Cartoons - What happened to them?

When I think of my school days, I remember that I and some of my friends used to watch 'Disney Hour' at 6 o'clock on Zee or the Sony channel without fail. In fact, when we reached school the next morning, the topic of discussion used to be the cartoon seen the previous evening. We spent the lunch hours on discussions on the cartoons like Gummi Bears, Duck Tales, Chip & Dale, Tales Pin, Alladin, Mickey & Friends, etc. We even talked about cartoons on the cartoon network like Caption Planet, Swat Cats, The Centurions, Scooby Do and many more. Everybody - right from children in 1st standard to those in 10th used to watch the cartoons daily. Even some adults used to see the shows. Such was the power of these cartoons.

The cartoons have played quite a role in my upbringing indeed. I have unknowingly learnt quite a lot of things from these cartoons. While cartoons like Gummi Bears and Alladin took me to a new world which improved my ability to imagine, cartoons like Tales Pin and Duck Tales helped me learn the art of deducing from clues, thereby improving reasoning skills. (treasure hunting). Caption Planet threw light on the environment and nature while Swat Cats and Centurions focussed on the new developments. Apart from these teachings, the moral values like honesty, self-discipline, truthfulness, friendship, sacrifice, etc. were learnt from almost all these cartoons.

I wonder whats happened to the cartoons now.

Last week when I had been home and did not have much to do, I turned to the cartoons for fun. I was surprised to see that not a single old Disney cartoon was being telecasted on any of the children TV channels. 'Tom and Jerry' was being shown on the Cartoon Network for long stretches of 3 hours or so. Now 'Tom & Jerry' though good, (in terms of animation) doesn't help much w.r.t developing imagination, moral values. Nor can we watch the mindless cat and mouse show for hours long. The other cartoons shown on the cartoon network were not watchable due to poor animation or negligible content. The only cartoon on which was watchable on the Cartoon Network was Richie Rich. But the number of breaks in the 30 minutes show (about 4 or 5) took all the fun away .
Other channels like the Toon Disney showed sme cartoons under the name JETIX. The quality of animation of these JETIX cartoons was pitiful. I couldn't distinguish one character from other. (I wonder whats happened to the animation industry in spite of the advances in digital technology). On the Pogo channel, some good cartoons were being shown but none were interesting. These cartoons were appropriate only for a child in K.G class - were filled with a lot of colors and music with no story whatsoever. When I tuned to the Disney Channel, I was surprised to see no animated shows screened. I tried to see the much hyped recent cartoons of Shin Chan and the Pokemon on Hungama channel but unfortunately none of these were aired during my stay of 5 days.

Largely, I am disappointed with the quality and the content of the cartoons aired on television. None of the cartoons are what can be called appealing to the children or the teen agers. None of them had any quality of the brilliant Disney Cartoons mentioned before.
I really feel that the kids of today are missing out on an important aspect in their upbringing - the cartoons.
I wish that the old cartoons are again aired on the television so that kids of this generation do not miss out on the wonderful opportunity to learn from the cartoons on their own.

What happened to our dreams?

This thought occurred to me when I was seeing the Aviva Life Insurance Children Plan advertisement in which children talk about becoming pilot, sportsman, model, etc. after growing up.

A lot of children have plans to do something adventurous or creative in life like becoming a pilot, sportsman, model, actor, painter. However, I wonder how many children actually end up becoming something they wish for. May be a few have but I don't think that a majority of children end up becoming an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer which is so very conventional. Why does this occur?

I feel that our educational system has been created in such a way that a child gets trained to follow the conventional career path. After standard tenth, a child is made to choose between science, commerce or arts. While arts is a field where painting and other creative skills could be honed, it is not the preferred choice. This is because arts is not viewed as a good career option by most of the parents. They force a child to take up either commerce or science. Also the peer pressure plays a major role wherein a child is forced to take up either science or commerce. After 12th standard, again the path forward for most is engineering, medicine or law for science and B.Com (CA alongside) or BBA for a commerce candidate. And after the completion of these courses, he/she starts to look for a job to support his/her family. Some go for higher studies (many don't) and do their post graduation in their respective fields. Then they start earing and get involved in their jobs. Now if he/she has to go for his/her dream it has to be done so only by quitting the job which becomes very difficult considering the fact that he/she has to support family.

I have a friend of mine who has completed his LLB degree and now wants to follow his dream of becoming an actor. So, now he has started his new path to become an actor. It has been a lot of struggle for him to go along a path which is totally different from his qualification. If he had started preparing for it when he was in 11th or 12th, he could have been in a better position. However, better late thane never. Moreover, his family approves of him becoming an actor. So, I feel that he will achieve what he dreamt of. I wish him all the luck to become a renowned actor.

In the case above, the parents were supportive and there were no pressures on him. However, I do not think that most of the parents will not be supportive.

So, what happened to the dreams a child saw? The dreams died somewhere right in the school where the child was compelled to follow the conventional path and then his dreams remained dreams.

I feel that this happens for a majority of the children. Few lucky ones have a chance to follow their dreams and fulfill their aspirations.

So, what can be done? We can in no way change the educational system in a radical manner. So, it is the parents who have to be supportive of their children to help them pursue their dreams. Also, the child should be determined enough to be follow the path which will help him achieve his dream.
As a song from Westlife goes,
'Make that magic rule, let the miracle stay. Dreams come true'

Looking at the Sea

Looking at the calm sea about 6 years back at Ganpatipule, my father asked “What does the sea help us learn?” I couldn’t give a satisfactory answer as is the case when one is young (I am still young though). He later explained “It makes us leave our ego aside. A man thinks that he has conquered the world. He thinks that he can do anything. Yet in front of the large body mass of the sea, a man is just a small tiny creature standing helpless. So, whatever a man thinks of himself is just his brain doing the talking with absolute reality being that man is nothing in front of the sea. It has tremendous power to do things which he cannot even think. So, whatever ego a person has just dies away in front of the sea.”These thoughts didn’t leave me. From then on, I started to view the sea as something with a force to do anything. The Tsunami incident made these thoughts more profound.Now after so many years, I have come to realize the deep meaning of the statements made by my father. Not only did I understand the meaning of the explanation given by him but also I made up came up with my observation. I think that the sea is one of the most powerful forces the nature has created. It is spread over vast area and is all the time moving with waves always trying to expand its area. Yet despite all the turbulence within, it remains on the area it occupies. It doesn’t move out of the area it has chosen. (Tsunami is a time when an earthquake caused it to move. But at all the other times, it is in its own fixed area). It means the sea respects its existence and at the same time it respects the existence of humans and all the other living beings. Despite of all the forces within (waves and the high tides), it doesn’t trespass the area occupied by humans. This belief helps us understand we should respect each and every individual irrespective of our size and position, thereby, forgo the ego we have regarding ourselves.

Are IITs losing their edge?

"IITs still have their charm" was the newshead line on CNBC tonight. The news was with reference to the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) to be conducted on Sunday (12th April).
The news report described how despite the lacklustre placements and the global slowdown, there is a rise in the number of students appearing for the JEE.

Considering the fact that the internet has penetrated in the tier 3 cities and the rural areas coupled with the rise in the awareness amongst parents of the fact that the IITs are the best insitiutions in India for engineering (thanks to the mass media), it is so obvious that more students will opt for the IITs.

Well my point here is that the IITs are actually losing their edge as the premier educational institutions in India on the academic front. To prove this point, I will illustrate an example I have had while working for SI Group India Limited.

As a part of its Corporate Social Responsibility, the organization SI Group India Limited (Formerly Herdillia Chemicals Limited) allows students of chemical engineering from engineering colleges in Mumbai like IITB, D.J.Sanghvi, etc. The educational course mandates that the students need to have atleast one chemical plant visit in their third year. Thus, the plant visit helps the company as well as the educational institution. (both benefit through the activity). But do the students (for the benefit of whom the whole exercise is conducted) actually benefit?

Well most of the teachers will say that the exercise helps students see how a chemical plant and various unit operations which they have learnt. Even I felt that this should be the case. But after looking at the students who visited SIG for the past two years, I felt that students were not really interested to see the actual working of the plant. They just came to the plant to satisfy the compulosry attendance criterion. Let me give my personal experience.

I was asked to show the plant to the students for a couple of times this year (and thrice the last year). I started with a small presentation highlighting different products of the company and the processes for their manufacture. I deliberately didn't say some important things (like the type of packings, trays, reactor and other things of importance for a chemical engineering student) thinking the students will want to know them. But to my disappointment, no one in all the batches asked any questions. They were sitting only with the intention of finishing the task asap and leave the factory. Further, during the plant round, out of a batch of 30 students, only 3 or 4 students were found to actually listen to what I was saying. Infact, about 10 students were actually chatting something else (maybe films) and were about 30-40 meters away from me and did not hear even a single complete sentence from me during the plant round. There were only 3-4 students who were actually excited to see the plant. Others were disinterested to it.
Adding to my horror, it happened once that even the guide who had come with the students was not aware of the basic equipments of a plant. How the hell was he supposed to teach students?

One of the things that I learnt from their plant visit was that the chemical engineering course at IIT didn't include the 'environmental engineering' as a part of their syllabus. Now that's ridiculous. Even small colleges where chemical engineering is taught (Say PVPIT at Sangli, D J Sanghvi or LIT) have a compulsory course for environmental engineering. Basically, chemical engineering is incomplete without environmental engineering. Students didn't even have any idea about effluent treatment plant (let alone its working which we had been taught in detail).

These experiences imply the these students have actually joined IIT with the intention of securing high paying jobs and not with the intention of acquiring knowledge. Further more, the teachers here are basically just doing their jobs but not nurturing talent (atleast at the undergraduate levels. I know that at PhD level, the quality of researches is excellent) nor do they wish to change their syllabus or even consider to ammend a part of it so as to make it more industrially relevant. Later while chatting with the VP of the company, I realized that even he shared the same view.

So, have the students come to the best educational institution of India with a view of getting high paying scale jobs? Also what is the use of teaching students something which is incomplete and not of the standards which a normal person (who sees TV and feels that ppl at IIT get the best knowledge available) ?
If this condition persists, I feel that the IIT's will really lose their edge of being the best. Something has to be really done to change the attitudes of students coupled with significant changes in the syllabus (atleast the syllabus of chemical engineering - other branches I have no idea) so that they retain their status of being the best.

Starting to script the journey called 'Life'

It is often said the the most difficult step for any activity is actually initiating it. Be it setting up an enterprise, learning a musical instrument or even starting to write a blog. Once the activity is initiated, we automatically take steps to take the activity to its logical conclusion.

So very true!

For me too the first step of actually starting to write my blog was a difficult step. I wished to start writing this blog 6 months back. But due to my habit of procrastinating things, the first step got delayed। I couldn't make up my mind to actually start scripting my ideas and experiences. However, finally i have started this. Yes!
'Khair der aye durust aye' Start toh kiya !

Looking forward to add some spice in my life by jotting down important events happening in my life and expressing opinions about different events occuring around me.

So, this ends my first and the most difficult part of this activity of scripting my life. I just hope to continue blogging.