I hate it when anyone sends me mail which imply that minorities are not patriotic. The last few years have seen a growing acceptance of such a perception and media is adding fuel to the bonfire.
I get offended at it. Not only because I belong to a minority community, but because I know that I love my country more than I love myself and there is no justification to such biased reports.
I studied in KVs. I am a true-blue KV product and I have never met with any discrimination in my school based on religion, caste, state or anything. We had in our class children belonging to various states - children who had been brought up in places as far as J&K and Assam, studying at the same school in Payyanur, a small town in Kannur district. The Ezhimala Naval Academy was being constructed nearby, and we all took great pride in the fact that it was to be the biggest in Asia once it would be commissioned. Our teachers were patriotic, very, very patriotic and we easily came under their influence. My greatest feat at school was that I studied the 'Jhansi ki Rani' poem - all six pages of it byheart. I loved the poem. Even now, when I read the 'Voh khoon kaho kis mathlab ka...", I feel the flow of adrenaline, same as when I had read it years ago. I admired our national leaders, the kings and the emperors of yore. Ashoka and Akbar both command my respect. I am as much indebted to Mughal empire as the Maurya empire for our culture.
Why is there suddenly a change? Why do I fear alienation in my own country? Why are people being killed in the name of religion? Is belonging to a particular religion the only criterion of deciding how much you love your country? Why does everyone stress the fact that the PM belongs to a minority community? that the former President was also a member of the minority community? Does that, thinking rationally, make any difference?
Why should we be forced to live in the eternal fear of the 'other'? Isn't the other same as us? The same aspirations, same hopes, same fears? Why isolate them because they call God by another name?
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Wednesday 7 January 2009
Thanks, DJ
One of my classmates is called 'Sherlock Holmes' of our class. I gave her the epithet.The reasons are
DJ, as she is called, is a rather brilliant, hardworking girl.
She is rather thin and I always wonder if she ever eats.
You call her and tell her your problem. She will either tell you how to solve it or will herself solve it within 15 minutes.
She knows the plate numbers of all the cars of all the people in the department. I have reasons to believe that she knows the numbers of all the cars in the college too.
She is brilliant at making deductions. For example, she can tell the number of members in a family by merely looking at the stuff kept in a car.
She knows the entire gossip making rounds in the college. So, the chances are nil that you get to tell her anything new.
She is our last resort when it comes to asking doubts regarding anything under the sun even remotely connected to academics. "DJ, has the teacher B come to college today?", "DJ, can you tell me the date on which the company X asked our seniors to join?", "DJ, which is the most prestigious medal in Mathematics?", "DJ, how do you solve this problem?", "DJ, can you teach me the third module of Control Systems tomorrow in 45 minutes?"
I was the one who asked that last question to her on the day before The Control Systems examination. Third module consists of the design part - both analog and digital design. It includes PI, PD and PID, phase lead, lag and lead-lag compensator design in both analog and digital design.
I had tried reading the stuff, but it was really difficult to understand how Kuo had designed it. He had just drawn the Bode plots for some questions and arrived at the answer.
I will admit before anyone that I hate to draw. Thanks to my drawing teacher in third standard who was rather nasty towards me, I hate it. Not even five years under a rather brilliant drawing and painting teacher could cure me of my abhorrence. I hate to take the pencil up for drawing a line.
And Bode plot is one of my pet hates.However, I don't mind drawing the Nyquist plot or the root-locus. So I have no rational reason for my hatred towards that wonderful method of plotting the frequency and phase response, I find.
I reached the college at 8:30. I did not have much faith in myself. I left everything to God. He alone could save me.
DJ taught me the third module in 30 minutes. The Control Systems paper was easy. We could hardly believe our luck! The ITC and Microwave papers were difficult. So this was a relief.
I did the questions in third module as well.
Thank God for DJ!
DJ, as she is called, is a rather brilliant, hardworking girl.
She is rather thin and I always wonder if she ever eats.
You call her and tell her your problem. She will either tell you how to solve it or will herself solve it within 15 minutes.
She knows the plate numbers of all the cars of all the people in the department. I have reasons to believe that she knows the numbers of all the cars in the college too.
She is brilliant at making deductions. For example, she can tell the number of members in a family by merely looking at the stuff kept in a car.
She knows the entire gossip making rounds in the college. So, the chances are nil that you get to tell her anything new.
She is our last resort when it comes to asking doubts regarding anything under the sun even remotely connected to academics. "DJ, has the teacher B come to college today?", "DJ, can you tell me the date on which the company X asked our seniors to join?", "DJ, which is the most prestigious medal in Mathematics?", "DJ, how do you solve this problem?", "DJ, can you teach me the third module of Control Systems tomorrow in 45 minutes?"
I was the one who asked that last question to her on the day before The Control Systems examination. Third module consists of the design part - both analog and digital design. It includes PI, PD and PID, phase lead, lag and lead-lag compensator design in both analog and digital design.
I had tried reading the stuff, but it was really difficult to understand how Kuo had designed it. He had just drawn the Bode plots for some questions and arrived at the answer.
I will admit before anyone that I hate to draw. Thanks to my drawing teacher in third standard who was rather nasty towards me, I hate it. Not even five years under a rather brilliant drawing and painting teacher could cure me of my abhorrence. I hate to take the pencil up for drawing a line.
And Bode plot is one of my pet hates.However, I don't mind drawing the Nyquist plot or the root-locus. So I have no rational reason for my hatred towards that wonderful method of plotting the frequency and phase response, I find.
I reached the college at 8:30. I did not have much faith in myself. I left everything to God. He alone could save me.
DJ taught me the third module in 30 minutes. The Control Systems paper was easy. We could hardly believe our luck! The ITC and Microwave papers were difficult. So this was a relief.
I did the questions in third module as well.
Thank God for DJ!
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