Digging for Meaning

When one talk of DN, some of the strongest ramifications of this concept is in the field of education. Indeed, the increasing ineffectiveness of education system n pedagogy were the reasons that the concept of DN came to fore. A few days back, I was thinking of the same while attending a lecture, and thought of an experiment. Essentially, I want to experiment if teaching efficacy increases if we uses multiple media simultaneously during the course of lecture. A normal class here at MICA, employs visual aids (projector, boards, charts, papers), audio aids (speakers, mics) but the use of this media is mostly one sided (though the class participation usually is quite high in conventional sense. Laptops are 'down' during lecture though, faculty just doesn't trust us :P). what i propose is use of social media such as twitter, social networks, wikis etc real time during a lecture to create a more collaborative atmosphere in a lecture. I talked with prof. Chandan Chatterjee about...

With CultUth (a club we had started 3-4 yrs back), we had hoped to do some experiments and stuff that needn't really have defined outcomes. We never got around to do them, I thought I should share those ideas, maybe someone interested in doing them could get in touch with me to do them, or do them themselves and share the experience. I share the first idea that we had thought of in this post.... 1. A group of people going to an alien city for 3-4 days. all blind folded except for one who would be the guide. The rest would be blind for all practical purposes, throughout day n night. The group can't stay indoors for more than 18 hours a day. They have to roam around and experience the place, sans the vision. What it means to be blind? How does a blind person live? How does he feel? ofcourse 3 days aren't much, but any more than that and we won't have volunteers. :P Also, In today's time where vision is becoming the preferred sense, and other senses such as taste and s...

June 13, 2008 2321 hrs Form. Shouldn’t there be a congruity between the form and the purpose or the message of an entity? Well, I was listening to a jazz music piece, when I looked towards my old inadequate synthesizer for I wanted to play some music. Then I realized the potential of the machine I was listening the song on. My laptop. Surely this demure machine can do a lot. It can create music with the right software, and with that thought I visualized my laptop turning into a turntable. And with that thought, I realized maybe if the machine had the form of a turn table or a music station, I would have been more disposed to try my hand at it. There is an inertia to work at my laptop for purposes that I deem could be better accomplished using some other tool. But this leads to inaction. Maybe, if the laptop’s form could have been flexible as well, then it would truly become a multifaceted machine. During my engineeri...

I don’t quite understand the premium on nudity. It's as if we collectively want to relegate a part of us to fiction. Fantasy even. Fantasy I can understand. ;). Of course, it's the strong possessiveness over each other’s body that has led to this. I do not understand if I should feel guilty when I feel that kind of possessiveness. It's unmistakable, it's undeniable, though the rational me wants to disown that feeling. In my utopia, that feeling won’t exist, relationships would be a step above such baser instincts. But you know, as well as I, that it's simply impossible. The very man-woman dynamics is governed by this strong feeling of possession, in some way or another. In the world we live in, where our senses and even body is projected and extended, this feeling reaches out with it's tentacles in different ways. See, how a couple tries to maneuver each other’s body when with friends, each with politics of his/her own. Hear, their lingering voices, trying to ...

12/6/08 I have a healthy disdain towards organization, towards the inhuman mass of humans grinding towards a central goal, for in the act of massing of humans, it becomes less humane. I am an anarchist to the effect that complete freedom is accrued, and lying veils of false sense of protection are ripped and thrown away. Organizations, it seems, always tend to make anti human decisions. Earth is going to dogs, thanks to ultra efficient organizations. In search of growth, in a fear of tumble, we run incessantly gulping up wildly anything and everything, leaving behind a trail of a non-creative destruction. There is no logic to it if one stands out of it and looks at it through long enough a time frame. In our day to day interactions, its uncomfortable for me to direct others and make assumptions on their part in ‘team work’, not because I am low in confidence, not at all, but I see it beneath human dignity and subjugation of others, and it goes against my belief of sharing equal...

12/6/08 I was sitting in the gallery, looking out vaguely, when I felt as if there lied a thin veil of fog between me and the trees and the building at a distance. It wasn’t a fog heavy with promise of rain or the shimmering veil of obscurity born of bright burning sun. It didn’t exist except for the notion of it born of the condition singular to that time. Then I though, mightn’t it be the being that I talk of, the supernatural, the god, the repository of all loose ends of logic? (suddenly at this point myself wondering of the beauty of the words I just wrote… repository of all loose ends of logic. :D hmm.. I have potential then. And I seek out the ducktales theme song and relishing in the crunchy munchy song. Must find the hindi version.) I believe in the power of belief. And for the sake of form, (or something else, I don’t know) I believe in a supernatural entity that pervades all, continuous and ever present, dynamic: the force that aligns and directs. For comprehension I...

11/6/2008 It seems that people are afraid more of the possible fear that lurks in the uncertain corners along the journey of our lives. It’s a sorry shit that, this is what one learns through facing fears through childhood. Banishing emotions and replacing them with a certain façade, hysterical from within, cool without.

The measure of greatness of any literary work is the no. of questions and debates it stirs up in one’s head and heart. ‘The golden notebook’ is priceless. May 3, 2008 23 :14 I am reading Doris Lessing’s ‘the golden notebook’ right now. The author’s note has some interesting points that made me ponder. First - subjectivity. Essentially, how can one remove one’s experience from that of the rest of the mass’s. “how can you write about your petty little issues, when world is going through so much’. How can one not be political. How can one just reside in his own cocoon, without thought to the rest... well, this links up to a myopia of a thought culture that we have inherited from our subordinated forefathers of Raj era. Today me with Kasturee and Ashima were touristing around Mumbai, when Kasturee remarked, upon seeing a heritage building, as to did the government just ‘steal’ these structures from British or what? I was left aghast then. We are still the White man’s burden, ...

I feel cheated when subjected to literary works or cinema. The good art, good cinema is characterised by a focussed thought, a focussed reasoning that while being genius and revolutionary, is at the same time blinding and constraining. I see people bound up by the beauty of these constructed worlds, never to admit the world around as their own. Well, that’s not my reason o f complain though, I don’t read too much, only as much as my curiosity and hunger wishes, nor do I allow myself to fall away in quotidian stupor by keeping my curiosity and hunger for wisdom sharp on the granite of my senses. I try and absorb and diffuse the wisdom garnered from the art through me around me, trying to comprehend the world through it, trying to see the beauty that lay hidden beneath. I only have 2 eyes; maybe the author’s/artist’s eyes would lend me some new vision... My reason of complain is that that art, resplendent with the genius in it, binds me to its reasoning, to its ideals (at least for a ...