B-Log

For Their Eyes Only Spy cams are the other eyes. They are burgeoning around us at an alarming pace. More and more establishments are after the spy or other wise cams which will keep our movements recorded, peered at and evaluated. Some times leered at, voyeured and gossiped . The commercial establishments are increasingly turning to the use of them for, apparently, security reasons. The government is fitting the streets with cams so that there could be better security for the individuals. Railways is mulling the thought on cam aided surveillance in coaches as a security measure. Educational institutions are resorting to the same mode for managing the campus, even in women's college s these days . Spy cams are being fitted on any thing mobile from pen to fan or hat to cats!  What does it mean to be watching others? How does it feel to be watched ? What does it feel to watch? The feeling of the eyes behind your back, how does it work on ones psyche? Are ...

Teaching The Oldman and the Sea, the Hemingway classic, I am again left at a loss for thoughts. Re-reading a classic is an exciting venture as it affords discoveries of a completely unintended kind. A remet Hamlet or reseen portrait of 'My Last Duchess' has manifold minds to launch. Truer will be a remagined Blakian Tiger or a Coleridgean Xanadu. The trip beside the Oldman through the Hemingwayesque  imagination waylays the process of common reading. Rereading the Oldman, my reading was at sea.  Is not reading a kind of fishing ? But what makes us really old? Are we not old too? Is not a seasoned reader an old man? Old enough to go after a bait big enough to worry once hooked? Hasn't Faulkner spoken 'magnificent failures' which are his masterpieces? How about the magnificent failure of the Oldman called his Marlin ? The sense of effort which is gargantuan and the final take home after the three day long task which is a David like remnant of what once was a ...

  The class of ’13 has bid adieu. The exercise has added one more batch to the list of those who have moved off from the college. The ceremonial waving off which is a routine affair in the college, in all colleges. With all the customary trappings in place -  the setting, the food, the introductions of the students who been there all along, the feedback, the (outgoing) assessment of the teachers by the outgoing learners, the everything goes kind of liberalism which spreads in the setting, the exchange of gift, the light hearted rib-poking, the ironic leg-pulling and the occasion tear-jerkers too. As a teacher, I often feel that we teachers, (well, just me, may be. It is a possibility) sometimes lose sight of the lives the students live in spite of the pressure we mount on them in terms of the academic requirements. The structure we try to impose on the students (is it just me, the imposer?! It is a possibility) and the schedule which is punishing for them, makes ...

Our roads are bursting at the seams. Every government which assumes power has made it a burden of their political song that roads should be widened. Their list of prescription to remedy the situation spreads from simple road widening measures to super fast corridors. Not to speak of those who pipe dream about raised roads which stay on pillars to monorail to bullet trains. But there are differing takes on the uses to which the roads may be put. One section of the political spectrum swears by the people-centered utilities of roads which includes roads- as-protest venues and roads-as-meeting-places. One disturbing use to which our already burdened roads are forced is ‘political Rallying’.  Political rallies which accompany or synchronize with local to national meets of the political parties take over the space for vehicular and people movement displaying sheer arrogance of the laws of the land. Tens of thousands of real (and supposed) party workers work themselves up to t...

Like plenty of others, I have a lot of respect for V. M. Sudheeran. What sets him apart in to a breed of his own is the honesty, integrity and political maturity that he espouses.   In a field like politics, it is quite a challenge to come across individuals who sound credible to the public. In a realm where the extreme extents of expediency have been made shameless use of, persons like Mr. Sudheeran are those who refuse to let go of truth and sensibility. He wins our hearts with the level headedness with which he approaches issues and subjects them to dispassionate analysis. He raises the banner of a kind of politics in which people come first, and the party, only next. Mr. Sudheeran represents a number of things to the common man. He is a respected senior politician who is not dying to get into positions of power so that the power can corrupt him. He is not after power. Being after power, and then getting into power has lot of advantages. The alibis of the power-c...