How We Handled Discrimination At School
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Sambhav, now at 40. Image copyright: Sambhav Sharma
There was discrimination, gender discrimination to be precise. There was racism. There was xenophobia. There was . . . everything. I don’t know what name to give to that atmosphere of acrimony, animosity and hostility. It happened when we were 16 years of age. And all that we knew about hostility was from textbook material on Gandhi and Mandela. However, that was the first time we were experiencing it in real life. Continue reading
Postscript: This reflection has been featured in 26 December 2016 edition of BlogAdda Perky Tweets. For my other selections at BlogAdda, please click here.
यथार्थ
हमें शिक्षा दी जाती है कि चींटियों से संगठन सीखो, कुत्ते से वफादारी सीखो, बगुले से एकाग्रता सीखो । प्रकृति का प्रत्येक घटक हमें शिक्षा देता है । यही उनकी उपयोगिता है । साथ ही यह भी कहा जाता है कि पेडों को बचाओ क्योंकि उनसे हमें छाया, लकडी, फल आदि मिलते हैं, स्त्रियों का सम्मान करो क्योंकि वे घर और बाहर महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका निभाती हैं, नदियों को साफ़ रखो क्योंकि भारत कृषि-प्रधान देश है । कुल मिलाकर किसी का भी सम्मान और रक्षा केवल इसलिए करो क्योंकि वह हमारे लिए उपयोगी है । मानो किसी भी निकाय का अपना स्वयं का कोई अस्तित्व है ही नहीं । संसार में उसकी उपस्थिति की सार्थकता मात्र इसी बात पर आधारित है कि वह हमारे लिए कितना उपयोगी है ।
photo credit: Collin Key Dog and Her Woman via photopin (license)
What Movie Songs Teach Us About Attitude Towards Women
An article that appeared in the Marathi magazine Chitralekha, took a note of Hindi songs from the golden era to the present time, and commented on their treatment of women. The high point was ‘Tu haan kar yaa naa kar’ — simply meaning that ‘whether you say yes or no, you are mine’. Continue reading 
चार दशक
जीवन के चार दशक पूर्ण हुए । यदि मूल्यांकन किया जाए, तो कुछ खास खोया नहीं । वस्तुतः जो खोया, उसका खोना अवश्यम्भावी था । प्रकृति के नियमों को स्वीकार कर लेने में ही बुद्धिमत्ता है ।
वैसे देखा जाए, तो कुछ विशेष प्राप्त भी नहीं किया । यदि कोई पूछे कि जीवन की परम उपलब्धि क्या है, तो शायद विचार करने में समय लगेगा । किया तो बहुत कुछ है, सीखा भी बहुत कुछ है, किन्तु उन सभी का वास्तविक मूल्य क्या है, यह जानने का कभी प्रयास नहीं किया । Continue reading
Rahul Gandhi’s photo source : Wikimedia
What Culture Fanatics Should Learn From Computer Scientists
I learnt C programming from the book by Yashwant Kanetkar. Hence, I have a sort of emotional attachment with that writer. While explaining how a particular computer language works, he often compares it with human languages, utilizes the concepts of thoughts, words, sentences, and draws parallels with syntax, compilers and so on. Continue reading
Pradyot 