PANACEA

When the melody’s long gone, fear screams,

‘Remember me, if not in memories, through stories

Of blood split and innocence lost’

Making a mockery of the love that binds through

Few obscure lines, and few futile statistics

Rip through thousand empty hearts; their hopes

Turn saline at the confluence of their dreams

Riddles lie here, like the blood, scattered!

 Blame it on the dried tears and deaf ears

Unheard voices don’t count, lost in the clamour

Tides of youth, between mistrust and lies,

Silence echoes, in pursuit of panacea

Winged shoulders seek rest, lend yours

To soothe the scalded hearts and homes

In the light of reason, let every society rhyme

Amidst the poignant emotions, let it rain

Pregnant with hopes of a bright sunrise

Drapchi

Lost in translation
The muted chords of harmony
Reasons snuffed out
Like the tune you hum,your breath
Struggles to live, with hopes that belie
'You shall live, you shall not die !'
Break free of the chaos that reign
Thus the discoloured walls sigh !

p.s- Inspired to write after seeing a beautiful movie "Drapchi" which showcased the sad plight of people in Tibet

Primary education- an experience

At some point or the other, we all curse the Indian education system, complaining about the sad plight of present educational scenario.Some would try to suggest brain drain,exam-pressure,etc as some common causes. What about the solutions? Suggestions vary from strengthening our grass-root i.e primary education to relaxing the exam pressure at the higher secondary level and such. But how many of us actually take it up and strive to find a solution rather than simply complaining?

Have you ever wondered how it would be to actually teach the primary kids? There's nothing much to teach them, just teach them the alphabets, some numbers, names of few animals,fruits,vegetables, months and days,etc.Trivial, isn't it?Well, frankly most of us would be in awe of their innocent face and acts to be able to teach them.We  understand that primary education is the base of learning, yet we finch away from the opportunity many a times because we doubt if we can manage them, let alone teaching. They come in a variety;some shy and some smart yet naughty.And a normal classroom has invariably a mix of various types- smart/talented and confident, sincere yet shy, lazy who would study only upon forcing, and most importantly the stand out ones-who will fight,sleep and disturb others and what not, except studying.The first and the last types are the hardest to manage, leave teaching. And if you are a first timer, I'm sure you'd be confused what to do with them.Been taught to be gentle with kids, perhaps most of us would try to deal with them patiently and with loads of love. Once you realize you've to deal with their tantrums regularly, you might get a little frustrated, understandably.Even simply scolding can't pacify these little devils.The main problem persists, how to teach them. There doesn't seem to be much standardized content for the 1-2nd graders. More importantly, its difficult to retain their attention for a long time.There lies the importance of planning out things beforehand as to what to teach and how to teach.

 There had been a time when we were more focused on secondary classes as we felt more comfortable there and primary classes were cancelled in case of insufficient volunteers. Times have changed; now even as the high school and above students fear English, some of these tiny tots would be fluently asking you ‘what is your name brother?’. These results haven’t come easy , it has taken lots of hard work and planning from the dedicated volunteers with help from various teacher-training workshops and bulla-sessions to have come this far. There's a joke out here that you get 'promoted' to primary from teaching higher classes. Even though teaching is the main motive, to be able to teach effectively volunteers need to understand the child as well,to get into their level and think like them. And for this, the volunteers have to resort to a little groundwork like visit the kids' house and talk to their parents and more importantly talk to the students' regularly- all what parenting might sound like.And all the while you have to keep improvising your teaching style and content so as to keep the kids' interested.Monologue teaching gets boring and so does too much of board work sounds like spoon-feeding. On top of that, the learning pace of the students varies greatly which means you can go neither too slow nor too fast.If you are engaged in teaching a relatively slower student, the faster and smarter ones are likely to throw tantrums with boredom. A quirky solution as suggested might be to give bonus questions to the smartypants while giving attending to the weak students.A good understanding of the language and cultural practice of the area helps a lot, especially while correcting kids like vishal who would say 'ishq' when asked to pronounce 'x'.For this,we lay emphasis on phonology as well, repeating the words with proper accent and knowledge of which part the tongue touches. Apart from language skills, one very interesting subject is maths, as the kids say ' sawaal do bhaiya". As you can guess most volunteers would prefer to teach maths/numbers over anything else as its symbolic and most students would already have some familiarity with it. But as we found out its not so easy to make the kids understand clearly the trivialities of numbers. Connecting the basic arithmetic operations with some familiar activities help them understand better like- addition as collecting all the similar things and then counting,subtraction as loosing or taking a loan, division as distributing a 'roti' equally between the siblings,etc. Also, because of their familiarity with currency denominations, they handle money problems better than problems involving abstract numbers.

Dumb-charades can also be used as an effective teaching technique to make the kids more inquisitive, search for answers themselves while engaging their various senses.That way they learn to use their mind and search for answers within themselves rather than waiting for someone to tell them an answer.As for the language skills,  the usually followed route of alphabets-words-sentences didn't seem to help much for the kids,especially those without any guidance.For them, an alternative might be to teach them the alphabet,then the daily usage words and sentences and again back to learning the whole set of unfamiliar words,signs.And there are various modes of learning-visual,audio and kinesthetic; so to be able to teach effectively its important to be able to link modes.Be sure, one single technique won't work with the kids, so its important to innovate and adapt continuously while understanding them.Various organisations like Pratham, Akanksha,Eklavya,Teach for India have been continually working on developing personalised content for these kids. Complementing them are various useful sites like KhanAcademy.org, JodoGyan etc. which help the people working in this field to access resources and use them for effective teaching.Just a tip,in case, someone misses a class, someone from amongst the students present in the previous class can be asked to present before the class.This way, both revision  and completion of missing classes can be done simultaneously. As people are mostly obsessed about boards and JEE,etc primary education grabs very little attention. Quite understandably the primary teachers without the extensive publicity and motivation might find it frustrating at times as results take time.They motivate themselves internally by deriving happiness from little success; perhaps that's why you can see the calm faces and gauge their patience.

Well, perhaps I could go on detailing the things we did but that won't be of much use for what works for one needn't work for another.We have to understand that they are a bunch of creative kids, we just have to give wings to their dreams. I am not an educationist or a professor to give an expert opinion about what should be done and what not. I’m a mere graduate, albeit with a teaching experience of 3 years courtesy Prayas, IIT Kanpur.This post is the result of everyone who with their efforts and/or encouraging words motivated us to dream bigger and strive harder to get it. And most importantly, a big Thank YOU to the little angels who provide doses of entertainment and happiness whenever we're down.:)
Chota baccha samajhke unko na samjhana re !

Some important links and sites:
1. http://www.khanacademy.org/ -- a brilliant site, a must see for anyone interested in getting the basics right 
2.http://www.teachforindia.org/
3. http://www.pratham.org/
4.http://eklavya.in/go/
5.http://www.akanksha.org/
6.http://arvindguptatoys.com/-- This is another masterpiece of a site where you learn to make  little toys and do small experiments cheaply and innovatively using trash items.
6.http://home.iitk.ac.in/~ag/jagriti/
7.http://realheroes.com/
8.http://students.iitk.ac.in/prayas/

The last two have been quite a support and inspiration for us whenever we've felt low and demotivated. Prayas has literally been a second home for most of us(volunteers) as we spend a lot of quality time there, discussing tidbits of education, kids and lots of personal and common issues as well.Here, we've experience care and love like never before-maybe it's the result of such prolonged association.Maybe that's why we at times tend to slip into dreams of our own- some small and some big like having a school where can make a few dreams come true,etc.Attached below is a video how we go about merging the dreams of ours and the kids at Prayas.

P.S- Thanks a lot to Sambit, Ashutosh, Ravi Bhaiya,Namita,Laxmikant, Saurabh bhaiya and everyone else working upon helping these kids live a dream.Go on. Sorry for such a long post.

হেৰোৱা সপোন

এন্ধাৰৰ সুৰ ভেদি আবেগৰ কোলাহল

জোনাক ব্যস্ত, ব্যৰ্থ শব্দৰ সমদল

স্মৃতিৰ এলান্ধুয়ে আৱৰিচে আজি ভাৱনাৰ তল |

সোণালী শৈশৱ আৰু মত্স্যগন্ধা

নদী পাৰৰ ধেমালি

আজি মাথো স্মৃতি ,

কিছু মৰমসনা প্ৰতিশ্ৰুতি |

ক’ত হেৰাল

অকণি আকাশৰ তৰা গনি 

শুনা আইতাৰ সাধুৰ ৰজা-ৰানী ?

তাহানিৰ বগৰীজোপাও দেখোন নাই |

আজিকালি

ল’ৰালিৰ দিকচৌ বাটেৰে

খুৰাহঁতলৈ জলপান নিনিওঁ, 

পাৰত বহি বৰশীও নাবাওঁ |

নতুনক আদৰিবলে আজি নাই পাৰিজাত

আছে মাথোঁ তেজাল ৰাতিৰ বিভীষিকা

কুৱলীয়া দিথক, কিছু খেলিমেলি সপোন

এৰা ! এতিয়া মই ডাঙৰ হলো  !

গেন্জি-হাফ পেন্ট এৰি

চুত পিন্ধা অফিচাৰ হলো ;

মৰম এৰি মানুহৰ চেলাম পালো

তাহানিৰ গাওঁবোৰো চহৰ হ’ল

বুঢ়া লুইত বুকুতে ৰই গ’ল

এখন উকা হৃদয় আৰু শেতাঁ হাঁহিয়ে

আজি মোৰ একমাত্ৰ সম্বল|

 এতিয়া

মই  ব্যস্ত

সপোন মচি দিঠক গঢ়াত 

তথাপিও, মাজে-মাজে

আশাৰ পাখি মেলি 

মাতিতে আঁকো সপোনৰ ৰামধেনু

উভতিব খোজো আপোন দেশলৈ

বিচাৰি কিছু হেৰোৱা সপোন

  

------ভাস্কৰজ্যতি মালী


P.S- Published in Nilacharai(http://www.nilacharai.com) March issue and আমি অসমীয়া(http://amiasomiya.org) April Issue.
p.ps- Image courtsey Google

Let's not Quest

T'is dark,as is the path ahead

The masks,let me shed

Don't fear,be my muse

While to emotions,tears add hues

Can't trust?

In the face of light even shadows live a lie

Like me, you too shall fade

Still,loving you,just let me try

In solitude,I find peace

Ah gossips!,if only they would cease

Reasons tumble

Seeking sanity,I find life only to fumble

Don't question

I seek no answer

Dilemmas,conflicts,I doubt them;

Beneath lies the hope I see

Someday I shall be another dream,where everyone smiles

Till then,let me dwell in the reality,walk those extra miles

In defeat,I'm gracious, you see; 

Alas! you couldn't break me

The world never understood a mad man

Why should thee?

Let me fall, burn,bruise my knee

Don't help,let me learn

Find myself,beat the dust,stand up

Enjoy the things I yearn

Reject me,you'll.You can't fathom,how I weather each storm

Of passion,let me plant some seed.Till then,just let me bleed

Bad times I wrote on sand

On stone let me write the rest

In a moment of rejoice,live

For a better dream,let's not quest

p.s-pic taken from http://bjanecarp.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/assassins-quest1.jpg

Silence

An expression unspoken, unheard

An absence so profound

Neither rhetoric nor absurd

A conversation, without a sound

T’is silence, not words

Where solace I found.

Anger or hostility, I mean not

Nor an indifferent question I shot

In silence, I love thee

No jealous doubts to hurt me

Oh please, don't gawk

Don't destroy it by a small talk

For speech, perhaps it’s the end

Yet emotions coyly lurks in the bend

A noisy void or a silent scream

In solitude, no more a distant dream

In its essence, I dissolve

Thinking afresh, I evolve.

The failures and loss, I fear not

To tears, put up a stoic defiance

Yet I broke the silence

As I speak the words I jot

Dreams

The sound of silence I hear, I feel thy desire
A dream, the mind and the soul conspire
Rationale I search, for pragmatic I am
Seek the reality, delusion I condemn

Dreams I saw, when I was raw
I owned, though they did have flaw
The ones I get, aren't mine
I don't care even if they shine

You dream in bright red,
I'm just black n white, you said
Trying to find self inside a maze
I can only think of purple haze

Restless random thoughts I experience
With hope,lay them void of pretense
Am I living the dream?I feel dazed
Yet on my path,I walk unfazed

Shifting paradigms I observe
Desire the smiling curve,
If that I deserve !

Aaji Jau Moi Aguwai

Akaxot kheli luka bhaku
Daworor asolot mukh lukuwai
Aahe mur kaasi junti,
Dubahu meli, mur kaaxole dhopoliai

Xitol sawonir maajote
Khontekiya boroxunor obujon binoni
Agrahya kori, boi mur ashru dudhari
Paio heruwar bedonat,
Kimba odhir uttejonat

Kesa ghumotir maajote sikmikai
Smritie khela luka-bhaku
Nuwaro bujibo
Xeya bukur tez ne adhorua faku

Omanixar bukut mur guji,jabole diya
Diya xeijuri nilim nayan  or xex bidai

Xukaan botahe gai jua
Mur bedonar nirob gatha
Aji nibhaj boroxune niye musi
Joli sai hua hridoyot
Xisi diye axa kitupal
Jolai diye, agosi moromor bonti

Jabole diya, aji muk heruwai
Nidiba xohari, nidiba morom uburiai

Abelir rodalir misikonit
Nixar toralir sawonit
Bukur bixaad jai xokolu heraai
Xou hahir xathor bhangi
Andharor poth bhedi
Aji jau moi aguwai

I-ii

I'm bad, so much that even devils fear

I'm good, more than an angel appear

I'm black,I'm white

Colours never know my life's plight
They no more shine bright

Maybe just little shades of dark and light !

My hands,my legs are weak
No sprints, I fight no more
Fragile I may seem, yet agile I am
My spirit,however,crumbles no more
In its quest, free like the roaring shore !

With you, I smile

Why waste a tear, in moments  worthwhile !

Truth I speak, lies I despise

Yet wonder

Can above the rest, I rise?

Of my existence, no one else know
No fear, no tensions,no fake emotions to show
Maybe I won't reach the heights you achieved
But, I also won't drop too low

Average and mediocre I am, they say
Maybe unlike you, I can't make 'today' my day !

Sometimes, even I'm confused

Standing at the crossroads,which path to choose

Explore my chances, or walk down the used?

Things I do aren't perfect

Neither am I, as my flaws reflect

You aren't either, with due respect .

Imperfections I adore

For they're the results my actions bore

At times, even as I live, I die

A rather lifeless soul, I sigh !

I love life as much as its end
Even the thrills at the crossroads and bends
Knowing how
Even the spices of life,death blends

Me

I'm not what you think
I too exist, like every other being
Like you, I too smile
Even in pains
Dance while it rains
Faceless just like you
Not for fear,but just being new
Yet
Even as you turn your back
I continue my stride forward
Making my own destiny
And shaping dreams of yours

I

I can't write like you, I wish I could.
Nor the paint in the canvas I can do
You read of great people,their works
You sing,the melancholic tunes
Dance to the tune of air flowing past
Even those things I can't do.
I think
Of the green paddy-fields
The tears in a mother's eyes
See how lost an unemployed father feels
Of a son who failed himself
You say I'm Gothic,trapped in the past
I say I just love the night
The immense hope it portrays
The sun that awaits us with light
The defeat that compels us to fight back !

I sound hollow, I know I do
No matter how well-read you are
Books can't solve problems
Except sometimes, for a cue

With time,things differ
People and situations too
Evil and vain, I mayn't be
Yet,a martyr,for good's sake
To be or not to be,I wonder,I do
And I know you too

Hope high and dream big,I dare not
Tag me cynic,I know you might
With my feet on ground,eyes on the sky
Slowly and steadily I walk
'Cause that's what I have been taught
And that's how I choose to live by