I have stopped counselling girls about which laptop to buy

A few weeks back, a friend of mine called me up, "hey shuv I need to buy a lappy. Which one to take? My budget is upto 40k". I replied back, "what purpose do you need a lappy for?". "I want to read books, listen to music, watch movies and ya do some computer programming stuff too.", she retorted. I said "ok. let me see. i write back to you."

Later that evening I wrote back.
Dear Buddy
The following are the specs you might require for your basic purpose.
A processor Core i3 3rd gen; 1 TB hdd; 2-4 GB ram; you may include a graphics card too but thats optional; web cam; and other ports do come anyways.
I suggested HP, Dell and Lenovo. Also a couple of Samsung products.

The next day she wrote back. "Hey Shuv, thanks for the mail. That was pretty informative but can you specify some models with price. That would be great help."

So I sat down to do some search and suggested her 7 models. Most from HP and Dell as they have good customer service and give good models with fair price.

Then she enquired, "Hey shuv will I be able to connect 3G dongle with all of them?"
I said, "yes why not?"
"Ok. Thanks a lot buddy".

There were no more exchanges after wards for nearly a week. A week later I went to her home and enquired about the lappy she was thinking of buying. She said that she has bought one.

She then showed me the model. A SONY VAIO, PINK COLOURED one.
I was shocked. I asked why she went for it. She just replied. "It was pink and cute".

That day I vowed never to counsell another lady about laptops because at the end of the day it is the colour and cuteness that matters.

India --- The Superpower !!!

We Indians, in general, have this very bad habit of boasting about various things like our IT capabilities and our CULTURE etc. But a serious thought reveals that these two and many other such things are grossly overvalued by us.

Very often I read we Indians are IT Superpower. Well when I first heard of this oxymoronic word I thought that since we are an IT super power we should be having (1) our very own Operating System, (2) our very own APPLICATION SOFTWARES which we will be running in our systems (3) our very own PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES ...... and much more our own things. Unfortunately I couldn't find any worthwhile stuff that can make me proud and say yes we are a super power in IT. When I confronted some of my friends and elders with this I was trounced with logics like the following...... "first ever email service was designed by an indian...."...."without we indians half the silicon valley will fall apart" .... "we indians are the backbone of all great firms like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Open Source Softwares...."........
The truth is rather very harsh for us and our ego doesn't allow us to gulp it. Every building requires one chief engineer. Under him are 10 supervisors. And under each supervisor are 100s of workers, labourers. We Indians are those labourers. Hundreds of thousands of labourers providing services to international firms and working for them. Our IT super prowess is actually our demographic super prowess. The day US, UK and European countries stop outsourcing IT jobs to India, we will fall from being an IT superpower. A harsh truth which we can hardly gulp.

Then we have culture to boast of. What kind of culture are we talking about. A culture in which women are killed before they see the light of the day? A culture where people are discriminated due to their birth and not due to their work? A culture which teaches us to become more self centred than otherwise??

My Friend Asif was having a discussion with me and he was right to point out that in India every man wants to earn as much so that he can leave money for his coming generations. Philanthropy is the last thing on their list, if at all. Look at Warren Buffet. He has willed that his sons will have to make their own money and he will give away everything that he has earned in charity. Can we think of a single Indian here???

We look at foreigners with disdain. We say they have no culture. if killing females, discriminating against people, and being racist against own people is our culture then its good not to have one. From a hair pin to ocean liners every stuff we can think of has been invented outside India. And we are proud of our culture and science. We keep on harping what we knew ten thousand years back. We harp about PUSHPAK VIMANA as the first aeroplane. We harp about AYURVEDA. And yet when we get gangarin on our body or cancer, we don't go to ayurveda. We rush to allopathy, the foreign medicine concept. Are we being ignorant or outright hypocrits?

On one hand we use the stuff invented by foreigners and on the other hand we despise them. We Indians are Superpowers in only one thing- Being Hypocrites.

A Teacher's Apology

This apology was long overdue.

All those teachers who are teachers "by choice" and not "by default" will understand and appreciate what I am about to apologize about, but I don't expect the same from the "by default" teachers. So that means only about 2% of all the teachers who will be reading this apology will appreciate and understand the apology and very frankly I can live with that number.

For sometime now I have been reading in newspapers, magazines and listening to debates and discussions on TV channels regarding the degradation of the education system of our nation and how students are shying away from pure and basic sciences and even higher regions of technical education in favour of money minting careers. Surprisingly I have found that the very people who are debating over this topic, for example Principals of various schools, expert teachers and panel members and concerned parents, are the ones responsible for this degradation. And unfortunately they are now trying to pull me into their ranks.

I would today tender a humble apology to my students, student's parents, school administrators and other related or unrelated people regarding what I am trying to do.

All my life I have striven to make my students understand physics and implement it. Day in and day out I have been trying to help my students understand the fun of physics and at the same time I have been designing questions that would help me judge their mettle. I believe in trial-by-fire method when it comes to examinations. My students are forever scared about my question papers for they know very well I will force them to think. And today I would say I am really sorry for that. I am sorry to have forced you to think. I am sorry to have forced you to get rid of rote-learning. I am sorry to have asked questions in exams which seem to be out of syllabus but very well a part of the topic and you got trapped in my trap. I am sorry folks. I am sorry for testing your knowledge and application abilities. I am sorry that because of me and my questions you guys are not able to score brilliantly. And I am sorry to have put you through the trial by fire.

All my life I have tried to tell the parents of students the necessity of exercising one's brains and have time and again requested them to stop looking at marks for once and concentrate on concepts and their application instead. And I am sorry for have failed you miserably. I failed to make you understand the need of self learning; the need of scientific exploration; the need of thinking out of the box; and the need to apply concepts. I have failed you and I am extremely sorry for that. I failed to give set questions to your children beforehand so that I may later make question paper from the same set of questions thereby giving your child a shot at fame. I am sorry. Extremely sorry to have asked questions to your children which seem to be out of topic but are very much based on the same principles that I have taught them. I am sorry.

Finally I am sorry to the various administrators I have worked under. I failed to comply to your diktats. I failed to teach students the way you wanted. I failed to keep both students (your "customers") and their parents (your "clients") happy by teaching them only what is given in NCERT and nothing more. I went beyond NCERT. I tried to pull my students up to a standard. I tried to make them think and reason out everything and in the process I told them to write their own answers; I told them to think beyond the obvious; I told them not to believe in what everyone believes unless you have necessary proofs; I set questions so hard that your customers failed miserably. I am sorry to the admin to have made such blunders.

Finally I would apologize to the entire fraternity of teachers (specially the 98% default teachers) whom I have often landed in trouble for my histrionics. I tried out different methods and ways and topics to teach and you guys had to emulate it. I landed you in trouble. I am sorry for that. I am sorry for trying to teach beyond the normal topics. I am sorry for not listening to you when you told me, "Sir, work only as much as you are paid". I am sorry.

But I would also like to say sorry to you all for the future to come.
I am sorry as I am going to make life tough for my students.
I am sorry for I am going to ask questions related to the concepts that I will teach but will not be explicitly given in the book.
I am sorry as I am going to push my students into a trial by fire; I will make their lives miserable by giving them small but challenging homeworks and projects to do.
I am sorry as I will not let my students get into the habit of rote learning.
I am sorry for i will not stick to NCERT.
I am sorry for I will not let any other teacher or admin guy interfere in my way of teaching.
Guys I am going to be sorry for many more things. I hope I will get more chances to apologize to you all.
Thanks

Honesty is not always the best policy ......

Honesty is almost always the best policy, unless of course if you are an exceptional liar ....

I have read it in my school days that Honesty is the best policy. Strangely whenever I have been honest in my life I have been kicked hard on my face. Every time I have been honest I have been at the receiving end. When I was a teacher of DPSGV and I wanted to leave I told the principal before hand as I didn;t want the students to suffer because of me. I ended up paying 42000 rupees to get out of the school. I was threatened with legal tangles and made to pay. Being inexperienced and naive I paid up.

When I was at Sultan Chand and my grandpa died I told the MD that it was urgent and I will be back in less than a week but I was told to quit. I did.

When I was in DPS Rajnagar when finally I understood that I cannot be honest always I tried the path of lies and deceit to leave the school and it worked.

Now today I tried the path of being honest and I was robbed of a wonderful opportunity that very few people can have in life. And all because I thought that I must tell my school authorities about it.

I was invited by Vigyan Prasar to be a master resource person for a workshop at GGSIP University. And I told of this thing to my school authorities. The Principal gave me the permission but the chairperson cited some absurd rule to stop me from going. Sometime I feel its better I work for myself rather than for these people. Wish I could.

It was a very dejecting day for me. really.
I almost cried.

And I learnt that the Management is never there for you when it matters the most. Its better to be selfish as far as school management is concerned.

I have learned my lessons well.

This is how people learn to lie and cheat and be dishonest. Nobody is a born liar; people and circumstances make them so.

Discrimination

Discrimination is a part of life in India.
Discrimination on the grounds of Gender, Religion, Caste, Creed, Profession and what not. Give one point of comparison and we will show you how to discriminate. And frankly I hate it. But recently I found out something which shook me to the core. And left me wondering whether we will ever be able to be "human" again.
Our two flats are getting whitewashed. Three people have been employed. Since whitewashing is not a full time job hence to supplement their earning they tend to do odd menial jobs as well.
Yesterday we found out that for lunch these guys had eaten chapattis with green chillies. So today we told them to eat lunch at our home.
A curry of potato, chappatis and pickle was to be served.
On my enquiry I found out that they will not be given food in the plates that we use for eating. Rather thermocol plates were bought from market for the purpose.
I was left wondering if my family members were correct in any way. I couldn't understand why we can't use the plates again once they have used eat for eaten.
I figured out that these guy's profession came in the way. They are being shunned for what they do to  survive.
I felt pity- for myself.
I wanted to protest but i knew it was useless. There was too much VETO power at home.
I am left wondering about what happened today.