Restarting this blog (Again!)

This is another 'About-me' post to mark the new reboot attempt.

As you can see (read), I’m trying to pick up the threads and continue the stories in this blog after a long break.

I need your help in the form of feedback-on the content, layout, structure, format, well on everything. I am especially weak on the technology, platform side of blogging. Thanks to those of you who responded immediately to my call for suggestions-taking out the time to go through my ramblings in spite of your schedules and coming back with your much valued inputs. Please bear with me as I try to categorize and arrange my posts in a coherent order.  Or should I just junk the effort and move to a new WordPress platform? Please keep the feedback flowing.

Having awesome friends has been my biggest strength in life and you’ll find that evidence scattered through my blog posts. It has helped my getting over so much more than technology issues and writing blocks: the insanity in the crazy-busy days of being a hands-on parent; the loneliness of ‘distance parenting’; and yes, even the darkness of an ongoing cancer battle in the family. Restarting this blog and my book project is my way of thanking them for being there for me.

My daughters have grown up into young adults since I started blogging-they don’t need me so much for the day to day logistics, but need me just as much for food when they come back from boarding. And yes for the debates, arguments, confrontations and some conversations. So the 'mom stories' remain the same.

Professionally, I am still in the learning industry, juggling within the different domains in corporate learning with an occasional stint in the social sector. And I am just as frustrated that with all the theories and strategies on learning, the tools and the technology, there has been so little change in the area where it is needed most-the way our children learn at school.

Where am I going?

“In my posts under ‘Exploring Education’ I am sharing my own experiences, dilemmas and questions on the system which needs to work better. I don’t have the answers. Just hoping and trying to influence some change, somewhere.

And then there is the book project-the stories of some mad girls in college. Too early to talk more about them, but we might meet them along the way in the coming posts. Tell me when you spot them :)

Travel Diary

(This is a very old post, got published again in my attempt at classifying the posts; the journal is still at the 'intentions' stage, let's see how it goes)

Elena’s first trip was a trip to her grandparents’ house for her “Annaprasana” ceremony at the age of five months. At nine months she traveled to Dehradun and Mussoorie. ..

Then came Aurora, and ever since we’ve been traveling across the country with these two in tow.

I’ve been planning to update my travel journal ever since. 

Yes I had one ever since I was in school. I would take the time out to retreat to a quiet corner, or the topmost bunk and scribble down the experience as it happened. But then in those days, I have traveled without bookings, without a budget, and even without luggage (yes, at times without my toothbrush).

And now, before the trips I am psyched about making lists, booking tickets and hotels, and packing almost everything they might possible need. During the trips it is about keeping them entertained, resolving arguments, or being an integral part of them. And after the trip-I am up to my eyes, unpacking all the stuff and hitting our daily hurdles-running. And the journal lies waiting.



Yet, we enjoy the trips just as much. And I’m making another attempt at my travel diary. Lets see how it goes.

My Story: The High School Trauma

(This post is a continuation of my story from the earlier post  
This happened a generation ago. I have tried very hard not to repeat my parents’ mistakes. But I am sure; I have made plenty of different ones. I just hope that my daughters deal with them in a better way than I did. )

Mummy meant well. Being a teacher, she  was well-informed about the benefits of CBSE over the archaic state board syllabus and so she changed my school in 11^th standard. Yes she also wanted me to be away from the strong peer pressure, my existing group of friends, and begin again as a focused student.

I did not want to be a focused student. Getting better marks on subjects I anyway didn’t want to study didn’t make much sense. As a teenager who drew on the company of her friends for oxygen, it felt like the end of life to be forced to cope without them.

(My imagination and my emotions were always dramatic (rather melodramatic) as per conventional norms. But that’s how I think and feel. Yeah, even now J.)

I did try to fit in. I made a few friends, kept up with my studies, tried to do all the right things, but it was tough.

I missed my friends from the last ten years, practically my entire lifetime. I missed the old familiar school where each room, each corner was full of memories of growing together. I hated the new routines, the new uniform, just the feeling of going to this new school every morning.

I also felt harassed. I was the new girl in class. A class half-filled with hormonal boys, nurtured on bollywood notions which generally told youngsters that girls fall in love with you if you keep irritating them. I couldn’t discuss these nuisances at home. I had learnt that my parents’ way of protecting me was imprisoning me. There would be more questions, more restrictions more tension.

If I had friends to share the Archies greeting cards with the long, complicated proclamations or the torn slips of notebook with ‘shaayari’ sneaked into my bag, I might have seen the romantic or the comic side to things. But I was alone. And I felt hunted and miserable.

I called my friend and poured out all the angst. She agreed that I needed to take some drastic action.

We decided to change the school-back!

What followed after that phone call with my friend is coming up in the next post but the questions still remain:

The state board/CBSE/ICSE variances remain along with differences in their syllabi, their grading patterns, the different criteria colleges use to score these grades are still painful and so unnecessary. Why can't we have a uniform system?

We need the variances where they matter more-in the subjects a student wants to study.
We need variances in the way students with special needs are taught.

The world has changed in the last quarter of a century.
Why has nothing changed in this area?