Heroes
"Heroes know that things must happen when it is time for them to happen. A quest may not simply be abandoned; unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever; a happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story"
Exams!!
Saurabh Mahajan, reporting live from Semester Exams, Institute of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology- an institute whose mandate is creating Biotechnologist for the 21st century India.
One more semester of bullshit exams, tensed bullshit faces, bullshit teachers, bullshit questions, bullshit answers, bullshit happiness because you could answer every bullshit question the Teacher tried to scare you with.
We have a plant taxonomy exam. “THE VIVA”!! What are the economically important alga? The Gymnosperms? The Angiosperms? What is heterospory? Identify the same bullshit specimen they showed you during the laboratory course. Nothing on what recent article you have read, nothing about a new company you found which produces antibodies from moss cells, nothing even about the forest you have visited, the plants you saw... Who cares? They just want to do their duties and feel happy that they are creating Biotechnologists for the new century India. उपकारच वाटतात साल्यांना.
चिडचिड होते. कितीही ठरवलं की, यासगळ्याकडे लक्ष नाही द्यायचं. Look at the positive side. Whatever little they are trying to do. पण नाही सहन होत कधी-कधी… Why? Why cant they be humans trying to excel for their own sake? If not, then for the sake of their children, their society, their nation…Bullshit!!
One more semester of bullshit exams, tensed bullshit faces, bullshit teachers, bullshit questions, bullshit answers, bullshit happiness because you could answer every bullshit question the Teacher tried to scare you with.
We have a plant taxonomy exam. “THE VIVA”!! What are the economically important alga? The Gymnosperms? The Angiosperms? What is heterospory? Identify the same bullshit specimen they showed you during the laboratory course. Nothing on what recent article you have read, nothing about a new company you found which produces antibodies from moss cells, nothing even about the forest you have visited, the plants you saw... Who cares? They just want to do their duties and feel happy that they are creating Biotechnologists for the new century India. उपकारच वाटतात साल्यांना.
चिडचिड होते. कितीही ठरवलं की, यासगळ्याकडे लक्ष नाही द्यायचं. Look at the positive side. Whatever little they are trying to do. पण नाही सहन होत कधी-कधी… Why? Why cant they be humans trying to excel for their own sake? If not, then for the sake of their children, their society, their nation…Bullshit!!
Education System
Now I am trying to identify how close we are to such an education system.
I am reading the National Policy on Education (1986, revised in 1992). According to the NPE the essence and role of education (among others) is to-
1. Create individuals with scientific temper and an independent mind and spirit.
2. Create manpower for all levels of economy and Research and Development.
“Education is an investment for the present and future. This cardinal principle is the key to the National Policy on Education”
2 points are very notable-
1. Absence of focus on creating able individuals to achieve the above goals. There is no discussion on what qualities must such an individual have and how education can help achieve them. The education policy seems to focus on the social and developmental goals that education has to meet in general.
2. And if education is seen as an investment, what are the criteria to judge the returns and does the education policy ensure the returns.
The specific aims of higher education have been identified as-
1. Dissemination of specialised knowledge and skills.
2. Producing teachers for the system.
I can identify 3 components (in hierarchy) for achieving these goals-
1. A proper organization of higher education institutes and coordination amongst
them.
2. Infrastructural facilities in these institutes.
3. Efficiency of the grass root teaching and learning process.
Obviously, problems persist in all the 3 components and absence of any one component can lead to severe impediment of the output.
Being a student the teaching and learning process is the closest to me. I will try to identify the problems with this component.
I am reading the National Policy on Education (1986, revised in 1992). According to the NPE the essence and role of education (among others) is to-
1. Create individuals with scientific temper and an independent mind and spirit.
2. Create manpower for all levels of economy and Research and Development.
“Education is an investment for the present and future. This cardinal principle is the key to the National Policy on Education”
2 points are very notable-
1. Absence of focus on creating able individuals to achieve the above goals. There is no discussion on what qualities must such an individual have and how education can help achieve them. The education policy seems to focus on the social and developmental goals that education has to meet in general.
2. And if education is seen as an investment, what are the criteria to judge the returns and does the education policy ensure the returns.
The specific aims of higher education have been identified as-
1. Dissemination of specialised knowledge and skills.
2. Producing teachers for the system.
I can identify 3 components (in hierarchy) for achieving these goals-
1. A proper organization of higher education institutes and coordination amongst
them.
2. Infrastructural facilities in these institutes.
3. Efficiency of the grass root teaching and learning process.
Obviously, problems persist in all the 3 components and absence of any one component can lead to severe impediment of the output.
Being a student the teaching and learning process is the closest to me. I will try to identify the problems with this component.
Changing the system
’जाग्रुती यात्रे’ बद्दल वाचत होतो.
“You could be one of the 450 people selected to join the yatra which kicks off on 1st May 2008. We are seeking participants between the age of 18-25 to apply, especially those who have an interest in learning how to scale up grass roots social and business initiatives. If your application is succesful, you will have the opportunity to meet and learn from the real heroes and change makers of India and pick up on invaluable, life changing experience.”
As a part of their application they have asked us to fill up a questionnaire.
One of the questions was- “What is the single biggest challenge that India faces in the next decade? What will be your contribution towards addressing the challenge you mentioned above?”
I think that the biggest challenge before us as a country is to increase the efficiency in grass root processes in every sector including education, governance, bureaucracy, industry and commerce. For achieving optimal efficiency in any process apart from the suitable infrastructure it is necessary that the human resource involved is competent and willing to achieve the optimal efficiency. This will happen only when every individual realises his full potential and expresses it for achieving efficiency. So, the challenge is to create a society which will produce such individuals.
There are many factors that should form the part of such a society. The foremost being an education system conducive to our aim. (So the reforms have to inevitably begin with the educational system) What are the elements of such an educational system?
“You could be one of the 450 people selected to join the yatra which kicks off on 1st May 2008. We are seeking participants between the age of 18-25 to apply, especially those who have an interest in learning how to scale up grass roots social and business initiatives. If your application is succesful, you will have the opportunity to meet and learn from the real heroes and change makers of India and pick up on invaluable, life changing experience.”
As a part of their application they have asked us to fill up a questionnaire.
One of the questions was- “What is the single biggest challenge that India faces in the next decade? What will be your contribution towards addressing the challenge you mentioned above?”
I think that the biggest challenge before us as a country is to increase the efficiency in grass root processes in every sector including education, governance, bureaucracy, industry and commerce. For achieving optimal efficiency in any process apart from the suitable infrastructure it is necessary that the human resource involved is competent and willing to achieve the optimal efficiency. This will happen only when every individual realises his full potential and expresses it for achieving efficiency. So, the challenge is to create a society which will produce such individuals.
There are many factors that should form the part of such a society. The foremost being an education system conducive to our aim. (So the reforms have to inevitably begin with the educational system) What are the elements of such an educational system?
REFLECTIONS ON SCIENCE
REFLECTIONS:
I am excited again!
It is a book by Sir Peter Medawar: “The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice”. Classic essays in Science.
I am fascinated by the second essay, titled Hypotheses and Imagination, about the methodologies of Science and the origin of scientific discoveries.
I think this is what I was looking for. Something that might be pulling me to science.
“We may collect and classify facts, we may marvel at curiosities and idly wonder what accounts for them, but the activity that is characteristically scientific begins with an explanatory conjuncture which at once becomes the subject of an energetic critical analysis. It is an instance of a far more general stratagem that underlies every enlargement of general understanding and every new solution of the problem of finding our way about the world. The regulation and control of hypothesis is more usefully described as a cybernetic than as a logical process: the adjustment and reformulation of hypothesis through an examination of their deductive consequences is simply another setting for the ubiquitous phenomenon of negative feedback. The purely logical element in scientific discovery is comparatively small one, and the idea of a logic of scientific discovery is acceptable only in an older and wider use of ‘logic’ than is current among formal logicians today.
The weakness of the hypothetico-deductive system, in so far as it might profess to offer a complete account of the scientific process lies in its disclaiming any power to explain how hypothesis come into being. By “inspiration”, surely: by the ‘spontaneous conjectures of instinctive reasoning’, said Pierce: but what then? It has often been suggested that the act of creation is the same in art as it is in science: certainly ‘having an idea’—the formulation of a hypothesis—resembles other forms of inspirational activity in the circumstances that favour it, the suddenness with which it comes about, the wholeness of the conception it embodies, and the fact that the mental events which lead to it happen below the surface of the mind. But there, to my mind, the resemblance ends. No one questions the inspirational character of musical or poetic invention because of the delight and exaltation that go with it somehow communicate themselves to others. Something travels: we are carried away. But science is not an art form in this sense; scientific discovery is a private event, and the delight that accompanies it or the despair of finding it illusory, does not travel. One scientist may get great satisfaction from another’s work and admire it deeply; it may give him great intellectual pleasure; but it gives him no sense of participation in the discovery, it does not carry him away, and his appreciation of it does not depend on his being carried away. If it were otherwise the inspirational origin of scientific discovery would never have been in doubt.”
Is there anything common to this and the other things I am ‘passionate’ about? I think it is the feeling of creating something; unravelling a broad scheme which exists, if not executing it. The genesis of a hypothesis, however mystical, is an act of
unravelling a scheme, which might exist.
What about the testing a hypothesis? There is an aura of uncertainty around a hypothesis. And thus an urge to find out, if the scheme you have just conceived is true. Does it pass the tests of reasoning, logic and reality?
And this I think is what makes science so exciting and beautiful for me.
I am excited again!
It is a book by Sir Peter Medawar: “The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice”. Classic essays in Science.
I am fascinated by the second essay, titled Hypotheses and Imagination, about the methodologies of Science and the origin of scientific discoveries.
I think this is what I was looking for. Something that might be pulling me to science.
“We may collect and classify facts, we may marvel at curiosities and idly wonder what accounts for them, but the activity that is characteristically scientific begins with an explanatory conjuncture which at once becomes the subject of an energetic critical analysis. It is an instance of a far more general stratagem that underlies every enlargement of general understanding and every new solution of the problem of finding our way about the world. The regulation and control of hypothesis is more usefully described as a cybernetic than as a logical process: the adjustment and reformulation of hypothesis through an examination of their deductive consequences is simply another setting for the ubiquitous phenomenon of negative feedback. The purely logical element in scientific discovery is comparatively small one, and the idea of a logic of scientific discovery is acceptable only in an older and wider use of ‘logic’ than is current among formal logicians today.
The weakness of the hypothetico-deductive system, in so far as it might profess to offer a complete account of the scientific process lies in its disclaiming any power to explain how hypothesis come into being. By “inspiration”, surely: by the ‘spontaneous conjectures of instinctive reasoning’, said Pierce: but what then? It has often been suggested that the act of creation is the same in art as it is in science: certainly ‘having an idea’—the formulation of a hypothesis—resembles other forms of inspirational activity in the circumstances that favour it, the suddenness with which it comes about, the wholeness of the conception it embodies, and the fact that the mental events which lead to it happen below the surface of the mind. But there, to my mind, the resemblance ends. No one questions the inspirational character of musical or poetic invention because of the delight and exaltation that go with it somehow communicate themselves to others. Something travels: we are carried away. But science is not an art form in this sense; scientific discovery is a private event, and the delight that accompanies it or the despair of finding it illusory, does not travel. One scientist may get great satisfaction from another’s work and admire it deeply; it may give him great intellectual pleasure; but it gives him no sense of participation in the discovery, it does not carry him away, and his appreciation of it does not depend on his being carried away. If it were otherwise the inspirational origin of scientific discovery would never have been in doubt.”
Is there anything common to this and the other things I am ‘passionate’ about? I think it is the feeling of creating something; unravelling a broad scheme which exists, if not executing it. The genesis of a hypothesis, however mystical, is an act of
unravelling a scheme, which might exist.
What about the testing a hypothesis? There is an aura of uncertainty around a hypothesis. And thus an urge to find out, if the scheme you have just conceived is true. Does it pass the tests of reasoning, logic and reality?
And this I think is what makes science so exciting and beautiful for me.
"favorite status messages/quotes"
Me : The complexities of this problem are worth considering......whats ur take on this?
Mr Feynman : Hmm...If we're successfull,it will be an international news.Good luck young man..
Mr Feynman : Hmm...If we're successfull,it will be an international news.Good luck young man..
"Need"
"If I want it, I need it. If I need it, I have a right to it. If I have a right to it, someone owes it to me. Or else I ll sue."
_ A Times magazine journalist
_ A Times magazine journalist
"Nightmare"
I just had a nightmare.
I was walking along a narrow path which seemed to be the circumference of a circle. There were people walking with me. People of all kinds. Some tall-some dwarf, some walked fast-some just trudged along, people with colorful dresses-people with sullen faces. We all walked along the circle.
Soon we reached an intersection. Bored by walking along the same road, I turned. Some people turned with me, some continued, some took the next turn. I could see faces adding, faces subtracting.
Some time passed and there was yet another crossing. I changed the path again. Sometimes I let the crossing go and continue. Soon I realised that there were nothing but intersecting circles.
I began to wonder "Why were we all here?".
I asked the man walking besides me. And he kept mum. Then I asked the next one and then the next and the next. And they all kept mum.
I was beginning to feel tired. However now the curiosity had taken over me. I was getting more and more determined to know the answer. I kept walking till I no longer remembered how many circles I had crossed.
Then for the first time I saw an amazing thing. At the centre of what seemed to be the largest circle I saw a man standing. His face had a divine glow. And he seemed to be the one who knew everything.
I shouted across to him "Hey! Do you know why are we all here. Walking along these circles."
He smiled and sublimed into the space.
I was walking along a narrow path which seemed to be the circumference of a circle. There were people walking with me. People of all kinds. Some tall-some dwarf, some walked fast-some just trudged along, people with colorful dresses-people with sullen faces. We all walked along the circle.
Soon we reached an intersection. Bored by walking along the same road, I turned. Some people turned with me, some continued, some took the next turn. I could see faces adding, faces subtracting.
Some time passed and there was yet another crossing. I changed the path again. Sometimes I let the crossing go and continue. Soon I realised that there were nothing but intersecting circles.
I began to wonder "Why were we all here?".
I asked the man walking besides me. And he kept mum. Then I asked the next one and then the next and the next. And they all kept mum.
I was beginning to feel tired. However now the curiosity had taken over me. I was getting more and more determined to know the answer. I kept walking till I no longer remembered how many circles I had crossed.
Then for the first time I saw an amazing thing. At the centre of what seemed to be the largest circle I saw a man standing. His face had a divine glow. And he seemed to be the one who knew everything.
I shouted across to him "Hey! Do you know why are we all here. Walking along these circles."
He smiled and sublimed into the space.
Rise. O! My Warriors.
Rise. O! Warriors.
Rise to the sun
for not he enlightens
but for his supremacy
Rise. O! Warriors
Rise to the mighty oceans
for not they give you rain
but for their power
Rise. O! Warriors
Rise to the mountains
for not they give you the rivers
but for their height
Rise. My Courageous Warriors!
Deny this lullaby you hear
for life is calling you
to hear her sing
the song of the sun, the oceans and the mountains.
Rise not for the world
But for your own soul
that begs you to break
these weak shackles of mediocrity
Rise O! My Warriors
to the sun, the oceans, the mountains.
Rise to the sun
for not he enlightens
but for his supremacy
Rise. O! Warriors
Rise to the mighty oceans
for not they give you rain
but for their power
Rise. O! Warriors
Rise to the mountains
for not they give you the rivers
but for their height
Rise. My Courageous Warriors!
Deny this lullaby you hear
for life is calling you
to hear her sing
the song of the sun, the oceans and the mountains.
Rise not for the world
But for your own soul
that begs you to break
these weak shackles of mediocrity
Rise O! My Warriors
to the sun, the oceans, the mountains.
"Change"
"All that you touch,
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes You.
The only lasting truth
Is Change"
-Octavia Butler
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes You.
The only lasting truth
Is Change"
-Octavia Butler
bhankas
CAUTION: EXPERIMENTAL
00.00 -05.30: no zop, pahav tikde dhekanach dhekana distayet; kharatar aj lecture ani don internals ahet. zopayla hava. pan jagahi nahiye ani khali antharayla hi kahi nahi. aksharshah najar padel tya pratyek sq.m. madhe 5-10 dhekana distayet.
karayla kahi nahi mhanun net var timepass kartoy. nukatach room madhe net alyamule chan timepass milalay. prachanda kam hotayet pan tevadhach timepass hi lagel teva.
maghashi jara fresh vara ala khidakitna ani "kuhu kuhu" aiku ala teva jara bara vatla. zali ekdachi pahat! jogging la yenare lokahi yayla suruvat zali. baher jaun jara chaha takayla hava.
chan vatata unhalyatlya pahate pahate baher firayla.
nighatoch ata...
00.00 -05.30: no zop, pahav tikde dhekanach dhekana distayet; kharatar aj lecture ani don internals ahet. zopayla hava. pan jagahi nahiye ani khali antharayla hi kahi nahi. aksharshah najar padel tya pratyek sq.m. madhe 5-10 dhekana distayet.
karayla kahi nahi mhanun net var timepass kartoy. nukatach room madhe net alyamule chan timepass milalay. prachanda kam hotayet pan tevadhach timepass hi lagel teva.
maghashi jara fresh vara ala khidakitna ani "kuhu kuhu" aiku ala teva jara bara vatla. zali ekdachi pahat! jogging la yenare lokahi yayla suruvat zali. baher jaun jara chaha takayla hava.
chan vatata unhalyatlya pahate pahate baher firayla.
nighatoch ata...
Ride
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-served body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming, "Wow! What a ride!!"
Anon(for me)
Anon(for me)
"heaven"
"Chiang, this world isn't heaven at all, is it?"
The Elder smiled inthe moonlight. "You are learning again, Jonathan Seagull," he said.
"Well, what happens from here? Where are we going? Is there no suchplace as heaven?"
"No, Jonathan, there is no such place. Heaven is not a place, and itis not a time. Heaven is being perfect."
He was silent for a moment. "Youare a very fast flier, aren't you?"
"I... I enjoy speed," Jonathan said, taken aback but proud that theElder had noticed.
"You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that youtouch perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or amillion, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit,and perfection doesn't have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is beingthere."
Without warning, Chiang vanished and appeared at the water's edgefifty feet away, all in the flicker of an instant. Then he vanished againand stood, in the same millisecond, at Jonathan's shoulder.
"It's kind of fun," he said.
-jonathan livingstone seagull
The Elder smiled inthe moonlight. "You are learning again, Jonathan Seagull," he said.
"Well, what happens from here? Where are we going? Is there no suchplace as heaven?"
"No, Jonathan, there is no such place. Heaven is not a place, and itis not a time. Heaven is being perfect."
He was silent for a moment. "Youare a very fast flier, aren't you?"
"I... I enjoy speed," Jonathan said, taken aback but proud that theElder had noticed.
"You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that youtouch perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or amillion, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit,and perfection doesn't have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is beingthere."
Without warning, Chiang vanished and appeared at the water's edgefifty feet away, all in the flicker of an instant. Then he vanished againand stood, in the same millisecond, at Jonathan's shoulder.
"It's kind of fun," he said.
-jonathan livingstone seagull
honesty, the best policy?
i have found for myself that honesty is the best policy always
i try not to lie to anyone as far as possible; not to people and not even to myself...
that is more important i guess ...to be honest to yourself!
it makes things a lot easier..i don't have to care abt "what if ppl come to know abt i"
i like to be courageous...its a lot of fun to own up to what you do...thts real confidence i guess...to believe in what you do...
what do you think? any other experience will be welcome
i try not to lie to anyone as far as possible; not to people and not even to myself...
that is more important i guess ...to be honest to yourself!
it makes things a lot easier..i don't have to care abt "what if ppl come to know abt i"
i like to be courageous...its a lot of fun to own up to what you do...thts real confidence i guess...to believe in what you do...
what do you think? any other experience will be welcome
extempore
Something that has been about me forever but i have realised it lately...
I dont like situations where i have to compete for the sake of competing without the whole process being enjoyable.This fact has got n implications..I dont like to interact with people who i feel may try to judge me...and then decide how to interact...
I have very poor sports instincts. (i dont like to compete)
but with others i am jus fine...people find me diverse...i do a lot of things...i dont like to stay with anything for long...thats bad and i am tryin to improve...
with people i connect well, i am very frank, jo dil mein hai wahi bahar...
cheers to the quest!!!
I dont like situations where i have to compete for the sake of competing without the whole process being enjoyable.This fact has got n implications..I dont like to interact with people who i feel may try to judge me...and then decide how to interact...
I have very poor sports instincts. (i dont like to compete)
but with others i am jus fine...people find me diverse...i do a lot of things...i dont like to stay with anything for long...thats bad and i am tryin to improve...
with people i connect well, i am very frank, jo dil mein hai wahi bahar...
cheers to the quest!!!
primary education-beginning of a eternal journey of learning
A few days back I visited an exhibition on primary education and some innovative and play-way methods of learning for kids in kg through say 3 std.
It raised some questions in my mind regarding learning specially in kids. I am putting some of the basic ideas in the exhibition along with the qustions it raised.
1. Large part of learning in kids is based on imitation of people in their surroundings.
Are we providing kids individuals worth imitating?
A very interesting example is-(even from my own experience)- parents ask their kids to exercise regularly, when they themselves do not...this is very funny; when you want your kid to exercise he should see you exercising daily...otherwise why will he listen to you?
2. Students (now here i mean students from primary to even university level) start liking imitation, rather it becomes a habit with them, than creativity at some stage...are we as a society really creating an environment which fosters creativity?
3. After the primary stage onwards children start spending more time in school or rather the school starts becoming a more influential factor in learning and overall mental and emotional growth... so emphasis should be on creating an appropriate environment in school... it should not remain just a source of curricular knowledge...
4. And a comment on role of play in learning. I will quote J D Watson, who discovered the structure of DNA.
[b]" All we had to do was to construct a set of molecular models and begin to play-with luck it would be a helix"[/b]
It raised some questions in my mind regarding learning specially in kids. I am putting some of the basic ideas in the exhibition along with the qustions it raised.
1. Large part of learning in kids is based on imitation of people in their surroundings.
Are we providing kids individuals worth imitating?
A very interesting example is-(even from my own experience)- parents ask their kids to exercise regularly, when they themselves do not...this is very funny; when you want your kid to exercise he should see you exercising daily...otherwise why will he listen to you?
2. Students (now here i mean students from primary to even university level) start liking imitation, rather it becomes a habit with them, than creativity at some stage...are we as a society really creating an environment which fosters creativity?
3. After the primary stage onwards children start spending more time in school or rather the school starts becoming a more influential factor in learning and overall mental and emotional growth... so emphasis should be on creating an appropriate environment in school... it should not remain just a source of curricular knowledge...
4. And a comment on role of play in learning. I will quote J D Watson, who discovered the structure of DNA.
[b]" All we had to do was to construct a set of molecular models and begin to play-with luck it would be a helix"[/b]
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