'I personally feel that, teachers [or professors] who exploit students to do such menial works are a blot on the entire vocation...'

On Exploitative Teachers | On Vanaspati | On prosopis juliflora

04 March 1995 | Some Ruminations

#MCCSchoolDays

#memoriesfromdiaries

Upma, back then, was my kinda ‘odious approximation, a haunting conscience, a preposterous shadow’, my Achilles heel, in short, my nemesis. 😊

But wait… I’ve always loved the original, savoury, flavoury, Upma done by Amma at  home, for our breakfast sans vanaspati. However, this particular Upma, was an aversion to all of us, because of the huge overdose of Dalda (vanaspati) that was chaotically shot into the Upma, 😉 that made it both inedible and uneatable! [Vanaspati ghee was used as a cheap alternative to cow ghee].

By today’s market price, one litre of vanaspati ghee costs Rs.140/- while one litre of desi cow ghee costs Rs.620/- (Aavin), vanaspati being almost five times lesser in price]. Hence an aversion for the ‘vanaspatified’ Uppuma 😉 Quite intriguingly, vanaspati seems to have been introduced into India by Dutch traders, as early as in 1931, as a cheap substitute for the highly expensive desi cow ghee.

[On an aside, this is much akin to the highly invasive prosopis juliflora [or seemai karuvelam] that was introduced into India as early as in the 1870s, as a cheap ‘fuel substitute’.

Quite interestingly, in 2017, the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court had ordered the Govt of Tamil Nadu to completely weed out and eradicate the species from the state. However, sensing that nothing much had happened, in 2022, the Madras High Court, [also highly dissatisfied with the Govt’s measures], directed the government to immediately frame a policy to eradicate the plant. Hence, the state on 13 July 2022 framed a policy to eliminate the invasive species].

Coming back to 04th March 1995, into the morning -  

The unthinkable had just happened! We were all tricked into coming to school on this particular day, under a pretext!

Pretext, btw, means, ‘a pretended reason for doing something that is used to hide the real reason.’ [Cambridge Dictionary]

That’s exactly something our Physics Teacher did to all of us – his ‘students’.

He had set us all a trap! ☹

On the pretext of giving us all, our Physics Practical Marks, he made us all [all the 50 of us] to come to our respective classes, and made us varnish our desks – that too on a holiday!

The varnishing process went something like this: First, we had to apply sand paper, and then wax was given to us, to varnish the desks. Headmaster was also there to inspect it all. After a forenoon filled with varnishing, much to our chagrin, our pants and tee shirts were smeared with wax all over.

Now, when I look back on this episode, I feel so bad at students having been asked to do menial jobs like these.

MCC School Hostel was one among the most expensive hostels in the City back then. And we had come to School to study, not to do menial jobs that someone else was employed and paid to do.

I personally feel that, teachers or professors who exploit students to do such menial works are a blot on the entire profession.

I repeat, a blot on the vocation!

If only we had had the guts to complain to our parents, and help lodge a complaint against such exploitative teachers who forced us into doing such menial works, things would have been better atleast for the subsequent batches of students.

Such criminals – wolves in sheep’s clothing – who double up as teachers interestingly, also earn a hefty and huge government salary, and warm their bottoms in comfy chairs, while using pretexts and pressurizing tactics to exploit such gullible students to their advantage.

Teaching, it is said, is the noblest of professions, nay vocations. If a teacher gets guideship to milk money from their wards by the lakhs, it’s a shame, a blot, and even a curse!

A ward is not a money-spinning ATM or a Bench Cleaner, or a Table Cleaner. They are the pride of their parents. Their sweetest bundle of joy. The apple of their eyes! The cynosure of their lives!

I’ve known at least a hundred instances of wards having had to grease the palms of their guides, to help them wrap up on their PhDs. Else, extensions by the dozens, await the trespasser!

Sadly, a professor from our own Institution was victim to these exploitative tactics of an RP [Research Supervisor from another Govt College] and we all appreciate her boldness for deciding to call it quits with this mammonish guy – mainly because of the abominable ways in which he exploited her economically all through her period of study. One signature from this perverted professor costs a minimum of ten thousand rupees, we are told!

A Supervisor is meant to guide not to exploit the ward entrusted under their care.

So dear students be very cautious while choosing your guide as well! Don’t fall prey to exploitative guides who use this ‘opportunity’ to milk their wards.

A teacher, who exploits a student for their own benefit, is a blot on the teaching community.

If at all a teacher wants to exploit a student, I have a small suggestion: let the teacher concerned, pay at least 50% of their salary to the student whom they intend / wish / desire to exploit. Else, the government should enact laws to make such teachers arrested / fined and even prosecuted.

How much of a huge trust does the parent have on the institution, with such beautiful dreams for their kids.

But here, their kid will be lamenting and languishing – not able to speak out also – for fear of being ostracized and punished.

This unholy exploitation is a huge blot on the vocation in itself.

I’m sorry for venting my indignation.

But even today, when we get complaints from parents over anonymous emails, we are not able to do anything about it, because of the very nature of their anonymity. The student is shell-shocked and even traumatized beyond measure, to even think of giving a complaint against a particular teacher who exploits her, day in and day out.

If only the parents can boldly write to our Principal with their designation and name, specifying the instances, immediate action can be initiated against such erring teachers. That’s because anonymous complaints don’t have legal backing and so don’t stand any chance of the criminal being prosecuted.

Personally speaking, if only such teachers could make use of the valuable time and ‘services’ of their own children to do all this varnishing, polishing etc!

Else, treat the children who are entrusted under their custody as their own, and make use of ‘paid labour’ to do all these menial works, and just allow the student to study!

I personally feel that, these golden years for the student are the formative years that shape and sculpt and mould and carve their blessed future for them. With high hopes the parents send their sweethearts to school, spending a fortune on their hall fees, oops… hostel fees, with such golden dreams for them.

Hence, it is a huge criminal offence to prevent students from studying during their golden, formative years, especially during their precious study time! As a student who has stayed in the hostel/hall for many years, I’ve known the exploitation that these voiceless kids undergo at the hands of these ‘devilish’ teachers.

Students have enrolled themselves in a school/ college to study! Not to spend their time varnishing, cleaning, polishing etc, and working for the hostel –  which is just a a temporary, makeshift shelter/ rental abode for their period of study! Nothing more! Nothing less!

Teachers should be sculptors of the students / wards entrusted under their care and guidance.

Not spoilsports!

"People said I was crazy. But there are quite a lot of things a mountain could teach you..."

A Trip to Mighty Mountain 

Saru Krishna R | I MA English

Admired and visited by people who seek solitude and by pilgrims, also known as Himadri the land of Lord Shiva, you might have guessed it by now…!

Yes, it is!

“The Mighty Himalayas.”

As an avid rider I have always fancied mountain roads. Though I never dreamt of riding to the Himalayas, my own ride experience turned out to be surprisingly pleasant.

I didn’t bother to take a sweater with me and managed to survive the 3° cold with just track pants and hoodies.

People said I was crazy. But there are quite a lot of things a mountain could teach you.

I was terrified when I heard of the leopard attacks happening in the Himalayas.

But the words of the locals comforted me. They believe to trust the mountain and says that the mountain does not forsake pure souls. They consider the mountain to be a superior power which made me realize the impact nature has on them.

The entire journey paved a way to feel and take in nature.

The purity of Mother Nature is epitomized by the Himalayas.

The cold mountain wind caresses the soul. The woods and valleys kindle something deep within you.

The feel of the mountains cannot be contained in words. The entire ride on hill covered a distance of 714 km on more than 50 mountains of the Himalayas.

The tough terrains and challenging roads are perfect for a 20 years young adult to learn from.

My legs were tiring, hands shivering and heart pounding; But the spirit of the mountain kept me going.

I consider this experience as my achievement.

Have you decided what yours is?

"The feel of the mountains cannot be contained in words..."

"Go to class, read, eat, chat, play, sleep, REPEAT..."

The Argument over Mt. Everest 😉 | Hostel Days

#MCCSchoolDays

#HSC Days

#memoriesfromdiaries

In Chemistry Practical Exam on this particular day, I got Copper Carbonate. Now, please don’t ask me what I did with this chemical back then. It’s almost close to three decades now, yaar.

With the approaching summer heat, which, as usual, is unbearable, our HM was discussing the possibility of fixing ceiling fans to all our cubicles. Some good news for us, back then.

A note on short forms: 😉

Well, Ray is short for Raymond, Karups is short for Karuppiah [the most intelligent guy in our class].

Please don't be harsh on a teenager's diary entries that contain a few random spelling mistakes

Gowtham, Ranjan and Arun were all assembled in Bhaskar’s room for some casual conversation time.

The discussions veered around the controversial depiction of Mt. Everest as part of China in the Manorama Year Book 1995. Karups was arguing that Mt. Everest was NOT in China.

Bolyn from Manipur was the most humorous guy around. It was a real delight to have him around us, since his humorous facial expressions and gestures alone were enough to make us rofl. Guys always wanted him around, because he always made others around him happy, with his good-natured humour!  ;-)

Daniel Ponraj was nicknamed Phoolan Dev(i) by Riyaz, and Riyaz was ‘cross’ with his Phoolan for leaving him behind when he went for his tea and snacks. Girish [who did his schooling – upto grade X - in Indian Language School, Lagos, Nigeria] was also a renowned chess champ amongst us. He would deliberately tease us for a game of Chess and have that cute, impish glee on him, when he checkmates his opponent each and every time. Yet another connoisseur of the game was my bestie Sunil, and you may want to read about a game of chess that I had had with him, HERE on our past post. 😊

Girish loved playing chess with me. He had a few books on the game with him as well. On this particular day, after our casual chat, he slept in my bed. I waited for long, for him to get up, but sensing that he’d gone overboard to snoring mode, I had to gently wake him up at around 12.45 am [midnight] to help myself at my bed. 😉

Hostel days, were in short, the most unforgettable days in our lives, when, without an iota of care or a worry, you just had to go to your classes, read, eat, chat, play, sleep, REPEAT! read, eat, chat, play, sleep, REPEAT!!!  😊

"In the end, it is treachery, rather than disability, that Richard’s “deformed” body ultimately signifies..."

Trajectories in Literary Disability Studies: An Overview

[Excerpted from Specialist Books on the Subject]

Introduction

In our present collective cultural consciousness, the disabled body is imagined as an alien condition. Thus disability tends to be figured in cultural representations as an absolute state of otherness that is opposed to a standard, normative body, unmarked by either individual form and function or by the particularities of its history. Disability Studies does not regard disability as a problem but as a location or position for gaining valid knowledge and understanding.

‘Stereotyped Representations’ of Disability in Literature

In in his opening soliloquy, Richard – in William Shakespeare’s Richard III (1592) – tells us that he is “not shaped for sportive tricks,” but rather is “rudely stamped” and “deformed, unfinished, sent before my time,” he does so to explain why he is, as a consequence, “determined to prove a villain. Richard’s villainy and hatred are, in his own words, directly connected to his physical disabilities. In the end, it is treachery, rather than disability, that Richard’s “deformed” body ultimately signifies.

There are numerous other examples from the literary canon that follow a similar logic: in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851), Ahab’s missing leg clearly signals ideas of his obsession and maniacal behavior; Rochester’s blindness, in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847), allows that novel to explore questions of romance and care. In these and many other examples, disability is made to work primarily as a metaphor, a textual device that, precisely because of the ways in which it reconfigures what disability means, ultimately has little to say about the actual lives experienced by those with disabilities.

In part, it was the need to unpack the complexities of these metaphors, and the prejudices of the representations that often accompanied them, that led to the rise of literary disability studies as a critical discipline in the 1990s.

‘Normate’ & ‘Normalcy’ in Disability Studies

In the mid-1990s, Lennard J. Davis’s Enforcing Normalcy (1995) and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s Extraordinary Bodies (1997) were both foundational texts in the development of the new subject area. Each brought analytical tools from literary studies and critical and cultural theory to bear on disability representation, and each established core critical terms that helped shape the development of the discipline. 

Both Davis and Garland-Thomson focused on the power of the idea of the normal – “normalcy” in Davis, “the normate” in Garland-Thomson – in definitions of disability. The term ‘normate’ describes what is considered to be a normal human being in a particular society. For example, in a contemporary Euro-American context, these characteristics might relate to heterosexuality, whiteness, non-disabled status, and a certain height and weight.

Ableist Assumptions on ‘Normal’

Many of the metaphors that accompanied literary representations of characters with disabilities were, this new scholarship made clear, invested in these ideas of rules or of a deviation from the norm. 

Every character in popular fiction who was understood to be criminal because of, say, a facial disfigurement, or heroic because they challenged the perceived limitations that come with living “confined to” a wheelchair, could now be seen to be the products of ableist cultural assumptions about what kind of body or mind was normal and what were seen to be the terms of any difference from such norms.

Narrative Prosthesis

In 2000, David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder’s book Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse unpacked how such ableist assumptions operated in the specific arena of narrative. Their key term “narrative prosthesis” highlighted how texts use and rely on disability to make narrative work. 

A “prosthetic” use of disability in narrative is one that employs representations of disability as a short-hand or stand-in to signify stereotypical notions of pity and moral or social disorder. Mitchell and Snyder argue that literary narratives and films often depend on disability as a device of characterisation or a “crutch” to lean on for its disruptive power and analytic insight. In this sense, disability is not represented for its own sake but, instead, it is used to shore up and stabilise ideas of the normal, telling readers something about the plot or deepening understandings of central, non-disabled characters.

The Defining Characteristics of Disability Studies

In terms of disciplinary location, Disability Studies is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary domain spanning the humanities, social sciences and cultural studies. The overarching theoretical insights in the discipline are provided by the materialist/Marxist and postmodernist/-structuralist perspectives. 

Coming to more specific concerns, disability studies examines reality from the standpoint of disability, i.e., from the perspectives of persons with disabilities in society. Since disability has hitherto almost exclusively been conceptualised and studied by non-disabled persons, one of the goals of the discipline is to provide centre- stage to the voices of disabled persons, namely, their thoughts, feelings and experiences as members of an oppressed minority group and an oppressive culture.

Disability Not as a Problem but as a ‘Location’ for Gaining Valid Knowledge

Disability studies does not regard disability as a problem but as a location or position for gaining valid knowledge and understanding. In this connection, it is very critical of the expertise or ‘professional disability knowledge’ generated by the helping professions and mainstream sociology, psychology, education, etc., which construct disability as a problem in need of management, if not resolution. 

Disability studies eschews the application of such terms as deviance, overcoming, coping and cure, adjustment and acceptance, which reduce persons with disabilities to bearers of signs and symptoms of pathology.

Disability Studies in India

India probably has the largest number of persons with disabilities in the world after China. According to conservative estimates derived from the Census of India 2001, 1.8 to 2.1 per cent of the population suffers from some form of disability, which in absolute numbers comes to approximately 18.49 to 21.92 million persons. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 6–10 per cent of the population suffers from identifable physical or mental disability. That comes to over 90 million persons in India. 

Phenomena such as war, ethnic confict, HIV/AIDS, natural disasters, industrial injuries and road accidents are increasing the number of persons with disabilities. Ironically, enhanced life expectancy has also increased manifold the incidence of old age-related, chronic disease-induced disabilities worldwide.

The academy can make a contribution to institutionalising it, but there are as yet hardly any programmes or courses on disability studies (as distinct from studies on disability in the paramedical, social work, clinical and legal felds) in Indian universities. 

As an academic specialisation, disability studies would incorporate the rich insights of already institutionalised interdisciplinary fields such as women’s studies, and dalit and tribal studies, sharing common experiences of social exclusion and mobilisation.

Historicising Disability and Disability Studies

Shilpaa Anand points out that, being a field of inquiry that has originated in the West, Disability Studies tacitly draws on historical material that is peculiar to the West’s experiences of the world. 

Consequently, historicising disablement in non-Western cultural contexts using the Western paradigm for mapping out African, South Asian, Japanese and Middle Eastern histories of disability is problematic. Such a perspective, for example, excludes historical experiences, such as colonialism, that the West’s collective experience cannot conceptualise. Anand proposes a solution through a re-evaluation of the historical method(s) adopted.

Destigmatisation, Recognition and Empowerment

Concrete proposals are needed to ameliorate the life conditions of persons with disabilities through micro- and macro-level approaches. Suggestions are made to replicate strategies of the women’s movement for empowerment in the disability sector. Phenomenological exploration of the lived reality of exclusion, gender budgeting and engendering legal instruments and policy documents are put forward as concrete possibilities to this end.

People-first Language

As language is a key tool of oppression, naming is critical when a socially disadvantaged section of the population seeks recognition and rights. Analysis of key linguistic terms and the replacement of pejorative with more value-neutral and positive terms are essential preliminary steps in any movement towards collective self-affrmation and empowerment. 

The disability rights movement has promoted a move away from a language of handicap towards a more empowering language that emphasises self-determination and personhood. In the American context, this people-first language approach has given rise to the use of the term ‘person with disabilities’.

The term, ‘People-first language’ is about the correct terminology and language to describe different types of disability. Proponents of people-first language use the term “people with disabilities” rather than “disabled people”. 

This people-first idiom, often used by disability studies scholars in the United States, seeks to emphasise the individual rather than their disability. By contrast, the term “disabled people”, which is often favoured in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and in languages other than English, emphasises an affirmative sense of group identity and minority status. 

In the Indian context, where political correctness is a prickly issue, the tendency is to use a mix of terms like ‘differently-abled’, ‘challenged’, ‘person with a disability’ and ‘child with special needs’ in policy documents, media reports and even by disability activists.

‘Temporarily Able-Bodied’

TAB is an acronym for “temporarily able-bodied”. Disability scholars and rights activist use this term to highlight the flexibility of disability as a category which, unlike gender or race, any human being can join at any stage in their lives. 

It emphasises the fact that able-bodied status is temporary and, if we live long enough, most of us will become disabled in some way. Disabilities can be invisible and short-lived; most disabilities are acquired over the course of a lifetime rather than from birth. The term “not yet disabled” is used to similar effect.

‘Crip Reading’ from a Literary Context

“To crip” is to question and to subvert dominant cultural expectations about disability and able-bodiedness in fresh new ways. In a literary context, a “crip” reading suggests a subversive reading of text that emphasises the presence of disability, the potential for interpretations and representations that deviate from a rigid norm. 

By re-appropriating a term that traditionally has derogatory associations, “crip theory” draws attention to the significance of linguistic choices and turns traditional meanings inside out to make “crip” a term with a positive value. In this sense, “crip” or “to crip” is comparable to the use of “queer” or the verb “to queer” in queer and gender theory.

Conclusion

Disability Studies Scholars argue for disability as an important and potentially transformative category and root for voices that speak with, rather than for, disabled communities and help to reconfigure understandings of literary history and shift modes of reading in the present. In this regard, Disability Studies is founded on a commitment to challenging the social marginalisation of people with disabilities.

*****

Select Bibliography

Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities. Edited by Sharon L. Snyder, Brenda Jo Brueggemann, and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson. The Modern Language Association of America, New York, 2002.

Disability Studies in India: Global Discourses, Local Realities. Ed. Renu Addlakha. Routledge, New Delhi, 2013.

Disability Studies: An Interdisciplinary Introduction. Dan Goodley. SAGE Publications Ltd. London. 2011.

Disability Studies in India Retrospects and Prospects. G.N. Karna. Gyan Publishing House New Delhi. 2001.

Disability Studies Today. Ed. Colin Barnes, Mike Oliver and Len Barton. Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd. London. 2002.

DIS/ABILITY STUDIES: Theorising Disablism and Ableism. Dan Goodley. Routledge, New York. 2014.

Literature and Disability. Alice Hall. Routledge. New York. 2016.

The Disability Studies Reader. Fourth Edition. Lennard J. Davis. Routledge, New York, 2013.

Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies. Second edition. Ed. Nick Watson and Simo Vehmas. Second edition. Routledge. New York, 2020.

*****

"In any period it is upon a very small minority that the discerning appreciation of art and literature depends..."

From “Literary into Cultural Studies”                  

[Excerpted & Abridged]                             

By Antony Easthope

Introduction

In 1962 Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions showed that most of the time the scientific community sails along happily within a paradigm. From time to time, however, new evidence or contradictions within the paradigm accumulate until the paradigm itself falls into doubt.

At this point there is a crisis, a return to ‘first principles’ and an intense interest in theory (for which there is no need while the paradigm rides high). Thereafter, a new paradigm is established, theoretical questions are put on the shelf and things return to normal.

The Basic Opposition between What is Literary and What is Not!

Something like this has happened in literary studies during the past two decades. Twenty years ago, the institutionalised study of literature throughout the English-speaking world rested on an apparently secure and unchallenged foundation, the distinction between what is literature and what is not. He did spell out this basic opposition in a pamphlet he published a year after the economic collapse of 1929. In Mass Civilization and Minority Culture Leavis wrote –

In any period it is upon a very small minority that the discerning appreciation of art and literature depends: it is only a few who are capable of unprompted, first-hand judgment. Upon this minority depends our power of profiting by the finest human experience of the past; they keep alive the subtlest and most perishable parts of tradition.

Upon them depend the implicit standards that order the finer living of an age, the sense that this is worth more than that, this rather than that is the direction in which to go. In their keeping…is the language, the changing idiom upon which fine living depends, and without which distinction of spirit is thwarted and incoherent. By ‘culture’ I mean the use of such language. (1930, pp. 3–5)

Minority Culture vs Mass Civilisation

According to this proposition of F. R. Leavis, society then, is not to be thought of as a democracy but rather as an oligarchy with concentric circles of the elite (a ‘very small minority’) at the centre. This Minority culture is defined in a binary opposition with mass civilisation; works of literature consist of ‘human experience’ and so contrast with the texts of mass or popular culture; created by individual authors literature can evoke a ‘genuine personal response’ in the reader, whereas popular culture, collectively and commercially produced, is stereotyped, formulaic, anonymous and deficient in ‘human experience’.

Eagleton on the Great Shift from the Older Literary Paradigm

Just how far the older literary paradigm has shifted in the past two decades can be seen in the words of a powerfully influential contemporary critic, Terry Eagleton –

My own view is that it is most useful to see ‘literature’ as a name which people give from time to time for different reasons to certain kinds of writing within a whole field of what Michel Foucault has called ‘discursive practices’, and that if anything is to be an object of study it is this whole field of practices rather than just those sometimes rather obscurely labelled ‘literature’.

Only two generations separate Leavis from Eagleton here. Yet in those fifty-three years modern literary studies was invented, institutionalised in the academy, fell into crisis, and is now being transformed into something else, cultural studies.

The Collapse of the Old Paradigm

In 1975 Jonathan Culler in Structuralist Poetics explained that all local interpretations of the literary text took place according to much more deeply imbedded protocols for reading which he described as ‘literary competence.’

He shows how a banal newspaper story, arranged into lines like a poem, attracts a literary reading from which an entirely new sense of its significance emerges - set up as a poem, he says, the text claims that it is ‘atemporal’, ‘complete in itself’ and will ‘cohere at a symbolic level.’

In line with this, in 1975 Fish proposes that texts are constituted by ‘interpretive communities’, shared intersubjective protocols. Therefore, literature and literary value does not exist except as what the community imagines it to be because in the first place the text has no material identity.

Fish recounts how a list of names was on the blackboard after one class when students came for another –

Jacobs-Rosenbaum

Levin

Thorne

Hayes

Ohman (?)

- so he told the second group this was a religious poem and asked them to interpret it. Which they did, pretty well in his account, by exercising their ‘literary competence’ within the interpretive community, thereby claiming that there are no texts, only interpretations to a text.

Authored versus Collective Texts

In its object literary study discovers the ‘presence’ of an individual author, each envisaged as self-created, self-acting, undetermined, owing final allegiance only to himself and his imagination.

Accordingly, the material, institutional conditions for literary production - sales of the novels of Dickens, the contemporary reception of Jude the Obscure, the price of entry to Shakespeare’s theatre - are relegated to the ‘background’ while the creative works become the essential inside and are thus ‘foregrounded’.

Cultural studies can assume no such foundation. A film is manifestly a collective production, involving (in no particular order), producers, director, stars, camera operators, script writers, sound and lighting engineers, set mechanics, ‘front office’, promoters, advertisers, distributors, theatre managers, and so on (for prestige purposes present-day Hollywood increasingly names the seventy or so individuals who have worked on a production).

Conclusion

The object of cultural studies exhibits a shift from the author towards a decentred account of social production, displacing identification in the transcendent authority of self-creation with a necessarily more dispersed identification.

A discourse of knowledge begins to develop which can make no such claims to authority and power but rather installs its subject as relative rather than transcendent, determined rather than sovereign.

Let's Take a Resolve Today...

Let’s Say ‘No’ to ‘Distracted Walking’ | Condolence Post

Our deepest condolences to the bereaved family members of Ms. Nikitha, from Kollam, Kerala, who was doing her First year Psychology in our College.

Words cannot express the shock at this sudden loss of such a lovely, young and vibrant kid in such a tragic manner.

This 19-year old student who was working part-time as a teacher, to make ends meet, was hit by a train while crossing the railway track at Irumbuliyur near Tambaram.

Eyewitnesses have said that, she was talking over the phone. The Guruvayur Express plying towards the city ran over Nikitha who died on the spot, says a senior police officer.

Please let us all be extremely careful while using the cell phones while walking. This applies to all of us, teachers, students and other commuters as well.

A study conducted by the University of Birmingham found that –

Slow-crossing students with cell phones were up to 43% more likely to be hit by a vehicle while crossing the street; and

Students using cell phones took up to 20% longer to cross the street than children who were not using a cell phone; and

Children looked both ways 20% fewer times when crossing the street while using cell phones.

Studies done in several other countries have shown that distracted walking is a hazard!

Research conducted in both Japan and England show similar increases in this trend. An experiment was conducted in London’s busy Brick Lane area which was identified as the top spot for London’s 68,000 texting accidents in 2007.

Lampposts and other obstructions were wrapped and padded to minimize injury to pedestrians who texted and talked on cell phones as they walked.

Cameras were installed to capture pictures of people running into these obstructions and record incident frequency.

In California and Texas, campaigns warning pedestrians to be focused on their safety when walking have emerged.

San Francisco adopted a huge media blitz warning walkers about the dangers of headphones while walking.

One of the ads asks “Do you want Beethoven to be the last thing you hear?”

Keeping in touch is important, but it is more important to be alive to get the message.

On an aside, I so vividly recollect an accident that had happened just in front of the Indian Bank near Captain’s Corner, [Adjacent to Air Force Road, Tambaram East].

This accident happened almost 12 years ago, and Dr. Annet Pearl (presently our Dean of Student Affairs) and myself, were the only faculty members who witnessed the accident first-hand, which happened right in front of our eyes.

The boy, a B.Com student of our College was talking to someone on his mobile, while riding very fast on that stretch, when he was hit by a lorry, and he was killed on the spot. The sad thing was, the person on the other side who didn’t know that he was thrown off his bike and had died, was still on the call, asking ‘Hello, are you there’…

Bystanders had to tell her that the rider had passed away in the accident. I can also imagine how much the girl on the other side of the call would have been traumatized to hear that it was because of her conversation with him while he was on the move, that could have resulted in his death!

Please! Let’s all walk, with our eyes wired to the roads on all sides! Not wired to our mobiles, atleast while walking! Rehashing the ad to say, “Do you want Ilayaraja or A.R.Rahman to be the last thing you hear?”

And this little message is for you and me and we – all of us who are equally prone to be distracted by our cellphones while walking!

We shall all take a resolve tonight! Shall we?

That resolve would be, 'No to distracted walking!'

Statistics Sourced from: https://www.ocwr.gov/

Newspaper Snapshot: The New Indian Express, Today's Chennai City Edition

Photo Courtesy: DTNext, City Edition

"Let’s consider ourselves as individuals..."

It’s time to stop talking about "feminism"!

Sai Shri R | 28/2/23

“Feminism” means “equality” and I believe that the latter proves to be better!

While it’s important to learn feminism and issues associated with women empowerment from History, feminism itself is a very Indian concept often westernised.

There are umpteen number of reasons to stop thinking about feminism and I am trying to list down some of the ones I believe to be prominent.

Clinging to the old weak branches of issues related to women empowerment blinds us from seeing the existing ones. While women suffered a great deal of harassment in the past and as many may argue they still do, soap operas contribute a great deal to set lower and in some cases no expectations at all.

Times have changed! While in most cases men are portrayed as mamma’s boys, let’s do a reality check!

Yes! There are men who don’t spend time with their wives and would want to spend time with their parents more, but don’t we see couples seeking therapy for the same, isn’t that a step forward?

We have learnt to analyse red flags in relationships and marriages from history and we have learned to walk away from them. It’s easier for manipulative men and their side to get us to believe that toxicity is normal if we don’t see the improvement that shines right in front of our eyes.

It’s easier for misogynists to make a woman see harassment as normalcy, if we don’t see the majority of good men willing to learn and unlearn.

Most in-laws are normal people believing in equality, trying to get the daughter-in-law unlearn the deep rooted insecurities and the beliefs gathered up halfway that a mother-in-law is the ruler of the house, most in-laws in cosmopolitan societies want their daughter-in-laws to excel in their respective fields.

I have seen my dad stand up for my mom umpteen number of times and I have also seen how he stands up for himself and for her, like the gentleman that he is, when he is taunted for the same.

We aren’t the first generation seeing women empowerment; it has been there for aeons now. But the negativity proves its might giving a nice time for misogynistic people. It’s time for us to come out of it.

Negativity attracts negativity. Many of the present-day relationship problems aren’t related to feminism, it has got a lot to do with communication issues. Us feminists don’t hate men, we hate inequality. When we say so, we must also be very careful not to abuse men as abuse doesn’t see faces or sexes, it only has the abuser and the one being abused.

While many men learning to do the household chores and cooking, the chances of women being looked at as maids that bring home salary are less. It is still important for women stick to their terms of spending the money that they earn.

Now we haven’t done away with inequality, we still find inequality in our society. But most often in the workplaces, where a man with lesser efficiency still feels somehow superior to his women counterparts who are actually better than him.

We have bigger problems like gender playing a very important role in pay gap, while our previous generations opted for single child, this pay gap is a real problem we face, causing repercussions in health and living conditions for the elderly.

While feminism still means equality, let’s consider ourselves as individuals and not as a man and a woman when it comes to equality, let’s consider ourselves as employees and not allow ourselves to be categorised as male and female employees, emphasising equal opportunities and equal pay and benefits.

Using the alternative term “equality” gives a lot more scope for women to achieve equal rights starting from making the decision to choose a nuclear or joint family, it becomes a lot more easier to break gender barriers thereby breaking gender associated responsibilities.

I believe that in the current context, gender is personal and it is important to be seen as individuals.