Exploring to Learn

Ever since the web has entangled us in its sticky embrace, we have,most of us,been victims to the 'playing at work' syndrome. Eyes glued to the flickering screen, working hard, for others, and hardly working otherwise,we explore endless domains. It all begins in the garb of the harmless pc game/checking for some news on Google.The obvious excuse is - taking a break from work. Slowly and surely work starts getting lesser while the break gets larger in size.In no time,we're working, but in fits and starts. All thanks to the immense possibilities offered by the web. Checking mails, interacting on social networking sites,googling,checking out online courses ,blogging,buying,selling,sharing pictures,...so much to do and each option more enticing than the other. With electricity playing rogue this summer, we realized our dependance on this non-renewable resource anew.Even in this sweltering heat,one could manage without the AC but not without the internet connection! I do believe

Technology has invaded our lives completely. Over the last decade, our world seems to have shrunk drastically. It wouldn't amaze me to find one day,kids thinking that the world exists on the other side of the computer screen. I think I was in Class Eight when we were first introduced to computers. We'd religiously take off our shoes before entering that hallowed room which beheld the wonder of wonders.....computers! Now, Gen Y,don't you snigger! It was a kind of a wonder to us then.The school had signed a contract with some private computer institute to issue us certificates. A rare thing in those days. I know I should've felt lucky to be able to get such an opportunity.But the Basic program, honestly, was quite a bore....Run...Go To...Return...so many stupid commands! The internet had not even cast its shadow, at that time. However, it was a novel experience coupled with the fact that our computer teachers were young, pretty and very friendly.I still remember the t

Year:1987. Place: Shillong (the scenic capital of Meghalaya, NE India) I was in Class Seven then. About 12 years old. School used to be fun. Friends, activities,games, studies... in that order.One bright summer day, life came to a sudden grinding halt. The friendly faces of my tribal friends changed overnight. The city reeled under agitation by the local tribals who wanted the non-tribals like me, out of their city. Their city? I wondered....Even my grandpa had been born here....I didn't understand any of it. School was closed indefinitely as curfew was announced amidst a long series of demonstrations,bandhs and attacks against non-tribals. How did we manage to study that year? We had no on-line learning to help us through. On every saturday, we'd go during the curfew relaxation hours, get our assignments for a week, and submit them next week. This went on for about four months. At the end of the year, we gave our annual exams as usual and sailed on to the next class. Necessit

Finally the day ear-marked for fathers all over the world, is over. The excitement so visible from weeks ago, screaming out from banners outside greeting card shops, billboards, hoardings at strategic locations, advertisements on television, FM channels, newspapers, magazines................daring you to miss it, has died down. I wondered what my father's reaction would be, had he been alive today, and I'd wished him Happy Father's Day with all the outpourings of a daughter's heart in a delicately designed greetings card and a box of his favourite assorted biscuits. His typical reaction would have been, "Father's Day?Eshob abar ki biliti dhong?Kintu biscuit gulo ene khoob bhalo korechish, Ma." To my Baba(that's what I'd call him), celebration of such days were no more than a westernized fad.The biscuits, rather than the occasion they were meant for, would make him glad. To me, every day I thank my dad for what he has been to me, is Father's D

I was glad to learn, the other day, that Delhi University had become one of the first central universities in the country, to conduct an online examination for its undergraduate science students.The Common Admission Test(CAT) too, you must have heard, will go online this year. In other words, India is taking to e-learning in a big way.This isn't surprising, considering how comfortably and firmly the internet is ensconced in the lives of the urban Indian, today. Look at how Google has become almost synonymous with the verb 'search'. I heard a child , the other day, referring to a gentleman as Googleji, because he would always be found looking for kids who were upto mischief. What do we do these days when we can't understand the meaning of a word? Google it. And bingo! Before you can even blink, you have multiple meanings of the word.That's not all,an array of websites offering synonyms,idiomatic expressions,pronunciation,articles line up attractively before yo

Darwin's famed term ,the Survival of the Fittest, coined to explain the evolution of man , is now more relevant on a socio-psychological plane. Gone are the days of hunting down one's prey,long gone indeed. We live in a day when head-hunters abound! The term ,Survival of the Fittest, today, would mean survival of someone who has all it takes to survive in this big,bad world of the meanest of the mean, someone who does not succumb to the pressures of the man-eat-man world , someone who is unnerved by the most demeaning acts, can hold his own come what may, if need be, stooping to the lowest levels of morality. Try looking around for those who qualify as the 'fittest' in this mean world.......do I see you equal the term to 'most successful'? Guess that's what it is, then. And ,would you like to be successful? 'Who wouldn't?', you smirk, a silly question to ask. We all would, given the opportunity and fortune, love to be on that Time 100 list of mo

So many people, so many opinions....we live, we learn, we grow. Here I am too, people, with my own share of random thoughts cosying up in this space that's mine. I intend to pen down stray thoughts that come my way in an attempt to learn more about myself, the people I interact with and share my experiences with others. Watch this space for more........and wish this effort of mine the best. Yours Randomly, "..."