The Real essence of India.

A Traditional Indian festive evening. Real essence of India.

India has a very mystic presence in the eyes of a foreigner. But being Indian is a different feeling. Every day is a festival for people of this country. Every day is a celebration, every day an interaction with the divinity.

This video is a small introduction of how any celebration gets better with time. Here we have this Theru(A vehicle that carries God) all illuminated and loads of people pulling the chains to move the same. Dont forget to listen to the divine voice of Nadaswara(a south Indian musical instrument that is considered to be auspicious). A wonderful feeling to be a part of it all. Its here we meet many of our forgotten friends, and cherish the moment in the company of the Lord.

Come friends, lets go to one such place and enjoy being a part of it. :)

The place shown in the video above is Yeldur, the place where I was brought up.

Remembering my teachers on teachers' day

To remember my teachers,
First comes my father, then my mother!!
Yes. My Father used to teach me math and science
And my Mother, music. In my school, there were some teachers who stayed permanently in that school. Some had experience of over 20 years, some 30 years!!
It was too good to be learning from all of them. There was a specific teacher to a specific class. Like Padmathamma for nursery, Muniyappa for 1st standard, Ramakrishnamachar(Swami master) for 2nd standard, Doreswamy for third standard and so on...
For us math, science and social science would start from third standard onwards. Till then we used to learn how to read and write, playing so many games, some rhymes, songs and stotras!
I still remember the Kannada rhyme which goes like this: "Baro Baro maLe raya... bAleya toTake nErilla"(This was taught when there was no rains during the monsoon season as a prayer)!
Oh! How good those days were!
We were not allowed to enter the classrooms with slippers. This was just because we needed to treat the classroom as a prayer hall or as a temple. What a sacred feeling. Teachers also would leave out their slippers outside just before entering the classroom.
On the classroom walls there used to be good sayings written allover and the teacher would light an insence stick(sambhrani kaddi) the first thing in the morning; what a good practice!
Later on as we entered 5th standard, our teachers introduced us to grammars and freedom struggle and so many other things.
There was a strange incident once in a social science class. Every one of us was given a portfolio in a mock ministry. I was made the chief minister and some of the others cabinet ministers and some state rank ministers; we were all asked to read newspaper and write down something about the then ministers of our portfolios!
What a novel way of introducing one to political science!
oh! How can I forget MVenkatappa! he was our English teacher. Since it was a remotest village and most of the parents being illiterates, English teaching was the toughest job of all. But this teacher was, I consider him to be, successful in planting the English seed in most of us. We started learning English in 5th standard.
He used to prepare small post cards and distribute it to all the students, guess what he would write on it?! Name of the person it was distributed to! And more, he would take time, write it in bold with sketch pens so that the stamp always remains in the minds rather than the paper. Some people left English learning at it, sadly and some moved on to be IAS officers!!
All the above facts were of the Govt. primary school. I don't think they still maintain the standard of teachers as it was in our times!

Then the high school. It was a good platform for our analytical development. Apart from just studies, as sadly so many schools now a days prefer, we had so many competitive programs in singing, reciting, cultural, educational, recreational, vocational, sporting and others like drama.
There used to be a science competition for which we used to prepare for over a month. Participants would come from allover the district and it used to be a very nervous time to perform (teach in science) in front of so many judges and teachers! We all learnt so many things, apart from just the exam-lessons, from these programs.
I thank all of my teachers who made these moments momentous and confidence building moments.

Then the college, National College Basavanagudi. I think its better to keep quiet than go in detail about each and every person who made an impression there. It was everyone who made it a great stay in that college, In spite of tough competitions from the private tuitions, we used to go there just to attend classes,
U would've all read their text books, PL Seetharam(PLS, Zoology) and Y Tulajappa(YT, Botany), there was one Anantha Rangan(AR, Math), one MSVR, one SVSubba Rao(SVSR, chemistry), one SBalachandra Rao(SBR, Maths), one ShakuntaLa(English), one DShashidhar(DS, English)....list grows...
Best part of my stay in NCB was the NSS activities, dramas apart from other things.

I will leave out my Engineering days to be listed on some other occasion. The post is already a Hanuman tail(hanumanthana baladante agide).

My endeavor with reservation system

yeTo quote my example itself, I studied in a rural area. My school/village had only a few so-called upper caste students/teachers, and most of the 'others' were peasants.
But still the treatment meted to everyone was same. That was the basic education for me, it was a Govt. school. We were all same when came the choice of education. There was only one difference in the education facilities provided in that village. There was a different school for Urdu learning people and a normal Govt. school for all the others! For this reason I hated the Govt. much earlier then.
Then some convents opened and even Muslims started to admit their children in those schools. So another level of equality achieved.
Then we all had to join a private high school, since we didn’t have a govt school in my village back then, it was a private high school with long history and stuffs. Treatment was same there too. Everyone had his share of "matriculation" there.
But amidst all these things, Govt. used to send some kind of scholarship to SC/ST (only) students, others even if they come from peasant poor background, had to pay the fee as prescribed.
Can you think of the impact these discrimination seals on a child's ability to think?

Till then I thought we were all same and then these people are getting rewarded from the Govt for what they have not achieved (Here, the amount of scholarship becomes unimportant). The discrepancy was brought in by the Govt.
My first experience with the real caste-ism is that. When urbanars talk of caste system in rural areas they tend to generalize and say the system is too bad!! How untrue?! Not all the rural areas are same.

Long back, as far as I know, many villages accepted Gandhiji's version of looking at things, even when practicing their family traditions. It all is in the attitude of the people.
I have also been a witness to one such change. Before 1985, in our village, the scavengers were kept away from entering the temple; but it is interesting to note that people did not avoid them as being shown in movies. Even those people used to attend the school with us and teachers would not treat them any lesser!! (May be I was fortunate enough to have such teachers and all)
But later on, I have witnessed a change in that rule and the village chieftains permitting them inside the temple,

There were so many families that were poor, peasant, home less, and still wanted their children to study, but they were not from the so called SC/ST communities, so had to fund their children's education from their pockets, thus ending their dreams of seeing their children as officers :(
On the other hand, there were some SC/STs who had good cultivable lands in the village, still their children got admissions in good colleges, free of cost; of course through reservations. These children of fortune ended their studies later abruptly. It means they blocked entry for a few of other 'brighter' students, also spoiling the resource of the Govt. for a few years. How shameful.
Please note that, I've never said 'all' in any case,

Also, these reservations have helped some notorious people form groups of their own, miss lead the failed children of a 'lower' community and crying on road for every small issues so as they have to be completely taken care by Govt and they don’t have any responsibility for the society/for themselves!!
This point shows the blacker side of the reservations, I'd rather say its the achievement of reservations, apart from it, the concept has not changed anything in the society.
I rank my village chieftains way higher than the Govt itself, for their honest effort in bringing the equality in their regions.


Now, coming to the ground reality,
Reservations have failed in uplifting the reserved community's standard of living, standard of thinking.
Reservations have failed in removing the rich-poor barrier.
Reservations have created un called for barriers between the communities in the form of community groups.
Reservations have created a kind of irresponsible environment in some of the communities.
I can list so many other things....

Finally what point I wanted to make is, apart from giving some politicians a political mileage, reservations have failed out right, at least in my village and its neighborhood.
I totally oppose the reservations based on castes.

YaladUrina rAmOtsava

Ramotsava grandeur at Yeldur