Vitality in Education

Generation gap and Literacy are two most widely discussed topics globally, and this blog post quotes an incident from the recent past, which makes us question whether the above two are really the ones that must be enforced upon someone or is there anything else more vital!

We have a house in Chromepet (a place in Chennai, Southern part of India), which we had rented to two families. The smaller portion is taken for rent by a very old couple, the wife of the family being an absolute illiterate. Also, they belong to a very orthodox family, very reserved and pious.

The husband of the family was a retired purohit, and they lived on his pension. All their monthly expenses like rent, grocery and medicine depended wholly on the pension, and all this was managed mighty well by the literate husband of the family. All along, this wife has been leading a life completely encompassed by the walls of the kitchen.

It so happened, that one day we visited them to collect the rent, only to find that the husband of the family had passed away. The wife of the family, (who always sees my father as her son) started crying at the sight of my father, which finally subsided after a small consolation session. We advised her to go back to her village and stay with her relatives.

But, her reply stupefied us. She refused to go back to her village, and told us that, she would still pay the rent and continue to be in the city. Suddenly, she seemed to have got this courage from nowhere and got ready to face the rest of her life, without wanting to be a vegetable under the mercy of any of her relatives.

This is when, I contrasted her life with that of ours'. We, seemingly young and healthy, are very under-motivated and feel depressed at the slightest defeat, whereas she, although being very old and infirm physically, has this tremendous courage, determination and confidence to face the world (being an illiterate widow with no practical experience of the world's functioning!).

Today's youth lack even the basic confidence to come up before their own class and talk a few words about themselves for 2 mins. I would say this lady's confidence towers over that of any learned next-gen youth!

Isn't this, what needs to be taught in schools and inculcated to the young minds? Isn't this confidence more vital than the wars and the 'ashoka-planting-trees' stories that we read in history?

I reckon its time to rethink !!

The Blogger Returns !

It's been a very nice feeling at the bottom of my heart when I started blogging. But, then, the usual 'me'
cropped up and I discontinued it after a single blog entry.And then again, a true characteristic of the true 'myself' has begun to prop up again.And thus, I've resumed the noble (!!) act of blogging.

Notions and perspectives differ,not only from person to person, but also from time to time. And, that's very true in my case. The same mind which advised me, that blogging was merely a waste of time, a couple of months ago, advocates blogging as a healthy hobby at the present moment.

There might be only one thing that would still linger in people's minds. What exactly instigates this ambivalence in my mind (especially with regards to the decision about blogging!), and it's my duty( !!) to clarify that.

Me, being a person who usually is very OBserVAtive of my surroundings, would and do have a lot of stuff to share with the world, and vent out my feelings and views. Added to which, I am highly talkative !!

Thus, it goes without saying that my decision to resume blogging is well justified, and you might continue enjoying (or otherwise !!) my blog entries henceforth.

My new Sony VAIO SR

Well, here is the blog entry that most of my friends have been expecting.

I was planning to get a laptop for myself for such a long time, and here it is finally. My laptop, a SONY VAIO SR 46 GD Black. (After long long sessions of market surveys and user reviews)

Well, the moment I laid my hands on this master-piece, I just fell in love with it.

Its got just the killer specs for my kinda use.

Design and Build:

Its a sleek 13.3" Widescreen LED display, with crystal clear glossy screen. And the screen is thinner than I expected. It weighs less than 2 kgs. Very light for a laptop with these kinda specs.

The exteriors are awesome, true Sony VAIO styling. The keypad is way too cool, with discrete keys that are too soft to touch and type. The track-pad is smooth as well. The buttons in the track-pad have pretty good sensitivity and are easy to use.

Between the left click and the right click buttons is the Finger Print Sensor (a security feature).

Features:

It has an Intel Core2Duo P8700 processor which clocks at 2.53 Ghz. Pre-loaded with Windows Vista Business 64 bit, 4 gigs of RAM, and a 320 GB HDD.

It has a CD/DVD drive to the right along with 2 USB ports and an Ethernet port.

To the left is the Headphone, Mic slots with VGA port, HDMI port , S400 and Express card slots.

To the front is the Wireless Switch, Magic-gate and SD card slot. The cool feature of this laptop, is the SWITCH buttons to the top of the keypad, which allows you to switch between various user profiles and use the general purpose buttons as per the profile.

It's equipped with an inbuilt webcam and a mono-aural microphone (still very sensitive).

To the top of the keypad is the speakers, which are not as powerful as I expected.

It has got inbuilt Bluetooth and WLAN modules as well.

Here comes the special mention. It comes with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD4570 GPU, which is by far a very good performer, with 512 MB of dedicated graphics memory.

Performance:

From the first few hours of usage, I can claim for sure that its seriously a good performer.

The laptop was very cool, even after I downloaded stuff from the internet for hours together.

The noise is zero. There is absolutely no noise from either the fan or from the Optical drive.

The screen resolution is brilliant, and the laptop is overall a dream machine.

Backup and Recovery:

The laptop doesn't come with Vista CD, and you are supposed to create recovery disks yourself, right after buying your laptop, which can be used to install Vista again in future .

I first did a BIOS update and regular VAIO updates before creating the recovery disks. It would take you 3 DVDs to create the recovery disks.

Its just a day since I bought this laptop, and it's too early to comment fully bout the machine. These are just based on the first impressions.

Hope this laptop serves its purpose to the fullest.

But why do we Blog?

I always used to wonder..What would be the reason behind everyone starting off with a Blog?

All of a sudden, this Blogging Culture has become so popular and literally everyone is Blogging.

There are Blogging Clubs, forums discussing about Blogs, Blogs here, Blogs there, and Blogs everywhere.

But all this for what?

Some feel, they want to EXPRESS themselves through their Blog. But, to whom? Whom do we expect to express ourselves to, via the internet, when, we meet our Friends, Family and Neighbours every single day and hesitate to Express ourselves to them, which would have at times, solved even a long-lasting Feud.

Well, several others simply say, they need a Hobby, and they Blog to Kill time.

What I ask them is, "Well, why dont you use the time you spend on writing your blog, to write a mail / letter to your old grandparents? Just Imagine how elated they would feel upon reading it !".

Choosing a hobby as per one's own taste is ofcourse Personal.

Next reason, that I widely hear is that of the Bloggers, trying to "Improve their English" by blogging. LOL.

Harrey, why didn't you do your English Homework then? Or why do you refuse to try conversing in English, at School, when your's is supposedly an English Medium School?

If it's a serious attempt at trying to improve one's written English, then I dont have any comments against them, ofcourse.

Someone asked me the same question , the other day, and I did'nt really know what to answer. Why do I blog? The reasons listed above were the only ones I knew, and they all simply sounded very rustic.

And then, I answered in an instant, "Peer Pressure"!

Wow, had never thought of it before. That's really driving a majority of today's teens towards Blogging. I blog just because my friends do, say many teenagers to themselves. They don't really seem to know the reason themselves.

Blogging today, has become sort of a Status Symbol. Owning a Blog, has become an identity, to prove yourself as someone who is well informed about the Internet.

God: "Son, Ask me what you want. I will grant you three wishes."

Man: " Thank You my Lord !

1. Comment on my Blog

2. Subscribe to my Blog , and

3. Follow my Blog "