Gems from Students – 2012 summer

 And Finally ..., Society  2 Responses »
May 102012
 

It is that time of the year when i trudge down to the Mumbai University in Kalina to correct answer papers. It is not a task that fills mewith joy. The university buildings have been designed by the same school that designed Gulags, there are rows and rows and rows of people correcting papers, the noise & the heat are unbearable … and the quality of students has been falling every single year since I began teaching 7 years ago. There are students who are good, who are terrible and who are out of this world. The last are incredible in their inventiveness but unfortunately that inventiveness has nothing remotely to do with the answers expected of them. As usual, i am sharing some of the best with you, dear reader. Enjoy, chuckle and wonder – are these going to be presenting news a few years from now.

  • Question on regional language news channels – In India 40% of the population are illiterate and socially backward. They would prefer their own regional language over English.
  • Community Radio, also known as All India Radio, shows help and gives information on Sati and widow remarriage to bring about soical change
  • Community Radio is the radio service of a particular community
  • Question write a feature on Vidya Balan – an average, simple Bengali Girl from Kolkata with simple looks, normal figure. Comes to Mumbai to start her career with a comedy show and at the end of the show she also disappears somewhere into the dark.
  • Question 7 questions for Rahul Dravid for a radio show – You have been one of the most successful captains of team India
  • Regional language TV & Radio are not exactly gaining much popularity but to some extent yes they are. (this child has an excellent future as a political party spokesperson)
  • Vidya Balan is basically from Calkota. She is a Bongoli beauty (their spelling not mine)
  • She has revolutionised the screen with her fatty fat look
  • FM Channels started in British India
  • For a question on short skits – we should have a separate channel to show short skirts on TV.
  • Nowadays every show in the world wants to compete on the basis of short skirts. The growing number of channels are resulting in the growing number of indecency.
  • In India FM Channels are kindly stated that controversial nationally crafted (no i don’t know what this means. yes, the rest of the paper was like this too- the haemoglobin of the atmosphere)
  • The radio was invented by G Macroni in 1875. He converted the sound of the wave into Electro magnetic wave that was aired and fed to the loud speaker which again converted them into sound (this child has a future at writing star trek dialogues)
  • The radio is a public flavour machine.
  • Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi on Independence Day, on the 15th of June 1982 held the Asian Games in Delhi

Seeing me hard at work compiling this, a fellow corrector who marked law & ethics paper gave me this gems.

  • the following drugs induce conception in women (this kid can write mytho soaps)
  • The act says no one should publish or encourage to publish an ad that
    • increases conception in women
    • to maintain or develop and increase the tendency of sexual pleasure
  • The Discrimination against the Child act states that….

:D Keep watching this space for more in the coming days ..

 

Unbiased, Non Partisan or merely Simplistic ?

 And Finally ..., India  No Responses »
May 032012
 

it is incredible the number of people who mix up unbiased and non partisan. possible to have biases without being partisan …no ?

for example i am biased towards women’s rights or against loutish behaviour, does that mean i am also partisan … does it translate into support for a party? Not really, because i can’t think of a single political party that stands for the rights of women, and i don’t know of a single political party that hasn’t exhibited loutish behaviour. If an issue is important enough to me, I will have a bias on it. That bias does not translate into party positions, possibly because parties do not have any positions except winning. People like me are floating voters. I will vote for a party that i believe will give me most. I am as loyal to a party as it is to me, which is to say not at all. Conversely, I don’t have biases on issues that don’t matter to me or I don’t know enough about. I may have a Yes/No position on that, but if that Yes/no is challenged by an expert who explains it, i don’t have issues in admitting that I am wrong. Give you an example. I still believe that first come first serve on 2G was the best way to increase penetration of telephony. And that the real scandal is unaffordable 3G that is a result of auctioning. Does that mean i support the Government/Congress Party in the way telephony has been handled – no i don’t support them on this.

Those who conflate the two – bias and partisanship – are trying to confuse the issue and make targets of those who don’t follow their world view. And I have begun resenting that.

Also on the rise are those who are in the us or them mode. The number of guys on the Right who have told me ‘you shouldn’t be speaking to x, or y or z’ because they are paid congis, and the number of people on the opposite side who have told me that they will ‘judge’ me because i talk to sanghis, is on the rise. I am not on a KG playground… I know lots of people. I try and find common cause with most.  The real world is real and not made up of 140 character barbs. Yes, if people are genuinely abusive – and I have had people call me corrupt, a paid propagandist, loose in terms of sexual morality, all sorts of things – right from the days of blogging- I will do what i do in real life, cut them out of my life. Have no interaction if possible – unless i bump into them or step on their toe -in which case i will acknowledge that and move on. Your enemies are not mine, unless you happen to be my business partners or my closest friends. Your biases are not mine. Your Party is not mine. Your role models not mine. And mine are not yours…

Do i judge – of course I do. You have issues with the Election Commission’s behaviour, i will buy your point and hear you out. You target the EC because of his faith – i will bracket you as a bigot. You make jokes about rape, i will think you strange. You go after women and target their morality because you disagree with them I will bracket you a misogynist. And you cry wolf, i will hear you once and respond to it, but then next time will no longer take you seriously.

My world is not black and white. It has millions of hues and shades – and you know what, I recognise most of those hues and shades.

The Calamurs

 And Finally ..., Diary, Photographs  No Responses »
Apr 112012
 

 

My grandfather (dada) Calamur Mahadevan (1901 – 1962) – geologist, scientist, nationalist, feminist, father, husband, friend, teacher. Prinicipal at Andhra University. A man who educated his wife after their marriage, and insisted that she go out and work with the less privileged.

My Grandmother (dadi) Satyavati Mahadevan (1916 – 1993)  - poet, musician, writer, wife, mother, grandmother… My love for the epics and the Gods comes from her.

My father (standing extreme left), My Uncle – periappa (extreme right) and my aunt (attai) in the centre. A few years before they were all married . Their father loomed large in their lives. His death anniversary was on the 8th of April. I can tell you, they are still to recover from his death.

I wish i had known him.

 Older Entries  Newer Entries