In my short span as a blogger, I have refrained from reacting to the writings of some other person because I believe that demeaning the creative yield of another person is not appropriate. But, a certain book has evoked my own creative machinery to an extent that I am bound to respond to it. I have no personal issues with the author, but my crusade is against all the people who think in the antediluvian manner. I hereby respond to an article in which it is quite clearly mentioned that being involved in a relationship during college years is inappropriate as it hampers our academic progress and distracts us from our primary goal, which is to educate our mind to an extent that is opens up to receive any external knowledge which seeks us and also to be able to efficiently exploit our innate talents and abilities. Education, in its purest sense, depicts the process of the blooming of a bud. Our inner selves are quite similar to buds in our early years. Eventually, we reach out and discover new things; we learn to utilize our mental potential. We learn to create, to develop, to innovate. Education ameliorates our creative potential, restructures our thought process to conform with the common belief of right and wrong, along with allowing space for maverick processes for discoveries and inventions. Education and concentration go together; there is no doubting this fact. But the inclusion of the aspect of love to the blend of education yields a very interesting prospect. I will start by severely condemning those who misconstrue love. The bad name associated with love and relationships can be blamed on the people who are more interested in the feeling of love rather than love. Love is not something which is to be sought, nor is it something which is necessary for everyone. Love is a caress of luck and the gift of destiny. Being involved with someone just for the sake of being involved is the biggest mistake a person can make. Such actions have wide-spread ramifications, for those people as well as for the society at large. My word of advice for such people is that friendship is also a very strong emotion. Instead of applying their energy to “seek” love, they should spend quality time with their friends and let destiny take its course. I might sound fatalistic and discouraging, but some things work best when treated in the orthodox fashion.
On the other hand, I will elucidate the power of love. People who adhere to orthodoxy do not realize the potential of love. The person who loves us will always think of our betterment. Love is invariably accompanied by a process of self-evaluation and self-improvement. When love elucidates the inner dark corners of our personality, we strive to cleanse our conscience and we concentrate our efforts in a direction which leads to improvement. Amelioration is an inseparable part of love. No person knows our faults better than our soulmate and we do not trust anyone more than our soulmate. Therefore, if our soulmate points out a particular malicious habit that we possess, we are more likely to improve upon that as compared to any other situation. A lover always inspires, cares, loves and improves the quality of life of the loved one. Life always takes a positive turn on encountering the patch of love, which is unexpected but immensely pleasant. A person attains the peak of his/her abilities when love is the driving force. The lover is our haven, our shield and support in times when our own feet show severe aversion to us. Then, I question, what is wrong with love during college life? Love helps us concentrate on our primary objectives better than any other method. Apart from every other advantage, with love comes joy. The glow on the face of the person, the constant smile that lives on the face and the spring in the step are things that surely aid the education process. A healthy state of mind never mars progress.To all those who snarl at the name of love, and love marriages specially, just remember that this world is not based on the chain of consumer and producers, nor is it based on intelligence. It is based on love. Love is omnipresent and omniscient. Challenging and striving to ebb the flow of something so powerful is an error nobody should make even in the wildest dreams.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
The Great Continental Divide
We, the Indians, have an innate dilemma, which we are born with. We feel the intensity of this dilemma during our period of education and we recognize its importance once we start bickering for our pay checks. This particular predicament plays a major role in exponentially increasing the size of our text books and also in over-burdening our mental retentive capacity. I am referring to the everlasting, loyal and faithful question of- US or UK. From the time we are born to the time we die, we constantly choose between the American uber-cool way or the British elegant way. The English language which we rigorously mug up during our education is bursting with anomalies arising due to two ways of achieving the same thing. The paradox starts with spellings. We can “colour” a painting or “color” the world with hues, we can be a part of an “organization” or we can be a member of an “organization” as well. Of course, the power to discriminate and choose is in our hands, which is an exciting concept for any student. It is our prerogative which spelling we choose to implement. No power in the world can point out that we misspelled the word. It definitely decentralizes the power of education and grants a miniscule portion of that power into the hands of the students. I suppose it is not a bad concept considering the aforementioned. On the other hand, psychologically speaking, it has a negative impact on the people. Innumerable choices spoil the piety of the language. Unconsciously, we use both the Queen’s English and its American dialect interchangeably, intermixing and entwining both inseparably. Sorry for the orthodoxy, if it may sound that way, but the sheer elegance of English is lost by the chutnification.
Another platform providing a vast scope for the successful growth of this paradox has been pronunciation. The accent of Americans is immensely different from that of the British. The British pronounce every single syllable in the word, even the terminating sound of “r” in “center”. The British defy lethargy when it comes to pronunciation. The integration of glides in the pronunciation provides a touch of elegance and grace to the language. The Queen’s English is mellifluous, soothing to the ears. On the other hand, the American way is built around convenience. The Americans are firm believers in abolishing the needless. As a consequence, there are a lot of letters which are present in writing but which never make it to the tongue. The terminating “r” is invariably dropped from pronunciation, as in “center”. This gives a raw appeal to the American way of pronunciation. It might not be elegant and graceful, but it surely hits a few chords. Thus far, I have had no qualms in admitting the importance of both the British and the American way of doing things. But, in the whole process, the most critical point is not obvious. The most important fact which can be derived out of it is- where is the Indian way of doing it? In choosing between the US and the UK, we have lost our own identities. Why do we blindly chase the two superpowers, instead of carving a niche for ourselves? The answer to that is quite obvious. The maximum employment opportunity for the Indian workforce is provided by companies based in US or Europe. So, to follow the rule of “When in Rome, do what Romans do”, we vigorously try to mould ourselves to suit the cast defined by the Americans or the British. In the process of trimming ourselves to suit these Multi-National Companies (better known as MNCs), we are gradually whittling ourselves away.
Perhaps, the phenomenon of defining dialects of English depends on the status of the nation. Two superpowers of the world have their dialects of English, we do not. So, today, in a spate of patriotism, I hope that someday we will have an Indian English too, an Indian way of pronouncing words and an Indian way of spelling words too. Maybe we will be able to spell “organization” as “organizashun” someday. That will be the day when the tricolor will sprawl across the horizon.
Another platform providing a vast scope for the successful growth of this paradox has been pronunciation. The accent of Americans is immensely different from that of the British. The British pronounce every single syllable in the word, even the terminating sound of “r” in “center”. The British defy lethargy when it comes to pronunciation. The integration of glides in the pronunciation provides a touch of elegance and grace to the language. The Queen’s English is mellifluous, soothing to the ears. On the other hand, the American way is built around convenience. The Americans are firm believers in abolishing the needless. As a consequence, there are a lot of letters which are present in writing but which never make it to the tongue. The terminating “r” is invariably dropped from pronunciation, as in “center”. This gives a raw appeal to the American way of pronunciation. It might not be elegant and graceful, but it surely hits a few chords. Thus far, I have had no qualms in admitting the importance of both the British and the American way of doing things. But, in the whole process, the most critical point is not obvious. The most important fact which can be derived out of it is- where is the Indian way of doing it? In choosing between the US and the UK, we have lost our own identities. Why do we blindly chase the two superpowers, instead of carving a niche for ourselves? The answer to that is quite obvious. The maximum employment opportunity for the Indian workforce is provided by companies based in US or Europe. So, to follow the rule of “When in Rome, do what Romans do”, we vigorously try to mould ourselves to suit the cast defined by the Americans or the British. In the process of trimming ourselves to suit these Multi-National Companies (better known as MNCs), we are gradually whittling ourselves away.
Perhaps, the phenomenon of defining dialects of English depends on the status of the nation. Two superpowers of the world have their dialects of English, we do not. So, today, in a spate of patriotism, I hope that someday we will have an Indian English too, an Indian way of pronouncing words and an Indian way of spelling words too. Maybe we will be able to spell “organization” as “organizashun” someday. That will be the day when the tricolor will sprawl across the horizon.
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