Research

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I am one of those old fashioned type who still reads books. I read for fun. I read to earn a living. I read to pass time. I read because I enjoy reading......AND I mean ordinary paper books. The kind you can hold and fold and smell and tell (when on a shelf).

I am also one of those old-fogies who actually go to the Library to read and research. Yes, I do have a laptop. I have desktops at work and home. I read on the Internet a fair bit.I write on the Internet. At the same time I spend long hours in the library. I browse. I read. I reflect. I look out of the tall windows and dream a bit. My mind painstakingly analyses every bit of information.....even what I learnt 30 years back. I reject some, accept some, evaluate some and come to my own conclusions. These thoughts are mine and I suppose (at least I do hope) there is some sort of intellectual property rights protection. At the end of the day I write what I feel has to be written . I teach what I know and endevour to learn. I quench my thirst be it World Food Shortage or the makings of a Rachals. How else would I survive if I did not read?

The students I teach are averse to what I call reading. The sense of research and individual fact finding is lacking. A laptop connects them to Google and that is the beginning of the end. They rarely ever see the inside of a Library. Google is their weapon and Wikipedia their Holy Grail......the fount of all their wisdom. Google has become a part of everyday language....like Xerox, or Hoover. Academicians are weighed and judged by the number of strikes on the Google search engine !!!!!

Any material, any name, any product can be Googled. Nevermind the fact that information regurgitated by Google is suspect at best and utterly wrong at worst. Most students do not know (or think its best to be ignorant about it) that Wikipedia entries can be edited, and are edited. They are written, then re-written and then re-re-written by people who are not necessarily the best minds in the business. E reading gives little scope for reflection, simply because the links are too many, too frequent and most important most certainly not the scholars own views. At the end of the exercise the scholar, the student, the researcher comes out with an undigested opinion, quite half-baked. A little reading of the old fashioned kind (from a book.....in the Library) brings forward a questioning mind........not an accepting mind. In our times our minds were trained to question the question.....not merely to answer it. In fact I still practice it.

This new breed of scholars and their research submissions have been dubbed as Pap Scholars and Pap Submissions. The word coming from German or Dutch origin meaning baby food. Soft, mushy, gruel to be used as a supplement for normal healthy diet for infants. This is what the students now depend on. Not the hard core concepts, not good philosophies, not stand-alone journals, but Googled pap from Wikipedia. It's tantamount to intellectual or academic pap for the soft-in-the-head.

This same generation is termed as White Bread Generation in University circles. The coinage came from a Professor (Tara Brabazon) in the UK who declared that this methodology of research is like white bread.......filling , but without any nutritional content. Empty calories for the empty minds. White Bread seems particularly apt for the generation that is not interested in the meat of the matter.

How inordinately indolent can ones intellect be to read and then cut-copy-paste.....ready for submission. Does not the brain take in the matter and come to an individualistic conclusion? Has the scholar come to the University level after 15 years of training to have no opinion of his own?Should Google be the only source of information? Unfortunately, it very often is.

Google has become nearly synonymous with research. Once Wikipedia puts the matter or information on the Internet, it stays there, to be edited and re-edited and eventually stray far from the truth. Something akin to the old Nazi saying.....' if you repeat a lie often enough it begins to seem like truth'.

Oh, I am not forbidding the Wiki search. Who am I to forbid such liberties? The Wiki or the Google search engine can be the first port-of-call. Do go on to the more hard core material. Read books, read journals (even JStore will do), reflect, discern, discuss and above all analyse. Do not accept anything at face value. Learn to read. Learn to think. Learn to write.

I guess, a large part of the problem is because of us Professors. We do not motivate. Do not inspire. At times, maybe do not teach. To my huge student community .......I hope I did instill some sense into you. Apologies if I did not and have not.

Words

'' Smile, an everlasting smile

A smile can bring you near to me

Don't ever let me find you gone............."

RIP Stephen Gately

RIP Shantam

RIP Our Rachals.

Never gone....always on my mind and in my heart.

Sounds that I like

I don't know if anyone has ever noticed this before, but there are certain sounds which are appealing.....certain other sounds which are not so appealing.

Here I make a random list of sounds that I like.

1. Falling rain. This is one of my favourites. Gentle rain on a tin roof. The rain drumming down on the same roof. Very different sounds, but there is such a lot of music in it. (I'll post another blog on this issue later). It's an all encompassing sound, particularly if you have a good book and a warm bed.

2. No matter who says what snowfall makes a gentle 'whoosh'. The sound is ever so soft, ever so quiet. Yet, there is a sound and a delightfully fulfilling sound.

3. A very comforting sound is that of your dog wagging it's tail when you come home end of the day. Nothing beats this boisterous wag-wag sound. Also the pet cats letting out looooong meeooows comforts me. I love the sound of cats purring, Specially Skippy when she sidles up to me at night and purrs like a jet engine revving up full on.

4. Bells in the hills. The hills are always alive with sound. It is almost music. Church bells, temple bells, school bells, soft anklet bells of the village girls, cow bells of the grazing cattle........these come out sharp and clear. Somehow, in the hills the clarity and tone of sound is exceptional. They come over the hills, through clear and clean mountain air....almost from heaven. Even angels can not produce such a pleasing and clean sound.

5. The sound of waves...upon the ocean. This is a deep resounding and roaring sound. Seems it comes from far away. It fills me with awe and sets my spirit free. There has been so many times Shantam phoned me to make me hear the waves....on the shore, on the beach and on the open sea.

6. Another sound which I love is the sound of a gale or storm. There is a word called 'wuthering' in Yorkshire. It's a strange whistling, growling sound. My old house by the grave yard gives me a feeling of standing on the deck of a ship....the wind wuthering around the house. Once again a liberating feeling.

7. I have not visited too many deserts, but the Thar has a peculiar sound effect.......the wind is most overpowering, and nothing, almost nothing seems to be in place but the roaring wind. It's different from a gale or a storm. Once again it makes me feel so humble.

8. The fjords of Norway has a heavy deep sound moving about in circles. It invites awe and a certain degree of fright. After a while one does get used to it, but thankfully I am not a Scandinavian. I do not have to stay there.

9. A train whistle is another sound I like. I always associate it with journeys, unfulfilled wishes. It leaves me in a wistful and nostalgic mood. A train whistling by at night is perhaps the most haunting sound on a still and white midnight.

10. A church choir singing, specially nuns at an abbey is perhaps the most deeply religious thing to experience. Religion in a very, very broad sense. I simply love it....specially from far away. Specially in the hills. Has anybody heard the Vienna Boys Choir practicing? Or the Salzburg Abbey nuns singing? It's ethereal.

11. Another sound I like is the sweet, sharp, crisp sound of leather on willow. On a summer afternoon or in the mellow evening sunlight. It does not much matter who is playing.....Ganguly or Flintoff. Or may be its only a SXC vs LMB match on the SXC grounds. The strike of the bat makes a beautiful sound.

12. Summer afternoons have rather nice sounds. Whether in the city or in the countryside. Birds chirping, Some birds have long sad calls in summer. The street hawker on the road calling his wares, the music from a transistor coming from far away. The sound of the hot wind blowing in the plains of north India. It's a free and open sound. Winter afternoons, on the other hand have less sound and is more still.

13. Another sound I treasure is children laughing, singing, frolicking. Any child, anywhere. If ever there is a God, He exists in children.

14. The call "Ma" or "Mama" is perhaps the most satisfying and fulfilling call ever. On the phone, from the road, at the door, from anywhere around the house........from any place on earth. "Ma" or "Mama" is the ultimate call......the most supreme sound.

This is such a randomly written post. I love the soft 'plop' of a neem fruit falling to the ground. The 'flop' of a large petal falling off. The small delicate flowers shed in a soft whisper. I like the clip-clop of horse hooves, and also the thundering when they gallop.I like everyday humdrum sounds around the house. It brings some degree of security and comfort. I like the sound of a child learning his multiplication tables, just as much I liked it when my children played the piano....no matter what they played. I like the rustle of leaves on the forest floor as I walk. I like the whistling wind through pine trees. I like the music of brooks and small waterfalls, just as much I like the roar of a large river or a huge and high waterfall. I like the sound of water and of wind.....the colours of the wind. Has anyone heard a panther roar in the pouring rain of the Garwhals? It isn't music, and yet it leaves behind a sense of awe.

So many sounds....the world is full of sounds. Good, bad, loud soft. I mention just the few that I like....the few that came to my mind.

Cat-urday

Holiday times are so peaceful. I enjoy holidays. So do my pets. Skippy has loooong, naps. Ofcourse with half an eye open for Chico, in case Chico decides to pounce.

Chico is forever on a learning spree. I swear that cat is not a cat....he is more human than a dog. Sometime back he realised that the computer plays music. Now he listens to music (preferably Bach....he loves Jesu Joy of Mans Desire). He demands the laptop be put on in the evenings and watches a full-length feature film every evening.

Even Monty is happy staying home. He probably has holidays too. ......Monty is a 'dafter jaane wala cat'. At present he is relaxing at home.

Even Rampiyari came for Dusserah with her mate. Had some cucumber slices. Napped for the entire afternoon and left in the evening amongst much chirping.

They eat and sleep and on the whole seems glad I am home all day.

Everybody has Saturdays.....I have Cat-urdays. Am I not blessed.

Solitude

Solitude is a very individualistic word. It's a condition (or at times a process) appreciated only by a small minority. To most people solitude is synonymous with loneliness and verges on eccentricity.I have for many years been trying to get people to understand the difference between aloneness and loneliness. It's been a futile teaching experience. I can be articulate. I make a living out of it. However, somehow on this topic, I do not push too hard. If people are happy confusing the two very different states.....I back off.

Personally I do not like crowds. Most people are apprehensive about solitude (I think they mean loneliness here), I revel in solitude. Wedding parties, clubs, shut-in airports, melas and fairs, even a large congregation in church leaves me quite unhappy.....sometimes even claustrophobic. The general idea is larger the crowd, more successful the event. Frightening !!!! What harm is there in a walk taken alone? Or reading a book? Or listening to music? Or talking to your dog? Everything does not have to be shared. Why do people have to link solitude with loneliness and unhappiness? Their minds are not deep enough to appreciate the balm of solitude, they are afraid of life, of coming to terms with themselves. They always need support (shallow support) around them, to make their lives complete.

I have to earn a living. My job is not bad as such, but I have to work under undemocratic and non-communicative authority. There is little I can do to change the circumstances. I have responsibilities at home....I enjoy my family, therefore they do not stress me. There are times I need to go away in the hills, or go to the countryside, or even city by-lanes. Anywhere where "I can be I". However such escapes are not always possible. So, over the years, I have learned to switch off my mind as and when needed. I enjoy undisturbed serenity in the old house by the graveyard. I can dream endlessly and create a philosophy of life while walking in the hills. I can quietly contemplate on a sea shore. I leave behind the nagging cares of life and the bedlam of ordinary life. I take off into my own world......solitude. I accept the natural world as I find it, as it presents itself to me, and have not found any great need to change it.

I do not have to shun people or public life. I do not turn my back on the world. I love my family, my students, my friends. I do not ditch people, or ignore my responsibilities, or even dump my friends. My solitary spirit can move around in a crowd or with the crowd while still holding on to my innate reserve. My aloneness I treasure. I am fiercely protective about it.

My life can end with complete anonymity, but I have captured the solitude of the oceans, the stillness of the desert, the serenity of the mountains. I can carry them in my inner-eye. The present can be easily wiped out......for a while at least.

The sea, the mountains, the desert......the relatively underpopulated parts of the world appeal to me. To my soul. To my spirit.

Let me remain in my own small patch (which is not so small really) and yet see the world in a grain of sand.

Let me be.

Walks

Some responses came from some old blogs. Many wanted know why I took my children on walks every afternoon. One particularly nosy creature went on to say it was 'archaic practice'. Honestly, I have no answer. I took them because I liked to walk with them, because the dog had to be taken for his afternoon walk, because I had to fetch the milk (a big can) on the same trip, because the children would have been shut in the house after lunch, because I wanted to unwind after College, because the help at home needed time-off from the children.......mostly because we all enjoyed it immensely. We loved to walk, dog and all.

The afternoon walk was always treasured. I came back from College. The children would have their milk. Toro (later Boss) would have his lunch. The children would clean up, wear their sneakers. The pram taken out. The younger one strapped in the pram. And we would go on our walk. Dog and pram and milk can and children.

Notwithstanding the weather we would walk. In summer they would wear sun- hats (4pm would be quite sunny), in winter they would wear warm clothes, in the rains they would wear raincoats.....but hardly was there a day when the afternoon walk was disrupted. When the pram could be done away with, I held their tiny hands and made them walk. Slowly, for the little one to catch up, but walk we did. In Golf Green, in Park Circus......till they were about seven or eight years old and could run and play on their own with the local children, we walked every afternoon. Toro or Boss continued to give me company on these afternoon walks after the children grew up.

The upshot of these walk ----

1. The children grew up with straight sturdy legs. Very unlike the skinny legs of their contemporary city children. Even today, their legs are straight and long and muscular.

2. Maybe because they were exposed to all types of weather, they hardly ever caught colds.

3. They learned to love walking. The walked when they were angry, they walked when they were happy. They walked on the beach....and phoned to say how beautiful the clouds were. They walked on the hills and found peace within. They walked on city asphalt roads (roads all over the world) and said...."Ma, you know, all roads and all walks lead Home."

Later.......much later, we walked in the hills, on treks, in small town high streets, in big-city by-lanes, in the green country side, in the wild forests, through golden wheatfields. We smelled the air, felt the breeze, took in the totality of the walk and shared with each other the otherwise individual walks. We all felt great.

Walks were and still are an integral part of our lives. So what if we are one less now.....on walks , the guy is around.

.....a tete-a tete with Vinayak

Vinayak : I love cats. I want a cat real bad.

Me : Really?

Vinayak : Please, when will I get a cat?

Me : Do you pray at night? Why don't you pray to God for a cat?

Vinayak : I do, I do. All I want is a cat in my life. A girl-cat. I love girl-cats.

Me I am really stumped with this confession !!!!!

Dear Vinayak, stay just the way you are.