Read this somewhere:
A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said,"Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like." The Lord led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the holy man lookedin. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew which smelled delicious and made the holy man'smouth water.
The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appearedto be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that werestrapped to their arms and each of them found it possible to reach into the pot of stew, and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoon back into their mouths.The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. TheLord said, "You have seen Hell."They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same asthe first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew,which made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with thesame long-handled spoons, but here the people were well-nourished and laughingand talking.The holy man said, "I don't understand." "It is simple" said the Lord, "it requires but one skill." "You see, they have learned to feed each other,while the greedy only think of themselves."
Good one na?
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Nature - let us conserve share and care!!
I happened read an article from The Hindu few days ago. It was speaking about how Chennai’s garbage disposal has become ineffective in every which way. It spoke about how Garbage disposal has become the most difficult job practically. There was a simile brought out in the article. It is something like this: If you have a garbage bin in the kitchen and you can only dump garbage and cannot empty it. You keep on dumping waste over and over on it. You can’t empty it but only got the choice of filling it!!! How disgusting could it turn your living at home?
The scenario in Chennai is also pretty much the same. There are 3 dumping grounds and all of them fully loaded. They can’t be emptied. All the garbage is being stacked from the bottom up. There s no way out. Though there was some initiative to collect garbage separately as wet waste and dry waste, the enthu to do so, lasted only a few days amidst our people.
Actually, the effective way to organized waste disposal will be something like this. The wastes are to be segregated as wet, dry and toxic wastes.
Typical examples of wet waste would be the kitchen and the garden wastes. They are to be composted or vermin-composted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compost
The recyclable things like paper, glass, metal scrap etc would fall under dry wastes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycle
The toxic wastes, say for example battery cells, bandages and expired medicines are to be landfilled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill
Perhaps most important of all is to reduce the amount of garbage we dump everyday. Carrying our own shopping bag rather than getting a plastic bag every time we shop, carrying our own water bottle rather than buying a PET bottle every time, or carrying your own sandwich box than wrapping in aluminum foil - al these are small small things which will make a big big difference to our environment. If we have not thought about it before its high time we start thinking about it.
This is the golden mantra we should remember if we don’t want our beautiful earth to turn from bad to worst - Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
The scenario in Chennai is also pretty much the same. There are 3 dumping grounds and all of them fully loaded. They can’t be emptied. All the garbage is being stacked from the bottom up. There s no way out. Though there was some initiative to collect garbage separately as wet waste and dry waste, the enthu to do so, lasted only a few days amidst our people.
Actually, the effective way to organized waste disposal will be something like this. The wastes are to be segregated as wet, dry and toxic wastes.
Typical examples of wet waste would be the kitchen and the garden wastes. They are to be composted or vermin-composted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compost
The recyclable things like paper, glass, metal scrap etc would fall under dry wastes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycle
The toxic wastes, say for example battery cells, bandages and expired medicines are to be landfilled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill
Perhaps most important of all is to reduce the amount of garbage we dump everyday. Carrying our own shopping bag rather than getting a plastic bag every time we shop, carrying our own water bottle rather than buying a PET bottle every time, or carrying your own sandwich box than wrapping in aluminum foil - al these are small small things which will make a big big difference to our environment. If we have not thought about it before its high time we start thinking about it.
This is the golden mantra we should remember if we don’t want our beautiful earth to turn from bad to worst - Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
Friday, February 09, 2007
DV and VC!!
This morning I was sitting in FC having my grub. There were a bunch of people sitting in my table. Freshers just joined, looks like. The reason why I say this is because they had this book, ‘Five Point Someone’ by Chetan Bhagat with them and they seem to be excited about it.
And then, to my suprize, they started speaking about DV, our very own VC. Looks like they just had their convocation. Swearing him throughout the discussion. It reminded me the days in Anna University. Hmm.. adventures!!!
My 3 rd semester, we had to take a subject, Basic Mechanical Engineering. And guess what, DV was my faculty. The first entire week we never had any classes. We would not have a class as usual, we thought. That ‘we’ stands for me and Mitts of course!! And that particular BasicMech Class followed the break. We hopped into the canteen and happily walked backed to class some 20 mins after it was supposed to actually start. As we were walking on the corrider, approaching the classroom, a bunch of my class guys were frantically waving their hands, gesturing us not to enter the class. We were puzzled but we walked ahead. The moment we stepped in, adding to even more suspense, we found half the class standing on the teacher's platform near the writing board. We were totally lost. Absolutely no clue of what was happening!
“Welcome!” sounded a voice from the middle of crowd. He walked out and proudly introduced himself, “I am your Mechanical Engineering Professor”. “Have you people come here for a fancy dress contest? Don’t you know the university dress code?” he continued. We were wondering:What fancy dress? What university dress code? Finally, I understood that we were all wearing Jeans and Tees. Oh ho. Are there some written rules about the dress culture at all in Main Campus was the first question.
The first day was more a Moral Science lecture than a Mechanical engineering class. In addition to which was his non-stop self praise that he assisted APJ in the making of the Agni missile. And then, he was the founder of the AVRC, the Department of Media Sciences in the main campus.
We all were puzzled than anything else looking helplessly at each other’s faces.
The next day, it was even worse. Someone sitting in the first row was biting his nails. He started his most imaginative and powerful thought oriented lecture. If you bite your nails, you end up swallowing them. They will rupture the walls of the intestine. You will get ulcer. It might result in cancer. Inference was ‘Biting nails may lead to cancer’!!! Folks, did you ever knew it?? Heights of it!!!!!
This went on for a week. The same kind of lectures continued for a week. He was teaching us “Thermo-dynamics”. Every class, he will write
thermo = heat
dynamics = motion
on the board. This was the only thing I learnt in the entire tenure of his process of teaching us Mechanical engineering. And then he went on with his usual non-stop non sense. For all the big talk he does, some thing is rotten and moth-eaten about him. I may sound like as thought I am being brutal cynic. But you end up commenting this way when you are ‘frustrated to the core’.
Many such incidents followed for a week and then he was replaced by another Lecturer due to some reason. What an escape!!!
Now, this guy who was incapable of delivering a single lecture in Mechnaical engineering is the Vice-Chancellor of the most reputed Anna Universtity, one of the biggest universities which encompass 256 engineering colleges and over 2 lac students. No comments!
I don’t have to say anything about his new policies in the college governance - the Dress Code, the cell phone ban, the ban on movie club in college, ban on the culturals and many more to add on. Well the essential part of enhancing the management of a university should be towards its educational policy or towards developing the infrastructure or towards faculty enablement. This kind of measures which have been taken are not going to lead one step ahead towards the betterment or upliftment.
And then, to my suprize, they started speaking about DV, our very own VC. Looks like they just had their convocation. Swearing him throughout the discussion. It reminded me the days in Anna University. Hmm.. adventures!!!
My 3 rd semester, we had to take a subject, Basic Mechanical Engineering. And guess what, DV was my faculty. The first entire week we never had any classes. We would not have a class as usual, we thought. That ‘we’ stands for me and Mitts of course!! And that particular BasicMech Class followed the break. We hopped into the canteen and happily walked backed to class some 20 mins after it was supposed to actually start. As we were walking on the corrider, approaching the classroom, a bunch of my class guys were frantically waving their hands, gesturing us not to enter the class. We were puzzled but we walked ahead. The moment we stepped in, adding to even more suspense, we found half the class standing on the teacher's platform near the writing board. We were totally lost. Absolutely no clue of what was happening!
“Welcome!” sounded a voice from the middle of crowd. He walked out and proudly introduced himself, “I am your Mechanical Engineering Professor”. “Have you people come here for a fancy dress contest? Don’t you know the university dress code?” he continued. We were wondering:What fancy dress? What university dress code? Finally, I understood that we were all wearing Jeans and Tees. Oh ho. Are there some written rules about the dress culture at all in Main Campus was the first question.
The first day was more a Moral Science lecture than a Mechanical engineering class. In addition to which was his non-stop self praise that he assisted APJ in the making of the Agni missile. And then, he was the founder of the AVRC, the Department of Media Sciences in the main campus.
We all were puzzled than anything else looking helplessly at each other’s faces.
The next day, it was even worse. Someone sitting in the first row was biting his nails. He started his most imaginative and powerful thought oriented lecture. If you bite your nails, you end up swallowing them. They will rupture the walls of the intestine. You will get ulcer. It might result in cancer. Inference was ‘Biting nails may lead to cancer’!!! Folks, did you ever knew it?? Heights of it!!!!!
This went on for a week. The same kind of lectures continued for a week. He was teaching us “Thermo-dynamics”. Every class, he will write
thermo = heat
dynamics = motion
on the board. This was the only thing I learnt in the entire tenure of his process of teaching us Mechanical engineering. And then he went on with his usual non-stop non sense. For all the big talk he does, some thing is rotten and moth-eaten about him. I may sound like as thought I am being brutal cynic. But you end up commenting this way when you are ‘frustrated to the core’.
Many such incidents followed for a week and then he was replaced by another Lecturer due to some reason. What an escape!!!
Now, this guy who was incapable of delivering a single lecture in Mechnaical engineering is the Vice-Chancellor of the most reputed Anna Universtity, one of the biggest universities which encompass 256 engineering colleges and over 2 lac students. No comments!
I don’t have to say anything about his new policies in the college governance - the Dress Code, the cell phone ban, the ban on movie club in college, ban on the culturals and many more to add on. Well the essential part of enhancing the management of a university should be towards its educational policy or towards developing the infrastructure or towards faculty enablement. This kind of measures which have been taken are not going to lead one step ahead towards the betterment or upliftment.
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