4th Dimension

Amongst political turmoil, Delhi hasn’t forgotten the brave hearted rape victim who embraced death due to heinous act of rape last year. Most recently, media (both electronic and print) came up with various viewpoints on gender and crime against gender whether it is Supreme Court’s judgment on LGBT or sexual harassment allegation against former Justice (Chairmen of Human Rights Commission, Bengal). Gender has become topic of discussion at every corner of this country. During weekend,  I came across few (my favorite)movies i.e. Dil Chata Hai , Zindgi Na Milegi Dobara and Nautanki Saala  I had already watched these movies number of times before also, but amidst of all these ‘gendered’ news , my interpretation of these movies got moved. Now I have different perception to look at news on gender or gender oriented crimes. The common element in all these three was male intimacy. By male intimacy I don’t mean to be gay (homosexual orientation has different kind of debate fabric

It feels good to have some free time and come back to blogging. I am really thankful to all those readers who gave their feedback, suggestions and showed eagerness to read my fuzzy thoughts. I am really grateful to all these ‘responding’ readers who boosts up my morale to share things perceived from 4 th dimension. Fortunately, last week I got chance to visit Gujarat Knowledge Meet 2013 organized by UNICEF and Government of Gujarat. This meet was organized to draw out strategies for sharing knowledge within government departments and as well as with civil society.  It was really great experience to know that state governments of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are consciously thinking over ‘softer’ aspects for social development. While having discussions with government and UNICEF official at knowledge meet I realized certain things about human development which is heavily depended on science and application of science (technology). Popularly, science is understood as a dark room wi

Reaching at your 25th in India has real fun and learning in itself. Many of my friends and even me are facing this transitional phase of life. Socially, we are expected to take up serious roles and personaly we are looking for space to enjoy newly arrived adulthood, our new course, our new projects, our new job. With this there emerge a strain or tension which is multi dimensional. The main tension which is distrubing me and my friends are pressure of marriage. its a cultural tension felt to due various reasons. Familes in India by this expect their children to "get settled". It becomes worse when you start earning by yourself, symbolising your maturity to earn and get some social recognization. But this is a social issue, what I am concern is emotional and personal issues faced by my generation in Indian cultural setup. Most of  us faces problems in deciding or choosing life partner(for love and arranged marriage). One side we have our notions about "perfect for me&quo

Across the academics there are two kinds of people, those who want to learn and those who don’t want to learn (dropouts), they dropout because of several reasons and main reason is the system is not developed according to their interests or they don’t enjoy formal education. It’s not that state is not spending money, our governments are spending lots of resources to improve education system but the problem is that it is going in wrong direction. I want to share my views came from “bad” experiences of this academic year at Central University of Gujarat.  Wisely, I want blame none but the system who didn’t allowed me to have proper (expected) learning in given period of time. For me, human by nature are diverse,  curiosity  and creative. Our education system is hindering our learning by distorting this basic nature of being human. No children of same parents are similar, how can our educators assume that whole batch is common for them? Education system of today is not acknowledgi

It seems to be routine to me when publishers rejects my articles for one or other reason.   But what made to think for this post is the comment of one reviewer that I should improve my grammar and academic writing skills. This was an important comment for me, not because it gave me scope for improvements but because it was forcing me adhere the rules set by so called grammar laureates (especially when the article was talking about non adherence of rules and norms in society !!!!). Grammar of any lingual system is a set of rules which is developed to synchronize system for producing and communication meanings. Our obsession with grammar is so increased that we are getting away from own thoughts and feelings while writing. Let me simplify this further. There is thin line difference between language and speech. While speaking we need not be conscious of about “rules of language” (grammar) but while writing we are “taught” to confirm these “rules”. This creates problem in expre

Internet, something great, something now days taken for granted, something which urbanized or “developed” human can’t do without it provided me perplexing scene this week. My Newly established university was struggling with ICT issues at library. Because of hard work and insightful planning, ICT committee of my university was able to plan out solution for providing better WiFi and LAN facility at library. Along with planning and implementation of new ICT policies which is more faster and “secure” there was some kind of dissatisfaction among students, because new policy implemented several restriction over usage of internet (mainly by blocking social networking sites) and students as in other academic institutes showed resistance over such restrictions. Thinking on such resistances, allowed me to think in different direction than my friends who were showing resistance over new ICT policies. During these two-three days, I was thinking about my dependency on internet (not only so

“I am not from your field” -an interesting statement by my friend wedged my mind this week. It was simple and unconscious attempt to say that our academic disciplines are different. This statement suddenly made me realized something about our education system. A system which plays great role in producing good citizens or civilized human being who has specialized skills to contribute in development of mankind. India spends huge chunk of its social sector budget on education but no Indian university is listed in top 200 hundred universities of world.  This seems a shocking situation to me, it raises question, what is going wrong with our education system. When I thought and shared my concerns with people from other countries, I realized that education systems of every country is undergoing under transition. The only difference is that some countries are managing this transition well while some are not (like India). The most shocking observation is that it’s not higher educ

I always feel Indian society is like a pendulum which swings between modern and traditional value systems and it is very clearly reflected in human interactions and relationships. This idea has made my studies and life more interesting where I investigate my own self, my interactions and my relationship with rest of the society. I always feel that human relationships are central function of any society which makes society works and so, society is heavily depended on human relationship for its survival.  But for country like India this idea is not so simple, as one of dominant idea of relationship is inclined towards modern value system and at same time the notion or relationship faces traditional externalities. I came across many people (including me) who are facing dilemma between these two value systems. Liberty or freedom is considered as important part of any human relationship ranging from family to state institutions. In India, this is become complex thing to understand,

“You know?? I want guy, who is tall, has bit longer hairs, well-trimmed mustache, basically guy with cavalier attributes….” A statement given by very learned friend of mine last week. This simple conversation actually gave me different dimension to think upon problem which was disquieting me since the incident of gang rape happened at Delhi and series of events associated with it. This kind of statement from girl who is aspiring to be specialized in gender issues provided me a vision whatever is being learned becomes unheard when we come down personal preferences about sexualities. Cause of rapes and sexual assaults or harassments are widely studied and discussed from every aspect because these acts are considered as highly inhuman. The incident of gang rape in Delhi, series of protests and political events tailed after incident made me to think; why humans are prone to such acts? Why social control is getting weaker in country like India? Why such incidents are makes media