The Dog-Shit In Our Brains

SEVERAL FRIENDS REACTED to my last blog — which was not by me (perhaps the reason it was liked) but by Srividya Srinivasan.

As I i mentioned at the outset’ I did not know her as the piece was mailed to me by a freind and I liked it so much I published it with no changes. Everyone who read it ( strangely it does not apear in the list of my blogs) as the link I sent led to it and agreed with all he said .

One reader even pointed out what she forgot: dog shit left on our footpaths to the disgust of morning walkers. In the US all residents in a colony who walk their dogs are asked to carry a bag and a pair ofvtongs to pick up the shit, put it in the oad and drop it in the trash.

The dog shit on footpaths can be picked up and put in trash bins. But what about the shit filling the brains of many who throw all trash on public roads and any place outside their homes? In India we pride ourselve in keeping our houses clean by throwing all trash out – even in the neighbour’s premises.

As the neighbour also does the same. we all live in trash dumps. The dog shit in our brains of those ridiculing the Swacch Bharat drive of Narendra Modi has to be cleared first. Why was keeping clean not thought of by those who ruled for decades? Because you don’t get votes from it?

That reminded me of a cartoon by R K Laxman decades ago. The ubiquitous ‘common man’ of his cartoons is seen telling a political worker at a booth surrounded by trash from the campaign: “You said you will sweep the polls. Go sweep them.”

It is time we all did some did some sweeping. And cleaning up, starting with our brains.

No Unemployment in India

education

WHENEVER I SAY (and it is quite often) that there is no unemployment in India but most people are “unemployable”, I get angry rebuttals or derisive laughter.

But I still hold it is true. Most school students do not know what they want to be. A very large number of people see employment as just an accident. An extremely large number of people do not enjoy what they are doing. Those who want to be singers or writers or painters end up as doctors or engineers. Being a player or an athlete was, till recently, never an option – all play “is a waste of time; it will not feed you.”

Brilliant could-have-been architects would be poring over accounts and those who could have made excellent doctors would be…. We can go on and on. There are too many square pegs in round holes.
And the main reason for this sorry state of things is our education system.

One of the worst failures of the country, whichever party is in power, is in the field of

education.

Continue reading No Unemployment in India

Not Just Blind, Also Silent On The Voiceless

Related image
After Gulzar’s ‘Koshish’, a laudable ‘koshish’ by the government

A WORD THAT WAS used too frequently in recent political debates in different contexts – so frequently that it has almost lost it’s meaning – is empowering’.

Just 2 days ago I wrote on this blog how empowering the white cane, audio books or the enhanced ability of touch are to the blind. Most of the blind use not only touch but also sound and smell to great advantage.

They have these faculties far more developed than ‘normal’ people. Most ‘sighted’ people can hear without listening, see without noticing and touch without feeling. And they take these facilities for granted, not even thankful for having them and doing little for those denied them.

Elsewhere, I mentioned Sateesh Sehgal. a Delhi friend who was retained in Mumbai by filmmaker Gulzar for the entire duration of the filming of his classic film  ‘Koshish’ starring Sanjiv Kumar and Jaya Bhaduri, as he did not want a single scene in it which would not go with the deaf and dumb. A perfectionist like him would never compromise.

Sateesh, an expert in sign language, used to tell me how British and Indian sign languages differed. In English showing a ring on a finger meant ‘married’; showing a nose-stud or a Mangala sutra did it in India. He tried to compile an Indian dictionary of sign language. I could give only moral support.

So it was gratifying to receive a mail from a young relative working as a ‘special teacher’ for the dumb, a Press Information Bureau release that the government has brought out ‘The First Indian Sign Language Dictionary’ of 3000 words. It was launched by Thaawarchand Gehlot, Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment.

The dictionary has been developed by Indian Sign Language Research & Training Centre (ISLR&TC) under Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

The basic aim of the ISL Dictionary is to improve communication between the deaf and hearing communities. It provides much information in Indian sign language to the deaf, bringing them into the social mainstream. New words will be added to the dictionary later.

As per 2011 census, there are 50, 71,007 deaf people and 19, 98,535 with speech disability in India. So it was decided by the new government to develop the dictionary to provide them with legal, medical, technical and academic terms along with daily use words. The ISLD has videos with subtitles in English and Hindi terms to help deaf children learn English.

It has everyday terms, 237 legal terms like “Affidavit”, “Acquittal”, over 200 academic terms explaining words like “Nervous System”, “Rotation” and “Revolution”, etc. from subjects like physics, geography, biology, maths, etc. 200 sign videos for medical terms, 206 videos of signs for 204 technical terms used in vocational training or in computer courses.

My friend Sateesh Sehgal’s dream is coming true after almost half a century.

Technology – Enslaving or Our Slave?

On Monday my Op-Ed was published in the Los Angeles Times! In the last several months I have had the pleasure of working with editors at some pretty brag-worthy publications, though with the LA Times I can’t help but devote an entire blog post to my bragging. Shameless, I know. For those who missed it, […]

via I was Published in the L.A. Times — Jamison Writes

I am sharing here a blog post by Jamison Hill on how he lives by his smartphone

WHEN I WROTE TWO BLOG POSTS LAST MONTH ON MY SMARTPHONE, I THOUGHT IT was something unique. I found some write and  many read their blogs on smartphones. Continue reading Technology – Enslaving or Our Slave?

Morality As Political Tool

IMG-20170425-WA0015

IN INDIA WE EXPECT OUR PRIME MINISTERS AND PRESIDENTS, though the later are only titular heads, to be in their late sixties or older, to be paragons of virtue – very loyal to their spouses – though they may otherwise lack the acumen to handle a vast country’s complex  problems.

And they should preferably belong to a dynasty. If they do we can give them concessions like being in their forties. If they don’t belong to the dynasty, we question his having not having ever lived with a wife he married at a very young age and by arrangement, not his choice. If she belonged to the dynasty no one mentions that she married by choice but separated after becoming a mother twice!

And many Indian politicians lead double lives – of righteousness and high morals for the

Continue reading Morality As Political Tool

Will ‘Table2Talk’ Be The Answer?

table2talk

THE  SECOND  DECADE  OF THE  21st  CENTURY  IS  SHAPED  AND  DRIVEN  BY  SOCIAL MEDIA.  A whole new lifestyle is emerging, dictated by these online tools for maintaining virtual interpersonal relations, often without actual contact.

SocialMediaPinTrans
The Driving Force of 21st Century

Just as people have begun to feel that there are already too many social media platforms, most of them originating in that Mecca of technology, the United States of America, or in China, one more is being launched, this time from India– the nation that boasts of being both the world’s oldest civilization and the leader in Information Technology. It is called ‘Table2Talk’ and aims at connecting  but without the frivolity and loss of privacy  that mark many of the platforms today.     Continue reading Will ‘Table2Talk’ Be The Answer?

Poem: “Time To Stand Up?” (Reblogged)

Reblogging a poem that really moved me  — UnstoppableAfterSeventy

Date: May 3, 2017

by John Kaniecki

When Pilgrim pride
Committed genocide
Did you stand?
When from across the sea
Merchants dealt chattel slavery
Did you stand?
When immigrants of all ages
Were paid starvation wages
Did you stand?
When Jim Crow did reign
Inflicting bitter pain
Did you stand?
When they desecrated sacred Mother Earth
Violating indigenous worth
Did you stand?
When imperialism dominated
And atrocities were created
Did you stand?
When the police time and time again
Gun down black young men
Did you stand?
When the C.I.A. in sin
Flooded the hood with heroin
Did you stand?
When trillions were spent on war
And nothing to the poor
Did you stand?
Did you stand for every injustice and wrong?
Then why should I stand for your racist song?

Author’s Links:

amazon.com/John-Kaniecki/e/B00NV8AU76

  Will a hundred more bloggers reblog this?   I hope they do.

Non-Profits or Fake NGOs?

nonproft
Funds always come for good causes

YEARS AGO, WHEN I MENTIONED I WAS with some N.G.O.s, someone remarked with a smirk on his face, “Oh, then you must have made a lot of money”.

That symbolizes what  many people think of Non-Governmental Organisations or NGOs.

imgres
Eliminate the weeds to nurture real trees

They are more appropriately called non-profits in the USA as not all government bodies need be without profit motive and private organisations include even firms working solely for profit. The UN prefers to call them voluntary organisations and an annual Day of Volunteerism is observed

The Supreme Court of India has recently Continue reading Non-Profits or Fake NGOs?

Facing Facebook’s Downside

                                                                                            Hooked on from childhoodimg-20170204-wa0009

“Why write?”, they question, “No one reads. Who has the time? Facebook and WhatsApp have killed reading.”

facebook_2That was from my blog post (Tomorrow becomes Today, Dec20, 2016). So get used to writing without expecting anyone to read. I still write, though almost no one reads.

But when I wrote that, a friend responded that in my decades as a journalist I must have realised that writing was like throwing a stone at random – it may hit someone somewhere.

One of the reasons why no one has time to read (post ‘Where Is The time?‘ Jan.13) is their being too busy with Continue reading Facing Facebook’s Downside

Growing Up In Information Age

ph-quote-growup.png

–Courtesy Prakash Hegde

WhatsApp has become so much a part of our lives that there is hardly an urban Indian who is not only on the app but also on one or several groups of the messaging service.

Some find WhatsApp a big nuisance with lengthy forwards and data-consuming videos  Continue reading Growing Up In Information Age