Warrier's Collage 10092020 : Literacy

Warrier's Collage 10092020 : Literacy A Interaction 1) Dr T V Surendran "Your tougher option on the non believers/ believers, and your remarks on the subject, reminded me of the concluding remarks by cine actor Mukesh in Badayi Bungalow.😄👌" (Only Mumbai Mirror reported prominently Dr Tongaonkar's demise. Link below : https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/coronavirus/news/surgeon-and-social-activist-tongaonkar-dies-of-covid/articleshow/77988030.cms Posted online comments-Warrier) 1(a) V N Kelkar Tribute to Dr. Ravindranath Tongaonkar. "He is and will always remain an inspiration to thousands of us who feel enriched by his presence in our lives as a mentor, a friend, a philosopher, a guide, a doctor, an ideal." Dr. Ravindranath Tongaonkar chose the path of action. All individuals are committed to action. But mere action of an individual cannot bear the emblem of 'Karmayoga'. It is the spirit of service which turns an action into Karmayoga. Doctor refused to go abroad for higher studies. He preferred to start his medical practice in his hometown and dedicated his life in the selfless service of the society. He was indeed a Karmayogi, though atheist. Isa Upanishada says "One should lead one's life by doing actions only." 1(b) V R Chittanandam, Chennai "The tribute to Dr.Ravindranath Tongaonkar was very moving. A great Doctor, a great Person. I am forwarding it to all my contacts giving due credit to you. Shared it by email with around 150 of my contacts. I am trying to share it with another 350 through WhatsApp." (Really grateful for the interest you are taking-Collage) 1(c) Vathsala Jayaraman "Very happy to know about a real Karmayogi Dr.Ravindranath Tongaonkar. A great deserving tribute!" 2) PKK Nair " Coming to my 4th hobby, it is numismatics, collection of coins. I have a large collection of coins from all over the globe. Also I have published a researched article in a well known Malayalam magazine about the history and evolution of coins in India. I have very rare coins as well in my collection! Almost all the different types of one rupee and ten rupee coins form part of my collection! The fifth item of my hobbies will follow soon. PKKNair" (Collage has forwarded Sendil's response on your prediction to you. I remember you have given your phone number while predicting. Interested readers may contact you. Collage would like to protect privacy rights of readers and will try to avoid inclusion of person to person interactions on such matters in daily messages) B Literacy 1) International Literacy Day https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/literacyday 2) Ancient Indian Literature https://youtu.be/EvSAFwlPfrE 3) Literacy rate in India https://www.hindustantimes.com/education/international-literacy-day-2020-kerala-most-literate-state-in-india-check-rank-wise-list/story-IodNVGgy5hc7PjEXUBKnIO.html Check out internet literacy rate on which we are more dependent now. 4) World literacy rate https://ourworldindata.org/literacy C Readers Write 1) V Babusenan It was 1950 and 10th standardA Division.We were preparing for the public examination. The English teacher casually asked us: "Who is your favourite poet?" Some said Wordsworth. Some said Keats. Some even said Shelley. Ravindran stood up and said Browning. Our teacher was nonplussed. How could it be? Even grown-ups considered him as a difficult poet. "Why Browning?" The teacher asked. Have you read any of his poems?" "No, Sir. You once told us that Browning wrote a poem 'The Grammarian's Funeral.' That was what we very much wanted. That is why I liked him." Everyone laughed. Our teacher also joined. (He always carried a Wren &Martin with him) Ravindran was a brilliant fellow, liked by all. He later joined the Communist Party and was a rising star when the party split. He withdrew from politics and then was heard no more. In 'Wren&Martin,' in the paragraph discussing punctuation, an example is given to show how a misplaced comma saved the life of a person. The judge wrote: 'Hang him not let him go.' His decision was to hang the fellow but inadvertently he put the comma after 'not' instead of before it and the judgement suddenly acquired a benevolence which the judge didn't wish to happen. In actual practice, we will not find such a judge and such a judicial system allowing such a thing to happen . But the sentence has served its purpose quite well. Once a budding poet approached a great scholar-cum-poet in Kerala for his opinion about his poetic composition. The latter gave his assessment in poetic form and blessed him. This was what he wrote: " Kuttam paarkil aseshamilla Rasikan mattum padacherchayum Patteettilla kalankam engum Orupolunde rasam paarkilo Chettillikrithiyinkal dosham Ini njaan enthuntu chollentu ha". (I don't find any flaw in this poem. Its style and word combination are excellent. There is no defect anywhere. Every part of it is enjoyable. There is not an iota of deficiency anywhere. What more there is for me to say ?) His detractors said that his tendency to overpraise and suppress the deficiencies would only damage the young writers. They pointed out that that was the reason why Kumaran Asan gave his khandakaavyam 'Nalini' to his nephew, an equally respected scholar-cum-poet, for a critical assessment. His supporters pointed their finger to the book review quoted above and said: "If you will only change the position of the comma, you will get what he actually wanted to convey: Kuttam parkil Aseshamilla rasikan Mattum padacherchayum Patteettilla Kalankamengum orupolunde Rasam parkilo Chettillikritiyinkal (Only flaws if you look at it. Good style and word combinations not to be found at all!Not a desirable work .Defects are there everywhere. One will not get joy from any part of it) "This was what Kunchan Nambiar did earlier" They would say. Yes, Nambiar wrote a sloka praising the food provided by the king of Chempakasserri when he was there and,when he later served the king of Travancore,he changed the commas and showed it in a poor light to please the latter. He could do that as his circumstances were such.But Kerala Varma Valiya Koyithampuran, the Kerala Kalidasa, had no need to do that and he would not steep to dupe a young aspirant of poetry thus. Noble souls suffer mostly from their own men like Shakespeare's King Lear." 2) Vathsala Jayaraman Hijack Normally the word 'Hijack' brings to our mind seizure of planes, and sometimes trains, catching hold of people and wealth bargaining for greater political or military gains. In 1970, our colleague's sister, a doctor and her seven year old daughter were involved in a hijack. The plane was taken to an unknown destination and they were releasedd after 10 days after much political pressure. The child, who had juvenile diabetes suffered a lot and had to be hospitalized for a month after being released by hijackers. Don't think that all the hijackers belong to the category of terrorists. The hijackers, I am referring to, belong to the category of hi-fi technological companies. They hijack people's minds. In simple terms, a magician focuses his attention to the vulnerabilities of the audience and perform spell-bound magical shows by tapping on such vulnerabilities. Similarly the leading technology companies hijack the attention of the billions of users. This they do wonderfully well when explaining the ethics of “Attention Economy”. They do the job of 'sitting by the side and digging the grave. First, when the technology companies give multiple choices in a menu asking the user to choose one, the users don’t question what is not available in the menu. Second, when an app is designed to increase maximum use, some companies device it in a fashion to reward the users occasionally or to make a message appear in a drop-down menu to make looking at it addictive. Third, some companies bring the fear of missing something important to enable users to frequently check their smart phones. Fourth, a statement like, “Look how many of your friends are using this app?” type of questions makes one wonder about social approval from the friends. Fifth, reminders such as, “You have not accepted the friendship request of so and so” makes one feel guilty to reciprocate the action taken by another user. Sixth, when a user plays a video, recommendations appear about other interesting videos or automatically plays a next video making one addictive to use. Seventh, instead of respectfully delivering content, the users are interrupted from something important. Eighth, if the companies knew exactly what users need, put them at the end to make the users go through various other items that the companies want the users to focus on. Ninth, unsubscribing is made harder by calling a phone number instead of just clicking “Unsubscribe” or make the user go through multiple options as alternative in lieu of what users would like to get rid of. Tenth, a click could take the users to many other options taking a lot of time using the concept of “foot in the door”. This is a clear brain-washing technology. They take advantage of the fact that human mind always seeks instant gratification and hence anything and everything we see in real world that gives instant gratification is pursued vigorously instead of something that gives us a long-lasting happiness and peace. Most pleasurable things are low-hanging fruits available for a short period of time and the fear of missing such an important opportunity makes us feel get involved quickly without analyzing them. Acceptance by the peers sometimes function as social pressure for us to get indulged in something many are opting to do. If someone close to us strongly get us involved in something that we are not inclined to, we end up obliging in order avoid the feeling of guilt. This is absolute cheating, worse than hijacking by terrorists. When we are involved in something that is of great interest to us, our mind is perfectly capable of distracting us to something else that is gratifying. Our mind interrupts us at will anytime without respecting what we are involved in a specific moment. Life’s purpose is always hard to achieve involving difficult efforts. When we are pursuing something that we like, there are so many choices that are offered by life along with it so that we can easily get distracted to many other options. “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they’ve been fooled.” — Unknown. We are hijacked,our minds are hijacked just before our eyes. In a period, when the whole society depends on systems, instrumentations and on-line equipments, chances of our being cheated also multiply depending on the urgency to get things. Can't we stop being hijacked by intellectual giants under the pretext of development of technology?" D Blogs and Links 1) What ails India ? https://toistudent.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/action-reaction/poverty-corruption-illiteracy--what-s-ailing-india/23116.html Date : August 9, 2017 What did our PM say on that day ? 2) Horoscope https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/readersblog/warriersviews/born-with-a-horoscope-22215/ This link was shared earlier. Rani Soyamoyi's story quoted by me is worth revisiting, in the context of Dr Tongaonkar's story. Each individual has a mission to complete. 3) Malayalam Literacy Exam Topper a Bihari https://www.readersdigest.in/true-stories/story-bihari-migrant-emerges-on-top-in-keralas-literacy-exam-125282