Infidelity

The recent news about the Golfer No1 Tiger Woods, and his infidelity and betrayal towards his family has once again put morality and humanity in the court of justice. Why is betrayal and breach of trust so outspread, it is like a vice engulfing every relationship. Marraige is taken to be a holy bond full of vows and oaths taken before the Almighty, in the presence of a vicar, or priest, supposed to be the messenger of God, and in a place of worship. Irrespective of any religion, marraige demands belief, faith in each other, commitment, and true love. Has humanity degraded so much, that these promises made in holy places are so soon forgotten? How can the heart and soul already given to someone be regiven to another? The bond between two individuals involves complete sharing of the self, then how can it be snatched and regiven to another? It seems the human being has outlived its utility, and ceased to exist as the super creation of God. This attitude of the human is animal like, and therefore it will not be long that civilizations will perish and bear resemblance to the extinction theory of the dinosaurs.

Redifining Democracy

The Congress allied UPA govt. at the centre has redefined Democracy as 'The Government "off" the people," buy" the people, and "far" the people. While the common man is struggling heart and soul to feed himself and his family at this time of exorbitant prices of food grains, our Honourable Prime Minister is busy enjoying and relishing the White House dinner. Most of the Ministers, and even the President spend their time in foreign visits, camouflaging their trips under the name of building bilateral ties and strengthening foreign relations. At home, in the country we have people dying of hunger, poverty, price rise, but our elected ministers are blind to the cause. Corruption has reached a saturation point, a point of no return. Do we need to remind them that CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME...or have they changed thier homeland? Even the judiciary under them, or the special agents, forces, like RAW, everybody is wearing the coat of corruption. Corruption has become a necessary evil, infact we can say, a basic necessity to survive in today's world. Our freedom fighters can be left wondering for whom did they sacrifice their lives?
Dr Paramita Mishra

Is it really GK?

The other day while teaching my six year old, her lesson in Social sciences, I came upon the general lesson in all Std one books, about the different communities in our country. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, their places of worship, and their holy books. Attempting to make my inquisitive youngster memorize the details, I was suddenly stopped in my endeavour. "But mom, " she bombarded, "what are these?" I replied sheepishly,"religion" to which I was attacked,"what does that mean? What are we? What is the difference? How do we know who is whom? But we went to church from school, last year? What is my teacher?", the questions followed one after the other leaving me completely baffled on how to reply. This is the starting of studies, the onset of bookish education, where all I can tell my child is LEARN BY HEART. On what ground can we teach social discrimination and sow the seeds of communal differencess. With every passing year the details of this manifolds, and the need to score in exams pushes the students to mug up and cram whatever is printed. Do we as elders, whether parents or teachers really attempt to clarify the doubts arising in the young minds? After teaching discrimination, how can we preach unity, it is ironical and full of hypocrisy. "Aren't we all the same?" was another question asked by a Std one child in the school I run, to which the teacher casually replied, "Yes." The child continued,"Then why do we have different places of worship, is God different everywhere?" The teachers I have observed simply ignore and quiten the child. The curious young mind unsatisfied, seeks answers to his questions, and whatever reply he comes across, whether right or wrong, he accepts it. He grows up with his own imbibed train of thoughts and passes on the same to his offspring. Let us think....aren't we passing on the seed of communal discrimination oblivious of the consequences.

MUSIC

The saying goes... A popular song is one that makes you think you can sing.....
Music is that soothing, serene, soft feeling that can wipe away all stressful anxities and provide everlasting relaxation. No matter how pressurized one is, music can generate heaves of relief, and bring smile to the most wrinkled brows. People working on computers for long hours prefer to have a backdrop of their favourite numbers on a soft note, that helps to release stress and at the same time catalyses the rate of work. Even infants have been known to react to music. An abstract concept, it has an effect much more than any realistic fact or figure.
Its the best remedy to cure all ailments, physical or mental or psychological.....

CBSE vs ICSE

The modifications being carried out by the CBSE for evaluating students in their school certificate examination is indeed paving the way for utter destruction and a fast ride towards doomsday. At the age when students should be busy acquiring knowledge, they are being let free to carry out truancy in any form. If the pressure of performing well in the examination is not there, students will rarely sit with books, and with the high level of intelligence they are born with, it will not take much time for them to get involved in wrongful activities, which will destroy their future. Moreover, when they reach the age of seeking a job, they will not qualify for one as the habit of studying and being serious is not there. And if by chance they enter into some profession, we can imagine the standard of that profession. What is the future of a nation which will have doctors who cannot study, or take stress, engineers who cannot be sincere for long, teachers who cannot read or write for long, and lawyers who cant remember...?Most of the people cannot write a simple application, and make numerous spelling mistakes, what is their destiny? and the destiny of the nation in their hands? On the contrary, ICSE students will definitely have an upper hand in every field, and emerge as perfectionists. Looking back at our gurukul system of education, achieving perfection was the main target of those seeking education and degrees were not conferred until the guru was entirely satisfied with the students' learning. Education needs to be attained with deep sincerity and concentration. It is something beyond textbooks and assessments.

COMPARING EDUCATION...YESTERYEARS WITH TODAY...

I remember when I was a school going child in the late 70s and 80s… and, most of us would definitely agree to the fact that we had a strict system of education blended with care and affection. Our teachers in school taught us the first lesson as respect towards our elders… our teachers and parents. This lesson used to be inculcated in our system in such a manner that we never needed a special course in Personality Development. Etiquettes, mannerisms, good behavior, moral values seemed to grow up with our classes, and by the time we reached high school we were already groomed up as dainty young polished adults. And this education did not have a board or class, it was imparted by the teachers by default and without parental interference of any sort. There was rarely a parent who would march out to allege the school authorities for any action taken on the ward. Such was the faith of the parents on the schools and the teachers that as students we learnt look up to our teachers with utmost respect. Even today if we happen to come across any such ‘guru’ of our school days in any commonplace we instinctly go out to touch his/ her feet to seek blessings, irrespective of the fact that the person had given us lessons or not.
However, times change and nowadays, our education system has become so commercialized that those values cease to exist. The proverb : Parents are the first teachers and teachers are the second parents, has simply lost its value. Teaching manners in school is taken up as a criticism, wherein, now and then we have parents filing up complaints about harassment to their kids. Wishing teachers, has taken secondary and barely a handful of parents are there who teach their kids to wish teachers. The motto of the parents is: If we are paying for our child’s education we can demand it. Education cannot be purchased or demanded it has to be sought by the inherent potential of perseverance, patience, sincerity and above all reverence for the teacher. Simply endowing the teacher with costly gifts doesn’t show respect. Respect is internal and is reflected in the attitude of the student, his or her behavior towards the elders. Perhaps that is why most of the youngsters today need to pay hefty amounts just to learn Personality Development as a separate course before going for a career. And even after doing the course does the certificate hold value and can really certify if the person has genuinely learnt personality? Morality is a part of humanity and needs to be imbibed in the early years of value education as a part of parental care. Just as a bird teaches its sibling to choose its prey, just as an animal teaches it’s young one the rules of the jungle, we the human beings need to impart the very basics of moral education to our progenies. As adults its time to contemplate: Are we imparting to our successors what we received from our predecessors? Are we doing justice in our duty as parents and teachers? How responsible are we if we produce rowdy, unruly, truant youngsters? Do we really have the right to complain if our youngsters do not obey us?
Dr Paramita Mishra

CONFIDENCE OF A WOMAN

It is said that a woman must have twice the confidence actually required. Confidence is the salt of diet, which is extremely necessary for survival. A confident woman can win every battle and fight over every grief and gloom. A woman can perform much better than a man, provided she uses all her might with confidence. History clearly shows that women have been achievers in every field. Women like Rani Laxmi Bai, Sarojini Naidu, Florence Nightingale, Sunita Williams, and many more are ideals for many women. National or International, a woman has to put her heart and soul to overcome the obstacles in her path to reach the topmost peak of success. Ask any one of these and they would say how many supporters they had in the course of their journey to achieve their goal. Barely a soul or two would have been there to provide support, but many would have been to discourage and cause hindrance. At a certain point of time the situation would have been such depressing that one would have thought of surrendering to the burden of problems. But the ones who have ignored the pile of problems and fought up the way to march ahead are the ones who have been rewarded with success. A salute to those brave women who embraced confidence to overcome the hurdles in the path of their prosperity.

FAITH......

Faith, or belief - the biggest wave of web which actually weaves the human hearts all over....is God's magic wand to test His own creation. When God made His finest creation - the human , He empowered them with powers beyond His imagination. In His zeal to master the skills of creativity, He ended up creating a wonder - a brain which could work at a stretch and queue up innovations unimaginable. Feeling proud of this, God marvelled at His handiwork, but His fore sightedness alarmed Him of the incoming danger. If these brains crossed their limits, and quarrelled for might, the entire creation could be devastated in no time, putting an end to the beautiful world. So the Almighty decided to hold the reigns of control in His hand, by creating Faith, a wave of web which would touch all souls and bind them. Anyone outsmarting, and stepping out of this web would be entitled to punishment in His court. That is why when we break the faith of our fellow human beings we find ourselves entangled in problems unlimited. Faith is a quality which determines character. In todays world, it is a diminishing trait. Deceiving, telling lies, cheating have taken toll of the human character. It can be in any relation, friends, parent child, husband wife, client, customer, and so on. In fact if we need to buy a simple commodity, we check several times to assure we are not getting cheated. It is difficult to find someone who will not deceive , someone whom you can trust. So the result is the rise of complicated problems intricated in the web as stress, hypertension leading to ailments of varying degrees, financial ups and downs, and natural calamities, and catastrophes. The end result will be a complete wipe out of the civilization.....leading to extinction. Surely, God would not want to perish His own creation, but in order to save the Earth, and let it stand in the Universe, He will not be left with any other choice.... But human beings do have a choice, if they desire to take up.....