This is the story of a little girl who called for SOS when she found her cat depressed about something. She couldn't find out what went wrong with him so she was upset too. Okay, I am talking about a little girl who thinks she's all grown up to become a 12 year old woman. This is the tiny story about how she thinks and why she thinks about things she thinks. I will tell you later about that 12 year old woman thing. She lives with her parents and her kitten who's also her best friend named as CatMatix (loosely based Obelix's dog's name). Now you must be thinking about what is so special about Lily (Oh by the way, that's her name). There aren't too many, honestly. She's just like any little girl in her neighbourhood except that she has this unusual way of answering to whatever people ask her. She's not sure why others find it "unusual". She often gives answers that spawns some kind of embarrasement on the inquisitor's face and brings him to an aphonic state! Well, in short she gives you terse, one-liners that shuts you up! Now, I woudn't call that usual would I?
The whole thing about cat getting depressed was not very relevant here. Let's talk about little Lily's unusual trait - one-liners! A one-liner is a verbal or written response based on the principle that brevity is the soul of wit. One famous one-liner is "Yo mama's so fat, after she got off the carousel, the horse limped for a week."Wel, that's sort of a joke. but it could also be serious answers like in the case of Lily. One-liners are single minded or situational or just too much of clairvoyance elicited by the respondent. Wikipedia says "Humor derived from one-liners nonetheless has the benefit of alleviating awkward situations in many cases."
Lily seemed to have embrace this funda in her life. She's too erratic when it comes to people asking some serious questions about her school or CatMatix or even her little clay house in the backyard. She just feel ignorant... eerrr... indifferent to people's questions. So someone called her "one-liner-jack" one day and she's got angry. Well, then she found out he didn't actually meant to make her feel sick about it. Instead, he was telling her that "one-liners" is her trait. Since then Lily never got angry at people calling her "one-liner-jack" as she realised she should be proud of it.
Going back to the 12 year old woman thing, Lily has a thing about people treating her like a kid. She thinks that 12 is the age when girls turn into woman not by some spell cast by the witch Dakini but by nature. There's nothing people should feel envy about it. She thinks that everyone knows that she has grown up but refuse to accept it. Hence still treating her like a kid. She was really beleaguered by it anyway. So she thought "ignorance is bliss".
In the end, well in the end I shall thank you for your patience to read through this crap about one liners. Well, really there's not much to write about one-liners you know. Lily's fine... I mean she may be normal as she claims to be. Its just that when somebody wants to see her as not normal as she claims to be but special, it is possible. For a moment, you also thought she's not normal. She's special in her own ways. Judgement and self reference in nine of ten cases are bull***. Lets face it. You are someone who you call "Animators of your own self". You animate and if it stops, you re-animate till it completely dies out. A good description of one's self would be as "a collection of hundreds of unique modules". The number of such modules equals the number of people who you have ever known or had a conversation with (either orally or through any other expression). Also, it is inversely propotional to the number of negatives you attach yourself with. If any two modules seem similar to you, it means the related persons are similar in a unique way and not that your personality is mundane. I conclude here, that there's nothing one can conclude about one's self. If you think otherwise, you may probably want to look at yourself as normal and start thinking of yourself as anomaly.
Disclaimer: The characters mentioned here may be non-fictional and may bear some or no resemblences some people. That's not author's mistake but the reader's. Thanks.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Ignorance is not always bliss!
Anna University, one of the oldest technical universities in India and certainly not the worst has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. The governing body of the University has successfully gained the wrath of the students of all affiliated engineering colleges for its tyrannical enforcement of a new dress code (to girl students!) preceded by another regressive move banning mobile phones in college campuses. Vice-Chancellor D. Viswanathan’s September 1 edict “No wearing jeans or T-shirts/sleeveless/tight-fitting/revealing outfits and only salwar kameezes for women — in 231 engineering colleges across the State” has yet again underscored the need for a revolt against educational authorities regulating student life inside campus.
The reasons given by these conservative bodies are as illogical as “ensuring that students dress decently and modestly, in a way that befits our culture”. This “moral policing” can be termed as nothing but a step backward to unrealistic vision of a society, which is invariably dependent on factors that are nowhere near the imaginative control of these VCs and Chairmen. At the end of the day, they will never achieve what they intend to achieve. They would rather end up attaining the ire of the students or even backtracking these measures like some of its North Indian counterparts.Having been studied in one of “these kind” of colleges in Chennai, I have understood how unrealistic and nitwitted are these so-called “visionaries” in their perspective of the youth and their significance to nation’s future. With the limited power they have, they try to do whatever they can to ultimately gain the tag of the “discipline” which sells like anything among the conservative parents of this part of the country. One of the commonest of these unjust regulations is enforced gender diversification. In simple terms, female students are not allowed to interact with male students boys and are supposed to maintain a strict distance. Lets look at the basic premise on which such an argument is built. According to these authorities, it is to sustain our society’s moral values and discipline. But if one were to look at the degree of change such an assertion brought in, one would discover that it has reached nowhere near, and has instead gone to a different region. These self projected “guardians of the society” never realizes that they will get conked out one day with none of their “proclaimed” objectives being achieved. I am not at all manifesting a doctrine for embracing the western invasions in our culture here. For us to understand the logic of not accepting such draconian rules lets get real. Our society is definitely not in the hands of these men who run colleges and universities. Their role may be a little more than that of a street hawker or a janitor. Many of us disregard the fact that the world inhibited by humans has suffered the death of permanence. Change is not only have become uncontrollable but its marginal propensity to affect all our lives have touched an all time high. Our societies are becoming more transient imputable to a force that none of us can control. What does this mean to us? This means that we cannot control most of the developments in our social fabric. The reason behind a nineteen year old girl in uptown Madras is more assertive, freedom-seeking, self reliant, extrovert, party-going and incredibly matured in her mindset towards her career is not because she or her parents has ascribed a wrong set of values to her but because of the change her physical environment is undergoing. And to think that by slapping rules and regulations, one can make her “culturally disciplined” is absolutely absurd. A typical human inclination to such stimuli is to find other ways to do things or break away. If we connect this analogy to our topic, one would find the discord in the fundamental thinking of these engineering college founders and university authorities. A typical engineering student might keep quite and still break such rules silently or sentence her/himself till their course duration is over. And it is now obvious that we are getting to a region where we never wanted to be. Lets face it. These bloopers of the authorities are nothing but the outcomes of the conservative thinking and old-fashioned conceptions about the society. For someone who understands the realities, these devil’s advocates will look like clowns trying hard to draw rein a society that is long dead and gone. I would fantasise of recommending Alvin Toffler’s Power Shift and Future Shock to these authorities. People who are supposedly more equipped and formally empowered to do good to the society should not do blunders like this. Banning mobile phone or gender-based restrictions or unreasonable dress code are not going to bring the change they intend or proclaim to intend. Anna University would make more sense reviewing the dress code simply because it doesn’t reflect our vision of freedom. If they approve the right of an eighteen year to elect a leader for this country, they might as well validate his / her right to wear their attire. Rather than attracting cheers, already the reputed University has invited enough qualms from its students. One cannot help advising the university to be more sensible and careful from now on to not repeat such blunders.
This has been rated as one of the most critically acclaimed reviews on Anna University at Mouthshut.com
Stats and facts source: The Hindu
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are independent and are purely based on "share the experience" concept. These are not aimed at creating any unrest among any class of people. Nor it is targetted at any particular individual or entity. Any such resemblences are apologized for. Your acknowledgement of Freedom of Expression is highly appreciated.
The reasons given by these conservative bodies are as illogical as “ensuring that students dress decently and modestly, in a way that befits our culture”. This “moral policing” can be termed as nothing but a step backward to unrealistic vision of a society, which is invariably dependent on factors that are nowhere near the imaginative control of these VCs and Chairmen. At the end of the day, they will never achieve what they intend to achieve. They would rather end up attaining the ire of the students or even backtracking these measures like some of its North Indian counterparts.Having been studied in one of “these kind” of colleges in Chennai, I have understood how unrealistic and nitwitted are these so-called “visionaries” in their perspective of the youth and their significance to nation’s future. With the limited power they have, they try to do whatever they can to ultimately gain the tag of the “discipline” which sells like anything among the conservative parents of this part of the country. One of the commonest of these unjust regulations is enforced gender diversification. In simple terms, female students are not allowed to interact with male students boys and are supposed to maintain a strict distance. Lets look at the basic premise on which such an argument is built. According to these authorities, it is to sustain our society’s moral values and discipline. But if one were to look at the degree of change such an assertion brought in, one would discover that it has reached nowhere near, and has instead gone to a different region. These self projected “guardians of the society” never realizes that they will get conked out one day with none of their “proclaimed” objectives being achieved. I am not at all manifesting a doctrine for embracing the western invasions in our culture here. For us to understand the logic of not accepting such draconian rules lets get real. Our society is definitely not in the hands of these men who run colleges and universities. Their role may be a little more than that of a street hawker or a janitor. Many of us disregard the fact that the world inhibited by humans has suffered the death of permanence. Change is not only have become uncontrollable but its marginal propensity to affect all our lives have touched an all time high. Our societies are becoming more transient imputable to a force that none of us can control. What does this mean to us? This means that we cannot control most of the developments in our social fabric. The reason behind a nineteen year old girl in uptown Madras is more assertive, freedom-seeking, self reliant, extrovert, party-going and incredibly matured in her mindset towards her career is not because she or her parents has ascribed a wrong set of values to her but because of the change her physical environment is undergoing. And to think that by slapping rules and regulations, one can make her “culturally disciplined” is absolutely absurd. A typical human inclination to such stimuli is to find other ways to do things or break away. If we connect this analogy to our topic, one would find the discord in the fundamental thinking of these engineering college founders and university authorities. A typical engineering student might keep quite and still break such rules silently or sentence her/himself till their course duration is over. And it is now obvious that we are getting to a region where we never wanted to be. Lets face it. These bloopers of the authorities are nothing but the outcomes of the conservative thinking and old-fashioned conceptions about the society. For someone who understands the realities, these devil’s advocates will look like clowns trying hard to draw rein a society that is long dead and gone. I would fantasise of recommending Alvin Toffler’s Power Shift and Future Shock to these authorities. People who are supposedly more equipped and formally empowered to do good to the society should not do blunders like this. Banning mobile phone or gender-based restrictions or unreasonable dress code are not going to bring the change they intend or proclaim to intend. Anna University would make more sense reviewing the dress code simply because it doesn’t reflect our vision of freedom. If they approve the right of an eighteen year to elect a leader for this country, they might as well validate his / her right to wear their attire. Rather than attracting cheers, already the reputed University has invited enough qualms from its students. One cannot help advising the university to be more sensible and careful from now on to not repeat such blunders.
This has been rated as one of the most critically acclaimed reviews on Anna University at Mouthshut.com
Stats and facts source: The Hindu
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are independent and are purely based on "share the experience" concept. These are not aimed at creating any unrest among any class of people. Nor it is targetted at any particular individual or entity. Any such resemblences are apologized for. Your acknowledgement of Freedom of Expression is highly appreciated.
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