Movies are all that I have

It has to be either books or movies or a cricket / football match. These things give me ecstatic feelings, that's why even after coming home at about 10 o'clock in night, I prefer watching movies or reading books before going to bed. Last few days I am enjoying movies on a regular basis, a daily ( and partially nightly dose you can say). Few of the ones that I saw were The Shawshank Redemption, Blood Diamond, Rendition, American Gangster, The Holiday, A Walk To Remember and some more.

The Shawshank Redemption is the best movie I have ever seen, in fact I have already seen it twice but watching Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman in their perhaps best performances is a treat in itself. The specialty of this movie is the powerful storyline and splendid performances. It's ranked at 2nd / 3rd place in IMDB after Godfather, but I believe it deserves the top rank. A must watch movie.

Blood Diamond is a drama film inspired from a true story of a diamond smuggler and an African fisherman about their quest for two different things. Leonardo DiCaprio is in search of a diamond which is buried by Djimon Hounsou who wants to rescue his family from the rebels. After seeing this movie, I literally started hating the diamond makers and their advertisements.

Rendition accuses a controversial CIA practice called extraordinary rendition through which US has transferred suspected terrorists to countries which are known for harsh tortures and interrogation techniques. It's a story of a chemical engineer who has Egyptian origins, lives in states since about 20-30 years. He gets kidnapped by CIA under his suspicious links with the terrorist groups.

American Gangster is a typical Ridley Scott movie inspired from true life stories of Franc Lucas and Richie Roberts. The film is about bringing down a Franc Lucas's drug empire. Denzel Washington played a character of Franc Lucas who smuggles heroin directly from the makers in Vietnam and uses US military planes for the transport. Russel Crowe, a detective and a womanizer who has lost his family life exposes the racket and sends almost 150 criminals behind the bars. Again, must watch movie.

The Holiday is quite nice movie with a different storyline than typical romance comedies. Thing to enjoy are Kate Winslet's performance and lovely sound tracks. Jack Black's small but jolly role is also worth seeing. A Walk To Remember is a romantic movie between a popular but rebellious high school student and a daughter of a reverend. Mandy Moore's soundtracks are worth listening to.

Prabhakar Pustakalay - An eventful journey of 75 years

Last weekend I went to Nagar to see my parents and celebrate Gudhi-Padwa with them. In Hindu rituals, Gudhi Padwa is considered as one of the most auspicious occasions and as it is a beginning of Hindu New Year, it is chosen as the best day to start new things. 75 years back my friend Nikhil Dharmadhikari's grandfather chose the same occasion to start a book shop called Prabhakar Pustakalay. Today Prabhakar Pustakalay is considered as one of the oldest book stores in Nagar and known for giving an honest and transparent service to the customers and a place where you can find rare books.

I was invited to the Satyanarayan Pooja on Sunday. It is a small but nicely organized store proudly presenting the history of its birth. There was a small album with black and white old photos of my friend's family. One of the newspaper cutting was showing a small introduction of how things started in early days and how the founder struggled to make it happen. People came and congratulated Nikhil's father for carrying on the lamp ahead and I could clearly see a "feel of satisfaction" of Dharmadhikari Kaka's face. When they asked the question, who will be taking care of this store after you? He proudly said that it's his next generation. I didn't believe it as Nikhil and his brother both are software engineers and settled in their lives. I didn't expect they will carry on the tradition.

But when I asked Nikhil what he thinks, he said "We are going to do it. We will be bringing in latest technology and modernity in this shop. The day will come when Prabhakar Pustakalay will compete with other book publishers worldwide". I took it lightly and laughed at him but what I really appreciated was Nikhil's attitude. It's great to see our generation, even though technically, intellectually, economically and materialistically considered forward than their ancestors, still value the feelings and traditions. Not only he wants to keep the things going but also wants to change according to the time and that's really a good sign.

Nikhil and his brother will both be having a MBA degree in few years and I will not be surprised if they take their family business to a new horizon. And who knows this could be the first blog which introduced Prabhakar Pustakalay on internet :-)

Wish you all the best guys!!!

Now students evaluate their teachers

University of Pune has come up with a really good scheme to evaluate a teacher's performance. Now the students will be appraise their teachers. Looking at UoP's age, this should have been implemented years before but anyways, it's not late to start a good thing. The VC said that this move will bring in greater transparency and accountability in teachers. I am a bit confused with the word "greater" here because there was "no" transparency earlier. Student is always assessed on a lot of factors be it academical, social, behavioral or anything. However, teachers are rarely applied to such criterion, at least not after they get a job in an institute. There might be factors to be considered in teacher's appraisals, but students were not directly involved in it.

I recently came across a shocking article in a Marathi newspaper that questioned teacher's ability to teach children. It was showing all the statistics of how the quality of teaching is degrading day by day and the possible reasons for it, money and surprisingly decreasing social respect were the most important of them. There were times when a teacher was very much respected, it was until I went to high-schools. I feel very lucky to have some great teachers but now when I go to the same school and see these teachers, I feel ashamed. We used to have some classmates who were notoriously known for some reasons which I can't explain here, these guys are now teaching at my school. I guess, the system is turning out to be so bad that we hardly can expect something from it. I teach a small 3rd standard boy everyday. He is very regular in his classes, does his homework timely, get it assessed from teachers. But when I ask a simple problem, he gets totally lost. His teacher says that he is a good student but doesn't seem so to me. She teaches a class of around 60 kids, you can see how extensively she worked on her students by looking at their notebooks but that impression vanishes the moment you ask something. This is because the students never "understand" a subject, all they do is mug up things and put them on papers. Students are built on foundations and if one does not have it then all we are going to get is a "crowd" having smart degrees but no ability as such. I remember my teacher S.D. Kulkarni Sir who used to teach all classes from A to G ( supposedly "brilliant" to "poorest") and God knows he was liked by every student. That's because he had an amazing knack to get hold of students and create a joy of learning things. I doubt if such thing ever exists today. Maybe all of talented junta get lucrative job offers and no one cares / wastes ( if this is the word they use) his / her life in being a teacher.

Certainly this new scheme has a power to change the things provided it gets implemented with similar seriousness. Students could be very good to get feedback from since they are the ones who knows what they want and what is being offered to them. More importantly the implementation of these scheme should be transparent, if the teachers are willing to change / modify their skills then students should see it from their teaching otherwise this will be just another thing which is "routinely" done at universities. Students also have certain responsibilities, if they are appraising someone, they should have that "level of maturity" otherwise it will be a mess all around. I think such things should be implemented in Engineering colleges also, and what I mean by implementing is "followed very strictly" just like the way it is done in Corporate Sector.