanted pregnancy where children due to lack of Sex education and the curiosity to know more and taste the forbidden fruit do so and then the girl has to Bear the consequences of their action.
-It could be an outcome of a incestuous liaison where the girl fearing the family may have kept her lips zipped and had the child.
- It could even be a case where the Girl was forced like Rape where she has NO say.....
What ever the reason may be that still doesn't justify the child being left in a garbage dump or a garage or for that matter outside a building.
There are so many places like NGO's, Hospitals etc where a newborn can be left and where it can be looked after or sent to safe custody instead of leaving the child out in the wild as food to stray dogs and wild creatures..........
And the saddest part of this story is that there are so many childless couples who undergo so many tests and hormonal treatments and go through so many artificial procedures like IVF etc to have children and are still not successful and here there is a lady who has had a healthy child is actually having the heart to throw it away.
While these childless couples who go to adoption agencies to adopt are asked to fill numerous forms and produce many certificates proving that they cannot have children and even if they agree to adopt this abandoned child they are given only Guardianship.That is the SAD IRONY of the whole situation.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Spare the Rod and spoil the child?
The headlines in one of todays leading tabloids was about 3 children's whose hair was cut due to Bad behaviour. A few days back here was one about a principal in a rural school in Andhra Pradhesh who gave shock treatment to a child to make her improve her grades. He felt by scaring her she would study better but it had the exact opposite effect on her, she refuses to go to school with the fear of having to face the same ordeal again . But the saddest one was of a teacher in Uttar Pradesh who beat a child to death because the child was talking in class..........it is so sad that in this day and age when we have advanced so much we still use such harsh means to control unruly behaviour.....
That was a thing of a past when our parents would smack us on our backside for all our mistakes and the smacking used to be so hard that we would not be able to sit for nearly an hour after .........but we as children did not have as much emotional baggage as the children of today.
We were so used to being shouted at and reprimanded in public ........try doing it with one of the kids of today and are you in for trouble. The tantrums they throw are enough to make Shakespeare's Shrew in 'The taming of the shrew ' a well mannerd lady.
But jokes apart we have to find a solution to this problem...........why do teachers have to take such drastic steps......................
I have a few observations which I would like to put forward:-
For one , the children of today have much more exposure to things so they HAVE to be handled with care You cannot just say something and expect them to follow it blindly, they will ask you WHY and you have to be able to answer it.
Secondly I also feel the quality of teachers have come down ...............I still feel its not thedegree that follow your name like a BEd etc that make a Good teacher but they have to be someone who is Good with children and makes the learning process a very interesting and challenging one.
Thirdly our eductaion system being the way it is as a Teacher you are eternally wanting to be upto date in completing your syllabus and instead of having to rush at the end, so you end up loading yourself and the child ........thus making studies not a very pleasureable thing but something you just have to get over and done with.
But then I guess all this still does not justify the physical abuse on those little minds and bodies of those hapless things who are put into the custody of the teacher with the good faith of their parents.
We have to find a way by which we don't have to take such harsh and ruthless steps to control children...........after all the Children of Today are the Society of tomorrow ..............and as we sow so shall we reap so lets try and sow something good so that we can reap some even better.
That was a thing of a past when our parents would smack us on our backside for all our mistakes and the smacking used to be so hard that we would not be able to sit for nearly an hour after .........but we as children did not have as much emotional baggage as the children of today.
We were so used to being shouted at and reprimanded in public ........try doing it with one of the kids of today and are you in for trouble. The tantrums they throw are enough to make Shakespeare's Shrew in 'The taming of the shrew ' a well mannerd lady.
But jokes apart we have to find a solution to this problem...........why do teachers have to take such drastic steps......................
I have a few observations which I would like to put forward:-
For one , the children of today have much more exposure to things so they HAVE to be handled with care You cannot just say something and expect them to follow it blindly, they will ask you WHY and you have to be able to answer it.
Secondly I also feel the quality of teachers have come down ...............I still feel its not thedegree that follow your name like a BEd etc that make a Good teacher but they have to be someone who is Good with children and makes the learning process a very interesting and challenging one.
Thirdly our eductaion system being the way it is as a Teacher you are eternally wanting to be upto date in completing your syllabus and instead of having to rush at the end, so you end up loading yourself and the child ........thus making studies not a very pleasureable thing but something you just have to get over and done with.
But then I guess all this still does not justify the physical abuse on those little minds and bodies of those hapless things who are put into the custody of the teacher with the good faith of their parents.
We have to find a way by which we don't have to take such harsh and ruthless steps to control children...........after all the Children of Today are the Society of tomorrow ..............and as we sow so shall we reap so lets try and sow something good so that we can reap some even better.
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