(The new REAL post, that you probably came here for, is just another couple of days away.)

Good morning sir, my fellow students, the batch representative, the very enthusiastic first-benchers, the even more enthusiastic last benchers and those occupying the space in between (or rather, the sms-experts). Seriously, very good morning. Not because I feel exceptionally good about anything today, but because that’s what I was taught in school. Up till standard 3. In the consequent years, I would see the teacher entering, staring at the class, until everyone greeted her monotonously. Which is almost as irritating as “Agla station, Vasai Road”. I haven’t been able to decipher, till date, how that could make someone feel good about the day! So I believe these special ‘good-morning’ references have to be made, when you’re giving out a speech. Just like in math, how x has to have his girlfriend y with him in every possible problem. However pointless it might seem.

Anyway, I’m here to talk about our education system. That system which believes cursive writing practice is more important than explaining how it is genuine feelings that really matter and not a sluggish “good morning”. That same system which emphasizes more on deriving how e equals the square of mc rather than bothering to identify and encourage an individual’s expertise in a field. And that very system which forces us to believe that there’s no difference between MTV Roadies auditions and placement interviews. Minus the abuses, of course.

And seriously, what an unbeatably accurate process of judging a student’s brilliance! Somebody slogs day-in-day-out for 6 months, mugs up textbooks of sizes that would give the Guinness Book of World Records an inferiority complex, goes to an examination centre, tries to fit all that he has memorized on sheets of paper and steps out of the hall with his nose upright. He does that for 18 years of his schooling life and takes home a high calibre degree and a heavy paycheck. What he knows about the world or real life, is better left unsaid. Ask him his views on God and he would reply, “God is real; unless declared as an integer.”

Why not create robots then? They would be lesser expensive than how much you must’ve spent on educational institutes till now, if you realize. Or at least you would be less knocked out on hearing something like, “Dude, check out the Gaussian Curves on that babe!” from him.

The point I’m raising here is how our education system has shifted from imparting REAL education to merely generating good looking mark sheets. It is not one man’s fault, though. Definitely NOT. Everyone, including us students, is responsible for such an eroded education system. We have been getting carried off blind-foldedly by the system handlers and trying hard to stay in the race stupidly. Can we not become stubborn and demand for an ideal education-pattern from the system, just like we do to bring that Playstation home?  A little solider, though. Why have been there absolutely no strikes on this alarming issue, EVER? It would just be like mass-bunking, on a grander scale. And for the good.

But no! We’re okay with the assignments and late night coffees, aren’t we? We’re really okay about how an aspiring software developer is judged on his knowledge of the carbon-carbon double bonds and the work-energy principle, are we not? Understand, and realize that it is ONLY us students who can bring about a revolution, if there would be any. Or else, be prepared to get caught in the wrong job.

Until there’s a change brought about, I won’t ever let my schooling interfere with my education. What you prefer is your pick. Thank you. Have a studious day.

Certain quotes and punchlines are courtesy Mark Twain, Ashish Shakya and an unknown person. And Chetan Bhagat also. Well, not really. But I don’t want my twitter timeline to be spammed. So, thought I should give him some credit too.

There’s so much in my heart that it keeps me from breathing sometimes. I have so much to say; there are so many things you need to know. Apparently, all my guts to spill those things out seem to go comatose when you’re around. And that should explain why you’re receiving this letter.

I can’t believe how long I’ve been loving you and how long I contained my love. Yes, you read that correct. I put it abruptly, with a purpose; that was just so you know exactly, how my heart beats (read ‘bounces’) with its every distinct pulse when I’m around you. Distant horizons seem to die away around a very short periphery, encircling you and me. Remaining of the world has always seemed much non-existent and vague in your presence.

However, also true is the rotten luck of this unfortunate heart of mine. It knows that it cannot wish to be yours. It knows that the space it craves for, in your heart, is someone else’s territory. It knows that the smile, the eyes, and the lips that it fell for are already retained with love in someone else’s heart. And more importantly, it knows that the heart that it wants to plug in to, itself feels complete only with THAT someone else’s emotions.

I have sat back, watched and listened to you talking about your love so many times. I have beheld so many of ups and downs in your love life, all with a solution or with a smile. We have been friends for such a long time now. Every day spent with you is like a paradise of new surprises. If you only knew that there is a true love waiting for you – one that will never die or grow tired.

With every passing day I fall in love with you over and over again. Every time we meet, my heart gets so out of control that I can’t even look up at you. Sometimes I wish I could just jump out of my seat and run into your arms. I don’t know how you feel for me, but I have my feelings for you all the same like they have been till now being friends. All I really want is to see you happy, even if the person you choose to live your life forever with, turns out not to be me. I am willing to let you go where you want, but I hope that eventually you choose me.

I. Love. You.

Tonnes of love,
Mitaysh

DISCLAIMER: REAL LIFE RESEMBLANCE TO ANY OF THE ABOVE MENTIONED CHARACTERS, EVENTS OR SITUATIONS IS PURELY INTENTIONAL AND IS DONE ON PURPOSE.

(This is a copy of the ‘Love Letter’ that I’ve written and submitted for my college magazine competition. Wish me luck and also, much kindly, do drop in comments or tomatoes or whatever you wish to, now, after giving almost 10 grateful minutes of your day to my so-much-in-need-of-readers-and-promotions blog. Also, gifts in disguise of coffee are much welcome.)

Seriously, why get in blasphemy and care shit about just some other species of animal getting extinct? I mean, we’ve already witnessed myriad number of animal species getting wiped out – The Black Rhinoceros, the laughing owl, and the golden toad. Forget those; we have the biggest example of all – the dinosaur family.

What comes has to go. Isn’t that the law of Mother Nature herself? Why so much of sudden hoopla then? Why so much of attention, money, reports, committees and conservation focus this time on tigers?

Interestingly, there IS an answer. The tigers are not GETTING extinct. WE are making them go extinct. We’re killing them. It’s a mass murder. And chords are being struck harder this time, because apparently it’s our National Animal. It’s just like crowning a prince and making him the King one fine day, only to shoot a bullet into his forehead the next day.

Statistics show that India had closely 7000 tigers in 1937. And today, it’s a disgraceful 1411 figure. Looking at numbers, we might think, coming down from 7000 to 1411 in seventy three years is kind of okayish. What’s the big deal, then? But the irony of this number can be understood only when we realize that it’s not the balance on our prepaid mobile connection which HAS to come down with time.

Let’s look at it like this. The world human population seventy three years ago was nearly 2 billion. Today the count is 6692 billion (which is still INCREASING). And the population of tigers has gone DOWN; forget the number count.

And again, coming back to the point, the number count is not going down on its own. WE are reducing the balance talktime. WE are using up someone else’s phone account to make OUR personal calls. Tigers are being killed for traditional medicines. They’re hunted for their meat and skins as well as their bones. Immoral hunters kill them indiscriminately for measly amounts on the behest of bigger fishes. And the sad part is protectors of tigers have become hand in glove with these hunters. They get their fair amount of share in bribe.

Some people feel the tiger fur is an exotic type of clothing. Or a fancy carpet. What they don’t realize is that they wouldn’t be very happy if some animal used a person’s skin in the same way.

What now? There’s practically much less we as individuals can do to confront this universal issue. However, simply showing firm support to the cause can do huge help. Unity of the people of our entire nation can create an overwhelming effect. For that, people need to be aware. It might surprise you to know that are STILL lots of people who have no clue about this predicament. Awareness has to spread. For that we need to show support. When there’s a concern related to us humans, we are thoroughly surrounded by more than adequate number of banners, hoardings and advertisements to create awareness. Take AIDS, the Swine flu and polio for example. Whereas, the number of supporters and sponsors for the Tiger Campaign is still too low.

We need to act and we need to act fast. Or otherwise, there shall soon come time when our grandchildren will have just soft toys of tigers left for them. And we’ll have our children explaining them, “Like your grandpa, there USED to be these wonderful creatures called tigers.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

Concept and topic: Courtesy Anita and Forum Kapadia.

Statistics and other details: The Internet, Save Our Tigers initiative by Aircel, and this blog post.

Dear Wikipedia, come to India, and you’ll have a different definition to quote in your vast directories on Education.

Talking about passing knowledge from one generation to another, a writer, a stand-up comedian and an active twitterer, Rohan Joshi, made a remark on the actuality of engineering teachers in general earlier this afternoon. Like in most controversial situations, Rohan slipped away having made his statement; however, the topic fuelled a debate between me and Reema (an engineering teacher by profession). Here are the snapshots of the debate-turned-argument, all from twitter.

While I was working on this article, I found myself getting blocked from accessing Reema’s tweets; which is why, here onwards I could insert only shorter snaps of her tweets from my @replies message box. Click on the image to enlarge it. Hit back to return to this page.

Having made this blog post and unintentionally making Reema the bull’s eye target, I believe I am certainly not as high-calibered a person as it might take to disrespect a teacher, a mentor. However, the fact that despite being aware of the deteriorating education system and eventually the teaching faculty someone was ignorantly promoting the myriad culpabilities in the system, wasn’t doing any good to me either.

How long are the students supposed to be taken for granted? How long are their meaningful lives supposed to be overruled under some cheap and ruthless rules framed by the grading system? How long are people going to keep getting trapped in the wrong job? We Indians, claim to have plentiful number of engineers (read, degree holders). But how many of them are really worth the title? In point of fact, many in this country are worth the title, but the right ones can just never find themselves making to it. Thanks to the superefficient PCMB marking scheme! And eventually, these people land up in fields they must’ve never seen themselves making a career into, even in the weirdest nightmares. And when they grow up to say, “I CHOSE TO BE A TEACHER”, god help the country!

Aal izz not well. It certainly isn’t.

Where is Bittu this time, did you ask? Well, I’d say he’s got a life!

Bittu was having his time, and making the best out of it with his buddies. I felt jealous of Bittu for being able to stay with the same circle of friends, that he had two years ago. And comparing his total lifespan to that of humans, the number – for them – was close to fifteen years, if taken an approximate mathematical ratio. Remarkable! I green-eyed Bittu for not being required to change his friends, just like washing-machines and television sets are replaced.

I miss my friends. I miss them day-in and day-out. I miss missing the buses and I miss missing the first-lectures. I miss the “are we going to college today’s?” and I miss the “we’re late for the movie already’s!” I miss waiting for the rickshaws and I miss the arguments over the fare. I miss contributing for the B’day gifts and I miss deciding on the ‘perfect’ gifts. I miss the truth-n-dare sessions and I miss the red-hand blows. I miss the conference calls and I miss the comments on caller-ring-back-tunes.

The sugarcane juices and the pani-puris. The samosas with paav and the appy drinks without straws. The halts at every possible chowk and those at the stationery depots. Opening the umbrellas in hot sun and closing them in jovial rains. Looking for suitable show-timings in newspapers and benefiting from the Tuesday offers. Making plans, and eventually breaking plans. Refusing parties and convincing parents.

The overnight stays. The late-night calls. The 1:00-am ice-creams. And the DVD movies. The exam-preparations. The portion reconfirmations. The ‘over-the-phone’ explanations. And the expected questions. The mess-ups and the help-calls. The break-ups and the ‘I-miss-you’ calls. The crushes and the cold-wars. And the proposals and the refusals.

With all of these and so much more memories, one is expected to forget the past and get used to the ‘losing-touch’. One is expected, or rather forced, to get by with the new folks (who have their own memories) only to let them go their way after a couple of years again. Here’s a lesson I learn from this – It’s not only in love that you’ve got to ‘move on’, but the theory remains unchanged for friendship as well.

One has to get along super-well with a new set of individuals now. In doing this, one has to pay heed to what words one speaks and riddle out the harsh ones. One has to pretend his persona, despite attempts of self-prompts of “be-yourself!” One has to ask for permissions and be obliged for favours. Adjustments, analyses, appraisals and grievances have their share in the process as well. And finally, when new ‘friends’ are found, you spend some close-to-heart moments and gather some remarkable memories only to get ‘disconnected’ again!

Period.

First things, first! Let me introduce you to Bittu; he’s an ordinary, but uncommon living being (no, don’t mistake him for a human). Just like others of his kind, he likes eating, sleeping, wagging his tail when bird-watching, chasing big cars on roads (though not intending to drive them, of course!), and hanging out his out-of-shape tongue time and again on smelling something edible (he’s got a paranormal nose, I must say).

Anyways, don’t care about all of that. What is noteworthy for you to know about Bittu is that he’s the one who’s gonna help me keep this blog running! He’s the one who will get me stories, anecdotes, reviews, gossips and some of his other bak-bak that he thinks would be attention-grabbing (and i’ll need to post them too, out of courtesy) for my blog!

The other night as I lay on my bed – in just my shorts – I woke up abruptly to the vibrations of my phone along with its classic Nokia ringtone. While still rubbing my eyes, I could see ‘BITTU CALLING’ being flashed on the screen. Without a “Hi/Hello/Wassup sucker?”, Bittu came straight to the point and disconnected after asking me to play Vishal-Shekar’s latest ‘You may be’ from Aladin. I did so. When Bittu has something to show (and that too, at past-midnight hours), it’s gotta be something, a terrific something!

I played, replayed, re-replayed the song after downloading its pirated version from a Pakistani website and then thought it to be a fine idea to keep my freshly updated iTunes player on the ‘repeat-item’ mode. This, because I could just not dodge off the reverie, the song had led me to.

A flashback of events started appearing from nowhere onto the wall adjacent to the ceiling of my room. I was taken back to day one. That day, something (and I mean some really super-natural thing) took my attention towards her, amidst all others whom I could’ve kept gazing at for hours, bird-watching. There she was, exhibiting all her splendour in guise of a life-is-precious-live-every-moment-of-it attitude. Just as I like. And just what I was looking for, in a girl – in my girl. She seemed to be embracing all the charm of the world gleefully-tight on her ever glowing and lustrous face with a smile that would put a daisy boasting her morning pride to shame.

Hai naya ye jahaan, ke hua na yahaan
Itna kabhi bhi kisiko kisise hai pyaar

Here, oddly though, I’ll have to put an end to my post for this week. And probably, to this theme as well, leaving it incomplete, due to certain personal reasons. Next time, I’ll be here with just another subject that Bittu delivers to me (hopefully not so heart-melting). Signing off now, with sweet emotions making their way into my soft soul once again, as I re-read this post, checking for errors. See you soon, then. Have a great time. Cheers!