Creator, Preserver and Destroyer

15th June 2016, 11:40pm: It was another hectic day at office. To rejuvenate my exhausted brain, I switched on my WiFi and watched Bhagavad Gita Episodes of Mahabharat in YouTube. As I was watching the Vishwaroop Darshan episode (B.R.Chopra Mahabharat - Episode 74), something struck my mind. As soon as the episode ended, I immediately started watching the episodes of a Discovery Channel series in succession - How the Universe Works (Black Holes - How the Universe Works ᴴᴰ | S01E02 | Black Holes and How the Universe Works ᴴᴰ | S04E03 | Monster Black Hole ). By the time, the episode ended, I was almost on the verge of sleeping with my laptop still powered on. Fortunately, I was able to switch off the laptop and WiFi before retiring to bed. While I was enjoying the mythological episode followed by a sci-fi series, my subconscious mind was voraciously feeding on the information present in those video movies.

In the Dream: "I am the Creator, Paarth... I am the Preserver as well as the Destroyer... I am the Beginning of the Universe, the Middle as well as the extreme End point... Beyond Me, there is nothing... I am Time... I am the fabric of Space & Time on which Everything is Present..."

In the faint echo of these verses, there appeared a super-massive black hole right in front of my eyes. The extreme radiation felt like witnessing the glare of a million million trillion Suns together. I was witnessing the fiery storm of space & time being dragged into this giant cosmic sinkhole. Whatever I had read in my 10+2 Physics books was happening right before my eyes. Time was slowing down by the unimaginable gravity of the scary black disc ahead of me. The faster I tried to run from it, the slower I was moving. Everything that my common sense dictated was going haywire.
I woke up with a start only to hear the sound of the ceiling fan rotating at full speed. I was profusely sweating. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was a God gifted nightmare. After drinking a glass full of water, I again retired to bed.

Waking Up: Black Holes are the Creators, Preservers as well as Destroyers in the Universe we live in. They are created when extremely heavy stars collapse under their own gravity. The explosion created when such stars collapse, is so violent and extreme that, it destroys and rips a hole in the very fabric of spacetime, upon which, our entire universe exists. Sub-atomic particles, atoms, molecules, including all the laws of Physics and Chemistry that we know of, break down. Even the light that helps us to see things cannot escape this inescapable & infinite well of gravity. The gravity is so strong that, at the boundary of a Black Hole, time essentially stops. This is something that I read in an article in the Times of India, way back in 2007 (LEADER ARTICLE: Where Time Stands Still).

This extreme description of one of the most bizarre and scariest places in the universe, is enough to knock out senses. No wonders, after witnessing the Vishwaroop, Arjuna appealed to Sri Krishna to return to his original human form. But, despite the scary stuff, these extreme cosmic wonders present a beautiful cycle of creation, preservation and destruction. A Black Hole is formed by the destruction of a star. Its unimaginable gravity attracts gas and dust which creates stars, planets, asteroids, comets and galaxies. Without their gravity, all of this would be flung apart in space. They help preserve the individual galaxies by acting as a universal glue. In fact, our Sun is also orbiting around a super-massive black hole Sagittarius A* at a distance of 26000 light years. When it comes to destruction, these cosmic cannibals are the ultimate destroyers. They rip and incinerate things to the extreme. They are truly the end point of our knowledge and existence that we know of. The following wraps up Everything -

“Black holes are where God divided by zero.” - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Homecoming

Days after days... Months after months... Nothing can beat that enthusiasm of Homecoming; especially when one lives far away from Home... :)

My saga of homecoming started during my B.Tech days in Burla. Though the town is just 160 Km away from my hometown Rourkela, still planning for homecoming every fortnight was more meticulous than the NASA space missions.. ;) :D As I was browsing through the archives of my photo library, I just happened to get across this image, which describes the magnitude of the excitement.

This is a snapshot of my mid-semester examination schedule when I was in the first year of college. The date-time stamp 8/11/2008, 1330 hrs is self-explanatory... :D

Even today my hostel roommates from the college days, still pull my leg, saying that I used to pack my bags as early as a couple of weeks before the actual homecoming day. During those days, I was so frequently traveling between home and college, that I used to carry a print-out of train-schedule at Rourkela station for my travel convenience. Traveling to home at the shortest notice with the cheapest price was the sole motto. The best thing was the adventure involved in coming home from college. Rather than taking a direct bus to reach home in 5 hours, I used to travel in all available modes to reach home just in time. 

The journey to home would start with a share auto from Burla town to Ainthapalli Chowk via NH-6. This first leg of my journey used to take 20 minutes and a nominal fare of Rs 10. At the fag end of the chowk, buses to Jharsuguda were readily available with a frequency of one bus every half an hour. I used to complete my next leg of journey in such a bus. The intermediate travel in a Bus to Jharsuguda used to cost me somewhere around Rs 35. In terms of time consumed, the bus journey took some 100 minutes. The bus would terminate at Jharsuguda Bus Stand. With a huge bag on my shoulders, my immediate priority was to find, what I still refer as "The Wormhole". It was actually a hole made in the wall which separates the bus stand from the railway station. In simple terms, a journey through "The Wormhole" would teleport me at a place near to the railway junction west cabin. From the railway cabin to the ticket counter, I used to rely on my feet & stamina for running  approximately half a kilometer. Any announcement of next incoming train was typically a boost up signal for my brain, to pump up the adrenaline necessary for sprinting with Usian Bolt speed to the ticket counter asap. Depending on the time of my arrival at the station, I used to calculate the arrival of the next train and purchase tickets accordingly. Though I always planned to board the Haridwar-Puri Kalinga Utkal Express at 3:15 pm, but boarding the Yashwantpur-Tata/Hatia Superfast at 2:50 pm, felt like an icing on the cake. The best part in boarding the super-fast train was that, it had a non-stop run at full throttle from Jharsuguda to Rourkela, covering the 103 Km last leg of my journey in just 70 mins. On the other hand, the usual slower Kalinga Utkal Express had 2 intermediate stops and covered the same distance in 100 mins. No matter which train I used to board, as the train crossed Rajgangpur, I used to call up my father to pick me up from the railway station. By 5:15 pm, mommy used to serve me the day's lunch, as she always knew I would definitely skip the lunch at hostel in sheer excitement. :D

However, nowadays the excitement seems lost. Perhaps the marathon journey of 1607 Km from Pune to Rourkela is taking its toll. Though, the journey to home is a tiring 27 hours long one, still, the adrenaline starts pumping once again as the train crosses the famous "Diamond Crossing" after Nagpur Jn.

As the train starts accelerating after the famous Diamond Crossing, the reading on the milestones painted on the electric poles besides the tracks would change from 835 to 1132; indicating that the train is running on the BNR (Bengal-Nagpur Route) of Indian Railways. From that moment onwards, I would start reverse counting the milestone readings, eagerly awaiting for the 414th Kilometer milestone which mark the platforms of Rourkela. As the train reaches Bilaspur, at 4:30 pm, I would call up mommy and tell her about my dinner menu. Around 7:45 pm, the train finally enters Odisha via Jharsuguda Jn. For the next hour I eagerly await the usual clickety-clack sound of the train to change its pitch to a metallic sound, indicating the crossing of the Brahmani rail bridge. At the instant the metallic sound dies away and the train start decelerating, I pull out my luggage from underneath the berth and wait near the gates. Slowly, the train crawls into the platform and thus my 27 hour long homecoming journey ends.

All these years, the mode of my homecoming has changed; from the adventure filled Burla to Rourkela journey to the monotonous Pune to Rourkela train journey. But the joy of booking tickets for homecoming and eagerly awaiting the journey date is an evergreen experience in itself... :)

Automation - The Rise and Fall of Machines

As I sub-consciously glanced at my smartphone and opened up WhatsApp messenger, I realized the extremely rapid technological advancement we humans have undergone. I remember, there was a time, when I accompanied my mother to the PCO booth, as she would dial and have a casual sister gossip with my aunt. From the 90's era PCO to WhatsApp messenger, it has been an incredible journey of technological renaissance; all credits to the mantra of "Automation".

The idea of automation started when we identified the repetitive, tedious and error prone activities in our day to day life and programmed computers and machines to perform them. For instance, there was a time when my father would return home with a bundle of currency notes on his pay day and put it into designated envelopes to manage the monthly expenses. To get this bundle of notes, he had to sweat few hours standing in a bank queue. Thanks to automation, the entire saga of standing in a bank queue, handling the bundle of currency notes and the monotonous activity of putting of the notes in designated envelopes has been replaced by a single and simple SMS - "Your salary for the month has been credited in a/c no. XXXXXXXX". Thanks to a government portal and the associated automation, the filing of Income Tax returns has become lot easier than ever. From booking a movie ticket at the nearest multiplex to paying utility bills via online banking, an automatic smartphone app can do it all. This is truly an age of the "Rise of Machines" where every device has become more smarter and more efficient to aid mankind in every possible way that we can imagine.

But as a general rule, when everything looks very hunky dory, there is always some sign of trouble brewing up, underneath our feet. This extremely heavy dependency on automation has made us over-confident and careless. A few days back as I was returning after shopping from Big Bazaar, I decided to book a cab to home. Due to some network issues, my cab booking app was unable to connect to the company servers. So I decided to call them instead, and book my cab. But, to my amazement, even the cab company's call center executives were unable to book a cab on my verbal request, as booking was allowed via smartphone app only. Though, the network issue got resolved and finally I was able to book my cab for the return journey, still this raises an important concern. The concern is that, excessive dependence on automation and its extensive use as a measure of crowd control has made us callous. In this case, the app developers were so confident that they virtually left nothing for manual intervention as a fail-safe mechanism. What if someone needs a cab urgently but the smartphone data connection network is unavailable ?? This scenario reminds me of the exuberant branding of Titanic as "The Unsinkable" ship. As a result, the shipping company did not provide enough lifeboats for escaping in case of a disaster. What happened, as a consequence of that, got clearly etched in the pages of history on 14th April 1912, when the "Unsinkable" ship sank in the icy Atlantic waters killing over 1500 people onboard.

As I pen down these thoughts, my mind races back to the school days when we had a debate competition - "Can machines replace humans ??" I don't know, whether the topic is debatable or not, but my answer to this is a big NO. Machines, computers and the entire idea of automation is a wonderful creation of human brain, which in turn, is an extremely fine tuned product of evolution of life, spanning over millions of years. When I say, 'extremely fine tuned', I mean to say that no other creature has the brain power to think of this wonderful idea. How many of us have seen a lion creating another mechanical lion and programming it to hunt ?? This means, for something to replace human beings, it should be more finely tuned in the evolutionary process than humans have undergone. In other words, making a process fully automatic and removing all sort of manual intervention is like starting a brake-less vehicle at full throttle. So, to sum it up, technology and automation are a boon as long as they have a human element involved with them. The moment, the human element is lost, they can become real-time liabilities.

"The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency." - Bill Gates

Food for Thought

A couple of days back something happened during the lunch hours in my office that set off a chain of thoughts in my mind. As a consequence, I am penning down my thoughts in this blog post with a hope to achieve my dream of a "Perfect Eutopian World", where nobody would sleep hungry.

With a coupon in my hand I was standing in the queue awaiting my turn in the office food court. A hungry stomach and over-stimulated taste buds compelled me to get the coupon which was worth a plate of Butter Naan, Mushroom Babycorn Masala with complimentary Salad and Fried Papad. Being a bit choosy and selective in my eating habits, I requested the canteen boy not to serve the complimentary items on my plate and serve only one serving of the curry on my dish. But, before I could finish my sentence, the canteen boy literally poured all the items like an automatic machine on my plate. I lost my cool and exploded - "Bhaiya... Hum manaa kar rahe hain k Papad, Salaad nai dene ka... Fir bhi aap de rahe ho... Aur yeh sabzi bhi kam karo !! Khaana WASTE karwaana achha lagtaa hai kya ???". The canteen boy sulkily took away the refused items and served my plate with the cuisines that I wanted with the quantity enough for me to eat.

Many people would argue that I lost my cool on a trifling matter. But how many of us are doing something for the cause ? The farmers who are growing the food, sleep hungry with their families. These people are overburdened with agriculture loans on their head. Many of them commit suicide when they fail to repay loans due to crop failure. Every now and then, we can read about it in newspapers. The food that we carelessly waste is the same food that took months to grow in a field consuming air, water and hard labour of an unknown poor man who is God to me. It is the same food which our canteen boy was callously serving with an assurance that some of it would definitely end its journey in a garbage bin. Disrespect to that food meant a disrespect to God which I could not stand.

It is true that our canteen boy is an overburdened person who does not have the time nor patience to keep track of every milligram of food served. But, he is not the only overburdened person on this planet doing a monotonous job. Many of us belong to the same category of boring monotonous workers.

A couple of years back, I had a chance to visit the Shirdi Sai Baba shrine in Nashik with my friends. After our darshan, we came to the common dining hall - Sai Prasadalyaya. It is a huge hall with benches and desks where rich and poor can eat alike at affordable cost. Before the entrance to the hall, there is a signboard saying - "Please do not waste food.". A volunteer was present there, making rounds to serve the devotees the sacred food (Sai Prasad). While he was serving, I had a feeling that he might pour the entire food on my plate, making it impossible for me to consume everything he has served. So, I requested him to stop, the moment I felt I got enough. To my surprise, his hands stopped immediately as if it was controlled by a computer connected directly to my vocal cords. As I am penning down my thoughts, I am feeling a sense of respect for that overburdened canteen boy of Shiridi Sai Baba shrine, who made sure that the instructions on the signboard outside are followed to the letter. Apart from the respect towards that man, I am also feeling a sense of disgust towards our sense of hypocrisy. While the food served at Shirdi Sai Baba shrine is Prasad which cannot be wasted, the same food when served inside the office canteen can be thrown to the black colour waste bag placed in a trash bin. This is the hypocrisy of the so-called "Educated White Collared" imbecile creatures like us. The idea is to take as much as you can consume regardless of the money paid. But nowadays, people think it in monetary terms i.e. "If I am paying X rupees, then it is my birth right to get the appropriate quantity of food on my plate, regardless of my consumption capacity." In utter frustration, I think that one of our political leaders was perfectly correct in saying - "Poverty is a State of Mind.".

When a few paper bills of currency become more important than the edible food itself, then certainly it depicts our miserly attitude and mental bankruptcy. This miserly attitude of ours has started an unhealthy trend of serving more than what can be comfortably consumed. This trend is visible everywhere - be it restaurants or road-side stalls. Our imperialistic colonial masters have inculcated a false sense of civilized culture, that eating to the last grain of the serving depicts our misery. It is a fad which is religiously followed by the so-called "civilized" people like us. This obnoxious behaviour can be easily seen in a restaurant where people order more than what they can eat because they have the money to pay for the bill. The consequence is that resources of a nation are wasted which causes inflation - Huge amount of Credit Card bills (Money) chasing Small amount of Products (Food). We wash our hands off our duties and responsibilities and blame it on "Sarkaar". What can the Government do to control inflation, when the citizens themselves are busy wasting the nation's resources ??

The above poster nails it. I rest my case.

Death

"aśhochyān-anvaśhochas-tvaṁ prajñā-vādānśh cha bhāṣhase
gatāsūn-agatāsūnśh-cha nānuśhochanti paṇḍitāḥ" - Bhagavad Gita 2.11

As I read the above shloka, my mind is engaged upon the metaphysical concept of Death. What is this Death that instills a painful feeling of fear, anxiety and sorrow in our hearts ? And despite all these feelings that occur naturally to a human being, what is the possible meaning of the above shloka in the context of death ?
Doctors define death as the ceasing of all biological functions of the body followed by gradual decomposition. It is an inevitable experience that each one of us has to undergo for the first and last time in our existence, irrespective of our liking or disliking. We fear death and feel sorrowful even at the thought of the death of our near and dear ones, despite knowing that it is inevitable. For me, the fear of death is the bodily pain that I have to undergo as systematically all my organs stop working. It is the deep fear of darkness and the ultimate oblivion which will swallow all my consciousness. The feelings of sorrow arise when I imagine my near and dear ones mourning near my lifeless body. For them, my body will become another doll which is meant to be destroyed by cremation. Similar feelings do come to my mind when I think about their death. As I imagine all these, I can empathize with the greatest archer Arjuna for feeling reluctant to kill his own kith and kin in a war. Since I have placed myself in Arjuna's shoes, I decided to read on to clarify my clouded mind.
As I read further, my doubts got clarified in the very next shloka

"na tvevāhaṁ jātu nāsaṁ na tvaṁ neme janādhipāḥ
na chaiva na bhaviṣhyāmaḥ sarve vayamataḥ param" - Bhagavad Gita 2.12

Literally translating, this means - "Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be."
As I read this, I looked at my own body. What is this body ? To my eyes, it is basically a huge, but divinely systematical arrangement of elements like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, calcium and others. The motive power to keep this systematic arrangement stable without disintegrating into the nature is my life-force or soul or electromagnetic energy. When we die, this electromagnetic energy gets dissipated, leaving behind the elements which decompose into nature. This means, that all the elements with their exact atom count remains constant before and after our death. In other words, the atoms and molecules that make up my eyes may be the same ones that once were a part of the thumb finger of Alexander the Great !! So, even after our death we continue to exist in this universe as something else because the total mass and energy of this universe is constant. So should we fear and feel sorrowful about this mere rearrangement of atoms and molecules ??
As I believe, our existence is not merely a coincidence. From a unicellular zygote to a fully grown living organism, we have made this remarkable journey for a purpose - i.e. to actively participate in the divine play of creation, sustenance and annihilation of life on this beautiful blue planet earth. For human beings like us, who live in a civilized society, our responsibilities are more than other organisms. Unlike other creatures who spend their entire lives in eating, growing, mating, propagating and dying, we humans have the additional responsibility of maintaining the civilized order of the society we live in. This is achieved by performing our assigned duties in the various roles we portray in day to day life. For instance, our brave Jawans serving the nation, even to the peril of their lives are our heroes. This is not because they are bestowed with super-powers like Super Man or Spider Man. It is only because, in the line of duty, they prioritize their duties as a warrior over the duties of a father, a husband, a son and a friend. Unfortunately, I am penning down my thoughts because most of us have restricted our roles to only a loving father (Dhritrastra types), a devoted son (Bhishma types), a best friend (Karna types), a loyal employee (Dronacharya types), an over-protective mother (Kaykeyi types) personalities; forgetting the duties of a "Stupid Common Man" who is the base of this civilized society. As He has rightly said -

"niyataṁ kuru karma tvaṁ karma jyāyo hyakarmaṇaḥ
śharīra-yātrāpi cha te na prasiddhyed akarmaṇaḥ" - Bhagavad Gita 3.8

October Rain

11th October 2002: It started with a bright sunny October day. Today was the last working day of school before a week long Durga Puja vacation. The dry yet fresh scent of air seemed to welcome the all time romantic winter season. After nearly three months of overcast skies, humid atmosphere, torrential rains and muddy playgrounds the change of weather felt better. The cool breeze was also making me feel special with a constant reminder that in less than a month from now on, I will be celebrating my birthday with gifts, chocolates and some of my favourite cuisines cooked by Maa. It was not only me, but the mood inside the classroom was also high. With vacations round the corner, there would be a week long freedom from home-works, submissions, unit tests and results. :D
After the morning prayer, the classes started. Even though teachers tried their level best to bog us down with tons of holiday homework to be submitted on the school re-opening day, still there was an eternal confidence in our eyes. A 'hope-full' confidence that the boy or girl in the next bench would meticulously work out the assignments and we have to just copy it down and submit. It was only a matter of time that which one among us will crack under pressure to complete the homework and who all will remain the copy-master bravehearts of the class. :D :P
By afternoon the holiday homework list was going way long as the skies started to get overcast. The bright noon sun was hiding behind clouds. Internally my jubilant mood was also getting damped with the increasing list. With 15 minutes remaining to the last bell, the teacher also stopped teaching and sat down on the chair to take rest. The noise inside the class periodically waxed and waned with the intermittent but stern "Keep Quiet" of the resting teacher. As I kept on looking at the wrist watch impatiently, waiting for the final bell to go, it seemed time was running more slowly than ever. No wonder, I was experiencing time dilation effect. The final 15 minutes before the much awaited vacation seemed like an era when sharp at 3:35 pm, the final bell rang. The entire class was filled with echoes of "Happy Holiday" greetings. Warm handshakes with classmates was a symbolic gesture to say - "Dude !! One week and we all will be back here only."
As I just unlocked my bicycle, all of a sudden, there was a heavy downpour. For the next half an hour, I stood there in the cycle stand and watched some of my friends boarding the school bus and shouting "Bye bye !! Happy Holidays !!" from within the crowded bus. Slowly the buses started departing one by one. With the school buses and auto rickshaws gone, the traffic outside also got eased. The unseasonal rain caught me off guard and as expected, I had no raincoat that day. On the other hand, this was the perfect moment to enjoy cycling in the rain. Before, my friends could react, I shouted "Happy Holiday !!" and applied a strong thrust on the pedals to set off the bicycle like a rocket. Fortunately, the rains had reduced to a mere drizzle and the wet yet empty roads pumped up my adrenaline to move ahead at full throttle. Rather than the shorter usual route, I decided to go all the way racing across Rourkela Ring Road like a bullet fired from a gun. The rhythmic force on the pedals accelerated the bicycle like a bullet train picking up speed. Finally after enjoying each and every bit of the smooth ring road with cool air dashing on my face, I reached home at 5:15pm.
Like an obedient child, I didn't tell Maa that I was enjoying the drizzle outside the Tom Cruise way. I hope she must have thought that I might have stayed back in the cycle stand and waited for the rain to stop. She didn't ask, I didn't tell... ;) :D :D

Teacher's Day

3rd September 2015: Two days from now and India will celebrate the birthday of former President Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan as Teacher's Day. After a long day's work, I am typing this blog as I am deeply pained by the way we celebrate this pious day nowadays. To be brutally honest and blunt, 5th September is a date in which we inattentively hear all the famous speeches; eat vadas, samosas n jalebies after the function and finally go home. A day in which we should pay our respects to all the teachers who have made us what we are today, has become another formality. Thanks to social media like facebook & twitter, now I can celebrate this day at the click of a button by sharing awesome picture messages i.e. Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V = Teacher's Day. Why has this tradition deteriorated over time ?? To seek an answer, I am going back to my memories.
One evening in March, my room-mate came after appearing Maharashtra CET. He asked me - "Do you know the chemical formula of Phenol ?". Before he could give me the options and finish the question, I cut him short and answered - "C6H5OH". He was stunned at the way I was able to answer his question about a topic that I have read almost 8 years back, during my 10+2 days. He said - "By God !! How come you remember all those crazy organic chemistry formulae !!". I said - "I owe it all to my teacher who taught me chemistry when I was preparing for engineering entrance exams." My teacher did not just dictate notes in his chemistry class. Rather he bought chemicals and conducted live experiments and demonstrated students the physical manifestation of everything he has taught. He never stopped at teaching the effect of heat on acidity of water. On the other hand, to substantiate his explanation, he added a trivial piece of information that drinking hot tea causes acidity in stomach. I don't know, whether this trivia is actually verified in the laboratory. But such joking moments made me fall in love with the subject, not only to clear the entrance exams with a decent rank but to remember everything he has taught.
Coming back to present, a teacher is someone who shows you the path rather than dragging you along. Our ancient traditions refer this type of person as a "Guru". A Guru discovers the hidden talents of a student, and nurtures it. This is depicted in Mahabharat during the archery test at Dronacharya's ashram. Yudhisthir was able to see many things apart from the eye of the bird. He had the natural inclinations of being an able administrator who has the inborn talent of assessing risks and collateral damages in an administrative decision. Bheem and Duryodhan were muscular characters who had the raw muscle power needed to fight a mace battle. On the other hand, Arjun was the only student who had the unparalleled ability to see nothing except the target. Dronacharya discovered their talents and nurtured them accordingly. During the stay in Gurukul, a Guru is a father, mother, teacher, mentor and counselor rolled into one. Hence we say - "Guru Brahmaa... Guru Vishnu... Gurudeva Maheshwara..."
Unfortunately, today this beautiful relation is no longer seen. This is mainly because of commercialization of literacy. Here I am intentionally using the word literacy rather than education because the latter refers to the overall development of character and knowledge. Students come to the class to mug up everything thrown to them; be it physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology or even the Shakespearean era archaic English language. A teacher's capability is measured in terms of how many of his caged parrots have been able to mug up and successfully vomit in the answer script. Nobody ever asks the student whether he/she is really interested in the subject or not. The consequence is that every year after the board exam results are declared, the newspaper gets flooded with suicides. Nobody ever asks the teacher about his/her specialization or aspirations. When the learned and revered Guru is under severe pressure due to number game played across the degraded educational system by petty clerical minded accountant level personalities, his frustration rises. And when this frustration crosses the limit, it pushes a Guru beyond the edge. Consequence is that we come across instances of corporal punishment, verbal abuse and even sexual abuse of a student. In other words, a student-teacher relation in today's world is unfortunately a saga of annual speeches followed by vadaa samosa & jalebi blended with nice picture messages shared on Facebook.
No matter how mundane the Teacher's Day celebration might have become, I still believe in it. A teacher is not only a person who takes attendance in a lecture class or a person who gives assignments and evaluates the answer scripts. I believe, anybody and everybody who teaches us something useful and productive is a Teacher. On this Teacher's Day, I want to thank all such persons in my life who have taught me something or the other however trivial it might sound. I feel indebted to my father who taught me how to write. My vocabulary is incomplete without my mother who taught me the first word - "Maa". As a passionate but amateur photographer, I am incomplete without my uncle's knowledge who taught me how to see the world through the lens of a camera. It was my sister who ignited the gamer inside me with a 64-bit Nintendo console & tons of Super Mario cartridges. My love towards gadgets and technology is the gift of my friend who taught me the ins and outs of cellphone hacking and ways to counter it. I owe some of my culinary skills to my infinitely patient friend, who has taught me how to prepare delicacies like Gulaab Jamun and Dal Fry, but never loses cool when I report the cuisine as a "Total Disaster" !! To sum it up, I owe all these wonderful moments & teachings to this God gifted Life and 5th September seems a perfect day for celebration. As they say -

"Never stop learning, because Life never stops Teaching..."