B-Log

    Physical isolation has brought in not just webinars to the academia. It has once again emphasized the need for healthy communication skills. And not just that, it has brought in the need to have reasonable good informal conversational skills. Since English is not our native tongue, we have been fed with a curriculum heavy in formal English communication skills that our students are generally lacking in casual conversation and small talk skills. This is also because English language has been taught more and used less. The infodemic let loose by the pandemic in the form of webinars has put one aspect of this on display. Since many of us were not into online teaching and webinars (in a big way) pre-pandemic, and since our digital information pathways are not capacious enough to bear the brunt of massive connectedness, there are many glitches while we attempt these exercises. An interesting one for me, perhaps because am also what they call a language guy, is the need for some pr

  We need a Day for forgetting those we remember. A Day for the coconut trees that slant towards the neighbour's yard. We need a Day to celebrate lukewarm mornings when Sun gets out late. A Delay Day for those   who can’t stand time. A Day for the teachers who teach more lessons. Let tomorrow be a Day for those rich who queue up for concessions during recessions. A Day for the mothers who wait for the return of the dead too. We need a Day for those upset with political triple speak. Another Day for the elite who are worried of their rights being denied. An international Day for those who walk umbrella-less in the Sun. We must fight for a Day for those women who wanted to worship at men-only altars and then piously decided otherwise. A Day for the runaway groom. We need a Day for the youth who don't rebel. A Global disobedience Day, to reinforce the need to orient the people regarding which side of the bread is buttered depending on who is in power, is the hour's need. We

  If periods are named after a single, predominant activity that characterizes it, there could be reasons why we should call the period we are passing through as the ‘age of webinars', even though the use of the term 'age' may sound rather stretched. But given the way the world plies in adjectives of the highest degree and blows things out of reasonable proportion, I can stand my ground. If, on the grounds of practices of a c0uple of months we can talk a ‘new normal’ into existence, one can employ the term 'age' to denote it too! Webinars have certainly raised the bar of the institutions in terms of technological competence and digital flair. All have equipped themselves a lot digital literacy wise. There has been tremendous upskilling on the part of the academic professional thanks to the Covidian compulsions. But there are many more reasons for their popularity and frequency. Let us take a cursory look at the webinar-scenario unfolding. Expense factor The b

  Of the many institutions upended by the onslaught of social media, propelled by technology, is the mansion of punctuation. Much hallowed corridors of the house of Punctuation have been taken apart and occasionally differently put together by the social media practices. The outcome is a state of affairs in which many of us, not just the millennial, find ourselves switching allegiances and often enjoying the delights of the new converts, breaking many of the sacrosanct norms of the full stop & comma practices we are drilled into. The weird mix ups of symbols, excess, irrational presence and inexplicable absences too characterize it. But certain of these nouveau norms of non-punctuation are interesting. The one I really found sensible for reasons perhaps best known only to me is the case of multiple periods. Though Americans call it period, we have never cared much to call a ‘full stop’ a ‘period’. Rather, we have enjoyed the power and absolute sense of finality of the symbo