Wisdom Nugget

Try to understand who you are, what you are really worth. Try to measure your true worth. You might be worth a lot more than what you realize you are. You might be worth a lot more than what your peers tell you what you are. Most of us are unaware of our true selves and of the immense potential that we hold within ourselves. If we simply knew what we are, we would never get stressed.

Wisdom Nugget

Don't waste your time in life in fretting. Or procrastinating. Forget depression or stress or anxiety. Even mere fretting wastes time and emotional energy.

Wisdom Nugget

Just keep on doing your job in life as best as you can but don't bother if things sometimes don't work out as you expected them to. Sometimes, things don't work out the way you wanted. Sometimes, they do. Don't worry. Worry won't get you anywhere.

Conversations With History - Kishore Mahbubani

Conversations With History - Tariq Ali

Important Quote on Leadership

The most significant mistake that most leaders have made in the last twenty years and it is very upsetting to me is that they have put their self-interest ahead of the best interests of the institutions, organizations that they have run. And that to me is the greatest failing of a leader.
                       --Bill George, Professor, Harvard Business School

Lessons on Leadership: From Mandela to Obama

The Biggest Mistake a Leader Can Make

How to Stop Good Ideas from Getting Shot Down

Neil Postman quote on Education

Socrates says that writing forces us to follow an argument rather than to participate in it, and I think you see that all the time when the professor is giving a lecture. Students are writing their notes, trying to follow the argument, and abandon any hope of participating in it.--Neil Postman

Important Education Quote

Our education systems and workplaces plunge us into deep mental ruts. They reward competencies that are self-reinforcing, not diversifying, and they encourage people to acquire domain expertise rather than to ask stupid questions and learn new things. We need to find our way out of these ruts and rekindle the creativity that many of us left behind in childhood.--Steve Jurvetson

The True Story Of The Internet _People Power (a Discovery Channel program)

I found a very educational video on Google Video. The True Story Of The Internet _People Power is a thoroughly fascinating video, which tells us about the history of Web 2.0. It talks about Digg, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook. It profiles the founders, Mark Zuckerberg. This is a Discovery Channel program. You could also download this from http://science.discovery.com/tv/download/about/about.html




Absolutely fascinating and educational video. I learnt a lot. A lot about the people who transformed the Internet. And our lives. 

"All Marketers are Liars" - Seth Godin speaks at Google

I have been a great fan of Seth Godin. I have read and enjoyed his blog for a long time. I have also read some of his books. But this is a great lecture that Seth delivered at Google as part of the authors@Google series. This is a great lecture. It would be educational for MBA students but it would also be useful for others.



I hope you enjoyed this video as I did. This is why Seth Godin is the world's biggest marketing guru today.

How To Be A Prolific Writer (a very interesting article)

Carolyn has few websites which are quite helpful and one of them is Sharing with Writers and Readers. I came across a very helpful article by Dr. Peter Clement on her website about how to become a prolific writer. It was truly amazing. 


I'll quote a section from the post and then link you to it. Here it is:

When I found Carolyn’s @FrugalBookPromo on Twitter last week, she responded, “Pleased to meet you, Peter. You are prolific to be sure. Maybe you’d like to write an article for my blog on how you do it!”

I was pleased with the invitation, but taken aback at being called prolific. That was a term I’d associated with the masters: Tolstoy; Dickens; Dick Francis. Just a few days ago I read an interview with Stephen King where he revealed that his novella Ur had taken him three days to write, but that he’d then released it as an e-book, and quickly earned himself $80,000. “I’m very prolific,” he added to explain this feat. The word that also came to my mind was profitable. 

You can read the rest of the fascinating article at: http://sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-to-be-prolific-writer.html

Writing Sparsely, No Wordiness, Editing

I came across a respected blog, The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor where Carolyn Howard-Johnson blogs about various writing and publishing related issues. She has a series of posts on wordiness but I would like to point you to one of them right now. 


In this post, http://thefrugaleditor.blogspot.com/2010/10/on-wordiness.html she says:

Let’s pretend the sentence is: “It is a well known fact that English teachers know grammar well.” Look at all those words. An editor might suggest the writer cut lots of them and just say, “English teachers know grammar well.” 

Now, I do notice lots of wordiness among educated Indians. I have noticed people utter 'A very good afternoon to all of you' or 'I'm repeating myself once again' from the stage. A good afternoon doesn't require 'very' and if you are repeating yourself, you don't need to do it 'once again'. 


I have observed journalism students write 'It can be said that there was corruption in the Commonwealth Games.'  I felt that was too wordy. Why not write: 'There was corruption in the Commonwealth Games' if you do not prefer the too direct 'The Commonwealth Games were corrupt'. 

Concept of Giving Back To Society Etc.

I am a garrulous person and I talk to all kinds of people. And I get to hear all kinds of things people do 'to give back to society'. For instance, a 45 year+ old person who teaches somewhere in the academia in India (I'm not even telling you the city) told me that he/she (I'm even obfuscating the gender as this is not any individual's criticism) does not sell old newspapers but has given them to their maid servant ever since he/she got into service. 


Few people also tell me that it is a noble thing to 'get a girl married off', so, find a poor girl and spend money for her marriage-- buy some dowry for the marriage, gifts, dinner etc. This is something I have heard many people say. Academics and non-academics. Both. I would never reply back but would always wonder-- if you found that poor girl child, why not educate her? Why not fund an endowment (doing it officially is so much better--it allows the girl to say, she got 'so-and-so scholarship' in the future; it helps her career too) for that girl child? If she were poor and uneducated and you got her married off, how much of her future security do you ensure? Also, when that girl child gives birth to children, would her children be educated? She wouldn't be able to educate her children because she remained uneducated anyway. And if that girl child gave birth to more girls....


And about not selling old newspapers and about giving that money to the maid servant. What did the maid servant do with the money? Did her husband use that money to get drunk and beat her up? I'm sorry that's wrong use of money, to be honest about it. This giving is similar to how the micro-finance institutions loan money to the poor and do not train them sufficiently where to use the money. So, poor people take loans from MFIs and then spend it on lavish social functions. Or getting extra rooms built in their villages. And then cannot pay the money (or the interest) back. Certainly, in the context of giving out the old newspapers to the maid servant to tell, they are not being asked for the money. So, there is an element of 'doing something' idea involved in the gesture. It is, on the surface, a positive gesture. But how far does it go?


So, we do a number of things sometimes. But how far do they go? What is their reach?

More on Lack of Endowment in Traditional Indian Educational Set-ups

In fact, if I simply sought data under the RTI (Right To Information) Act, my hunch about my university would certainly be proved right but it would also be true of other universities as well, such as the University of Delhi, other universities in the North. Perhaps, this would be a very interesting detail to seek for the public good. 

On Endowment Funds Or The Lack Of Them in Indian Traditional Set-ups

The University where I'm employed is the historical Jamia Millia Islamia, founded during the Indian freedom struggle, a traditional Indian educational set-up with a modern urban, New Delhi face. A good mix. I'm sure university education in India, by and large, remains affordable to the middle classes. But India is so huge that there are a large number of poor and displaced and underprivileged people-- a lot among the muslims too. Now, let us look at 'traditional courses' in my university, Jamia Millia Islamia, which is situated in New Delhi, the Indian capital. What does a student normally pay as fees (in undergraduate courses in Humanities, including major-honors courses) for the entire year? Usually, Rs. 4000-5000 per year. If you add the cost of fees and if you add books, stationery, you are probably talking about Rs. 10,000-12,000 per year. What does the Indian government give as bank returns per year? About 8% per annum. So, an amount of Rs. 200,000 (or Rs. 300,000) could actually lead to a small scholarship for one poor student. Now, I'm employed as an Assistant Professor and  a person employed in my capacity would start at Rs. 35,000 (or so) and would be paid around Rs. 60,000 (at the top end of the scale for an Assistant Professor). Then, there's the Associate Professor, who's paid more and then we have the Professor (or the 'full' professor), who certainly draws anywhere above Rs.90,000 and could go up to Rs. 110,000. Of course, these are monthly gross salary figures. There are taxes as well. 


I'm 39 years old and I have not been a 'die-hard' careerist. But if you are a careerist, these days, you become a full professor at a younger age.  Earlier, you became a full professor at 52-55 but these days, you could do so even at 45. Or younger. By the time, you are 45 or 50, you would be settled in life with many things. And at 55, you would certainly be settled.


So, my 'difficult' question comes next. (I do ask difficult questions all the time.)


It would be very very interesting to find out how many academics in the top bracket spend money on endowment funds in India? Perhaps, they may do it in IITs (the Indian Institutes of Technology). I don't know if there is such readily available data that tells you something to the effect. But yes, there's the RTI (Right To Information Act) which allows you as an Indian citizen to seek information from public bodies. This is not meant as a criticism of anyone, any individual or set of people. But this is a general note with the objective of provoking people to think over issues. 


If I sought such data from my university, it would prove my hunch beyond doubt that most senior academics in the set-up do not believe or bother about or do not make efforts about setting up endowments. Or they don't think that something like this could be done. Or some people could turn around and get back as a backlash and say, well, I'm doing so-and-so and who are hell are you and take a professional issue personally, where no personal hurt was never intended because I have not even thought about any single individual or set of individuals while I have written this piece.


I haven't funded an endowment yet, so, I guess people would turn around and say, you have no bloody right to write this blog post but I know that I did approach a senior official of my university in the past to inquire about setting up a small endowment. But then my finances didn't allow me to do so. The idea, however, is firmly entrenched in my mind. And would remain there. So, I would think up of doing something to that effect in the future. It could be two or three years hence. But it's there on the horizon.


I would like to thank the Vice-Chancellor of my University for setting up an Endowment Fund. Great job. I hope this post will make some more people chip in with whatever they can. This is the way to go, folks. The way to go is magnanimity and sense of doing something for society.

The President (Vice-Chancellor) of my University Creates Endowment Fund

I came across a very interesting news story in The Times of India, India's leading English daily. It is a positive news story from the point of view of media studies and also a welcome development. Such 'human interest' stories are always welcome in the media. I would like to congratulate the University, it's Vice-chancellor and the media wing for the news release. Of course, I would like to appreciate the fact that the 'Abba Endowment Fund' has been set up. Needless to say that this personal effort from the Vice-Chancellor needs to be lauded and appreciated well. 


This is the news story:


 Jamia VC creates endowment fund in memory of his Abba’
                                   Manash Pratim Gohain, TNN, Nov 28, 2010




NEW DELHI: There is nothing new about instituting an endowment fund for the underprivileged , but Jamia Millia's 'Abba endowment fund' (AEF) is different.

Not only is the fund being created from the salary of the incumbent vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia Isamia —  Najeeb Jung — but it is dedicated to one Abdullah, who joined the Jung household as a help in 1938 and served three generations of the family before his death in 2006.

Unlike any other scholarships , AEF is not structured and its core philosophy is to offer a flexile support system. So far, it has helped four students who could not afford to study in any university.

Among the beneficiaries are class XI student Fatima Naaz, who lost her parents in the Bhagalpur riots and Mehtab Ali, human resource management student...... 


[Please read the complete article on the Times of India website at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Jamia-VC-creates-endowment-fund-in-memory-of-his-Abba/articleshow/7003216.cms ]

The Dalai Lama was Conferred an Honorary Doctorate

The university where I work, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, recently conferred an honorary doctorate on the Dalai Lama. I was quite impressed to listen to His Holiness. I had never heard him earlier. I had, of course, heard him in recorded lectures but the feel of listening to him was quite different. I could understand how he could be so magnetic a personality.


The event was covered here: http://www.examiner.com/buddhism-in-syracuse/dalai-lama-honored-by-jamia-millia-university

Learning Translation-2: The Building Blocks

We just spoke about kernel sentences. In the translation process, we could look at simple sentences when we begin. Those are the easiest to translate for the beginner. But the moment, you add few things to that simple sentence, your beginner translation student starts getting fidgety and doesn't know where to turn.

Ok, let us look at few examples. We are going to use Hindi examples as an illustration. I'll write Hindi in Unicode, so, it would be easily accessible. I'll also try to give a transliteration as far as possible.

1. A simple S-V-O sentence would be: I am a teacher. The Hindi would be मैं एक शिक्षक हूँ [Transliteration: main ek shikshak hun] --where the sentence is written in Hindi as 'I (Subject) a teacher (Object) am (Verb)'.

Now, we can complicate issues a bit. Let us look at the simple sentence: I am a teacher and now, let us add one more sentence to it.

2. The new sentence would be: I am a teacher and my name is Roomy. This is still not a very difficult sentence to translate but it is more difficult than the earlier one. The Hindi would be मैं एक शिक्षक हूँ और मेरा नाम रूमी है [Transliteration: main ek shikshak hun aur mera naam Roomy hai]--where the sentence is written in Hindi as 'I -- a teacher --am --and --my name -- Roomy -- is.'

The second sentence is still not a difficult one. But we can further complicate issues now. So, let us add few things more to the second sentence and see how the third one looks to us.

3. The new sentence would be: I am a teacher and my name is Roomy and I was named after Rumi.. This is slightly difficult than the earlier one. But there is some ambiguity inbuilt here. The Hindi would be मैं एक शिक्षक हूँ और मेरा नाम रूमी है और मेरा नाम रुमी के ऊपर रखा गया था [Transliteration: main ek shikshak hun aur mera naam Roomy hai aur mera naam Rumi ke upar rakha gaya tha]. Of course, the audience should be aware of Rumi.

Now, we can make the sentence even more difficult. Let's look at the next one.

4. The fourth sentence would be: I am a teacher and my name is Roomy and I was named after Rumi, the great poet and Sufi and I am quite proud of my name. This is getting difficult now. This is the point when the beginner translation student would normally throw up his/her hands in despair. The Hindi would be: मैं एक शिक्षक हूँ और मेरा नाम रूमी है और मेरा नाम रुमी के उपर रखा गया था, जो एक बड़े शायर व सूफ़ी थे और मुझे अपने नाम पर गर्व है [Transliteration: main ek shikshak hun aur mera naam Roomy hai aur mera naam Rumi ke upar rakha gaya tha, jo ek bade shaayar v sufi the aur mujhe apne naam per garv hai].

I'm going to publish this post but I'm going to further illustrate the same point in another post soon. I would like to further complicate the fourth sentence.

Learning Translation--1: Kernel Sentences

I am going to fulfill my promise of writing about translation and about teaching it through this blog. Before you start translating, there is the problem of understanding the structure of languages. English has the S-V-O (Subject-Verb-Object) structure but Hindi and Indian languages tend to have the S-O-V (Subject-Object-Verb) structure. This can make the syntax go awry for the beginner. But more on it later.

Right now, some little nuggets on a kernel sentence. This comes from Chomsky to begin with. But I would like to post few links on the idea of the kernel sentence and then talk about translation issues a bit later.

A kernel sentence can be defined as a bare minimum sentence. Let's check the links on kernel sentences and their importance in language acquisition:

1. https://share.ehs.uen.org/node/843 -- Utah Electronic High School has a list of sentences
2. http://www9.ocn.ne.jp/~bigarden/g04et/g04e-25.html -- Masaya Oba's Learner's English Grammar
3. http://golum.riv.csu.edu.au/~srelf/SOTE/EML504/Chomsky.htm
4. http://www.ncldtalks.org/content/interview/detail/2387/
5. http://twohandsapproach.org/2HAteacherbook/pdf/ImportanceSentence.pdf

An Important C S. Lewis Quote

A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means.  This is an obvious lie.  Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is....  A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later.  That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness.  They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. 
                                                                                              ~C.S. Lewis


I think this is a very profound quote by C. S. Lewis. But I am only worried about the current state of Indian society. Even in universities. Everywhere. It is so repugnant. The other day, must be last winter, I was telling Mr. A (a young man, a former student who has started working and who thought very highly of me) about how Mr. X was corrupt and misused his official position to help out his relative. I thought the least Mr. A would do is to say, yes. But Mr. A turned around and said, "But isn't that everyone in an official position would do?" I just didn't know how to react to that. I was, of course, aghast. And Mr. A was someone whom I had taught years ago. He was a regular student, someone who was quite respectful to me. Someone who told me for many years that he looked up to me. Mr. A should be 30-32 years old. I'm 39. Younger to me, of course. 


Two things struck me. One, I was a perfect idiot to have never used any official position I had to benefit myself and to have never caused harm to anyone.  One again, I was a perfect idiot to have never used any official position and connections that my Dad knew for any wrong/dishonest benefit. The second thing that struck me was even more serious.  What happened to this young man that he started thinking like this?


Of course, there was the third question in my mind too. If this is the kind of Indian youth we are going to produce, or young Muslins that we are producing, no wonder, Indians are going to lag behind. No wonder, I would agree with Ramachandra Guha's argument about why India cannot be a super power. (You can check an earlier blog post here on Ramachandra Guha).

Thanking Jon Winokur for His Tweet

I don't know if you are aware of Jon Winokur. If you aren't, then you should be. That's all I would like to say. You can read one of his articles on the Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-winokur/advice-to-writers-books_b_700945.html#s133073 and you can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/advicetowriters  -- The Huff Post also tells you: The author of two dozen books, including "The Portable Curmudgeon" and "The Big Book Of Irony," Jon Winkour also runs a website: Advice To Writers


You can also read his website at http://www.advicetowriters.com/


Now, why am I thanking Jon Winkour so much? Jon and I are connected on Twitter and he was kind enough to tweet about my blog, this blog. Here is the picture of his tweet:

This is a reduced image. If you click on this image,
you can see a bigger and clearer version.

As you can see for yourself, he put me in excellent company. I was with Allen Ginsberg. Wow. But that's not all. I was checking the traffic to my blog. The fact that Jon wrote a tweet about me led to 150 people taking a look at my blog.


I thought that was phenomenal. Thanks a lot, Jon.

Louise Erdrich: Few Resources on the Author

Louise Erdrich is an American author or you might call her a 'native American author'. I posted one of her quotes on Facebook / Twitter and thought I might as well collect some resources on her writings and post them on my blog.


1. Oprah's website talks about one of Erdrich's novels, The Plague of Doves. At http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/The-Plague-of-Doves-by-Louise-Erdrich-Book-Review


2. There is an interview on NPR with Louise Erdrich at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4933011 and the transcript is there as well.


3. The Smithsonian Magazine has another 2006 interview with Louise Erdrich here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/erdrich.html


4. The Lannan Foundation has got an audio interview (as well as a downloadable podcast) with Louise Erdrich at http://www.lannan.org/lf/rc/event/louise-erdrich/


5. The University of Minnesota has an informative biographical/critical sketch on the author. This is at http://voices.cla.umn.edu/artistpages/erdrichLouise.php


6. Gale has a longish and informative bio-critical write-up on Louise Erdrich at http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/whm/bio/erdrich_l.htm


I think these are very interesting and informative resources to explore on the author. 

Posts on Actual Translation

The great English critic, I. A. Richards would call it 'practical criticism'-- use critical thinking on a particular, individual text. I would like to attempt something similar here. Talk about the tools and the mechanics of the translation process. Also, discuss short passages and talk about the translation process.

A Quote on Genius by Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.
                                                                        --Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Ten Year Rule Or The Existence of Genius

There has been this rather old debate about the existence of genius or that there is nothing called genius in human society and that everything comes from hard work. In Europe, they call it the 'ten year rule', which means if you can work twenty hours a week for ten years doing something, you would excel in it to become a genius. In the US, they call it the '10,000 hour rule', which means if you work at something for ten thousand hours, you would surely become genius.

There are a number of well-known people, celebrities and gifted people who would make us believe that the '10,000 hour rule' is correct. Of course, it could as well be.

But the idea that genius does not exist in human society suits our egalitarian model of society so much that we would like to completely debunk the concept of genius and that of human intelligence. There is something wrong with this assertion as well.

In an interview to Bruce Duffie, the well-known music conductor, Sir Georg Solti says that 'if you work hard, you will arrive'. Solti was known as the best music conductor of the twentieth century and had won thirty one individual Grammy Awards as well. So, he does seem to support the idea that it is hard work and nothing else that leads to genius.

I would love to support hard work and not question its importance. However, I would also like to state that 'Nannerl' Maria Anna Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's sister got the same training along with her famous brother that their father imparted to both the children. So, both the children worked very hard but only one of them is known as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart while his sister, Nannerl is quite unknown.

So, there is a case for human genius as well.

Dealing With Problem Faculty: An Article From Faculty Focus

I have been so straightforward all my life, so, I thought if I ventured on this topic online or offline (without taking anyone's name, of course) people would still think I was referring to particular individuals. But that isn't my objective. My aim is to put focus on improvement in higher education and to talk about issues that affect the profession. I have been a member of the Modern Language Association of America www.mla.org for a number of years and one of the journals they publish is an annual journal called Profession. (Profession talks about issues that affect and trouble the academic profession.) Anyway, I noticed a very interesting link to an article among the innumerable email lists that I follow. This is from Faculty Focus, published by Magna Publications in the US. It talks about 'How to Deal With Problem Faculty'.


To quote from there:

Much attention has been given to the “difficult” or “disruptive” student, and rightly so. However, colleges and universities aren’t just institutions of learning, they’re workplaces as well. And like any workplace, there are colleagues who are a joy to work with, and there are colleagues who can poison an entire department.

[The emphasis is mine but the quote is from the link below]


Here is the link: 
http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/academic-leadership/dealing-with-problem-faculty-in-seven-not-so-easy-steps/?c=FF&t=F101117a


I seriously think Teacher Associations in Indian universities should hold seminars on the idea of improvement in higher education. This could go a long way. Introspection is important. It leads to progress.

Calling Beginners to Participate in Translations

I would like to invite young people who are budding translators to contact me / post their translations and I would be glad to discuss them either by email or here. I know three languages, English, Gujarati and Hindi pretty well and if young Indians would like to discuss their translations in these languages, they are welcome to send me text in both the source language as well as their translations. I shall be very happy to train more translators. If there are others, who work in say, German to English, they can send me their English translations and I could evaluate their English and tell them if there is something lacking in the translation process. For those, who are wondering where to look for online materials in Hindi and Gujarati, there's a lot of stuff that's available on the Internet. In the next couple of days, I'll be posting information about Hindi and Gujarati materials online.

Novel Folder and Its Promising Future

I see Novel Folder (this blog) as an omelette (or omelet) of education, quotes, inspiration, ideas about Indian life, creativity, about Hindi and Gujarati literature and about Indian writers and thinkers. And an omelette need not always be Indian. It can be Iranian, Italian or even Roman.

Interesting Albert Einstein Quote

There's a young man who was 'kind of' my student and who paid me a compliment at Facebook (when a recent picture of mine was shared) that I looked like Albert Einstein. So, I told him I was going to share some Einstein quotes.





Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
                                                                        ----Albert Einstein




This is a quote that's so true of me too. I hope it would be true of other young Indians too because that is exactly how they are going to shed their garbs of laziness and build their nation.

Article from Brookings Institution on Education

Have you heard of Brookings? It is one of the world's most important thinktanks and is situated in the US. I subscribe to a number of Brookings newsletters by email and got this today, November 17th, in my email. It's a slightly technical paper on Education but the import of it isn't lost on me. The paper is titled "Evaluating Teachers: The Important Role of Value-Added". The paper goes on to argue that in addition to teacher evaluation, it is important to look at the value-added quality of a teacher. What is it that the teacher brings to the profession in addition to good evaluation reports? I would welcome such a paper, more so in the Indian context, where there is no thinking about quality in higher education. In India, in most universities, we do not even evaluate our teachers and there is no concept of the value addition of a particular teacher. In fact, I have seen instances where teachers want students to become their cronies and spies. Or where teachers defame other teachers and students think the teachers who defame other teachers are the best. Students also tend to be blinkered. The system promotes and encourages mediocrity in India. And we never think about the profession, what it means and what it entails. We never put any thought towards improving the educational system.


Anyway, you can read the Brookings article here: http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2010/1117_evaluating_teachers.aspx

Ramachandra Guha Quote on the Indian Middle Class

"There is a kind of brashness and vulgarity among the Indian middle class, which is quite widespread. It is not one family, not one industrialist and so on. That's challenge number five that the Republic of India faces."
                                                                                                       -- Ramachandra Guha


I have seen a lot of this brashness and vulgarity in my own life too as an academic on an Indian campus. I have also seen it in other forms of Indian life in New Delhi, the Indian capital and I frankly find it appalling.

The Idea of Post-1947 Indian History

If you look at literary terms and look at Indian history in sensitive terms, you could probably say that Munshi Premchand wrote a sensitive history of Pre-1947 through his stories and fiction. But if you were try to chronicle a sensitive history of India, post-1947, you might like to look at the works of the great Hindi satirist, Harishankar Parsai. I would not even hesitate to state that Parsai was the best satirist that Hindi literature ever produced. If Premchand wrote about the problems of the middle class before 1947 and also wrote about the various Indian communities but Parsai did something else. Parsai painstakingly chronicled the entire history of corruption that India has seen after freedom in 1947. He spoke about the moral, financial, social, religious, political, bureaucratic corruption and the malaise that has plagued Indian life in it's many forms. When I look at recent events that get splashed in newspapers, I am often reminded of the works of Harishankar Parsai.

Ramachandra Guha-- Ten Reasons why India will not and must not become a Superpower

An Interesting Quote by Ramachandra Guha

"India is unique as a political experiment because never before and possibly never since, has a single nation been constituted of such diverse parts. So, as a political experiment, India is the most daring reckless, daring, ambitious political experiment ever conceived by humankind."
                                                                                           
                                                                                                       -- Ramachandra Guha

The Idea of Contemporary History

I find the idea of contemporary history very fascinating. If you look at post-1947 Indian history, formal work might not be much to come by but you should find the work of eminent and reputed people like Ramachandra Guha, whom I have come to respect a lot. I'll be talking about him and other people as also related issues of our times as my blog goes along.

The Happy Birthday Greetings In The Age of Social Media

I was quite ecstatic at the number of greetings I received on my birthday at Facebook. The figure was far less on Twitter, which proves my suspicion that the Dunbar number argument is probably right when it comes to numbers. Of course, my birthday this year falls on Eid, or, the Eid falls on my birthday. Much as I ponder over the nature of online discourse and the fast paced technological growth, it is also true that I have never received so many birthday greetings all my life. There were airmail days earlier when I did get cards but not 90 or 100 cards. Then, we had the email days and the e-card days when most of us used the free Blue Mountain greetings but even then, I never got so many greetings in a single day. Even last year, when I had embraced social media (read: Twitter), it wasn't a deluge. This year, I think, it is the Facebook effect. I still remain unconvinced and worried about the possible dangers that lurk in the Facebook model. But the number of greetings that I have received today does make me feel good.

Debate: Loss to Indian Exchequer at PR Point

Dear friends,


This is the online thread: http://finance.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/prpoint/message/4867 -- Debate: Rs.1760000000000 - Loss to the Nation -- as you might have noticed, I'm not making my personal views clear. I am simply posting updates because I believe this should foster debate. You can follow the debate as it develops without, of course, getting into a 'flame' war or any nastiness online.


** For those, who are unaware of the news. Here is a news clipping: http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_a-raja-resigns-after-pm-manmohan-singh-s-veiled-threat_1466731 -- I'm not stating that I hold the ex-Minister Mr. A. Raja guilty or innocent.

Public Archives of PR Point (for Indian Public Relations Professionals)

These are the public archives for PR Point, the yahoo group for Indian Public Relations Professionals -- http://finance.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/prpoint/

The Debate About Loss To Indian Exchequer Due to Telecom Licenses

There is a very interesting debate that is currently underway at prpoint@yahoogroups.com -- this is the yahoo group of PR Point, a PR firm run by Mr. K. Srinivasan of Chennai, a senior and seasoned PR practitioner. This yahoo group has got PR stalwarts as members, including Mr. S. Narendra, former Secretary to five Indian Prime Ministers. Currently, the entire issue of the 2-G telecom licenses is being discussed and if it caused loss to the Indian government due to decisions taken by the ex-Minister, Mr. A. Raja. I'll try to post updates.

On the Henry Miller Quote

I don't plan to post mere quotes, nor plan to make this blog a collection of quotes. But I put this Henry Miller quote to indicate a state of financial upheaval that happens in the lives of people, groups, communities, societies and countries. I also put this quote here to stress the fact that happiness can and must take precedence over many other things.

I wouldn't want to sound like spiritual riff-raff here and I am not the kind who peddles motivational stuff for the heck of doing so. (You can even notice the use of different styles of language in my posts. I'm a budding novelist. I need to practice!)

Henry Miller Quote

"I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive."
- Henry Miller

Novel Folder

I guess 'Novel Folder' is a very strange name to give to a blog. But I would like this blog to encapsulate everything in it. Everything that is about what I do. Everything that tells you what could lead to short stories, material for a novel, materials for life.

And I am going to blog regularly here.