Home

An estimated one hundred million people in the world are categorized homeless in a 2005 survey completed by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (homelessworldcup.org, 2014). When it comes to the term, most believe the figures presented, but the word “home” is is very complex and can vary from person to person. To present an all-encompassing definition of home is very difficult due to its evolving nature as one progresses through the trajectory of life. The difference in perception is explained in very beautiful way by renowned saint, Kabir Sahib ji, in his words:

                       हंसा बगुला एक रंग, मान सरोवर माहिं ।

                       बगुला ढूंढै माछरी, हंसा मोती खांहि ।।

Saint Kabir sahib ji asserts that the swan and heron bear same colour, both dwelling in the lake divine, Heron searches for fish while swan like to be fed upon pearls (Namah, 2000). The other example could be of a drop which transforms accordingly when it falls on banana leaf, oyster and in the mouth of serpent. Connecting home to a fixed geographical or mental sphere will limit its meaning unless concept of evolution of home based on perception and experience one encounters is also considered.

One may agree that home keeps evolving but argue that people keep on relating to the place where they spent most of their time, so how home changes for the same person.

. The Answer to this lies in the general human behaviour, for a child his toys are everything to him and when it gets broken, he starts weeping but when the kid enters teenage his fascination shifts from toys to his friends and although he feels nostalgic at times remembering his toys and time spent playing with them, he no longer would like to spend his time playing with them significantly. This reflects change in mental sphere which will keep changing as the time progresses. For some, home may remain same geographically for their entire life but their perspective towards it changes from time to time which makes them look at things differently. Sometimes they feel attached to one thing more than the other and sometimes the whole conception changes completely,but it never remains the same throughout their life. Pico Iyer in his Ted Talk (2013) speaks about what he thought the home was for a major part of his life and how it got changed. He reveals that till the time his house was burnt, he related his idea of home to the materialistic things but later during his visit to a monastery his perspective changed like the two opposite poles of the magnet. Previously for him home was all that he had but now it was no longer materialistic but only peace. One can easily reaffirm that Iyer’s home evolved for him due to his change of vision. This behaviour can be understood simply with example of coloured spectacles, as one switches spectacles from blue to red the whole world looks red which previously seemed to be blue.

Feeling of people on this concept is mixed, on one hand they agree that home is in mind and differs according to the perception but on the other hand they argue that a person remains attached to the home since childhood so how can emotions gets changed and the same person starts associating his home to totally different things? I do not advocate that emotions or feelings gets changed but emphasize that they evolves.Like while reading a detective novel we are not presented with all the clues in the initial chapters but then also we try to find the culprit by associating small details with the characters, as we move to advance chapters our database of clues expands and we switch the character that we initially thought was main culprit. Similarly as we move forward in life our list of experiences expands which adds to our understanding, changing the way we access the things to a more broad view. This is brought up in article Romancing the rains (Kashyap, 2014) in which the writer starts by fantasizing home as a place of enjoyment and narrates his happy moments with his family, but later when he acknowledges the horrible moments that other have experienced at home then he realizes that his theory of home was biased on his personal encounters. After updating his perspective he wonders if he still could fantasize home as a place of only happy moments.

One can complicate the matter further by arguing that home cannot be made by just single person, it is collective effort of all the people living in it so how can it be changed with the change in ideology of just one person? Potential answer for this to which most critical thinkers would agree is that one is defining home according to one’s own view and is not going by the view of other people. Although they are in same family but this does not imply that their mindset needs to be same. Parents may attribute their daughter as their home but at the same time the daughter may finds her home around her husband.

Home is in one’s mind, certainly, but I disagree that it always remains the same even if it is attributed to a geographical location. Physically home may have remained same for a person throughout one’s life or is a place one feels nostalgic about but life is an ongoing process and it is impossible to avoid encountering new experiences and knowledge, which in turn changes the perspective and priorities as a result of which conception of home changes at every turn like pattern in same kaleidoscope changes at every angle. Home maybe found around materialistic things or maybe accepted as a state of mind because man is his own architect and can construct whatever he is capable of, but the concept he projects keeps evolving like an old building which needs to be repaired from time to time.

References

Homelessworldcup.org. Retrieved September 25, 2014, from http://www.homelessworldcup.org/content/homelessness-statistics

Kashyap, A. (2014, July 11). Romancing the rains. BLINK: The Hindu Business Line. Retrieved September 1, 2014, from http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/blink/cover/romancing-the-rains/article6197554.ece

Iyer, P. (2013, July 17). What is home? TedTalk [video file]. Edinburg, Scotland: TedTalk. Retrieved September 17, 2014, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m6dV7Xo3Vc

Namah, S. S. (2000). Deeds design destiny (2^nd edition). India

Kaleidoscopic Home: It never remains the same

One hundred million is the estimated count of the people termed as homeless after a survey done in 2005 by United Nations Commission on Human Rights (homelessworldcup.org, 2014). When it comes to the term of being ‘homeless’, most of us believe the figure presented in the above survey however the agreement ends as soon as word home is emphasized because it is so complex and carry so many different meanings for every person. To present an all-encompassing definition of home is very difficult due to its evolving nature as one progresses through the trajectory of life. The difference in perception is explained in a very beautiful way by renowned saint Kabir Sahib Ji  In his words:

                       हंसा बगुला एक रंग, मान सरोवर माहिं ।

                      बगुला ढूंढै माछरी, हंसा मोती खांहि ।।­

Saint Kabir sahib ji asserts that the swan and heron bear same colour, both dwelling in the lake divine, Heron searches for fish while swan like to be fed upon pearls (Namah, 2000). The other example could be of a drop which transforms accordingly when it falls on banana leaf, oyster and in the mouth of a serpent.

Connecting home to a fixed geographical or mental sphere will limit its meaning unless the concept of evolution of home based on perception and experience one encounters is also considered.

The idea of home as an evolving entity raises the question of how home can change for the same person. One may move to a different place but then also keeps relating to the previous place. The answer to it lies in the general human behaviour which manifests itself in ways that slowly evolve. For a child, his toys would mean everything to him and when it gets broken, he starts weeping but when the kid enters teenage, his fascination shifts from toys to his friends and although he feels nostalgic at times remembering his toys and time spent playing with them, he no longer would like to spend his time playing with them significantly. This reflects change in mental sphere which will keep changing as the time progresses. For some, home may remain same geographically for their entire life but their perspective towards it changes from time to time which makes them look at things differently. Sometimes they feel attached to one thing more than the other and sometimes just opposite happens but it never remains the same throughout their life. Pico Iyer in his Ted Talk (2013) speaks about what he thought the home was for a major part of his life and how it got changed. He reveals that until the time his house was burnt, he related his idea of home to the materialistic things but later during his visit to a monastery his perspective changed completely like the two opposite poles of the magnet. Previously for him home was all that he had but now it was no longer materialistic but only peace. One can easily reaffirm that Iyer’s home evolved for him due to his change of vision. This behaviour can be understood simply with example of coloured spectacles, as one switches spectacles from blue to red the whole world looks red which previously seemed to be blue.

Feeling of many people on this concept is mixed as on one hand they agree that home is in mind not on map and differs according to the perception but on the other hand argue that a person remains attached to the home since childhood so how can emotions and attachment towards home gets changed and the same person starts associating his home to totally different things? I do not advocate that emotions or feelings gets changed but emphasize that they evolve, like while reading a detective novel we are not presented with all the clues in the initial chapters but then also we keep on trying to find the culprit by associating small details with the characters, as we move to advance chapters our database of clues expands and we switch the character that we initially thought was main culprit by some other character. Similarly as we move forward in life our list of experiences expands which adds to our understanding, changing the way we access the things, to a more broad view. This is brought up in essay Romancing the rains (Kashyap, 2014) in which the writer starts by fantasizing home as a place of enjoyment and narrates his happy moments with his family but later when he acknowledges the horrible moments that other have experienced at home then he realizes that his theory of home was biased on his personal encounters only and after updating his perspective he wonders if he still could fantasize home as a place of only happy moments.

One can complicate the matter further by arguing that home cannot be made by just single person, it is collective effort of all the people living in it so how can it be changed with the change in ideology of just one person? Potential answer for this to which most critical thinkers would agree is that one is defining home according to one’s own view and is not going by the view of other people. Although they are in same family but this does not imply that their mindset needs to be same. For the parents home may mean their daughter but, at the same time the daughter may finds her home around her husband.

Summarizing all the arguments I celebrate the fact that home is in one’s mind but I disagree that it always remains the same even if it is attributed to a geographical location which has remained same for a person throughout one’s life or is a place one feels nostalgic about because life is an ongoing process and it is impossible to avoid encountering new experiences and knowledge, which in turn changes the perspective and priorities as a result of which conception of home changes at every turn like pattern in same kaleidoscope changes at every angle. Home maybe found around materialistic things or maybe accepted as a state of mind because man is his own architect and can construct whatever he is capable of but the concept he projects keeps evolving like an old building which needs to be repaired from time to time.

References

Homelessworldcup.org. Retrieved September 25, 2014 from http://www.homelessworldcup.org/content/homelessness-statistics

Kashyap, A. (2014, July 11). Romancing the rains. BLINK: The Hindu Business Line. Retrieved September 1, 2014 from http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/blink/cover/romancing-the-rains/article6197554.ece

Iyer, P. (2013, July 17). What is home? TedTalk [video file]. Edinburg, Scotland: TedTalk. Retrieved September 17, 2014 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m6dV7Xo3Vc

Namah, Shri Sadguru (2000), Deeds Design Destiny (second edition), India

Introduction to essay

Indian Women: neglected housewives

Women when seen from the lens of child is 'Mom','Grand mother'. For a male teenager is also 'girlfriend' and finally for a grown up is 'wife'. But what is the difference right? When man seen through the lenses of women they do also play significant roles as 'father','grand father', 'boyfriend' and 'husband'. The main critical aspect of seeing through the men's lenses lies when we start counting the degree of ignorance of women. Degree of ignorance of women in every aspect is evident from the history of the world. One of the most common example is Women's suffrage in 1893 when for the first time in the history of world women were allowed to vote. One may argue that how does social life of women outside of home relate to the life inside the home? Relation between domestic and social life can be easily compared as the domination factor is the same in both the cases.
For the position of women socially one may see the difference in the status of women since 1893 as now even India has women in I.A.S. position and as CEO of leading businesses. But does it have made any difference in the domestic life of women? only 22.27% of women includes working force in India in 2011 [ Ministry of labour and employment ] and also we cannot assume that these 22.27% have fair conditions at home. Home is usually what man defines it as evident from the most bollywood movies with eldest man of the family occupying the central chair often regarded as chair of power. Although we have seen a radical change in the social context in position of women in the Indian society, we still require to scrutinize the condition of women as in real world.

In what ways must you apply elements of Critical thinking to each of the four moralities in our assignment: (1) oral, (2) Written, (3) Visual, and (4) Electronic?

'A picture speaks a thousands words' is one of the most common phrase known to us but when words compliment the pictures, they serves as icing on the cake. Visual representation of the thoughts helps in explaining the views more clearly although they may not substitute the written text completely. Visual representation seems to serve as universal appeal as it speaks its content itself without any language and yet conveys the message or views completely.

In my assignment, I want to emphasis more on visual representation to make my story self-explanatory and complement it with voice-over to fill the transition gap between two pictures. I may use written text to explain the context of the current picture but use the voice-over to take the story forward or in other words to maintain the flow of the story devised. As most of my visual representation will be of simple pictures so I will be using MS PowerPoint to present my point through various slides mainly as pictures. I want to use all of the four elements as mixed to present my story because using only one of the above will not be sufficient to present the idea in the most appealing way.
Although I am struggling with hoe to present the oral part of the presentation but I am thinking to do it myself because it will add to the list of my new experiences. As of the visual part I will not be using much of the animation stuff because it will not make me to thing more deeply on how can I convey the same message in lesser frames and also we do not have enough time to learn simple animation. So to use time judicially and think more critically I have planned to sketch out a rough idea on how I want my images to be structured slide wise and which type of image (setting of the image environment) will be more suitable to present the context. Again to work on structure I have used cwc's story boarding structure to keep me on the my sketched structure although I will not be using story boarding completely in my presentation.

Assignment 2 about 'Make in India'

 Many local business will be affected both in positive and negative ways by the make in India policy. Some products will be available at lower price because cost of the product will not include import duties and will help in increasing employment in India. But it will also lead to increase in competition in the local market leading to destruction of small scale start-ups in industries like clothing, hand looms etc. For my second draft I would like to interview budding entrepreneurs who are planning for start ups in India to capture their reaction on the call of Modi of 'Make in India'. My initial question to them would be the following : 
1. Who are the targeted audience according to you of Modi's call of 'Make in India' and what will  be its effect on the targeted audience ?
2. Do you see yourself affected by this call of Modi ? How will you be effected? How long the effect will last because it seems to be political issue?
3. Are you taking Modi's call seriously and you think his call would make any difference in any or specifically your industry and to the customers of your industries?
4. From overall development (including people affected directly and indirectly)  perspective is the policy of 'Make in India' fruitful or destroying ?

Second Draft Strategy

It is always very easy to do something but to do it correctly is a challenge. The same happened with my first draft. I focused on all the technicalities like word limit,citation but forgot to implement the main thing i.e., the structure itself. For the second draft I planned to reorganize the first draft and use the cwc structure sheet to proceed.

Revision of the first draft helped me to find the counter argument,so I will use the peer review again to get to know the ambiguity and the counter arguments in my draft. For the second draft I am also looking forward for the cwc help to reduce ambiguity and tighten the structure as much as possible. The comments of professor has also given all of us an idea of how we have to analyse our paper. Many of the professor's edits that make sense are also helpful to proceed towards the next draft. Only the thing left this time is the lack of ideas as I have to again think a lot because most of my thoughts were already covered in my first unstructured draft.

Modi has asked businesses to ask their employees to spend time cleaning workplaces, streets, and neighborhoods. What has been the reaction? Do you think Modi's call is appropriate, and/or what will/should happen next?

Everyone was busy in their work before the silent ambiance of the office room was broken by the laughter of the boss.He couldn't help himself laughing, forgetting all about his surroundings. One of the executive dared to look inside the room and read the headline on NDTV, "Modi has asked businesses to ask their employers to spend time cleaning work spaces, streets and neighborhoods

".At lunch time, half of the anti-Modi executives were  seen teasing their Modi supporter colleagues with the 'cleaning' jokes. One of the joke says 'Modi will boom economy by dissolving Municipal Corporation because in his era streets will be cleaned by people themselves so n need of Municipal Corporation cleaners.' No one among them remembered the cause which was of more value than indulging in party politics.
Some dismissed Modi's appeal of cleaning as political drama while others termed it as his strategy of diverting people's attention from the current issues.Although at the root level many people agrees that the cause of unhygienic surrounding lies in their own ignorant acts, but they are not ready to accept it because these issues has been addressed by a political leader. Political leaders are always expected to address the mistakes of the opposition and never to represent genuine interest in public welfare. Even when the leaders shows their interest in welfare activities most of us tends to find the strings attached to their acts. I am not a Modi supporter but I do pay heed to good advises irrespective of their sources, as we are more concerned to search our lost object in the dark without caring about the source of light. People are in habit of looking at one side of things and reaching to conclusions based on that without considering the other aspect just like our ancestors considered earth to be flat only because it seemed to be flat. I agree with the argument that Modi's call encompassed his own interest of publicity of himself but on this basis we cannot neglect the underlying message.Although the reaction of people n Modi's call was mixed the main cause for the need to clean remains genuine.

The ocean is built from the contribution of rivers similarly the heap of garbage that we see around streets is not because of single person. Following the same trend of spreading unhygiene  if we start contributing to clean starting from the personal level then soon we all can make difference. Today because of our ignorant attitude it looks like garbage and filth has become a part of our life. Sight of heap of filth all around the streets has become common like in the image shown below. Today may be the small pile of garbage is surrounding the road but if it continued then soon small area of road will be hard to observe around the garbage at same place.

 Just the small difference in attitude can lead to big changes. Our attitude of self-help will not only lead to better surroundings but will also contribute towards removal of the caste system in the society. The street cleaners in our societies are considered to be of lower caste and are treated with inferiority, but when the people will start cleaning streets by themselves then they will be bound to forget the difference.
Charity begins at home at the small level, so as per Modi the starting step should be of cleaning the workspacce and the surrounding area which will slowly impact the community at large. After this the next step should be of spreading awareness and eradicating the factors leading to various problems like diseases etc by these garbages by campaigns at slums and at rural level.

Review of views

The word view is made up of just four words through which one tries to express thoughts but these four words turns into five when reviewed by peers and changes into views. In my essay I get to know about the ambiguity that my sentences made which render complete different meaning to my thoughts that I want to express. By review process I got a chance to reduce ambiguity.

I completed my essay from the writer's perspective but after incorporating the questions of others and answering them I also came to know about how the audience of my essay may perceive my words and how should I as a writer should try to tackle them in advance.

Thoughts and views of peers served as 'they say' part and also compelled me to think more critically on some topics presented in the essay as the views of everyone regarding a topic may be different which I realized after peer review, review process made me realize that assuming certain things with not persuade readers as they may be of different viewpoints and the best thing to enhance any topic is to question it.

What it means to be Indian ?

India is recognized as a land of diversities.
Kerala is called 'Land of Gods' , Lakshadweep is known for '99% fun  1% land.'
Some people talk about India's golden history, some fantasize the rich culture that India has and some can’t stop praising the hospitality culture that are in the ethics of Indian people,” अतिथि देवो भवः”- (from Hindu scripture) meaning ‘The Guest is God’.
Below is the excerpt on how people get fantasize by the Incredible excellence of the diverse culture of India --

 

Some people contradict all the above statements and forms perceptions based on their personal experiences and argue that India is a land of poverty, corruption, illiteracy, blended culture and their list goes on….

I celebrate all the above facts as there are always two faces of the same coin, you cannot have same side up always after tossing the unbiased coin. To me India is my Motherland as I have lived here for seventeen years and have felt the richness, diversities of its culture and celebrated all the joyous moments like Diwali and Id, felt pain when the riots were going on. I do not deny the concept of diversity in India but according to me it adds a flavour to every aspect. It reciprocate the choices we can have for anything and we do have liberty here to choose because here diversity is not compelling us to make a certain choice.

I would like to further complicate it by adding my views on ‘What does it mean to be Indian’. Being Indian to me does not relate to anyone who have ancestors from India or to only those who are fighting at the border. It means to be unpredictable, undefined, It means the ability to be able to work with unrelated things without any hassle like on the one side we believe in scientific theories and remain technologically updated but we go to the temple/church everyday and follow all our traditions. Sometimes we request our teachers to repeat a topic in class and we don’t do the homework that the same teacher assigns to us. Sometimes we do things that we don’t love and criticize the things that we like. The song that encapsulate some of my emotion stated above is from Bollywood movie ‘Phir bhi dil hai hindustani’ released on 2000 :-

The quality that I admire the most and is one of the important trait of being Indian is of never losing hope. As an example we have our own Prime Minister who was once a tea-seller and is now the prime minister of the country because hope keeps us going and the ability to never give up opens the doors to even the impossible which is common in India. Dare to take tasks and complete it without complaining or fear is also one of the admirable trait of Indians, its not the absence of resources or even mind in some cases as most people will argue but a will to challenge the limits to the highest.Once we accept a task we complete it at any cost The image below is an example for this fact (credits Sankalp)

Sometimes people confuse others by mixing the concept of being patriotic and having love for country, I refuse to consider the two facts as same. My perception of India gets further complicated when the concept of home is added to it. I can’t help myself relating to the various aspects of India and thinking it as of my home. Although the geographical location of my home is in North India but I enjoy South Indian food, Rajasthani dance, Bengali clothes and the list goes on.

Home makes one feel comfortable and let the person enjoy and being Indian gives the chance to enjoy variety of every culture, tradition, and music not because of the geographic significance but because of the diversity of the talent people showcase and the best of all is that here all people are not doing this for monetary gain but only for their passion, their interest. One can find the latest sand art at the beaches and the traditional kathputli dance at Delhi. People here not only have Lamborghini Aventador in their garages but some have Ampala as well from the 80s. India is like a Grand library where you get to learn from history as well as you get to be familiarize yourself with political developments, its totally up to you what you want from it. Just as we have liberty to choose in our home.

The concept of Being Indian and home is so relatable that at least now we should accept our nation as our Home and start giving due respect to all the citizens as we give at our home to our loved ones. For being complete Indian we should not stand mute at the site of robbery or eve teasing but stand for the cause of the moment, so maybe one day pessimistic will not be able to call us ‘corrupt’ and will not be able to ignore the rich culture we have. 

Construction of nation is similar as home and it is in our hand, either we can use Ambuja cement or Birla cement, we can either choose to preserve this paradise or contribute to devastate it through our deeds by writing on the walls of the monuments and doing similar things.


Thesis :

Home is not just a physical place but a place to think, re-think, reflect and ponder upon while sitting on how to cover miles. By reflecting we can enjoy the true essence of every moment.

And yet Indian and India is Undefined.........

What does Home mean?

Bricks when put together even using highest level of architecture cannot build 'Home' unless our heart is attached to it. Architects build buildings but it is only the feeling from deepest level of our heart that urge us to call that place as 'The Home'.
At home it feels like as if we have met ourselves. Unlike other places we don't have to follow any rules that most of the times we are not even aware of and we are not forced to be conscious about our usual habits that by no means can be proved wrong. For me home is a place where comfort do not come from Samsung dual-split air-conditioners but from the feeling of being free, enjoying the real freedom, enjoying the unconsciousness by thinking on random subjects of my choice, singing in my own voice (although being a very bad singer) that I wouldn't have done unless I'm alone. The feeling of mental attachment towards home has become so prominent that it has become a part of human nature. As an example, whenever we are tired doing any activity the words that strike our mind are usually,"Oh God! I want to go Home". Now the term 'home' has become synonymous with 'complete relaxation'. The feeling of being relaxed and calm can be felt by just lightly thinking about word home.
Most of the time I forget all my worries when I see my home where I have spent so much of time engaging in the activities that are in list of my interest. To me home seems to be another world where I can think, re-think ,analyse and solve all my worries.It's a place where I have my own pace in everything I do or want to do. One of the things I like the most about home is working without being bothered by anyone unlike any other place. By this I do not mean a place of practicing complete laziness but a place with self-organized flexible schedule where interest and feelings are governing body and cause of almost all the actions.
To me home is like a paradise where I can follow my own set of rules (yes! I have none). Being at home is like staying calm,relaxed and at ease in performing most of the tasks. We don't have to pay heed to any passerby who may mock us just because he didn't like the site of anyone enjoying football match. It's a place where we are not scared of cheering our favorite team by producing all the possible kind of weird sounds that our vocal cords can produce, we are not afraid of cracking jokes that sometimes we ourselves could not understand.

But are all these things only about actions related to comfort or are about personal attachment. Is home just a place to feel  relaxed and be weird or a state of mind that make all these happen.
I am sure the answer is loud and clear and can be summarized into just a few words we all are familiar with i.e,"Home sweet Home".