IIT/JEE Walk by Fire: Not for my Babies

Would you let your kid walk on fire if it increases the chance of cracking IIT/JEE? I remember reading this a few days back. I was disgusted and thought I would blog about it. But then grading took over my life and it slipped out of mind, but just so. Then I was browsing through Abi's blog and came to this article again. It makes me hopping mad.

Apparently, Quest Tutorials (based in Delhi) arranged 'a firewalk' (yes no kidding, literally) to remove barriors from the mind of the future JEE aspirants that join their coaching.

Before I do anything else, let me give you a blog link to Quest Tutorial's own blog. I have sat through one session (because it was held at a place where I used to work) of this chap Anuj Khare and I thought the session was decent. There were times when I argued, like he was going ga-ga about 'The Alchemist' and I was telling him I was not that impressed by the book. But never did I think the guy was associated with JEE coaching and all.

We do not know if parents were informed or not about this trial by fire as reported, but let me say more as a parent/guardian of my two nephews. My elder nephew has written JEE this year again and he and his younger brother live with us. My younger nephew has declared he is going to study commerce and it is fine by us. The elder one wanted to give JEE and took a year drop, that too is fine by us. If he gets through, good for him. If he doesn't he will do other things and I am sure he will do even better in life. He has worked like a maniac and I feel it is more than enough, irrespective of he gets through or not. I do not want to see him this stressed for another day. For us, and hopefully for him, it is just another exam, a tough one, but they (the younger one too, or if he reads this, he will blackmail me for favoring the elder one) are the apple of my eyes, irrespective of he gets through JEE or not. I am only worried about one thing, that he will take it to his heart (at least for a while) if he does not get through and I (we) have a tough job of making him forget it. If he gets through, I will remind him not to buy all the hype about being the 'cream of the country' and all that crap. I would like it if he just continue being the normal guy he is, with a good sense of humor.

If anyone told me that a coaching institute would introduce 'a walk by fire' to aid him in this process (as if there is already not enough madness involved!) I would get hopping mad. Leave my kids alone! Walk by fire? Are we crazy? What for? To get through JEE? Are we (the parents) mad? And, heaven forbid, if this exercise was done without my knowledge, as said in the newspaper story, I would be out of my mind.

And if it is as easy as the owners of the Quest Institute claim, if it can be reduced to some trick, I do not want my babies to be reduced to 'performing monkeys' for the sake of sacred JEE.

For my kids, aur bhi hain raahen.

Rocking!

And I almost never use the word rock. But I bow to you Illogical Truisms (IT) your blog rocks. And no, I am not IT or Dilip or Chetan. I am Mridula :) (ta da ta da da da, having a jingle 'adds value' according to Calvin, of the 'Calvin and the Hobbes' fame) and all my blogs are listed here. I do not have the brains to come up with arguments like these.

IT you ROCK!

And this post is rooted in long history and may sound vague to you. It is, it is. Those 32 copies (I graded 6) are glaring at me now and it is midnight and if I do not start now, I will be dead meat soon. Now you won't want me to be so. We will leave the history (if it is not familiar to you) for another day.

When they Give you their Good Pen!

I had an exam duty today, another curse of academic profession. The class writing the exam was huge and there were two of us.

In the morning, while going to the class I somehow forgot to take a pen. Now I have to sign all the copies of the students. I saw one of the students sitting with two pens. I asked if I can borrow one for fifteen minutes? He gave me the one he was writing with. Later, when I returned it to him, he started writing with it again. It feels nice when students do these small things, like giving their 'good' pen, just because I taught them a course last semester. I don't even teach them this semester.

As Calvin says: "They say the satisfaction of teaching makes up for the lousy pay."

How to Mess up a $ 500000 Deal: Kaavya Viswananthan's Dream Debut Goes Sour

When you are given so much already, like a huge deal to write a book with a famous publisher, why to mess it up by plagiarism? It seems it was done unconsciously.

Washington Post story

The echoes include similarly turned observations about Diet Cokes and tube tops, as well as a 14-word phrase that is repeated verbatim. In "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life," Viswanathan wrote about Miss Moneypenny, the secretary to James Bond's boss in 007 movies: "Moneypenny was the brainy female character. Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: smart or pretty."

In McCafferty's "Sloppy Firsts," a story about an adolescent girl published in 2001, there was a similar rumination -- with a similar use of italics -- about one of TV's "Charlie's Angels."

"Sabrina was the brainy Angel. Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: Pretty or smart," McCafferty wrote.

Unconscious? Well, each one of us would react differently to it.

But tell me if I write this:

Getting a book deal seemed like the greatest thing which could possibly happen to someone. To get paid to write? Great. And that you did, with a stunning advance, which everyone bandies about ad nauseum, since it makes your “fall” all the more interesting.

And do not tell you the source source, Sepia Mutiny how sympathetic are you going to be with me? See, I have rearranged a few words in the quote above but the idea is still not mine, even after the re-arrangement.

The Harvard Crimson article says:

DreamWorks has purchased the movie rights to Viswanathan’s novel. A DreamWorks spokesman, Bob Feldman, said Saturday night that the studio could not immediately comment on the matter.

‘MINISCULE VARIATIONS’

Neither Harvard College’s Administrative Board Guide for Students nor the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Student Handbook mention the ramifications of non-academic plagiarism.

“Our policies on plagiarism apply to work submitted to courses, so questions of academic dishonesty would not apply in cases of non-academic work,” Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 wrote in an e-mail on Sunday. “Nevertheless, we expect Harvard students to conduct themselves with integrity and honesty at all times.”

Cabot Professor of English Literature and Professor of African and African American Studies Werner Sollors, after reviewing a list of 24 similar passages found in “Opal Mehta” and “Sloppy Firsts,” wrote in an e-mail yesterday: “Judging by the excerpts you have assembled, and three department stores and 169 specialty shops later, it looks as though some strong version of anxiety of influence could clearly be detected in ‘How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,’ all the more so because of those miniscule variations that change ‘Human Evolution’ to ‘Psych’ in the hope of making the result less easily googleable.”

A Day at Work

I am sitting in my office with this infernal cold, my eyes hurting and head aching. From a corner 38 copies peep at me. I have to grade them by Monday. I ignore them completely. There are so many other things on my table that are trying to attract my attention but I am ignoring them all. I find all news boring and all blogs (OK, I am not visiting my regular ones, I am visiting random ones) insipid. I think 5.30 will never come today. On certain days I just live for it to become 5.30, so that I can go and play Table Tennis.

Suddenly there in a knock on my door and a young pretty girl, all of 18 or 19 years of age (of course, my student) tells me, "Ma'am you are my last hope!" I have no clue what will come after this statement, so I wait with a smile. "Can I borrow a blue pen to write my exam? I will return it to you after it." Maybe 5.30 will come today after all.

I am Bugged

I installed something new from the Firefox, it said an update and low and behold, I cannot paste anything from one browser to another. For example I want to make a link to say Anirudh's site! Now what will I do? I go and open his page from my other blog, Travel Tales from India and his page opens. Now I want to copy it and make a link, simple, Ctrl C Ctrl V? Wrong I can't paste anything from firefox to anywhere and as soon as I open my Internet explorer my anti-virus goes crazy. Will someone tell me how to get paste back? I saw a long and complicated explanation somewhere but I cannot create a link because I cannot dream of copying this long URL!

Update: Mozilla Gods relented and cut and paste works fine now.

Mindspeak: A Muslim Indian's Speak: Nothing Shahi about the Imam or his conduct

Indescribe is not too happy with the conduct of the Shahi Imam. I somehow missed all the drama on the Television, you see I sometimes go off the telly for a day or two!

Mindspeak: A Muslim Indian's Speak: Nothing Shahi about the Imam or his conduct

By the time you mourn Javed's death 2 blasts happen at Jama Masjid

I was so incensed in the morning learning about Javed's (see the post below) death, and his parents accusing the doctors for negligence. After all, how many times would you get a patient who had rished his own life to save small kids?

In the evening you then get to hear there are two bomb blasts at Jama Masjid.

And 7 blasts rock Srinagar.

I feel completely numb and spent. Can't we have a little peace and quiet in this part of the world?

A Tribute to Javed

Photo credit: The Telegraph

I teach 18 year olds and I find them pretty self obsessed in normal cirmumstances. I do not know how they will react to such an extraorinary situation as the Meerut fire, for all I know my mall hopping students may do as Javed did. Javed was built of a finer stuff, and it takes special parents to bring up a child like this. When the fire started burning, this kid who had just given standard 12th exams had safely got out. But he went in again to help small children huddled in a corner in the burning fire. (Read about another courageous girl, Pooja, fighting for her life).


I have two nephews almost his age who live with us, and to an extent I can understand what must be going through his parents mind. Even to imagine that one of my nephews might be caught in such a situation shuts down my brains (whatever little I have of it).

What makes my blood boil is the charges of negligence in handeling the case of Javed. The Telegraph : reports:

Javed Ahmad, the teenager who had escaped the Meerut fire but jumped back into it to save six children, died in a Delhi hospital this morning amid cries of negligence.

Javed, 18, a resident of Mandawli in East Delhi, was working at a clothes stall at the Brand India fair on Monday when the fire broke out. He got out unhurt, but went back in when he saw the children trapped. He collapsed after his sixth attempt, and suffered 70 per cent burns.

I wonder how many people will have the guts to teach their kids to help others in such extreme situations when later you could die through negligence. It takes extremely special parents and an extremely special child to be like the Javed family.

What other bloggers say:

Oz writes about the two stories that broke at the same time. And the way media is covering them.

Amrit says life is just too cheap here?

Rockin_bass wants those responsible for Meerut fire behind the bars.

Sudhanshu pays tribute to a real hero.

Nachgaana gives an account.

Indiablogwatch adds.

Puja has a lot of questions.

Hari from Bangalore adds.

Anurag talks about many things along with Meerut fire.

Sanatana quotes NYT story.

How many more tragedies we need? asks Neelima.

Anthony links to a news story.

Uma has many MSM links along with other stories.

Prabir writes.

Edit India is not happy with the journalists.

Doubtinggaurav says 50 people dead in India is not big news.

Stoker links to Deccan Herald.

Northern Plains Fire links to The Hindu.

A Little More of Life says we refuse to learn from past mistakes.

Carpe Diem has some questions.

Animesh pays tribute to Javed.

Are we all inhumans? Asks Rediscovering India.

Arigon on Meerut fire.

Aarjoo writes.

Aparna links to NDTV News.

How do you feel when you are dying? Perennially Bullish does not like the question.

The Wanderer on the Meerut Fire.

Jayeeta remembers Uphaar frire too along with Meerut.

Raju links to a news story and salutes Javed.

Prabhu says, stop it.

If I have missed your blog and you want to add it here, please leave the link in the comments.

Saw an Amazing National Geographic Ad

It geos leik tihs. Can you raed tihs? Msot porablby albe to? The adrevtiesnemt siad we dnoot raed enitre wodrs. Olny fisrt and lsat lttres sohlud be rgiht.

I saw tihs on the TV, of cuorse the wrods tehy uesd wree difefrnet. In fcat, the wrods kpet cmoing on the srceen missplleed and I cuold sitll eaisly raed tehm.

What say you?

We are Different?

We are getting a lot of queries for admission to our BBA program. One of the frequently asked question is, "Can I get through without giving the enterance test?" or "Are there paid seats?" The answer here is thankfully no. We are not at all a big place and our AICTE approval process has been taking ages and ages without any sign of where it is going but I am happy about the answer(s) I can give.

The Power of Protest

I was amazed at the size of the French student protests. BBC Reports:

On Monday, the French government said it would withdraw the law, which would have allowed employers to sack anyone under the age of 26 within the first two years of their employment.

The measure had provoked weeks of protests, until finally, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin conceded defeat and said he would find other ways of reducing the numbers of young jobless.

The Washington Post tries to bring the two sides of the argument, but does a very simplistic job of it, in my opinion, the rich entrepreneur and the poor arts student sound like characters from a bad movie.

Today, seven years out of business school, Kosciusko-Morizet, 28, is president of one of the fastest-growing online sales companies in France. At a time when youth unemployment here is more than 22 percent, the young French executive, who started his career at a bank in Richmond, has added 50 workers to his payroll in the past six months -- most of them English-speaking engineers and technicians.

In contrast, Dhelft, 29, has worked only eight months since graduating from a liberal arts college with the dream of becoming a research director. He has received government welfare or unemployment benefits for most of the past four years, something he feels "a little bit" guilty about but believes the government owes him.

My question is are we, the Indian middle class' ever going to take to the streets for protest even when it comes to the IITs/IIMs