Duty

Lab, lab, lab! Practicals is fun, yeah, surely better than theory. Endeavour, experience and exploit. The key to research. Fascination by results is the key to innovation, and it is that factor that drives practical work. But uff! Lab isn't interesting anymore. Not when your capabilities are tested by the notebook you wield. A college student is a warrior whose weapons are his math textbook(read club) and his observation notebook. Miss the latter and you're the primary subject of the teacher's anger. A perfect observation is an engineer's dream.

Once he begins his herculean effort to comprehend the science of engineering, his list of national duties get incremented by one. Oh yeah, I would recommend the Drafting Committee. How does this sound?

Section 24 of the Article 423 requires that "all engineering students maintain, update and validate the existence of their corresponding observation notebooks every week. Failure to do so, may result in inexplicable circumstances ranging from a petty warning to a full-fledged vent of the staff's anger on her housemaid who didn't come to sweep the house on that particular day".

As theory is tested by thoery, practical work may only be tested fair by a practical continuous assessment. But, oh goodness, 75% of my continuous assessment comes from my observation which "I solemnly swear to be a testimonial of my copying abilities and undetectable plagiarism".

All set and done, I have my Database Management Systems lab tomorrow and I must dutifully complete my observation. For I am an engineer.

\*unleash your thoughts*/

Traffic signal

What could you be thinking while waiting in a traffic signal? Wouldn't you be thinking at least something to avoid the unpleasant cacophony of the horns? Well anyway, I do. Thus happened something that materialized into this blog post.

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It was my trip to Bombay to my cousin's marriage. My grandparents had a lot of siblings and all of them were so close that I ended with more than half a dozen each of chitthis, chitthappas, periammas, mamas and athais and not to forget about the three-score cousins.. Cousins off all sorts, younger, elder, infants, grown-ups, schoolers, collegers, office-goers etc. The function went well and the joy of meeting relatives was, as usual, awesome. But there was something else that was on my mind, something that I saw on my way back.

Poverty.

Different types of poverty. And so I thought,

Is it poverty of education? Those kids could very well be sitting in a classroom happily reciting poems.

Is it poverty of awareness? Orphanages and Adoption centres are as common as an exposed scam on a news channel(Incredible India!).

Is it poverty of hygiene? So much for the infinitely many handwash, health supplement ads..

Is it poverty of a helping-tendency? Not just there. They were at every single traffic signal. Doesn't the government bother?

Is it poverty of basic necessities? Ragged clothes are only the tip of the iceberg.

Is it poverty of safety? Worry about pedestrian crossing when you don't bother about three kids sitting, literally, in the middle of the road.

Poverty is not only about money. I only hope that the kids I saw don't have poverty in ambition and hard-work although the string of hope is as thin as a strand of silk.

India has a long way to go before becoming a super-power.

P.S.: This is not a post to show sarcasm or be cynical, its a mere thought-train on a momentary visual.