Teacher's Day

Was listening to a very senior Professor from Vidyasagar University in a Teacher's Day function few days back at the office of SDO, Kharagpur. He gave example of parents of a five year old seeking advice from a learned on how to raise their kid. The learned said that the parents were five years late as a child learns from the very first day and the conduct of the parents leaves a lasting impression.

My father used to tell in my younger days when majority of my extra-academic time used to be spent in Children's wing of an organization, "Influence of parents on a child is 50%, children's own will is 25% and what you all are trying is 25%. Pick up those children whose parents are supportive to get better outcome." Of course, it could not be agreed to as we didn't want to profile kids that way and father was happy about it. His was to caution us for the unique development path taken by each in which parents, the first teachers, play a significant role.

Today is father's death anniversary (Link). The teacher in him was there for anybody who crossed path. This evening, there was a lecture from a Ramakrishna order monk here.  His Mother was told by Swami Shradhhananda (initiated by Swami Shivananda, direct disciple of Shri Ramakrishna) to dedicate one of his two sons to Shri Ramakrishna during one of his visit to their California residence; there the father was working as a Microbiologist at UCLA. And, both the sons dedicated themselves with encouragement from parents.

Maharaj began with five characteristics of Shri Ramakrisna's teaching: Ever-fresh, Authentic, Allows self-assessment and self-acceptance, Makes best version of oneself, Fun. During Q & A session, he referred to what Nivedita of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda wrote in the forewords of Vivekananda's Complete Works, "If the many and the One be indeed the same Reality, then it is not all modes of worship alone, but equally all modes of work, all modes of struggle, all modes of creation, which are paths of realization. No distinction, henceforth, between sacred and secular. To labour is to pray. To conquer is to renounce. Life is itself religion."

To note, Ramakrishna abandoned formal education at his village school when he was twelve as he found that was oriented only towards bread earning. Interestingly, he became the teacher of many a educated in Kolkata that included young college goers. A glimpse of his teaching, as was noted during those years by Sri Mahendranath Gupta, a Presidency scholar and a Professor can be found here (Link). A more recent article by a Stanford scholar, now an Assistant Professor at Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University in a Springer journal on unique attributes of Sri Ramakrishna can be found here (Link).

Shri Ramakrishna wrote in a piece of paper that Naren would teach and his voice would be heard in home and abroad. Narendra (Naren) remembered, "But I said to him, 'I won't do any such thing.' Thereupon he said, 'Your very bones will do it.'" Narendranath came to world stage as Vivekananda. His simple, penetrative, fearless message has something special. It is inspirational. In today's lecture, Maharaj referred to experience of an American lady who met both Czar of Russia and Vivekananda. Both were very big personalities to stand in front. But, there was an important difference and that was significant. The big personality of the Czar made her feel how small she was while the big personality of Vivekananda made herself feel big. 


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On 4th Sept. evening, a panel discussion was arranged here on the topic "Artificial Intelligence and its Impact on the Society." An observation there seemed to suggest that educational institutions and teachers would not be required in time to come. Educational material will be delivered to students by AI, digital technology. Knowledge in the book will be better accessed through digital platform. Information required by a student will be only key-stroke away or will be available in the recommendation panel.


The writing on the board as I stepped into next morning's 8:00 AM class, "Happy Teacher's Day", brought smiles on either side. Dr. Radhakrishnan's, the birthday boy's thought-provoking quotes appeared as last year's FB post. Greetings, messages. Then came these words from a 2018 batch IAS, IIT Bombay BTech in the Teacher's Day function at SDO Office, "Great teachers teach from the heart and not from the book. Teaching really makes a difference."

"If you want to know India, study Vivekananda," Tagore said. If you want to know about education, there is also Vivekananda for you. "What is education? Is it book learning? No. ... Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested all your life. ... The education which does not help the common mass of people to equip themselves for the struggle for life, which does not bring out strength of character, a spirit of philanthropy, and the courage of a lion - is it worth the name? Real education is that which enables one to stand on one's own legs. The education that you are receiving now in schools and colleges is only making you a race of dyspeptics, you are working like machines merely, and living a jelly-fish existence. ... We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one's own feet."

AI, digital technology seem to bring back education to its roots by revisiting the teacher-taught relationship and educational institutions getting the opportunity to grow up and beyond!!

Social media

Yesterday forenoon, I was in an invigilation duty in the Department together with some young faculty members. This gave an opportunity to know how they are doing and share whatever little I have learnt over time on career milestones. At that time, a recent recruit who hails from opposite side of the country told something that surprised me. He told that before joining this institute he went through my blog and my responses in certain places in social media. These gave him another feel of the institute and helped him taking the decision.

I felt somewhat apologetic that my blog posts here have become quite irregular as the traffic got diverted to facebook! The day before yesterday evening, I was dropping my daughter at a private tuition. There, had a chance meet with another faculty, few years junior and from another department. His better half was also there who in a thankful note told that my facebook post on the movie ‘Kanttho’ (Voice), posted the previous day, was very useful. That review motivated the otherwise reluctant colleague accompany her in the Sunday matinee.

While one may tend to classify above two as 'Thumbs Up' examples which the emoticon or comment of those posts do not reveal, it is also possible that there could be 'Thumbs Down' classification too which does not reach the author. For example, if 400 views a post, about 10% i.e. 40 may actually chose to register their feedback and that too may depend on certain extraneous factors than actual content of the post. Some of the social media space is designed in such a way that only 'Thumbs Up' is registered to hype up the sentiment and no statistics is provided how many actually hit that page and chose not to take a call. Such a space may even allow manipulation with no proper mechanism to respond when a complaint is lodged.

Social media gives a platform to express oneself. It connects to many who we as author may not be acquainted with. We do not exactly know the influence-trajectory of such a post - how it modulates affective states of different individuals. Hence, as a responsible person we need to ask ourselves certain pertinent questions. What is there in the back of our mind when we make a post? Is it to stimulate a positive, constructive chain of thoughts? Is it just for fun to bring smile to someone? Is it to tickle the intellect? Is it to vent out frustration and get a sense of relief? Is it to just engage in a conversation when feeling lonely? Is it to form public opinion about something that matter?  Is it for wider circulation of an important piece of information for greater good? Or, is there some specific motive, implicit or explicit, for which the post may be considered deplorable?

What is easier to withdraw – something that is spoken to a few or something that is written in a public platform? What is easier to do – to say ‘I stand corrected.’ to those who correct me or to acknowledge the same in full public glare? The greater difficulty to admit a mistake in writing, that too in a public forum, may keep one going on and on by bringing ill-logic, fuzzing / shifting the context, shout outs. We cannot help doing so as the social media makes a public figure of me in certain sense and I am unable to consider anything as an option for which my carefully curated image can take a beating.

Therefore, an otherwise soft-spoken person, amenable to logic in a private, one-to-one discussion may behave quite differently in social media because of certain psychological vulnerability. This includes a sense of self-righteousness lurking at the back of our rational self and the posturing made in public domain. We think that bucks stop elsewhere than me. Everything else should change but not me. I deserve a better deal which I do not get due to other's fault. I know more about other's woe than that very person. All the while I am in a denial mode if clueless about what bugs myself.

Like every other powerful things, a good use of social media can initiate a virtuous cycle while a misuse can take us to nadir by cascading effect associated with a vicious cycle. Social media is a great place to be in if used responsibly else, it may curb individual development, individual's ascendancy in human scale. In this regard, it is important to note what Vivekananda said, life is a continuous struggle to move from one's lower self to higher self.

P.S.1: My elder sister complained some days back that many of my posts are not fully comprehensible. I am sorry if this post is turning out to be one such. As is said, "Dane dane pe likha hai khanewala ka nam (every piece of grain is destined to be consumed by a particular individual)", may be each post has a target audience to whom it reveals in full and for the rest, only partially!!!

P.S. 2: It is to be noted that visa applicants to the United States are required to submit any information about social media accounts they have used in the past five years under a State Department policy that started a month back, on May 31, 2019 (Link). Such measures and other deterrants may force us to be more responsible in social media and make us behave more sensibly.

Added on 26-06-2019

While I was writing the above post yesterday night on way to complete a struggling half-century at 00:00 Hrs. (there were hits and misses but no throwing away of wicket), the youngsters in the lab. were coming up with this Yaadein album to surprise me today. And, they picked up each of these photos from social media. Needless to say, I am surprised!! :-)

The seniors preferred to be traditional!

At home, the person-in-command made the payas while a seventy nine year old and her grand daughter took turn to feed initial few spoon-fulls!!

Not Aware Of

In today evening's study circle, Shri Ramakrishna's "খপর নাই (Not aware of)" came again and again. This was in reference to unexplored wealth / faculties within us. Those being not cultivated, we feel ourselves weak, miserable, unfit in front of challenges.

The topic was "Life Building." Excerpt from a small booklet written by Sri Nabaniharn Mukhopadhyaya was read out (Link).  It talked about three basic elements within - Body, Mind, Atman. Vivekananda made it easier to understand with 3H - Hand, Head, Heart. Each of these requires balanced food and exercise for its development.

Then the house was open for discussion. The first question was if the idea of development of 3H would resonate with someone who is fighting hard for survival. The answer was, the more the struggle, the more is the need to equip oneself the best way possible.

We have example of people applying Head to make intelligent use of time in difficult times, Heart coming into play to remain united and fight together. And of course, Hand symbolizes physical labour, hard work and that has no substitute.

Someone referred to one of the prayer song with which the study circle started... বিদ্যার সুফল প্রকাশ করে উভয়কে সমভাবে পালন কর (Let the education yield good result to take equal care of us). Therefore, there is a constructive role to play to make each one of us stand on one's own feet.

Our upbringing, narrowing of exposure which results in narrowing of vision and de-growth of certain important faculties make us vulnerable. This gets exposed when we cannot avoid facing hard realities of the real-world. Each of us has our own challenges. Individual development trajectories may take divergent view of same challenge - if it is extreme or if it is just another one that comes and goes.

Narrowing of exposure in our formative years is very much related to improper nutrition and lack of exercise. We do not feel like playing team game in the open field where you lose one day but win another day. We think that reading of biographies of great people and the struggle they went through is a wastage of time. Any effort to know our relation with the society draws askance. Anything unselfish is for someone else to act upon.

Then came the discussion on Atman, our deeper self, for which Vivekananda refers to Heart that feels. Part of the poem, "Quest for God" written by Vivekananda (Link) was read out. This was part of the letter written exactly one week before his famous Chicago Address of 11th September, 1893. The letter was to Prof. John Henry Wright, the Harvard University Professor who introduced Vivekananda to Parliament of Religions. Vivekananda was not aware of the need to carry something with him from India as a credential to represent Hinduism.

Vivekananda writes ~ O'ver hill and dale and mountain range, / In temple, church, and mosque, / In Vedas, Bible, Al Koran / I had searched for Thee in vain. / Like a child in the wildest forest lost / I have cried and cried alone, / "Where art Thou gone, my God, my love? / The echo answered, "gone." 

Vivekananda continues ~ Thou speakest in the mother's lay / Thou shuts the babies eye, / When innocent children laugh and play, / I see Thee standing by. / When holy friendship shakes the hand, / He stands between them too; / He pours the nectar in mother's kiss / And the baby's sweet "mama". / Thou wert my God with prophets old, / All creeds do come from Thee, / The Vedas, Bible, and Koran bold / Sing Thee in Harmony.

P.S.1: Yesterday, read a survey based article on mental health of students in premier higher education institutes of the country. Read the proposed solutions. In today's study-circle, it came in the thought when Shri Ramakrishna's "খপর নাই (Not aware of)" was referred to.

P.S.2 There is certain acknowledgement (Link) in the shift to consider EQ (Emotional Quotient) over IQ (Intelligence Quotient) in workplace: for choosing leader, engaging team, training, making one move out of one's comfort zone etc., even if the aim is to maximize the organizational output. EQ here is categorized as: Self-awareness, Self-regulation, Motivation, Empathy and Social Skills.

P.S. 2a: To note, character qualities cannot be manufactured in a certificate program or a motivational speech event. Behavioural makeover falls off when one is put to test outside (air)conditioned environment. To assimilate character qualities, one needs to go through a life building process by taking up appropriate nourishment and exercise on a regular basis that develops 3H. It needs conscious and sustained effort as anything contrary would undo what is incrementally gained. There is no short cut.

P.S.3: If this post appears too heavy, then here is a video made this morning. For this, HH finds a talent in me which I do not seem to be aware of. She advises me to take up film direction after retirement!