Setu's Blog

Exactly 5 years ago, almost around the same time, I wrote ' The Dream Called 'India'... ', my understanding of the dream that those who fought for the freedom of our nation must've seen, 69 years ago. Today, I am at the crossroads that has me turning cynical to the very same dreams that I believed were real and obvious. And that, not because I've lost the faith, not because I am any less determined to be a part of the change; but because I'm instigate and angry seeing otherwise happen all around me. All the time. Over the past few weeks, I've been struggling with many things that I see around me, and trying to get to the literal 'root' of the problem, and maybe I'm seeing things, but it takes me to a common conclusion about the country we have become: We love our freedom, but we love skirting the responsibilities tagged along with it, even more. And, there, we forget that the freedom comes with responsibilities. The burden of responsibil...

Disclaimer: This post doesn't have much to do with the Bollywood movie Bombay Talkies (except the few references cited), and is neither a review. It's a much broader take at the lack of acceptance of Bollywood movies and their preachings in the lifestyle of India. I don't watch many Bollywood movies, and that's for a simple reason. They are simply not good enough for me to want to waste my time on them. They are boring, pointless, excruciatingly painful to sit through (I was forced to watch Ready, twice , during my Mumbai-Pune bus journeys, so I know). Most of them are the same lovey-dovey romantic flicks, or action movies inspired from Rajnikanth, or just some dumb story with a big banner actor. In the last couple of years, I've come to enjoy movies that have a good story, or that teach me something or the other. And as I kept exploring more Hollywood classics, I realized, no Indian movie comes even close to how the movie is made, what it portrays, or how it ...

In the last year and a half, I've come to watch more television series and sitcoms than I have in my whole past life. Most of them, make me laugh and are pure fiction. Some have a relation to the daily life of ours. This blogpost is inspired from one such medical drama, Grey's Anatomy . For those who are unaware of the series, it exists inside a hospital. The daily in-and-outs of interns, residents, doctors, nurses and of course, patients. It's a typical drama that gets you hooked to it making it difficult for you to not watch it. And, trust me, it's pretty good too. Coming to the point. There's this doctor in the show who is a neonatal surgeon/obstetrician gynaecologist. In plain English, she's a surgeon who operates on children, when they're newborns, for defects, and/or mothers who have complications during the birth. In various episodes, they've shown cases of patients whose children have various complications during births and the urgency wit...

In the last few weeks, I've posted 2 posts on Education & India ( Part 1 & Part 2 ). There, I had said that I'd be posting a version of the draft I had created of the above titled post, a few years ago. It was 28th or 29th April, 2009 when, in a seminar, in a group of 10, we were told to come up with a plan and layout of our dream school. We made a rough version of what is posted below. On coming back from the seminar, in the few days that followed, I realized the importance of that project and how much it meant to me. For the same, I completed what I had started as a competition, in the seminar and the outcome is as below. My Dream School In India, and for that matter all the world over, schools are also known as the ‘Temples of Knowledge’. But, in India, temples are built after consulting architects but not the schools. Thus, today, I decided to give my dream school a real pictorial representation with the necessary documentation. My dream school is ...

Cross-posted from Not Just The Talks . Like I’ve said earlier (by that, I mean in Part 1 ), my life revolves around the state of education in India today, being a student. And I lead from where I left, in the first post, in this one. 1) Colleges: The basic requisite for a successful post-education life-in-the-real-world, as I’ve heard so far, begins from colleges. Schools are those parts of our lives, when we’re shaped and also protected during the process. But, in colleges, we have our first interaction with the real world. So, it wouldn’t be immature-ish of me to say, that ‘That’s where it all begins...’. There’s not much to say, except that what I’m (by that I mean everyone in their respective colleges) taught is purely theoretical bullshit. Something that has been in the textbooks since ages. And, even if it has been ‘revised’ lately, I’m assured, when I open the first page, that all I’ll study, will be something that isn’t even present in real day life. ...

Cross-posted from Not Just The Talks . I’m a student and I have problems with the education that is supposedly ‘imparted’ to me. That’s where this post begins from and that’s also where the part 2 of this post will end. There’s a reason I chose ‘Education “&” India’ instead of what should have been ‘Education “in” India’. It being the same reason that we can’t and don’t produce enough talent, educated talent. There is no education in India. It’s a myth. And whatever is, is the word education & its association with India. Thus, the title. I remember my kindergarten and primary school days. Everyday, I used to be more than eager to attend school. Not because of my friends, teachers or to study. (Or may be it was one of them, I was too little then to remember anything about it now.) One of the reasons being, like most others of my age, who were in other schools from mine, I didn’t have the worry of appearing in exams and performing poorly, at an age when I barely even ...

Been a while since the idea of this blog and desire hit me and my friends. Time lapses kept pushing this idea far and beyond. But, something made me feel that it was worthless to just keep pushing it beyond without any reason. That something is the movie V For Vendetta . Made me question myself. Why am I here? Why did I ever even begin this blog if I wasn't going to do something of it just because of some silly, stupid reasons? I don't care enough to be even bothered about them! Those reasons don't make me wanna opt out of the desire to make a difference to the society and world I live in. Those reasons don't make me wanna be 'just' a part of the crowd. I know I'm different. I know I'm not one of the herd. And if you think I am, I'm here to tell you and prove to you that I'm NOT. I'm done staying silent. I'm done being suffocated. I'm done feeling sorry for the dead and terrorized. I'm done showing solidarit...