One Race to Wipe them All

They set out, riding on creatures, to conquer the unknown and unseen, of which they had only heard of from not-so-reliable eyes and ears. 

Humped, there were numerous; 

fast there were many; 

of the herding type, a few. 

They rode by the night, for the day was unforgiving. They ate a few, drank from the many and numerous- and not just meat or milk.

They crossed deserts, for that was home; 

they waded through rivers; for that was not ever done. 

Then they met mountains, of rock and stone; 

they had seen before only dune that shone. 

Most of the few perished; much of many were eaten. But few of the numerous made it through tough terrain. Thus they marched on with the many left. Most died on the rocks, while the rest were crestfallen from herculean efforts. The mountains asked too much and only the best made it to the land of heaven that lay beyond. They met strange folk, none of whom had seen such strangers as them. 

With some, they shook hands, 

but off most, they took heads. 

The strange folk but naturally resisted, sometimes with fruition, but mostly in vain; for these people knew not of such ferocity as was meted by the men of sand and sun. 

What drove them on was not of import, 

What ensued became stuff of lore. 

Much of what followed was of beauty. 

But even more, of gore. 

The strange folk they met had weak arms but very large hearts. Heaven embraced people who raped it and they called it home forever. By some act of providence, the gory stopped and a lasting truce prevailed, a very uneasy one.

Heaven had just finished nursing its wounds when more visitors arrived. They did not have to fight mountains, for their route was maritime and the munition they possessed was only for defense. Harmless, they proclaimed themselves. Heaven believed, for they were few and came floating on the great seas in their huge vessels. How could they possibly harm us, thought the new natives of heaven. Thus came the vessel-men along with their fare. Only, they weren't fair inside.

Conniving men to the core, they traded in nothing, 

for their mother taught just killing and thieving. 

Cold were their hearts, and warmth was what they found in the arms of the new occupants. The old wept tears of blood, watching the bully tenant hand over the keys to the robber. 

Spice, cotton, silk and emerald they hoard. 

Upon helpless women, much they whored. 

Chivalry was not their writ, of civility they knew little,

In the realm of white, brutes ruled with morality brittle. 

Prosperity was in heaven, for it knew six seasons.

A dozen shades, a hundred tongues, a thousand occasions,
All celebrated for wise old reasons.

The brigands knew just one color and a narrow vision. Thus, they rejoiced their time in the Eden of the innocent. When the wise gave them counsel, they bought these noble souls with promises of better days. 

The wise returned to relate to the old. 

That culture was waste,

that pride is in only yellow gold.

Heaven was elsewhere too. Natives of this other heaven took good care of it and nourished themselves with what it had to give. Alas, vessels reached their shores in haste! The bountiful realm was laid waste with blood and fur of the sons and daughters. The mindless  then planted the seeds, of alien herbs and capital. 

They dug the earth and drew from rock, black oil.

From whence grew industry, upon which sons of today toil. 

Robbers of here and thieves of there, 

were all but brothers,

Their mother thus ordained, that plunders they shall share.

So were bought, sons of the black, sisters of the yellow,

Mattered little, if she'd seen too many winters, or was just a little fellow.

Fathers of the brown were sold.
Mothers of the black were sold.

Sisters, young and old,
wherever there was oil, crop or gold.

Yet they call us today, with their science bold, 

"What have we not, and what hath ye, O' third world?"

Of God they speak, but well do we know,

That all they loved was blood on snow.

Altruism now, is their best show. 

Like it or not, but they see hatred grow.

We seek not vengeance, only fair play. 

Alas, mother earth, it is you who has to pay.

What they did, how do I say,

Colors are your doing, mother,

to engulf you, end of the day.

Bahubali-2- The Conclusion- Movie Review

Rajamouli, I feel for you, 

So many sub-plots and splinters, yet just three hours to pack them all in!

I am a teacher. When the course runs behind schedule, every one in our profession enters panic mode. The classes that are taken towards the end of a term are more often just patch-work, usually covering only what's required and not what's of value. Students too, of all ages and levels, take this as an emergency pill and gulp it down with magnanimity. For the current system of education, this pill is not bitter, but even sweet. In systems more pragmatic and value-based, these short bursts of knowledge dissemination would form matters of severe scrutiny.

But that's just education; entertainment is an entirely different phenomenon, you might say, Mr. Rajamouli. From where I see, you are not running for the Academy or even Nationals; so perhaps you are right. But to call cinema entirely different, I disagree. What students experience and what a viewer watches are not very unlike. In fact, the stakes are way higher in cinema because here the span of attention demanded gets amplified 3-4 times, thus requiring a delivery that's compelling enough to hold on to the viewers' senses.

This you have done, and how! 

Be it the raging cattle, or the humongous elephant carved along the river, the display of super-human strength by the central characters or innovative intrusion tactics in battle, grandeur has been your forte throughout: and understandably so. Without these spell-binding moments, the three-hour sit would be just another period fiction. The drama, the politics in monarchical settings , the heart-wrenching scenes of grief and the cosmetic episode of romance are all finely woven in for the viewer to get lost. And get lost, they will. Visuals and acting have been top notch from the entire cast. For some time to come, Prabhas, Sathyaraj and Rana Daggubatti might have to either take a sabbatical from acting or act like a De Niro to break the moulds they have conjured up for themselves through the Bahubali franchise. The characters have come alive through these men and women on the screen, this much I concede. 

Another factor contributing to the rushes- social media- has also been catered to very deftly. The Kattappa-Bahubali twain has been built in amazing fashion and finally consummated with the death of Bahubali Senior. The much awaited answer is revealed without much aplomb, and justice is done to the story. Screenplay is outstanding, art-direction has a global appeal and the graphics are advanced, to say the least. 

Having said all that, the plot of Bahubali, still cries for purchase. If Amarendra Bahubali has been brought to life, Mahendra Bahubali has been disproportionately given a subdued role. If Anushka takes charge of screen time, Tamanna has quietly languished back-stage. If Bahubali has been avenged in style, Shiva's foster parents have been kept under shadows- in all, there are flashes (in fact, a 3 hour long flash!) of unfulfilled roles and loopholes in the film. This is not unlike what students experience at the end of the term; they realise that they have learned all, yet they can't keep a finger on which is which. There is just too much pressure on their minds to stay focused. 

But the good news is- and this is where cinema is so different a phenomenon- people, in general, will lap up the visual treat and bear with the little inadequacies of story telling to the extent of negligence.

Jai Mahishmati!

P.S: Gold doesn't float on water.

Rudimentary and Corrupt

Image Courtesy- www.images.google.com

Drops of sweat raced down his sideburns towards his neck as the man in front of him in the queue bent over to deposit the application form he had been holding for a good two hours since morning. The processing clerk on the other side of the grilled counter smiled as he got a view of Shreyas when the man in front of him had bent over to shove the application form over to the bored government employee.

Shreyas too smiled back, the clerk was a colleague, junior, but colleague, nonetheless. 

"What are you doing in the line, boss? You could have sent the papers through Manjhi or Savita." queried the puzzled clerk, even as he carefully entered the details of the application form submitted by the man in front of Shreyas.

"It's fine. I have taken a day off." Shreyas replied quickly wiping out the sweat droplets, that had now reached his neck.

"Sir, you are too young to apply for your own child. Running an errand, I see." the clerk said peering over Shreyas' application as he now stood directly in front of the counter.

"Hmm. I am yet to marry, let me know if you have a suitable bride for me in mind." he tried to play it down. Although he had completed his PhD two years ago, he was only twenty-six, besides the fact that he had never done a favour this big for anyone in his life.

It was the month of May, a time when most government colleges solicit applications from prospective candidates for filling up vacancies. 

One morning, a couple of months back, Shreyas had woken up to a crowd of eight people knocking loudly on the rickety old wooden door of his usually deserted government quarters. He stayed alone and had fallen in love with the solitude his fifty-year old clay-tile roof quarters accorded to him. All of the faces that his semi-open eyes met that morning were unknown, so they widened up suddenly. 

"Yes?"

"Ram Narayan ji, from Jaunpur sends his regards to Shreyas baba. He has sent these as a small token of his appreciation from his own orchards in the hope that they will supplement Shreyas baba's health in the same way they have enriched his own." the giant of a man, with a voice as sweet as a maiden's, replied in a way only possible if one were to learn the script by-heart.

"Bade papa....All of this...for me?? Are you...." although Shreyas was no more sleepy, his mind had lost coordination with his eyes, because of the menagerie of fruits, vegetables, sweets, even chicken that were rushed in by people who gleefully carried them in baskets, heavy baskets, placed over their heads. Smiles on their faces haunted away whatever sleep was left in his eyes.

"I am the village head-man of Kishangarh, on the other side of Ganga ji. Ram Narayan ji asked me not to disturb your Sunday. So I came early. I will return next Sunday with some local delicacies that are only prepared in Kishangarh. Hope you find our fruits sweet. Ahoy! Come on, people. Get on board, let babuji enjoy his sleep." his voice was more assertive and definitely more hoarse towards the end as he hailed his people to get on the SUV parked outside his quarters gate.

His bed squeaked as Shreyas sat down with a thump in disbelief. Slowly, he regained his senses and recollected the source of the events that morning. 

During the Holi vacations a week ago, he had visited his paternal uncle who lived in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh. It was nearly five in the morning when the state-run bus halted near Ram Narayan's ancestral building. Shreyas got down from the bus and turned around to wave at the girl he had befriended on the way. The driver changed gears and the bus grunted away- the smile on Shreyas' face fading slowly in sync with the diminishing visibility of the girl's face in the bus window. The loud clanking of cymbals drew his attention away from the bus and towards the huge palatial house of his uncle.  Unlike his colony in Delhi, which wore a deserted look on Sundays till 9 in the morning, the little town, it seemed, had woken up hours earlier. The occupants of that house were out and about their chores after a long night's sleep. The horizon was beginning to brighten up, but the sky was still mostly engulfed in darkness. Birds dotted the dark, blue velvet as they set out on their daily quests. 

That Sunday, sitting on his cot, in his quarters, Shreyas fast-forwarded his flash recall to the courtyard scene in his uncle's house.

"Shrey beta, you know what it took to get you into New Delhi University, the Registrar of Varanasi Holy University, no less. He had taken personal interest in getting your application processed, which of course, entailed blocking 130 other applicants, allowing only those who had a name besides their own written on the envelope. He took interest because, he owed me one and you are my own baccha. What I did to earn that favour is stuff of folklore now, I won't go about bragging to my own nephew. What I do intend to tell you is that your father and I had been through some very rough times in the past. We were young and reckless, blood that flowed in our veins then had more fire and less hemoglobin. Although back in our time, physical abuse wasn't too grave a crime, pride was still at stake and the head-man of Kishangarh, where the incident had happened, knew this. He let us off, on a promise of quid pro quo. We had since been in his debt. He never called. We had taken for granted that the deed was done and dusted. But, Prabhu Ram has his own ways of settling scores. His son, himself a grandfather, is now the village head-man. This Holi, only two days ago, we received word from him reminding us of the promise. This head-man, Kanhaiyya Lal, has an imbecile of a grand-son, a couple of years elder to you. He is married, twice, no less! He has three children from two wives, but no income of his own. Word of your appointment in NDU reached his ears, and the imbecile turned out to be quite a sticky bastard. He went to Delhi and dug out all the slush from the files of your interview and decided it was time to call the favour in. What favour, the bastard had the balls to summon me! 

I am old now, not enough fire running in these old diabetic veins anymore. I had to yield. I promised him that you would do whatever it takes to help the nincompoop get a job. What coincidence! There was an ongoing recruitment process at your university at the same time. So I called up your father to send you here urgently. I could have called you myself. But Kanhaiyya Lal insisted on seeing you. He has a grand-daughter too, you see. I hear- and pardon my language- she can breathe life into the dead just by walking past the bodies. Speaking of the dead, she has been at the center of two skirmishes in Kihsangarh and one little incident here, in Jaunpur. The toll her beauty has taken amounts to about a score, thus far. You obviously understand what I mean, don't you?"

"Uncle. Seems like Ganga ji is getting polluted by not just the factories, but also the people thriving on her banks. Fine, tell me what to do." Shreyas said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Oh, no no. You are my own baccha. What is there to do! Nothing at all. You don't have to bat an eyelid. Everything has been arranged, you see. You, well.....you just have to say, you know this bastard..that he is your candidate. You have to say this just at the right time at the right place and to the right people. Is that too much I ask from you?"

"Too much or too little, I am not marrying any Kishangarh reject. I can say this to Kanhaiyya if you need me to." this time Shreyas hissed back.

"See? The same fire, same blood after all! I will take care of that. Don't you bother your young head with it. What was it you said about your bus to Delhi then, five in the evening today, yes?"

"Yeah. I'll be off today."

Shreyas fell on his back on the bed. His mobile phone flew off the mattress and fell on the floor with a sharp thud. He didn't care. His experience in favours was, well, a naught. But he realised, that to get a village discard a job in a Central University was a tall order, to get it in NDU, an impossibility. Towards that end, only an insider referral would create a small window, big enough to get him a driver's job, the Vice Chancellor's driver, no less! Fortunately, the village imbecile had been a rich one, had driven around in many cars and SUVs, and had a driver's license too. Shreyas tried to calm himself down. He closed his eyes.

"Sir, sir. Your candidate is here." the clerk's large spectacles appeared in a blur as Shreyas opened his eyes. 

It was noon now. He had napped after filing Ranvijay's application, superscribing with a fluorescent highlighter his own name along with a prefix at the top of the form. The processing clerk, an old hand, had obviously taken note and quickly forwarded it ahead of the others. In fact, he knew the coding system so well that the other applicants who had turned up for the interview had only thought it to be routine. The deal was settled in minutes. The clerk got richer by almost a lakh and the panelists, by a million each.

Ranvijay got the job. He didn't bother searching for Shreyas. He knew, they were now even. 

Shreyas took a transfer to Sikkim two years later. He knew, nobody applied there. 

Panther and Canon

Besides this lovely group which so much fulfills a need to give vent to my writing needs, I recently joined another group on Facebook that caters to my need for Wild-life awareness, conservation and natural beauty.

As is the habit of an idle mind, I was browsing through Facebook and came to look at some outstanding photographs-like the one posted here. While most of them were truly marvelous and told a story by itself, some pictures had a mention of technical details like the one attached herewith.

Black Panther, Kabini, Karnataka
August 2016
Canon 1DXMK2, 400mm f/2.8 IS II + 2x
ISO 3200, 800mm, f/5.6, 1/200, composed horizontally and cropped.
Processed using Adobe Lightroom CC

     Pic Courtesy- Laksh Kalyanaraman


Always the rabble-rouser, I quickly got down to commenting on these images. Let us agree to something here, the pictures are indeed top notch, almost Nat-Geo level, if not actually Nat Geo level. But some pictures came with a detailed description of technical specs of the images. All kinds of stuff - focal length, shutter speed, resolution, even application used to develop the image!- was mentioned along with the image.

I understand when somebody acknowledges a photographer giving him/her due credit mentioning- Image Courtesy, Pic copyright, etc. What beats me however, is the need of the photographer to mention these sundry details, which, for the true nature lover, is as redundant as an author printing the amount of hard work or the number of hours put in by him/her to write a book!

True, images and videos, convey information by the multiples of mere words. However, information over-load often leads to a disease called Hyperactivity Disorder among children. With the wildly popular smartphones around, there is no saying how much information kids are exposed to. While some of it really helps in the child's  development, all parents in this group would agree, most of the information is either irrelevant or even intrusive. Something similar happens to people in such
virtual groups. Most of the members, in the name of wild-life awareness, actually seek good photographs, which there are by the dozens in the group. However, very few photographs turn out to be relevant and tell a story on their own. While judging the winner of the National Geographic Maximum CIty Cover Shot contest, the legendary lens-man, Raghu Rai said," The photographer carries his heart in his palms."

In wild-life enthusiast groups today, people take this quote to a different level- they carry their ego in their palms. Sometimes the need for acclaim overrides the central purpose. In this virtual networking world where the online reputation of a person precedes his/her true identity, fanning the fires of ego and acceptance has taken precedence over everything else.

What do I intend? Why am I taking the reader's time venting my frustration about some other group in a writers' forum?

These questions will remain unanswered till we ask ourselves this question in not just our "virtual life", but our flesh-and-bone lives as well- Am I serving my true purpose?

In everything we do in life, there will be peripherals. In giving a lecture about markets, there will always be a mention of relevance of learning. In purchasing a home, people will always come across things like neighborhood, connectivity, civil supplies. In the upbringing of a child there will be a question of how the child performs in exams. In even shopping, there will be those moments of impulse where it feels impossible to stop the hand from picking up needless items. At all times,
we come across these appendages in personal choice. What holds us steady then, is the focus on the real purpose.

A student learns best through discussion. A home is given life by its occupants, everything else is secondary. A child radiates brilliance in his/her character, exams are just a lame yard-stick. Impulse purchase only needs to inflated budgets and needless subsequent compromises.

All these decisions are personal to each one of us.However, the purpose is still universal. After all, the black panther is truly a magnificent animal, the pic-specs fade in its heavenly glory. Hence, it is focus and not focal length that matters!

Breathing in Smog

In the 1940s a sizable portion of India's urban literate believed that we, as a people, didn't deserve freedom. They argued that by nature, we are conservative, timid, selfish, two-tongued and deceitful, although kinder souls. This section of our population is now dead, whatever remains are derelicts of once vibrant personalities. Sprouted in the air of freedom, the purpose of struggle for liberty was lost to the subsequent generations in the struggle for survival. The descendants of the iconoclasts had quite naturally been diverted away from India and their repugnance for its cultural inadequacies grew. India, as we know it, cannot be read, seen or understood from afar. It has to be lived, experienced and re-lived to be able to call it anything. These generations now barely represent, let alone, think, India. By the way, their rebel predecessors weren't entirely mentally derailed, to be fair. Their preference of the Raj over democracy was well founded on experiences which were usually vastly different from what the Indian democracy would have yielded. Much of this was owing to the iron hand rule of the British. Give it to the British if you wish to have efficiency and effectiveness in machines and machinery. Give it to the Goras, if you wish to have your bribe well invested- they NEVER went back on their word, no matter what. Also, they were disturbingly fair and we are not speaking skin colour here. These very virtues could be traced back to the Treta Yug, during the rule of our favorite Shri Ram- baring the instance of the bribe, that is. There were so many 'partitions' in India before the Company anchored ships with tea leaves on Bay of Bengal, that small violations were all that they needed to ignite sparks, which of course took shape of the Sepoy Mutiny. Then followed the merciless crushing of any head that rose in even objection, let alone, rebellion. Provincial Kings, meek shadows of their past glory, gave meaning to the phrase 'humble submission'. The servile Indian surfaced to dominate the landscape, not that it was the first instance. Many case-lets of tiny triumphs over the Raj were witnessed and many others lost due to lack of storytelling. It was sweet consolidation for the British thereon for a good three-four decades. They sucked out the very nectar of life from the soul of India and in its place, injected many viruses of mass incapacitation- salaries, trains, guns, English, clothes, love of fairness(we mean the color, this time) and many many more. Where the Brits went awfully wrong was the implementation of the rule. You couldn't possibly rule with a chaabuk the customer who buys from you. He pays you taxes, so that you can hoard them to fill your ageing queen's coffers half-a-world away. Rule was decentralized, but power was still in Buckingham. Besides, the iron hand may not be adequate or appropriate if you wish to rule a nation as populous and as vast as undivided India was. That's another story though. Whatever the Sahebs did or enforced, they never quite lost their core values of fairness, justice and equity. Let's state a few facts here: Number of places of worship desecrated by Brits in India- zero. (Compare that to before and after the Raj) Number of schools established to spread education- runs into thousands.(Compare that to quality, not numbers in the present) Number of Bridges built - Thousands (compare that to the number of bridges collapsing, in the present) Number of modern towns planned- all of present day India. (compare that to drainage systems, in the present) If the reader feels a subtle inclination towards the Goras, s/he is not mistaken, because the problems of the common person were in fact addressed by the Raj, albeit with revenue in mind. This brings me to the question: whether we Indians deserve Freedom today? Going by what ends we are achieving with personal, religious and political freedom, we have missed the bull's eye by a COLONIAL margin. Do we deserve another Raj today? Going by the direction in the Indian freedom fighter's compass, we might be in for worse.

Why Grap(d)es turned Sour

One sultry monsoon Friday afternoon, I was neck deep in evaluation work.  As a welcome departure, a cheerful student came into my cabin, almost running. She was visibly excited about the grade-sheet she had been clutching tightly.

" I got the 3rd highest marks in the class, Sir. Please bless me so I can top my class in the future!" she said, almost running out of breath. I barely got time to minimize the excel sheet on to my PC desktop. 

"Wow, seems like you burnt a lot of mid-night oil for those grades! May God Bless you with whatever you wish, and more." I mumbled, trying to recover from the unexpected wave of excitement her arrival had radiated in the faculty cabin.

" Thank you, sir." she beamed even as she bent down low to touch my feet, as is customary among the students of North India. I was of course a touch surprised as girls normally avoid touching feet of teachers in these parts.

" Let me see," I said with my left hand outstretched.

"Here, sir. I lag the topper by 30 marks, Sir. I am going to beat that one next." she said, handing over the sheet.

"Very good. Your aggregate is around 75-ish. That's good by university standards."

"Yes, Sir. But I am disappointed at not having topped. Arvind was always answering in negative whenever I asked him about his paper. Now, he's topped."

Three Idiots was a fact, after all, I thought.

"I think you shouldn't be worried about anyone else. Focus on what you like and try to improve upon your weaknesses, although your grades don't reveal many. Wish you all the best for the next time."

"No, Sir. Wish for me to become the topper. That's my sole purpose in life, I have never been second best."

"Go for gold, child." I bid her farewell saying thus.

Three minutes: that's how long our conversation was. Yet, I was put into a spiral of thoughts by what she had told me abut her wish. Her sole purpose in life was to top the class- what motivation! This 3-minute chat with that student and many subsequent short interviews with students who missed the grades, the good ones, raised many questions in my mind- a beginner, by teaching standards.

The government had presumed that clubbing together all the students who scored between a certain range of marks/percentages and granting them a grade would ameliorate some classes of parents, employers and students like. Could they have been wrong? Then there were the numerous cases of suicides, some fatal and some attempted. Have these cases dropped in numbers? About what percentage drop in student-related suicide cases will be enough to call the West-influenced grading system as having been a success? Is one isolated case of attitudinal problems leading to suicide enough to rule out re-consideration of grading system?

Then there is the now-famous "Sharma Ji ka beta". My mind is right now boggled with questions, myriad and varied. Were our ancestors wrong in naming Gods- all religions included? Was it a fallacy to revere- anything, anybody, any way? Is sportsmanship a bhram- an illusion? Are all corporations of the world today wrong in their pursuit of improvement in processes, people and practices? Any sane thinker might be peeved at my reasoning. After all, what has the joy of achieving high scores got to do with Gods, companies and Olympics? Well, the underlying emotion here is not competition, but improvement of self with ideals(benchmarks) in the mind. Agreed, the price of improving upon scores cannot and should not be achieved at the cost of duress and fatigue to the young minds, but that doesn't mean students be left to their own devices in academic achievement.

If one agrees that there must be benchmarks of performance and rewards must be in accordance with performance, then the "Sharma Ji ka beta" syndrome is justified, if not in entirety. Argue in logic, please, not just for the sake of putting up a face. While, people readily uphold reward in corporate for individual and team achievement, they deny its justification at places of learning. Their chief argument being that the un-rewarded will be crestfallen. Well, then what happens to the un-rewarded colleagues at office? Do they run off high rises to terminate their abominable lives? The answer and hence the reason is not very different in academics either.


True, the West has thrived on its spirit of liberal education system for all; they dominate the world's research produce, they maintain very high standards of living and dying (Oops!), blah, blah. My concern is, give them a demography as varied and vivid as India's and let them be consistent in their outcome. Where disparity is what defines who you are, the struggle for existence precedes all other individual fantasies at some point in a person's life. The eco-system is ideal for competition- the healthy as well as the not-so-sporting variations accounted.


Many bring in the examples of China, Japan and other oriental nations to the table. Their development too is, by far, exemplary, along with comparable demographics. What went wrong with India then? That's where I wish, India had been as transformational in its growth as it has been incremental. Hence, PM Modi's call for such a paradigm shift in developmental agenda is the need of the hour. Let the market decide what stays and what doesn't. Let competition be the litmus. Let opportunity be equitable and the outcomes, accountable. No "Sharma Ji Ka Beta" would ever be around if there was no inequity in the social fabric. To draw out his deep-rooted evil which has many hair strands, each one a separate social issue altogether, enforcement of strong political will is a must.


Till that happens, which is an obscure point in the future (near or far is anyone's guess), grades will taste sour.

Googled away!

On a day that reminds my community of its responsibility towards not just pupils but also the society at large, thought it would be only pragmatic to recall our duties from a renewed perspective.

Earth is on boil, literally. Men have led the human race to the cusp of intelligence and achievement with many ground-breaking inventions, many more hatching as we write. Mechanization, automation and AI have, in that order, helped us move deeper into the arms of comfort and luxury. The mind is now given a break more frequently, although the body continues to toil harder each subsequent decade. Such is the affliction of the body, that the mind distances itself from core emotions and only answers to the basal instincts of the physique.

The lines dividing regions are slowly blurring due to the rapid advances of technology and communication, but creases among individuals and communities are more apparent, ironically, due to the same reasons. New monstrosities, hitherto unheard of, are being committed against target groups least expected and deserving to be harassed. Trade has sky-rocketed many a mile, while how it is conducted- the ethics of it- has plummeted into unfathomable depths. Somewhere these actors have had conflicting notions, one of which has been cemented by their teachers- Gurus, Padres, Mualvis, Shifus, Masters, Parents, Elders, Bosses- someone missed out on the moral science class.

Good Samaritans still abound, nursing wounds inflicted in their resistance to the new world order, for the critical intellectual support they need to nourish their defiance is down to all but a trickle now. Parents worry about grades (if not marks), teachers are wary about securing their jobs (if not misdirection), preachers crave for religious hegemony (if not genocide), businesses strive for pursuit of greater heights (if not simply profits), even monks have compromised with the ideals of their scriptures, if not entirely derailing from basic tenets of their respective religions. Knowledge isn't a treasure anymore, for ill founded illusions of learning through machines have taken over the time-tested methods of pedagogy. Classrooms are grounds where Google is justified and teachers are conduits to these ends. Hence, the new age of materialist learning only calls for desperate measures from our community, which I surmise isn't a prospect that needs to be written home about.

On a day when children, students, parents look up to my community for inspiration, I have nothing to offer in return but a few words of hope. Despite all odds, the teaching-learning duality exists and will continue to flourish, although the word teacher takes on new meanings while the student and her intellectual needs continually evolve. In the name of change and survival, the two sides of knowledge will continue to meet in new platforms of time, place and manner.

Cheers to the spirit of learning!