Neither a hare nor a tortoise be, Rather the child that meanders free. Our destination is a mirage to which we float, Not a mountain to climb with disasters fraught. We don’t lay claim to the things we own; Pride is for the experiences we have borne. Let’s not just smell the roses, let’s plant …
When you start writing an article, what is the first thing you do?
Several years before, the first thing I would have done would have been to settle down in a nice comfortable chair with a blank sheet of paper, a good pen and armed, probably, with a nice cup of coffee. I would then jot down my train of thought, along with the main points of argument and counterargument. I would glance into space every now and then, and think. Then I would arm myself with a list of topics I would want to research deeper and then head to the local library to hopefully get a few books on the topic. At least this is how I remember preparing for my high school essays.
But now, just as I was considering writing my blog post, the first thing I did was Google the words “creativity and modern technologyâ€. With not many hits on what I wanted to write, I tried permutations of the topic and spent a good ten minutes figuring out what has been written on the topic by those before me. Admittedly, a blog post does not have the same bearing on my life as a bad grade in a school essay would have had nor do I have the luxury of time to spend as much time on one post – but somehow, I would like to believe that all those years of school education had some impact on the way I think and write.
Technology has affected the way we create content. I remember the first time I wrote an html page, I had bought a tome of a book on HTML and familiarized myself with most of the commands before writing <html> on a blank txt file. Yet, now if I were to write a Wordpress template, even though I don’t know CSS and I barely remember HTML, I wouldn’t consider reading up. I would start with an old template and work by trial and error, till I am happy with what I see.
So what has been the impact of modern technology on the way we create content? Have the changes been for better or for worse? And how can we maximize what is good about the new change while keeping the less desirable aspects to a minimum? […]
Once upon a time, there lived in Malabar, a kingly state of old South India, a master carpenter known as Perunthachan. He was widely known as an excellent craftsman, with unparalleled genius in architecture and design, and is even today credited for the aesthetic brilliance of many temples and palaces in Kerala. Legend has it that when Perunthachan grew old, there was a severe feud between him and his son, who had by then managed to build up a reputation as an architect in his own right.
Perunthachan believed that the ancient traditions of Vastusastra are too sacred to be modified, while his son had more modern notions of how ancient architectural methodologies and theories could be adapted to better suit the changing times. Versions of the tale also mention that Perunthachan and his son also disagreed on the relevance of caste system in society – the young carpenter was in love with a high caste Brahmin girl and wanted to marry her while Perunthachan strongly resisted it, believing it to be unacceptably antagonistic to age-old traditions. In a rather tragic and drastic ending to the story, Perunthachan is said to have killed his son and thus put an end to this father-son feud.
That is the story of Perunthachan, an old folklore of Kerala that dramatizes the clash between the old and the new. A story that has remained popular even in the current era, as a sign of how the clash between the old and the new is as relevant now as it as has always been.
Most of us would have been confronted with the old versus new question at some point in our lives. If you are from an eastern culture, respect for everyone and everything that has walked or been on the earth longer than you has probably been ingrained into you from the moment you were born. Even in the so-called modern cultures, people cling onto traditions they know and you frequently hear stories of people who have gone to extraordinary lengths in search of their roots. Antiques are usually valued many more times than an object of the same functional value, but with a shorter history to claim. From my own experience, my treasured early childhood memories include curling up next to my aged grandmother, and listening to mythical stories or sometimes, just to the news on the radio. It was not just a grandmother’s love or the excitement of the stories that made those moments special – at some level, I cherish those moments as the only links to a distant past I would never live in or which I can relate to only through words and pictures.
Why, you may ask, do we have this fascination for the old? […]
3quarksdaily has a well-written piece on Singapore. It is true that changes are afoot in a nation that – after the Asian Financial Crisis, and the terror caused by the spread of SARs – realised its government could never offer it complete protection. The bargain for freedom from want in return for silent cooperation was …
An essay on the increasingly popular phenomenon of simultaneous multiple careers Deny it all you like, but most of us lead multiple lives. Not in the schizophrenic way, but in the “One person – Many interests” kind of way. Gone are the days in which one person could be slotted into one career – the …
Isn’t it about time we established an Indian Institute of politics? Any executive running a publicly traded business would have either formal training that equips him for the job or years of apprenticeship working at various levels in the company or long experience in the industry or in many cases, all the three above. But …
Lucy Kellaway, columnist at Financial times and author of “Martin Lukes: Who Moved My BlackBerry“, bids farewell to the flexibility fad, while predicting doom for working women, over at Economist’s The World in 2007 special: The image of the juggling part-time mother will belong to the past. Instead, the school gates in prosperous neighbourhoods of …
Here is an encouraging article about Microfinance that was featured in Women’s eNews today. Nothing particularly enlightening about the article, but it is good to see that awareness and interest about microfinance is extending beyond the realms of finance and credit. The article highlights how microfinance as a whole has grown by leaps and bounds …
“Oh, I know a great joke. But, before I start, let me just say – please don’t be offended”. Before even waiting for an answer, someone goes on to narrate a crude joke about say, your country, your language, your culture, your beliefs or anything else that you may hold dear. If you have lived …
As the G8 summit looms near and the publicity for more aid and grants reverberate more than ever, I am reminded of the unassuming yet important cousin in the developmental policy family that everyone tends to forget – microfinance (mF). 2005 is the year of microcredit, but one will be hard pressed to find many …