Dealing with a Four letter F-word

It is high time we dealt with this four letter F-word! Well, I am not referring to the one that is being commonly used to express surprise, shock, anger, awe or all of it at the same time. I am talking about the other 4-letter F-word, which is about the emotion that we all have experienced sometime or the other, Fear!

In early childhood, one may have observed that a young one is usually free from fear. You may be perched at the edge of a high fence or wall, or you may be about to touch the hot tea kettle - you aren’t scared! But could we call it bravery? Certainly not! Being unaware of the dangers can be damaging. So at this very early stage in life, that parents and well-wishers rush in to make the child aware of the impending dangers and be wary of them to protect the tender young one.

Again as a child, does one fear other people? Certainly not! A child normally trusts that the world is full of just the angels they wanted to meet – except, of course, when someone is aggressive. But don’t we want our kids to learn that certain things are, strictly, no-no? “Don’t touch that crystal – it cost us a fortune!”, you yell at the child, for you know how many day’s wages it cost you to buy it and you don’t want him to drop it and break such a lovely possession. It wouldn’t be long before the little imp learns to cope with high decibel levels and continues to do just what he wanted to – pick up that crystal - and throw it!

So your effort to control the child’s behavior has just failed and the child has just learnt how to overcome the “fear” of a yelling adult? Time to look for a better and more effective method, you tell yourself. How about spanking? Or punishing the child, maybe? You are at your wits’ end, nevertheless. You are yet to discover the really effective means to discipline your child, when it is time for the child to go to play-school. Now you have other folks, such as teachers or school administrators, who would be willing to share the responsibility of “formatting” your child to the worldly ways.

But are we as adults at our wits’ end, when it comes to meting out punishments to little ones? Instances of beating up children, making them stand in the hot sun, with bricks on their shoulder, for one. And several such instances.

Is it not time that parents, teachers, educationist and child psychologists got together and listed out punishments that are OK and those that are not?

This is not to deny that efforts are being made to address this issue.

Teachers who are indulging in such incidents are also being dealt with firmly of late.


Do schools have guidelines about how teachers could punish students or how they ought not to? If not, it is high time they did! I feel like conducting a survey on the schools around and find out if they had such dos and donts about the methods of punishment to erring students! In these days of awareness, when the Government has introduced ads on visual media to deal with domestic violence (Knock the door campaign), is it not time to also discourage violence meted out to children in schools?

Once out of school, it is time to join college, perceived to be a fun place, where teachers don’t rap on knuckles or fling dusters anymore. One is not so sure whether the child’s “formatting” was complete or not, but you sure did pass the exams and stuff. So off you go to college – to have fun! But one wonders what one’s idea of fun really is? If it is cracking jokes in the canteen in that occasional time off accruing out of an unwell professor or slipping away to a multiplex near your college once in a while, that may be quite what one expected. But “fun” could mean different things to different people – especially your seniors!

Their idea of fun could be ragging younger newcomers - and that could spell trouble for you! I am not sure how rampant is this practice of ragging, but some extreme cases of violence that get reported by the media, give us an impression that students are certainly crossing borders when it comes to the scale of brutality and cruelty involved in the cases reported. Some college students, however do reveal about some mild forms, like making them dance for a song or some such trivial fun session – certainly not the kind which turns “real fun” into its ugly anagram - “funeral”.

Such gory incidents have been reported recently, notably, that of young Aman Kachhroo. But, after reading the reports about these incidents, one begins to believe that these cases are not just incidents of ragging, but something beyond that – perhaps, persistent bullying. These criminal acts of assault on innocent juniors would certainly be dealt with by the police suitably, I have no doubt about that, but what are we doing to avoid these incidents from happening?

Aman’s father, Rajendra Kachhroo, has begun the “Aman Movement” and several steps have been taken since the spate of events have occurred recently. The President Smt, Pratibha Patil has also written to the Governors of all states as reported here.

Also, a recent news item talks about UGC’s plans to have a toll-free national level call centre as a “Ragging Helpline” being set up to help those in distress on account of this growing menace.

It is with this background that one realizes that the child had not been taught in school, about how to deal with bullies! How come a handful of bullies terrorize so many younger students and harass them endlessly in the college campus? Hey, but weren’t we busy teaching the child to fear all along? Shouldn’t we spare a thought about how the child would cope with bullies in college campuses and prepare them to face such situations?

Isn’t it time to introduce courses and discussion forums to embolden the child, so that one gathers courage to speak up against the scourge of bullying and deal with this menace more effectively? Personally, I think it is very important to address this issue – perhaps as important as sex education in schools, the importance of which is being stressed upon by one and all.

The world is yet to learn to cope with terrorists, extremists, tyrants, scamsters, criminals, dadagiri, and what-have-you – all bullies of a kind! Special trainers, who inspire victims of this form of abuse to collectively confront such bullies. Experts are needed, who may equip youngsters to deal with toughies and help set up a forum in every educational institute to counsel the offending brute. Indeed, the need of the hour!

Bloggers’ Postscript: I had been wanting to write about this for a long time. I had been posting my rare serious posts elsewhere, especially in Tickled by Life website. So after I uploaded this article on that website, I felt the only way to reach out to all my regular readers would be by posting this article in full here! Friends, this is just tickling of another kind, as I have learnt!

Zoopremely Zooperb idea!

We find creativity in every walk of life, but don’t happen to notice it. Perhaps because we think that creativity necessarily means creating some thing new. There is no denying that creativity can take several forms. Certain activities do involve a high degree of creativity, such as writing a short story or a poem, composing a new song, painting a landscape or a portrait or just about some abstract expression.

Advertising has been vastly banking on creative ideas – they always need to have some new ideas to attract eyeballs – “attention-getting value”, as they say. Take the example of zoozoos of the Vodafone series of ads that have been a rage on our television screens recently. Everyone thought the ads used the animation technique and that models had nothing to do with them. We learnt how wrong we were when Mumbai Mirror published a couple of articles on how these ads were created! Read all about it here!





Please click on the images to enlarge

You may have certainly seen these ads which have become popular on the TV and are also available on YouTube

Though the field of advertising has always been a profession which valued creativity and thrived on new ideas, one finds refreshingly new concepts take shape in every field – be it the performing arts, literature, photography, music, as is popularly believed.

It cannot be denied that some professions offer better opportunities to showcase your creativity, though in reality, whatever your passion, interest or profession, you could always be creative and look for some new ideas or some better ways to do the same old things. If we look around there is a lot of creativity around us.

We all need to think out of the box. Except, of course, Dr. Vijay Mallya, who needs to think out of the bottle.

Experts' Predictament

“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future”, said Niels Bohr, aptly.

For this predicament faced by experts, in making a prediction, I have coined a new word, “Predictament”.
hurrah – I just coined a new word!
That's how much I love neologism!)

However it doesn’t deter experts from sticking their neck out to indulge in crystal-gazing of sorts and make those prophesies, that forecast the course of future events or results. We have just seen the psephologists take centre-stage during the electoral process that just got underway. Equipped with a great deal of information in their chosen field of study, they boast of possessing various techniques to predict the outcomes of the polls. The season offers them ample airtime to showcase their skills and put forth their own “verdict” – not before putting forth several possible scenarios and the most likely outcome and their reasons for their choice.

Well, this is generally the time, I am itching for those zoozoos to come up and provide the much needed comic relief. Anyway, finally all that matters was the real results, which came to us live all of yesterday – we finally have a car without the “Left-Hand Drive” sign tagged to its rear! The shear thought of handing over the brakes to one party, the accelerator to another, the steering wheel to yet another gives the citizen enough fright to ride such a vehicle. We are glad that such not being the case, all that is needed is to have some wheel-alignment check done before continuing on our journey of reform and progress.

Though experts in every field are entrusted the task of envisaging what lies ahead, it is the stock market experts that have drawn my attention and held me in a vice-like grip for several years now. Be it the Annual Budget, the monetary policy, the foreign trade policy or the election results – how will the markets react to the various possible scenarios is something that this bunch of enlightened professionals embark upon before each such event.

Predicting the course of the stock-markets, indeed is like handing over a car fitted with a windshield mirror instead of a glass and asking a Formula One champ to drive it based on how the road wound and swerved behind him! The poor fella’s got to figure how the road will turn in front – there is no way he can peep into the road ahead and neither is anyone driving back in the opposite direction to ask him for some tips. At least not until the time machine becomes a reality.

So I like these smart chaps coming one after the other and tell us, “If the Sensex crosses 13000, it will see 14500 and if it slides below 11500, it will see 10250”

“I don’t know why people are not buying into the markets – the fundamentals are really strong!”

“I don’t see buying coming until the bottom has been formed”

Well, the hunt for the elusive bottom at the bourses is something that is every investor’s fancy. “Do you see a bottom?” “Is the bottom in place?”

“If all goes well the bottom is behind us!”

Listening to all this, it appears that anyone of us could be those experts! If you can figure out the bottom by the time the artist is working on the shoulder, I suppose I could handle that!

The recent rise in the stock markets – the run up from Sensex at 8k to 12k before the announcement of the results is a case in point. It reminds me of the comic dialog by the legendary comedian Asit Sen ,who characterized his funnies as a stockily built man swinging his arms as he walked and talked slower than his movements. In one of his movies, he enters the room of the Sethji seeking his permission thus:

“Kyaaaa main andar aaaaaaaa saktaaaaaaa hoooooonnnnnnnn?
Arreeeyyy, main to andar aaaaa bheeeee gayaaaaaaaaaaa...!” (Hindi, for "May i come in? Oh, I have already come in!")
as he stood in the center of the big room in front of the Sethji!

This is how the markets had already climbed up before we knew they were bouncing back. And that indeed is their Predictament!

Often, when we watch the news on any non-eventful day the market has surged a couple of hundred points and my wife asks me “Why did it go up today?”
“Because it had gone down too much, I suppose” I reply.
Let alone predict, I cannot even explain why the markets went up or down after the event. The entire fun is in not knowing, I suppose.

Blogger’s Postscripts:
1. For once, I will be able to tell why the market went up on Monday 18th May 09 – because of the prospect of a stable government at the centre! But will my wife ask?

2. Just when I was typing out this piece and a suitable heading for it, the idea of coining the new word came to me – it was my Ah-ha moment!