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Sunday, March 20, 2011
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Sunday, November 7, 2010
Festive Madness in Delhi
This is Anne, walking down the streets of a Delhi bazaar, yards away from our home, just a day before the lights/sound festival Deepawali.We navigated the streets as firecrackers blew away our ear drums and lights glittered the shops and homes.And the business rolled the bazaar economy with some poignant faces as well ..But overall a full fun w..a..l..k !
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The page of my daily diary dated Aug.26th 2006
This is a re-production of one page of my daily diary. The page of 26th Aug.2006. I am convinced that if diarists are paid anything, anywhere in the world, I will not starve. I read somewhere, sometime that a “personal narrative in a public domain has “its” own dynamics”. My English then, was, as it is today. Weak. So I didn’t understand this too well and that put a full stop of my agreeing to it or not.
Over all these days, I made a lot of friends and one of them is Rapidex book (google it! ), with the help of which I now understand it and wants to see “its” dynamics. So I am putting a personal narrative in a public domain. Keen, restless and hungry for the feedback that you may send at your own risk: For, I may respond..!!
Aug 26.2006
My Room
Mughal Aps.
Zakir Nagar.
New Delhi India
A long day, indeed! My bike is growing younger day by day and I am enjoying it km by km. Ever since I have studied about camera in my post-graduation, I have started thinking a lot about it… “If I had a camera ready, I would have taken the shot of guy sleeping on the edge of the loaded -rickety truck, pacing fast on a buzzing crowded ring road of Delhi while I am on my way to meet a friend in greater noida on this new toll bridge, where these robbers are robbing us of eight rupees/one way in the broad daylight, with the help of some Japanese who are not seen around but are collecting the toll….” “And if I had a camera, I would have taken picture of Ammijaan, now that she is sleeping, still wearing her old worn-out specs she loves dearly because daddy bought it.Wrincles on her forehead worries me because she’s yet to attend Gudia’s and Pappu bhai’s marriage, become my wife’s mother-in-law and grandmother of at least half a dozen, assuming our Govt’s DTC(Delhi Transport Corporation) bus- sonnet “ Hum do.Humare do..”(hindi meaning- We two.Our two) Infact, the very thought of the camera while I am riding a bike, with the headphones plugged into my ears , and wire fixed at the other end of my cell phone’s fm radio at full-volume, converts me into a camera with damn good lenses and no focus ring.
Now I look at the big luxurious Sita Travels bus ahead of me...some 100 meters ahead. My eyes takes long shot (LS), and abruptly zooms-in on to the iron bar, ordering “Keep distance” fitted at the rear of it, my hand turns the throttle and bike dollys-in…Now I am just 3 feet away with the two words in sharp focus in a CU. I tilt up to take a low-angle shot of few human heads with variety of hair-style. MCU. There‘s a traffic signal ahead. I can’t see it. I know it. The throttle turns back, allowing the bus to move ahead and I am back to the long shot. Well, I forgot to mention a couple of cut-aways in the rear- view mirror of this middle aged man approaching me on his Bajaj scooty and this red old Maruti 800 overtaking taking me from left. I stay on a LS as the road is abandoned but slowing I am approaching a flyover to switch to a tilt-up LS , almost immediately reaching the peak and start climbing down, in a high angle tilt-down shot… The journey goes on for another 16 kms and I continue to jump from one shot to another until my phone rings, music goes off and there’s “jump”. No cut yet… I met Jasvinder and spent time in his newly bought house. I liked the door. I like open doors and closed windows with people having no-hot- head and no-cold- heart. I was not lucky to get it all today though, except the open-door. So I spent fifteen minutes in collecting my notes and in swallowing the cold coffee, without sugar and single- toned milk amids hot heads and cold hearts.
Now, I was on my way to Sarai, a research project that offered me a year long fellowship to study fast food chain's workers and its culture. Today’s presentation’s third day and mine’ first. But I am glad even today, there would be breaks filled with good tea & crispy biscuits. I will also have sexuality, post-modernism, colonial history, work culture and many such painful terrains after which we would arrive at dinner…There’s surely nothing like free lunch and free dinner either… I liked the food.( as I always do), and noticed few little kids who came with their parents and loitered around, in innocence, adding a kind of ventilation to this space which is, by now, full, with people doing serious and deep work on the terrains I mentioned above. May God bless the sensitive writers and the victims of those whose writings I found, kilometers long and millimeters deep.. In the midst of all the conversation, beer, chicken, paneer tikkas and beverages someone, with a pat on my back, told me something that took me back to AIIMS, a premier hospital in Delhi.
It was 25th Feb. 2005. Wednesday.11am. 7th floor. C-7 ward. I was sitting in the corridor watching my daddy lying on the bed, equipped with all the possible medical gadgets and surrounded by restless, and reportedly, meritorious doctors. The time on the big circular white wall-clock, with a layer of dust on its glasses, was exactly 11.02 am. In the next 20 minutes, daddy would make his final departure. I some how sensed it. I loved daddy dearly and I know he loved this place, his workplace, dearly too. But at that moment I hated it. So I moved and sat at the door few yards away. All the memories I had of him, was scanning through my mind as if I was now a scanner. I wanted to do some thing because I knew I was not ,and that I didn’t want daddy to leave. In my helplessness, I looked up and found an old man gazing at me. He asked me if I could take him to the stiching room. I found some thing to do. So I stood up and took him to the concerned unit. He said he was in hurry because he had to go to the nursing home to have breakfast with his wife, to which I thought of my Ammi at home, unaware, unknown... I managed to enquire about her health. He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was victim of Alzheimer’s disease. While we were standing, the doctor called him. He had his stiches removed and asked me if I could help him get an auto. I agreed and went down with him. On my way, I kept thinking about daddy, on that white hospital- bed and Ammi at home ,and unintentionally asked him if his wife would be worried if he was a bit late.. He replied she no longer knows who he was and that she had not recognized him in five years.. I was taken aback, again, and asked, “And you still go every morning, even though she doesn’t know who you are?” He smiled, patted my hand and said, “Son, she doesn’t know me, but I still know who she is.” He left. I saw his auto leaving with those familiar words: Keep Distance. When I returned to C-7, daddy had indeed kept a distance. My sister was crying inconsolably. Daddy was no more. But the lesson that I learnt from the old man, didn’t let me cry. I wanted to, though. But I knew that true love is neither physical nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be and will not be. If only we could prevent our mind from thinking like a camera, like a scanner, like a human being..Sometimes, life would be so much easier..
It’s the new day and has rendered one digit on the calendar useless…Will return with life’s new day’s menu. Welcome Aug 27,2006.
Over all these days, I made a lot of friends and one of them is Rapidex book (google it! ), with the help of which I now understand it and wants to see “its” dynamics. So I am putting a personal narrative in a public domain. Keen, restless and hungry for the feedback that you may send at your own risk: For, I may respond..!!
Aug 26.2006
My Room
Mughal Aps.
Zakir Nagar.
New Delhi India
A long day, indeed! My bike is growing younger day by day and I am enjoying it km by km. Ever since I have studied about camera in my post-graduation, I have started thinking a lot about it… “If I had a camera ready, I would have taken the shot of guy sleeping on the edge of the loaded -rickety truck, pacing fast on a buzzing crowded ring road of Delhi while I am on my way to meet a friend in greater noida on this new toll bridge, where these robbers are robbing us of eight rupees/one way in the broad daylight, with the help of some Japanese who are not seen around but are collecting the toll….” “And if I had a camera, I would have taken picture of Ammijaan, now that she is sleeping, still wearing her old worn-out specs she loves dearly because daddy bought it.Wrincles on her forehead worries me because she’s yet to attend Gudia’s and Pappu bhai’s marriage, become my wife’s mother-in-law and grandmother of at least half a dozen, assuming our Govt’s DTC(Delhi Transport Corporation) bus- sonnet “ Hum do.Humare do..”(hindi meaning- We two.Our two) Infact, the very thought of the camera while I am riding a bike, with the headphones plugged into my ears , and wire fixed at the other end of my cell phone’s fm radio at full-volume, converts me into a camera with damn good lenses and no focus ring.
Now I look at the big luxurious Sita Travels bus ahead of me...some 100 meters ahead. My eyes takes long shot (LS), and abruptly zooms-in on to the iron bar, ordering “Keep distance” fitted at the rear of it, my hand turns the throttle and bike dollys-in…Now I am just 3 feet away with the two words in sharp focus in a CU. I tilt up to take a low-angle shot of few human heads with variety of hair-style. MCU. There‘s a traffic signal ahead. I can’t see it. I know it. The throttle turns back, allowing the bus to move ahead and I am back to the long shot. Well, I forgot to mention a couple of cut-aways in the rear- view mirror of this middle aged man approaching me on his Bajaj scooty and this red old Maruti 800 overtaking taking me from left. I stay on a LS as the road is abandoned but slowing I am approaching a flyover to switch to a tilt-up LS , almost immediately reaching the peak and start climbing down, in a high angle tilt-down shot… The journey goes on for another 16 kms and I continue to jump from one shot to another until my phone rings, music goes off and there’s “jump”. No cut yet… I met Jasvinder and spent time in his newly bought house. I liked the door. I like open doors and closed windows with people having no-hot- head and no-cold- heart. I was not lucky to get it all today though, except the open-door. So I spent fifteen minutes in collecting my notes and in swallowing the cold coffee, without sugar and single- toned milk amids hot heads and cold hearts.
Now, I was on my way to Sarai, a research project that offered me a year long fellowship to study fast food chain's workers and its culture. Today’s presentation’s third day and mine’ first. But I am glad even today, there would be breaks filled with good tea & crispy biscuits. I will also have sexuality, post-modernism, colonial history, work culture and many such painful terrains after which we would arrive at dinner…There’s surely nothing like free lunch and free dinner either… I liked the food.( as I always do), and noticed few little kids who came with their parents and loitered around, in innocence, adding a kind of ventilation to this space which is, by now, full, with people doing serious and deep work on the terrains I mentioned above. May God bless the sensitive writers and the victims of those whose writings I found, kilometers long and millimeters deep.. In the midst of all the conversation, beer, chicken, paneer tikkas and beverages someone, with a pat on my back, told me something that took me back to AIIMS, a premier hospital in Delhi.
It was 25th Feb. 2005. Wednesday.11am. 7th floor. C-7 ward. I was sitting in the corridor watching my daddy lying on the bed, equipped with all the possible medical gadgets and surrounded by restless, and reportedly, meritorious doctors. The time on the big circular white wall-clock, with a layer of dust on its glasses, was exactly 11.02 am. In the next 20 minutes, daddy would make his final departure. I some how sensed it. I loved daddy dearly and I know he loved this place, his workplace, dearly too. But at that moment I hated it. So I moved and sat at the door few yards away. All the memories I had of him, was scanning through my mind as if I was now a scanner. I wanted to do some thing because I knew I was not ,and that I didn’t want daddy to leave. In my helplessness, I looked up and found an old man gazing at me. He asked me if I could take him to the stiching room. I found some thing to do. So I stood up and took him to the concerned unit. He said he was in hurry because he had to go to the nursing home to have breakfast with his wife, to which I thought of my Ammi at home, unaware, unknown... I managed to enquire about her health. He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was victim of Alzheimer’s disease. While we were standing, the doctor called him. He had his stiches removed and asked me if I could help him get an auto. I agreed and went down with him. On my way, I kept thinking about daddy, on that white hospital- bed and Ammi at home ,and unintentionally asked him if his wife would be worried if he was a bit late.. He replied she no longer knows who he was and that she had not recognized him in five years.. I was taken aback, again, and asked, “And you still go every morning, even though she doesn’t know who you are?” He smiled, patted my hand and said, “Son, she doesn’t know me, but I still know who she is.” He left. I saw his auto leaving with those familiar words: Keep Distance. When I returned to C-7, daddy had indeed kept a distance. My sister was crying inconsolably. Daddy was no more. But the lesson that I learnt from the old man, didn’t let me cry. I wanted to, though. But I knew that true love is neither physical nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be and will not be. If only we could prevent our mind from thinking like a camera, like a scanner, like a human being..Sometimes, life would be so much easier..
It’s the new day and has rendered one digit on the calendar useless…Will return with life’s new day’s menu. Welcome Aug 27,2006.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The Journey of my Ford Fellowship from rural India to Appalachian America
Documenting my Ford Foundation International Fellowship Program experience – the beginning, the journey, the challenges, the achievements, the reflections.
My IFP journey began in a rather unusual way. I landed at the Ohio airport with an injured foot and went straight to the hospital, where I spent the first week. Historic American elections that eventually gave America its first black president and a strong hope to the rest of the world, was on going. Major debate was on healthcare and the two presidential candidates were constantly debating their views on health. As I watched all of these debates on a television installed in my hospital room, health was echoing at a different level in my own psyche. The health insurance provided by the IFP covered almost all my medical expenses, which I must admit, according my standards in India were outrageous. That explained to be, the concerns Obama was raising throughout his campaign. In many ways, it seemed to me that he(Obama) was debating for me too. After three days in the hospital, I was able to walk around and met several patients in that hospital in Columbus, one of the biggest and commercially vibrant cities of America. Most of these patients were old and women and were rarely visited by anyone, friends or family members. They lived in loneliness and sickness. The next three days in the hospital gave me a serious insight of a highly individualistic society of which I was going to be a part of for the coming two years; coming two crucial years. This experience of isolation, capitalistic mindset and the tendency that measures everything prepared me for the life outside of the hospital, a privileged place that remained unaffordable to as many as 47 million of its citizenry.
I almost immediately changed by mode to tune myself to this new environment. From these initial days in the hospital, I realized how strongly supported I was with the Ford Fellowship.
The Beginnings
As I reached the college campus, first on a wheel chair and later walking on clutches around a hilly campus which often reminded me of Shimla (a hill station in northern India), I experienced a strong sense of diversity. People of all color and ages, students and faculty, students who also worked and faculty who also prayed and went shopping with us, community members who visited our library, farmers who were also authors and peace activists and so on. The beginnings were the most powerful moments of my entire IFP experience. I instantly made friends with many community members, who were community gardeners and organic farmers at the Athens farmers market that I frequently visited. It is through these friendships that I was introduced to the Appalachian America, a developing region of a developed nation that shared almost all of its socio-economic characteristics with rural India I grew up in. A region that remained invisible and hidden to the rest of the world perhaps due to the glitter and show that so strongly dominated the sound and images of the hustling bustling New York City and Las Vegas in the media that reached millions like me rendering Appalachia and its life almost nonexistent and mysteriously unknown. At that moment I knew I had a lot to explore and gather, and tell the untold stories.
Appalachian experience has a strong impact on me and like an explorer I was immersed in its life and people writing papers, doing participatory observations and taking courses that gave me academic insight of the economically suppressed but culturally rich region.
The Journey
As a ford fellow I was strongly invested in the campus life. The fact that I was externally funded by IFP and did not have to work to support my studies made me feel privileged, on one hand and more responsible on the other. My other friends were not just studying and doing assignments that I was doing but they were also working to support their studies. At times it made me feel ‘less than them’, at other times, guilty and yet at other moments I felt a stronger sense of ‘how much more can I do’ given my higher incentives, as a Ford Fellow on campus. These mixed feelings gave me more energy and constantly pushed me to challenge my own power to achieve things. I started getting involved and invested both academically and practically, with classmates and professors and with community members and other college campuses. Soon enough I was representing my class to the center’s Executive Director during monthly meetings, briefing him about the class going-ons and student’s aspirations and gaps. This representation was extended for the second year as well. In the second year I also represented my entire program as the Senator at the Graduate Student Senate that met weekly to discuss the administrative roles and responsibilities, new acts, funding etc that can potentially help students. This was my first tryst with the student’s politics in America. It enriched me and sharpened my political understanding of how a campus is run and what larger role can it play in the social change movement. One writer who writings inspired me most during this time was Howard Zinn. Sadly, I also witnessed his sad demise during my time in the US.
In addition to this, I also served as the Communication Chair of the Muslim Student Association, representing 25 global nationalities from Asia, Africa, Middle East and North America at several university and community platforms. As a Secretary of the Ford Foundation Students’ Association and as member of UNICEF and Save the Children student bodies on campus I made several efforts to help build a safer and healthy word for children.
Overall, these experiences, encounters, and travels that came along gave me more than what I expected from an academic program at Ohio University. The roles I took, travels I made and academic work that I produced collectively built my personality and integrated it with the citizenry of the new country I visited for the first time. So much so that one of its member citizens became a lifelong friend, as my wife and decided to come with me to India and live here, to contribute towards it social development, working with me in the areas of social conflict resolution, social entrepreneurship and curriculum development. This relationship is a result of a shared vision that intends to build a world of social justice led by grassroots leadership and governed by participatory pedagogies. As I reflect, I could not have asked for more!
The Challenges
It took me some time to understand the dynamics of a new society which was almost entirely different from my past experience. Socially, politically, technologically and economically, I was dealing with a new system at all fronts. One of the major challenges was to make friends and alliances in a way that it not only serves a personal goal of networking and leisure but also builds a strategic partnership that would help fulfill my fellowship goal of bringing resources back to India and directing them to its development. Cultural subtleties were to be learnt and the social language was to acquired. It took time. But with relevant readings and persistent listening it happened. Another challenge was to constantly engage outside of academia while working with it. Writing papers, reading texts and reflecting on in-class experiences, while at the same time going out and experiencing, in very practical terms, the lives of the people, their challenges, their work, their aspirations, struggles and visions. Striking a balance between academic excellence and practical wisdom and using both to each other’s advantage was a good challenge to take on. It again came from reading, listening and travelling. It also came from becoming technology savvy- learning tools in the library, labs and resources like community library available outside of the campus, and building alliances with civic organizations working on grassroots issues. Besides, engaging in conversations and discussions with classmates and students from other programs to learn from their experiences and work always remained a priority and a challenge given the tight academic timeline. The main challenge was to become a public intellectual both on-campus and outside of it and contribute to the immediate society during the period of studentship. Building networks and creating engagements that can be extended at a global level with relevance to the Indian development scenario was another challenge on priority.
The Achievements and Reflections
One of my major achievements is the working relationships I built with my professors and friends across the world through on-campus, in community and in-class interactions. A relationship that will engage me in several global developmental issues for the rest of my life in a way that will affect India, my home country in a positive way. As I reflect, I realize much of it happened due to my listening and reading skills that were developed in India .What also helped was the grassroots experiences and the knowledge of Indian social context and grassroots dynamics on which I could speak confidently, given my training and exposure in India, while engaging with contemporary texts on technology and globalization. I was constantly able to connect with my institutions and organizations in my home country to bring their latest perspective and challenges in the classroom and juxtapose them with theories studied in the class. This interconnectivity of realities and theories was a unique experience and an extraordinary experience in terms of experiential learning and my small contribution to the educational system that I was a part of in the US.
As I returned to India, I bring with me not only the new knowledge I acquired but also the expertise of the people I met and built relationships with,thus bringing-in a strategic leverage to the Indian social development-potential.
I intend to consolidate my networks through building new collaborations and developing new projects using new technology to continue working for the educational and health reforms I conceived at the time of writing my IFP application.
I am confident that I will achieve more than I envisioned and will go beyond my initial to-do-draft that I wrote as a part of my return-India plan presentation at IFP orientation two years ago .I consider this my achievement.
I owe all my achievements to the support I got from the IFP and its many incentives, together with the encouragement and the timely guidance that came from the IFP team in New Delhi and New York. I am thankful to IFP teams, and will endeavor to translate my gratitude into those actions and values for which IFP stands for; Social Justice and Social Change, through all my work, now on.
My IFP journey began in a rather unusual way. I landed at the Ohio airport with an injured foot and went straight to the hospital, where I spent the first week. Historic American elections that eventually gave America its first black president and a strong hope to the rest of the world, was on going. Major debate was on healthcare and the two presidential candidates were constantly debating their views on health. As I watched all of these debates on a television installed in my hospital room, health was echoing at a different level in my own psyche. The health insurance provided by the IFP covered almost all my medical expenses, which I must admit, according my standards in India were outrageous. That explained to be, the concerns Obama was raising throughout his campaign. In many ways, it seemed to me that he(Obama) was debating for me too. After three days in the hospital, I was able to walk around and met several patients in that hospital in Columbus, one of the biggest and commercially vibrant cities of America. Most of these patients were old and women and were rarely visited by anyone, friends or family members. They lived in loneliness and sickness. The next three days in the hospital gave me a serious insight of a highly individualistic society of which I was going to be a part of for the coming two years; coming two crucial years. This experience of isolation, capitalistic mindset and the tendency that measures everything prepared me for the life outside of the hospital, a privileged place that remained unaffordable to as many as 47 million of its citizenry.
I almost immediately changed by mode to tune myself to this new environment. From these initial days in the hospital, I realized how strongly supported I was with the Ford Fellowship.
The Beginnings
As I reached the college campus, first on a wheel chair and later walking on clutches around a hilly campus which often reminded me of Shimla (a hill station in northern India), I experienced a strong sense of diversity. People of all color and ages, students and faculty, students who also worked and faculty who also prayed and went shopping with us, community members who visited our library, farmers who were also authors and peace activists and so on. The beginnings were the most powerful moments of my entire IFP experience. I instantly made friends with many community members, who were community gardeners and organic farmers at the Athens farmers market that I frequently visited. It is through these friendships that I was introduced to the Appalachian America, a developing region of a developed nation that shared almost all of its socio-economic characteristics with rural India I grew up in. A region that remained invisible and hidden to the rest of the world perhaps due to the glitter and show that so strongly dominated the sound and images of the hustling bustling New York City and Las Vegas in the media that reached millions like me rendering Appalachia and its life almost nonexistent and mysteriously unknown. At that moment I knew I had a lot to explore and gather, and tell the untold stories.
Appalachian experience has a strong impact on me and like an explorer I was immersed in its life and people writing papers, doing participatory observations and taking courses that gave me academic insight of the economically suppressed but culturally rich region.
The Journey
As a ford fellow I was strongly invested in the campus life. The fact that I was externally funded by IFP and did not have to work to support my studies made me feel privileged, on one hand and more responsible on the other. My other friends were not just studying and doing assignments that I was doing but they were also working to support their studies. At times it made me feel ‘less than them’, at other times, guilty and yet at other moments I felt a stronger sense of ‘how much more can I do’ given my higher incentives, as a Ford Fellow on campus. These mixed feelings gave me more energy and constantly pushed me to challenge my own power to achieve things. I started getting involved and invested both academically and practically, with classmates and professors and with community members and other college campuses. Soon enough I was representing my class to the center’s Executive Director during monthly meetings, briefing him about the class going-ons and student’s aspirations and gaps. This representation was extended for the second year as well. In the second year I also represented my entire program as the Senator at the Graduate Student Senate that met weekly to discuss the administrative roles and responsibilities, new acts, funding etc that can potentially help students. This was my first tryst with the student’s politics in America. It enriched me and sharpened my political understanding of how a campus is run and what larger role can it play in the social change movement. One writer who writings inspired me most during this time was Howard Zinn. Sadly, I also witnessed his sad demise during my time in the US.
In addition to this, I also served as the Communication Chair of the Muslim Student Association, representing 25 global nationalities from Asia, Africa, Middle East and North America at several university and community platforms. As a Secretary of the Ford Foundation Students’ Association and as member of UNICEF and Save the Children student bodies on campus I made several efforts to help build a safer and healthy word for children.
Overall, these experiences, encounters, and travels that came along gave me more than what I expected from an academic program at Ohio University. The roles I took, travels I made and academic work that I produced collectively built my personality and integrated it with the citizenry of the new country I visited for the first time. So much so that one of its member citizens became a lifelong friend, as my wife and decided to come with me to India and live here, to contribute towards it social development, working with me in the areas of social conflict resolution, social entrepreneurship and curriculum development. This relationship is a result of a shared vision that intends to build a world of social justice led by grassroots leadership and governed by participatory pedagogies. As I reflect, I could not have asked for more!
The Challenges
It took me some time to understand the dynamics of a new society which was almost entirely different from my past experience. Socially, politically, technologically and economically, I was dealing with a new system at all fronts. One of the major challenges was to make friends and alliances in a way that it not only serves a personal goal of networking and leisure but also builds a strategic partnership that would help fulfill my fellowship goal of bringing resources back to India and directing them to its development. Cultural subtleties were to be learnt and the social language was to acquired. It took time. But with relevant readings and persistent listening it happened. Another challenge was to constantly engage outside of academia while working with it. Writing papers, reading texts and reflecting on in-class experiences, while at the same time going out and experiencing, in very practical terms, the lives of the people, their challenges, their work, their aspirations, struggles and visions. Striking a balance between academic excellence and practical wisdom and using both to each other’s advantage was a good challenge to take on. It again came from reading, listening and travelling. It also came from becoming technology savvy- learning tools in the library, labs and resources like community library available outside of the campus, and building alliances with civic organizations working on grassroots issues. Besides, engaging in conversations and discussions with classmates and students from other programs to learn from their experiences and work always remained a priority and a challenge given the tight academic timeline. The main challenge was to become a public intellectual both on-campus and outside of it and contribute to the immediate society during the period of studentship. Building networks and creating engagements that can be extended at a global level with relevance to the Indian development scenario was another challenge on priority.
The Achievements and Reflections
One of my major achievements is the working relationships I built with my professors and friends across the world through on-campus, in community and in-class interactions. A relationship that will engage me in several global developmental issues for the rest of my life in a way that will affect India, my home country in a positive way. As I reflect, I realize much of it happened due to my listening and reading skills that were developed in India .What also helped was the grassroots experiences and the knowledge of Indian social context and grassroots dynamics on which I could speak confidently, given my training and exposure in India, while engaging with contemporary texts on technology and globalization. I was constantly able to connect with my institutions and organizations in my home country to bring their latest perspective and challenges in the classroom and juxtapose them with theories studied in the class. This interconnectivity of realities and theories was a unique experience and an extraordinary experience in terms of experiential learning and my small contribution to the educational system that I was a part of in the US.
As I returned to India, I bring with me not only the new knowledge I acquired but also the expertise of the people I met and built relationships with,thus bringing-in a strategic leverage to the Indian social development-potential.
I intend to consolidate my networks through building new collaborations and developing new projects using new technology to continue working for the educational and health reforms I conceived at the time of writing my IFP application.
I am confident that I will achieve more than I envisioned and will go beyond my initial to-do-draft that I wrote as a part of my return-India plan presentation at IFP orientation two years ago .I consider this my achievement.
I owe all my achievements to the support I got from the IFP and its many incentives, together with the encouragement and the timely guidance that came from the IFP team in New Delhi and New York. I am thankful to IFP teams, and will endeavor to translate my gratitude into those actions and values for which IFP stands for; Social Justice and Social Change, through all my work, now on.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
IFP conference@ Ohio University: Leadership via Fellowship
The glimpse of young people passionately engaging in issue of social justice is always a very positive glimpse. It not only produces hope but also creates an environment of converting this hope into actions.
Ford Foundation International Fellowship Program’s 3 day conference with a theme to ‘Cultivate Leadership for Social Change’ held in rural Appalachia provided one such glimpse, where IFP fellows from eight American universities representing ten nationalities gathered at Ohio University which hosted the conference between March 25 and March 28 2010.
Established in 1804 Ohio University was just the right campus for such an event. Its vibrant campus with a mix of Victorian and Modern architecture, rich international student community and diverse community interactions makes it a creative hub for student-community to intellectually engage with one another and work on the most pressing social issues that our world is facing today.
The conference agenda was both enriching and entertaining. And it began right at the Columbus airport, which was the point of arrival for all participants. Conversations started amongst fellows, amongst IFP officials who flew from New York, and soon enough amongst the two as well. As everyone boarded the Ohio University Bus, with its giant green Bobcat mascot printed across it, these conversations became the background music while the bus navigated the bright sunny Appalachian visuals through the 90 minute journey from the airport to the Athens campus.
The program began at Salaam, a pan Arabian restaurant on Court Street, campus’s downtown area, where everyone gathered for the dinner. This was the ice breaking session where everybody shared each other’s history, work and culture. As we ate together, fellows from Uganda dressed in their traditional attire danced and rest of us joined them in cheers with rhythmic clapping and humming. Soon enough the Ohio University IFP fellows came forward and added to the environment by a collective dance performance, dedicated to all participants, and then the Chinese fellow’s solo singing performance and a solo poem recitation by an Indonesian. While all of this was underway, the constants flashes of cameras lighten up the ambience and the conversations continued.
Second day of conference was 27th March and everyone was a friend to everyone by now. Well, pretty much. That set the stage of this day, which was full of introductions, discussions and Q& A sessions. After the initial welcome of the participants by the Ohio University’s Ford Fellows Association and the video address by Joan Dassin, Executive Director of International fellowships Funds, followed by the remarks from Krista McCallum, Director of Ohio University International Students and Faculty Services, the conference marched into the keynote address by Dr.Judith Millesen, Associate Professor of political Science and Fellow Faculty at Ohio University. Her work and words on social justice leadership was inspiring and provided the fellows with fresh perspectives of an academician and a practitioner of social change.
This was followed by the panel discussion moderated by Dr.Haley Duschinski, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology. Panel members came from diverse background and brought in grassroots experiences that are required to translate methodologies into social change actions. Mara Giglio from Appalachian Peace and Justice Network, Carol Kuhre from Rural Action and Leslie Schaller from ACEnet shared the rare insights of working at a grassroots level to develop social change movements through basic human devices such as listening, participatory approaches and conflict resolution through peer mediation.
This panel was uniquely successful in its presentation and fascinating in its discussions because it avoided all the abstract and academic notions of social change and emphasized on the real issues in a very real terms. This, we call, hitting the nail in the coffin!
The panel also really synergized the participants with new enthusiasm and urgency. This was clearly reflected in the next post- lunch session, where fellows organized themselves in small groups to brainstorm and share their thoughts on topics such as Poverty and health ,education, gender and equality issues, which are plaguing the humanity across the globe.
It was these small group- discussions that brought forth, the distinction between issues which are important and which are urgent, concerns that are global and that are local, and solutions that need national perspective and those that transcend nationalities and need universal addressal. It is from these discussions that Ohio Declaration, a document of ‘actions to be taken by fellows’ emerged in a very powerful way; all groups sat together and reflected on their life experiences, discussions and social realities in all its political, economic and cultural context to know the problems and come with solutions. Ohio declaration was thus created!
The day progressed with a new session called ‘Connecting to your IFP community’ that provided a chance to all fellows to know how best they can network with each other and contribute toward the global social change movement. Blogs, video conferences, new media platforms like Facebook and other ways of communication such as telecommunication text messaging was explored. Remarks by IFP officials including Senior Program Officer, Tammy Langan, Communication Officer, Diana Whitten and the Grant Administrator, Barbara Wanasek, further emphasized the crucial communications and protocol issues. This emphasis resulted in an immediate networking as fellows connected with each other though Facebook and emails after this face to face communication. New blogs in future and new communication platforms using new media technologies will go a long way to keep the fellows connected and build the social justice caravan.
In its final stages, the conference’s destination was what is popularly known in Athens, The Ridges, a beautiful historical space situated on the top of the hill with Kennedy Museum of Art. Dr.Pam Benoit, Executive Vice President and Provost, Ohio University and Dr.Weinberg, Director of Ohio University Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs addressed the fellows with inspiring examples of political and social change.
Yet again, emphasizing the power of individual actions backed by the collective solidarity for the sustainable social change.
As the fellows returned from The Ridges, it was time to conclude, and say good bye to each other, only with a hopeful new beginnings with each other and on issues we feel strongly for .And what better way to come together and have group photos as a memento of the conference!
The conference ended on a note of solidarity and camaraderie .As our bus moved back to the Columbus airport, we were no longer a bunch of fellows; we were a family members who were to meet again. And again, as we were bonded by the same desires and restlessness of a social change.
Ford Foundation International Fellowship Program’s 3 day conference with a theme to ‘Cultivate Leadership for Social Change’ held in rural Appalachia provided one such glimpse, where IFP fellows from eight American universities representing ten nationalities gathered at Ohio University which hosted the conference between March 25 and March 28 2010.
Established in 1804 Ohio University was just the right campus for such an event. Its vibrant campus with a mix of Victorian and Modern architecture, rich international student community and diverse community interactions makes it a creative hub for student-community to intellectually engage with one another and work on the most pressing social issues that our world is facing today.
The conference agenda was both enriching and entertaining. And it began right at the Columbus airport, which was the point of arrival for all participants. Conversations started amongst fellows, amongst IFP officials who flew from New York, and soon enough amongst the two as well. As everyone boarded the Ohio University Bus, with its giant green Bobcat mascot printed across it, these conversations became the background music while the bus navigated the bright sunny Appalachian visuals through the 90 minute journey from the airport to the Athens campus.
The program began at Salaam, a pan Arabian restaurant on Court Street, campus’s downtown area, where everyone gathered for the dinner. This was the ice breaking session where everybody shared each other’s history, work and culture. As we ate together, fellows from Uganda dressed in their traditional attire danced and rest of us joined them in cheers with rhythmic clapping and humming. Soon enough the Ohio University IFP fellows came forward and added to the environment by a collective dance performance, dedicated to all participants, and then the Chinese fellow’s solo singing performance and a solo poem recitation by an Indonesian. While all of this was underway, the constants flashes of cameras lighten up the ambience and the conversations continued.
Second day of conference was 27th March and everyone was a friend to everyone by now. Well, pretty much. That set the stage of this day, which was full of introductions, discussions and Q& A sessions. After the initial welcome of the participants by the Ohio University’s Ford Fellows Association and the video address by Joan Dassin, Executive Director of International fellowships Funds, followed by the remarks from Krista McCallum, Director of Ohio University International Students and Faculty Services, the conference marched into the keynote address by Dr.Judith Millesen, Associate Professor of political Science and Fellow Faculty at Ohio University. Her work and words on social justice leadership was inspiring and provided the fellows with fresh perspectives of an academician and a practitioner of social change.
This was followed by the panel discussion moderated by Dr.Haley Duschinski, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology. Panel members came from diverse background and brought in grassroots experiences that are required to translate methodologies into social change actions. Mara Giglio from Appalachian Peace and Justice Network, Carol Kuhre from Rural Action and Leslie Schaller from ACEnet shared the rare insights of working at a grassroots level to develop social change movements through basic human devices such as listening, participatory approaches and conflict resolution through peer mediation.
This panel was uniquely successful in its presentation and fascinating in its discussions because it avoided all the abstract and academic notions of social change and emphasized on the real issues in a very real terms. This, we call, hitting the nail in the coffin!
The panel also really synergized the participants with new enthusiasm and urgency. This was clearly reflected in the next post- lunch session, where fellows organized themselves in small groups to brainstorm and share their thoughts on topics such as Poverty and health ,education, gender and equality issues, which are plaguing the humanity across the globe.
It was these small group- discussions that brought forth, the distinction between issues which are important and which are urgent, concerns that are global and that are local, and solutions that need national perspective and those that transcend nationalities and need universal addressal. It is from these discussions that Ohio Declaration, a document of ‘actions to be taken by fellows’ emerged in a very powerful way; all groups sat together and reflected on their life experiences, discussions and social realities in all its political, economic and cultural context to know the problems and come with solutions. Ohio declaration was thus created!
The day progressed with a new session called ‘Connecting to your IFP community’ that provided a chance to all fellows to know how best they can network with each other and contribute toward the global social change movement. Blogs, video conferences, new media platforms like Facebook and other ways of communication such as telecommunication text messaging was explored. Remarks by IFP officials including Senior Program Officer, Tammy Langan, Communication Officer, Diana Whitten and the Grant Administrator, Barbara Wanasek, further emphasized the crucial communications and protocol issues. This emphasis resulted in an immediate networking as fellows connected with each other though Facebook and emails after this face to face communication. New blogs in future and new communication platforms using new media technologies will go a long way to keep the fellows connected and build the social justice caravan.
In its final stages, the conference’s destination was what is popularly known in Athens, The Ridges, a beautiful historical space situated on the top of the hill with Kennedy Museum of Art. Dr.Pam Benoit, Executive Vice President and Provost, Ohio University and Dr.Weinberg, Director of Ohio University Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs addressed the fellows with inspiring examples of political and social change.
Yet again, emphasizing the power of individual actions backed by the collective solidarity for the sustainable social change.
As the fellows returned from The Ridges, it was time to conclude, and say good bye to each other, only with a hopeful new beginnings with each other and on issues we feel strongly for .And what better way to come together and have group photos as a memento of the conference!
The conference ended on a note of solidarity and camaraderie .As our bus moved back to the Columbus airport, we were no longer a bunch of fellows; we were a family members who were to meet again. And again, as we were bonded by the same desires and restlessness of a social change.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Navigating-Life: My Portfolio
This is my work with spaces and people in rural and urban India.It includes my encounters with different cultures, development sites and issues offering immense challenges with which I navigated life.
Inside Control Room: Where lies the truth?
Control Room showed the human cost of Iraq war both to and of the Iraqi people, and to and of the American soldiers. This was the most speculator part of the film. Some of the most elusive footage, interviews and the daily working of the media at the site of conflict were probably never seen before. Director Jehane Noujaim navigation of the mediascape at the war torn Iraq, Al Jazeera’s newsroom and the Production Control Room, the actual site of news production and broadcasting, while the workers were covering the live images of the bombing of Iraq by the American and the Coalition Army was deeply focused on the realities and power of media. At the same time it also demonstrated how media can be used and abused for political purposes. Control Room shows the story of Al Jazeera’s, the Qatar based news-channel that showed the images , sound and texts of the war to the people. Such images were most profound for the American people and indeed most threatening for the US government under Bush administration. Wounded American soldiers, dying and bleeding Marines and all of such images that showed Americans being hurt was strategically hidden from the Bush administration from its people, to justify the War on civilian Iraq as a war for Liberation of Iraqi people and War by Americans as they stand for the “need of the hour” .Control Room breaks many myths that Bush Administration created through media. Most blatant amongst those were through images of Iraqi civilian casualties which were caused by American troops, attack on media personnel, and wounded American soldiers. Even more blatant was the story of Josh Rushing who was heading the Media unit of the Central Command and spoke eloquently in the film to show his support of the US and the coalition troops and his true belief that Iraq was a potential threat. Throughout the film, the US Marine was advocating the US and coalition of its action with his frank and candid interview with a former BBC employee and presently Al Jazeera's, Hassan Ibrahim. However, according to Josh’s web site (http://joshrushing.com/Bio.html) and other online resources, Pentagon ordered Josh not to give any more interviews. Josh left the US army and according to his web site he now works with Al-Jazeera English. He also wrote a book called “Mission Al-Jazeera: Build a Bridge, Seek the Truth, Change the World”
In the story of Josh, both as we see him in Control Room and his subsequent decision to leave the US army and join Al Jazeera, what is emphasized is that no news is complete until we see what is shown to us in the light of what is not shown to us. Control Room shows what we rarely see in the so called news channels who not only shows fiction as facts but even construct news to further the political agendas and maintain status-quo. Control Room reveals how this happens. As we see the Al Jazeera’s images of wounded soldiers and civilian’s casualties in Iraq, we hear George Bush preaching to the American public with soothing words, “I expect POWs to be treated humanely, just as we are treating the prisoners we have captured humanely”. Such juxtaposition of political rhetoric and the images of the ground realities instantly separates the chaff from the wheat for it audiences. It sharpens the images that the embedded journalism has created, that of the enslaved-media, in the hands of the establishment, and at the same time, as a senior producer of Al-Jazeera Samir Khader says while looking at the wounded civilians bodies covered by its channel, “I’m supposed to call this incitement? I call this true journalism, the only true journalism in the world” thus referring to a truthful-media characterized by courage and guts.
Samir’s strong sense of journalism with adherence to objectivity and balance is also reflected in a scene where he expresses his dissatisfaction towards the choice of the interviewee, an American who criticizes America for attacking Iraq only for oil, by a co worker, for the lack of balance. Samir is seen to be looking for balance while there is none as he himself seems to have confessed as he says “the only true journalism” in the above context. We see another example of an angry journalist, Hassan Ibrahim, when he hears Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld accusing Al Jazeera's interviews with US POWs as violation of the Geneva Conventions. "What about Guantanamo Bay?" , "What about the Iraqi prisoners on American TV?", he repeatedly questions, thus sharpening the blurred lines of what we see in what is shown and what we not see in what is not shown.
Control Room uses such juxtaposition to make a very strong point; it shows how media is used as tool to sell a war to an audience, who can only see what is shown to them and will believe what is made believable to them. In its intense navigation of the site of war, conflict, media-workplaces and the testimonies of the media workers, Control Room makes a revelation-like impact to those who are glued to the beliefs of notions and fictions that are bombarded on them through the propagandist media controlled by the state. At the same time Control Room also shows the conflict of media workers as they perform their journalist duties under extreme conditions. The conflict of responsibility of work and responsibility of family is best reflected, yet again in the words of another Al Jazeera’s employee who says, “Despite everything he wishes for his children to have a future in the United States, and that he himself would work for Fox”.
In its revelation about the working of the media machinery,, focusing on centers run by the state-establishments such as the Central Command and at the same time channels such as Al Jazeera, Control Room tells a powerful story of a weapon called Media which is used to hide realities and construct non- realities by the former while at the same time, as a weapon used to reveal the truth and deconstruct non -realities through elusive and disturbing but factual audio-visual narratives.
In the story of Josh, both as we see him in Control Room and his subsequent decision to leave the US army and join Al Jazeera, what is emphasized is that no news is complete until we see what is shown to us in the light of what is not shown to us. Control Room shows what we rarely see in the so called news channels who not only shows fiction as facts but even construct news to further the political agendas and maintain status-quo. Control Room reveals how this happens. As we see the Al Jazeera’s images of wounded soldiers and civilian’s casualties in Iraq, we hear George Bush preaching to the American public with soothing words, “I expect POWs to be treated humanely, just as we are treating the prisoners we have captured humanely”. Such juxtaposition of political rhetoric and the images of the ground realities instantly separates the chaff from the wheat for it audiences. It sharpens the images that the embedded journalism has created, that of the enslaved-media, in the hands of the establishment, and at the same time, as a senior producer of Al-Jazeera Samir Khader says while looking at the wounded civilians bodies covered by its channel, “I’m supposed to call this incitement? I call this true journalism, the only true journalism in the world” thus referring to a truthful-media characterized by courage and guts.
Samir’s strong sense of journalism with adherence to objectivity and balance is also reflected in a scene where he expresses his dissatisfaction towards the choice of the interviewee, an American who criticizes America for attacking Iraq only for oil, by a co worker, for the lack of balance. Samir is seen to be looking for balance while there is none as he himself seems to have confessed as he says “the only true journalism” in the above context. We see another example of an angry journalist, Hassan Ibrahim, when he hears Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld accusing Al Jazeera's interviews with US POWs as violation of the Geneva Conventions. "What about Guantanamo Bay?" , "What about the Iraqi prisoners on American TV?", he repeatedly questions, thus sharpening the blurred lines of what we see in what is shown and what we not see in what is not shown.
Control Room uses such juxtaposition to make a very strong point; it shows how media is used as tool to sell a war to an audience, who can only see what is shown to them and will believe what is made believable to them. In its intense navigation of the site of war, conflict, media-workplaces and the testimonies of the media workers, Control Room makes a revelation-like impact to those who are glued to the beliefs of notions and fictions that are bombarded on them through the propagandist media controlled by the state. At the same time Control Room also shows the conflict of media workers as they perform their journalist duties under extreme conditions. The conflict of responsibility of work and responsibility of family is best reflected, yet again in the words of another Al Jazeera’s employee who says, “Despite everything he wishes for his children to have a future in the United States, and that he himself would work for Fox”.
In its revelation about the working of the media machinery,, focusing on centers run by the state-establishments such as the Central Command and at the same time channels such as Al Jazeera, Control Room tells a powerful story of a weapon called Media which is used to hide realities and construct non- realities by the former while at the same time, as a weapon used to reveal the truth and deconstruct non -realities through elusive and disturbing but factual audio-visual narratives.
Monday, May 11, 2009
A case of Hole in the wall: India 1999
This case study is from India. This was done by an Indian It company called NIIT (National Institute of information technology).As an experiment, this was immensely successful one and it took a form of a joint venture between NIIT and International Finance Corporation. This joint venture is now known as Hole-in-the-Wall Education Ltd (HiWEL).
As an experiment, it was started by Sugata Mitra, a computer engineer and founder of the Hole in the Wall, in New Delhi. In 1999, he with his colleagues dug a hole in the wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi and the NIIT office where Mitra worked. A highly powerful computer with interest connectivity was installed. A hidden camera was also installed to film the activity around the area. The experiment observed that the slum kids started playing around with the computer and in the process learnt the how to use a new technology, go online, work with an unknown language, English and most importantly how to teach others what they have learnt.
In the following years the experiment was replicated in many other parts of India, urban and rural, with similar results, challenging some of the key assumptions of formal education. The Hole-in-the-Wall project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge. Mitra, who's now a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK), calls it "minimally invasive education."
According to Linux Journal, "Education-as-usual assumes that kids are empty vessels who need to be sat down in a room and filled with curricular content. Dr. Mitra's experiments prove that wrong."
This experiment reflects Paulo Freire’s Educational Pedagogy where self-learning and creativity is emphasized and not the “Banking system” of the top-down-classroom set up.
This experiment demonstrated that children can self-instruct in the absence of any supervision. Presence of curiosity and peer-interest is all it required. This experiment also demonstrated the self-organization amongst children who haven’t had any formal education, and their ability to self-learn a new technology, a new language and a new way of exploring things.
In other words, this experiment provided an effective alternative to the conventional primary education methodologies practiced, not so successfully in India. The significance of this experiment becomes high considering the results of the experiment in which students not only started learning the application of a new technology like that of a PC but also learnt new words of a foreign language, English through browsing. The interviews of the students showed that sheer sense of exploration and curiosity motivated them to learn about new websites where we could learn the meaning of the unknown words they explored on the PC while browsing. Hence the experiment not only provided an effective learning platform, it also worked to narrow the huge digital divide.
A small sample sized survey demonstrated that more remote a area in terms of geography or socio-economic access, lower the quality of education. Therefore the experiment was conducted to serve the remote areas. Besides the experiment observed that there was no co relation between the quality of education and factors such as lack of infrastructure, size of the classrooms, lack of electricity and so on. But it observed that teachers in remote schools wanted to move outside of these areas into more urbane and metropolitan areas. This meant that teachers are not motivated enough to teach where they were teaching and that probably caused the lower levels of education.
This experiment was carried out in many parts of India, which is characterized by multi ethnicity, multi linguistic, and diversity in geography, socio economic conditions and races.
In all places the results were similar. Within minutes, children figured out how to point and click. By the end of the day they were browsing. With access and opportunity, the children quickly taught themselves the rudiments of computer literacy. It was observed that children in addition to playing games on the PC, they regularly visited news sites and used tools such the paint tool for drawing.
After the first set of successful experiments, this educational way was used with special emphasis on girl-child in rural communities. Computer kiosks were installed with special efforts to encourage girls to use them. This was immensely successful as well, as girls, given the permission and opportunity rushed to explore and learn trough computers.
The experiment was mostly conduced in slums and marginalized neighborhoods where primary education could not reach or could not work, for whatever reasons.
One of the fascinating aspect of the experiment was the way slum children negotiated with an unknown language, English, in which the computer applications were written. They were unable to pronounce the words correctly but made the correct usage of the words on the computer screen by continuously playing with it and watching the results. This reflects the building of theory through practice in the adaptation of participatory methodology.
Children called the cursor, sui, which in hindi means needle and they didn't call the hourglass symbol the hourglass because they had never seen an hourglass before. They called it the damru, which is Shiva's drum (Hindu god of Creation) as it looked bit like that.
According to the founder of this experiment, "If cyberspace is considered a place, then there are people who are already in it, and people who are not in it ... I think the hole in the wall gives us a method to create a door, if you like, through which large numbers of children can rush into this new arena. When that happens, it will have changed our society forever."
Critique of the case study
Hole in the wall as an educational methodology used a communicative tool like a personal computer and its applications to solve a very basic but a major social problem in the developing world. In this case study, access of communication and its tools have created a revolutionary way to reach and serve the unserved.
The case demonstrated a use of participatory methodology and Freirian pedagogy, which emphasized on creativity, self organization and curiosity as important tools of learning. It demonstrated that remoteness, both in terms of geography and socio economic conditions affects the quality of education. This remoteness was being looked at one of the major reasons of lack of penetration of education, a major social void particularly amongst the marginalized communities and its children. This experiment, by the way of a computer and internet, provided filler for such a void. What worked for this case is the nature of children to play and in the process learn. Computers acted like a good toy for them and it provoked them to fiddle round with it.Thus arousing their curiosity about what it does. Secondly, absence of any supervision from any adults at the site of learning also helped them to self organize and self instruct. This gave them confidence and created sustainability in their tendency to learn. Learning was not only acquired but was also replicated as children taught one another , what they learned themselves. This led to diffusion of education and easily overcame the problems of absence of good teachers or retention of good teachers, infrastructure and maintenance of infrastructure in rural India’s educational landscape. I think the strength of the case is that it depended on the ability of the marginalized community to learn and gain from the opportunity made available to them. Simplicity of the experiment and its exhaustive documentation through filming also helped t o understand the dynamics of the marginalized community, its adaptation of a new technology as an educational tool, learning curve of the communities, challenges they faced and the dyamics of their learning.
This experiment however seemed to be dependent on the group dynamics. In other words, for the experiment to work the way it did, it was important that children came in groups at the site of the PC-internet, and learnt together. In the absence of the group, individual children would not be able to learn because the experiment depended on peer interest and group learning. I view it as both, an advantage and a disadvantage. Advantage because this promotes team -leaning amongst the children and encourages to them not only to learn but also continuously teach and share their learning. This builds educational solidarity. Disadvantage, however, is that child tend to learn from others what others teach him/her. This may not necessarily be of what they are interested in and would want to pick Also, it is possible that the first child who approaches the PC kiosk, learns certain things and then teaches to other what he has learned, thus spreading his perspective of that learning .Thus narrowing the scope of other learning available. But at the same time, I believe that such an disadvantage can be easily overcome by more collaborative attempts like that of attaching a formal learning session at the site. This session can be facilitated by children themselves. This would not only build leadership but would also enhance the purposefulness of the learning in a given context. Since this experiment is carried our mostly in marginalized areas, I would recommend that there are also attempts to reach out to the adults of the area which are not the target audience of the experiment. In fact adults are prevented to be at the site of PC-internet kiosks by way of physical low-ceiling installed at the site under which only children of certain height can stand and use the machine. I think by taking into loop the adults, it will help to deepen the impact of this experiment. Adults are an important component of any community especially in relation to children-development. In many cases, adults control children’s mobility and their engagements. It will, therefore be useful to not only have adults included in this experiment by way of sharing existing tools with them but also make new additions in the experiment to cater the needs of the community and its adults.
Also this experiment is primarily intends to support the primary education amongst the marginalized groups. It is therefore also needed that a long term vision of the education is embedded in the experiment. What happens when children of the community learn enough of the computers being installed? What next? Educational needs are dynamics and therefore how can this system be made dynamics? Also, it is needed to co-relate the learning through computer with the change in socio-economic conditions of the community and know the results. Other support systems such as connecting the children to higher schools once they have acquired the primary goals of education, availability of jobs and creation of bridges to such jobs for the marginalized, chalking out the need of specific learning and expected results and making it known to the rural communities are some of the very important aspects to truly empower the communities.
Hole- in- the- wall started as an effective and creative way to impart education but its potentially can only be fully realized if it receives the necessary support system both from the non-government agencies and government programs operational in the communities. Also it needs a constant focus to ensure that through education rural communities reach a socio-economic change and get empowered. Merely imparting education in the absence of other support system may pose a risk of educational tool like this acting like a video game which could amuse but not empower.
As an experiment, it was started by Sugata Mitra, a computer engineer and founder of the Hole in the Wall, in New Delhi. In 1999, he with his colleagues dug a hole in the wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi and the NIIT office where Mitra worked. A highly powerful computer with interest connectivity was installed. A hidden camera was also installed to film the activity around the area. The experiment observed that the slum kids started playing around with the computer and in the process learnt the how to use a new technology, go online, work with an unknown language, English and most importantly how to teach others what they have learnt.
In the following years the experiment was replicated in many other parts of India, urban and rural, with similar results, challenging some of the key assumptions of formal education. The Hole-in-the-Wall project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge. Mitra, who's now a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK), calls it "minimally invasive education."
According to Linux Journal, "Education-as-usual assumes that kids are empty vessels who need to be sat down in a room and filled with curricular content. Dr. Mitra's experiments prove that wrong."
This experiment reflects Paulo Freire’s Educational Pedagogy where self-learning and creativity is emphasized and not the “Banking system” of the top-down-classroom set up.
This experiment demonstrated that children can self-instruct in the absence of any supervision. Presence of curiosity and peer-interest is all it required. This experiment also demonstrated the self-organization amongst children who haven’t had any formal education, and their ability to self-learn a new technology, a new language and a new way of exploring things.
In other words, this experiment provided an effective alternative to the conventional primary education methodologies practiced, not so successfully in India. The significance of this experiment becomes high considering the results of the experiment in which students not only started learning the application of a new technology like that of a PC but also learnt new words of a foreign language, English through browsing. The interviews of the students showed that sheer sense of exploration and curiosity motivated them to learn about new websites where we could learn the meaning of the unknown words they explored on the PC while browsing. Hence the experiment not only provided an effective learning platform, it also worked to narrow the huge digital divide.
A small sample sized survey demonstrated that more remote a area in terms of geography or socio-economic access, lower the quality of education. Therefore the experiment was conducted to serve the remote areas. Besides the experiment observed that there was no co relation between the quality of education and factors such as lack of infrastructure, size of the classrooms, lack of electricity and so on. But it observed that teachers in remote schools wanted to move outside of these areas into more urbane and metropolitan areas. This meant that teachers are not motivated enough to teach where they were teaching and that probably caused the lower levels of education.
This experiment was carried out in many parts of India, which is characterized by multi ethnicity, multi linguistic, and diversity in geography, socio economic conditions and races.
In all places the results were similar. Within minutes, children figured out how to point and click. By the end of the day they were browsing. With access and opportunity, the children quickly taught themselves the rudiments of computer literacy. It was observed that children in addition to playing games on the PC, they regularly visited news sites and used tools such the paint tool for drawing.
After the first set of successful experiments, this educational way was used with special emphasis on girl-child in rural communities. Computer kiosks were installed with special efforts to encourage girls to use them. This was immensely successful as well, as girls, given the permission and opportunity rushed to explore and learn trough computers.
The experiment was mostly conduced in slums and marginalized neighborhoods where primary education could not reach or could not work, for whatever reasons.
One of the fascinating aspect of the experiment was the way slum children negotiated with an unknown language, English, in which the computer applications were written. They were unable to pronounce the words correctly but made the correct usage of the words on the computer screen by continuously playing with it and watching the results. This reflects the building of theory through practice in the adaptation of participatory methodology.
Children called the cursor, sui, which in hindi means needle and they didn't call the hourglass symbol the hourglass because they had never seen an hourglass before. They called it the damru, which is Shiva's drum (Hindu god of Creation) as it looked bit like that.
According to the founder of this experiment, "If cyberspace is considered a place, then there are people who are already in it, and people who are not in it ... I think the hole in the wall gives us a method to create a door, if you like, through which large numbers of children can rush into this new arena. When that happens, it will have changed our society forever."
Critique of the case study
Hole in the wall as an educational methodology used a communicative tool like a personal computer and its applications to solve a very basic but a major social problem in the developing world. In this case study, access of communication and its tools have created a revolutionary way to reach and serve the unserved.
The case demonstrated a use of participatory methodology and Freirian pedagogy, which emphasized on creativity, self organization and curiosity as important tools of learning. It demonstrated that remoteness, both in terms of geography and socio economic conditions affects the quality of education. This remoteness was being looked at one of the major reasons of lack of penetration of education, a major social void particularly amongst the marginalized communities and its children. This experiment, by the way of a computer and internet, provided filler for such a void. What worked for this case is the nature of children to play and in the process learn. Computers acted like a good toy for them and it provoked them to fiddle round with it.Thus arousing their curiosity about what it does. Secondly, absence of any supervision from any adults at the site of learning also helped them to self organize and self instruct. This gave them confidence and created sustainability in their tendency to learn. Learning was not only acquired but was also replicated as children taught one another , what they learned themselves. This led to diffusion of education and easily overcame the problems of absence of good teachers or retention of good teachers, infrastructure and maintenance of infrastructure in rural India’s educational landscape. I think the strength of the case is that it depended on the ability of the marginalized community to learn and gain from the opportunity made available to them. Simplicity of the experiment and its exhaustive documentation through filming also helped t o understand the dynamics of the marginalized community, its adaptation of a new technology as an educational tool, learning curve of the communities, challenges they faced and the dyamics of their learning.
This experiment however seemed to be dependent on the group dynamics. In other words, for the experiment to work the way it did, it was important that children came in groups at the site of the PC-internet, and learnt together. In the absence of the group, individual children would not be able to learn because the experiment depended on peer interest and group learning. I view it as both, an advantage and a disadvantage. Advantage because this promotes team -leaning amongst the children and encourages to them not only to learn but also continuously teach and share their learning. This builds educational solidarity. Disadvantage, however, is that child tend to learn from others what others teach him/her. This may not necessarily be of what they are interested in and would want to pick Also, it is possible that the first child who approaches the PC kiosk, learns certain things and then teaches to other what he has learned, thus spreading his perspective of that learning .Thus narrowing the scope of other learning available. But at the same time, I believe that such an disadvantage can be easily overcome by more collaborative attempts like that of attaching a formal learning session at the site. This session can be facilitated by children themselves. This would not only build leadership but would also enhance the purposefulness of the learning in a given context. Since this experiment is carried our mostly in marginalized areas, I would recommend that there are also attempts to reach out to the adults of the area which are not the target audience of the experiment. In fact adults are prevented to be at the site of PC-internet kiosks by way of physical low-ceiling installed at the site under which only children of certain height can stand and use the machine. I think by taking into loop the adults, it will help to deepen the impact of this experiment. Adults are an important component of any community especially in relation to children-development. In many cases, adults control children’s mobility and their engagements. It will, therefore be useful to not only have adults included in this experiment by way of sharing existing tools with them but also make new additions in the experiment to cater the needs of the community and its adults.
Also this experiment is primarily intends to support the primary education amongst the marginalized groups. It is therefore also needed that a long term vision of the education is embedded in the experiment. What happens when children of the community learn enough of the computers being installed? What next? Educational needs are dynamics and therefore how can this system be made dynamics? Also, it is needed to co-relate the learning through computer with the change in socio-economic conditions of the community and know the results. Other support systems such as connecting the children to higher schools once they have acquired the primary goals of education, availability of jobs and creation of bridges to such jobs for the marginalized, chalking out the need of specific learning and expected results and making it known to the rural communities are some of the very important aspects to truly empower the communities.
Hole- in- the- wall started as an effective and creative way to impart education but its potentially can only be fully realized if it receives the necessary support system both from the non-government agencies and government programs operational in the communities. Also it needs a constant focus to ensure that through education rural communities reach a socio-economic change and get empowered. Merely imparting education in the absence of other support system may pose a risk of educational tool like this acting like a video game which could amuse but not empower.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Blogging the Diversity
Blogging is a new- wave of expression. It has given common people the global reach. It has brought the common narratives of daily life to an uncommon global cyberspace. It clearly transcends time and space; an investment banker on the Wall Street may write about his idea of a new Hollywood flick whereas a distant Bollywood director may share his experiences of new faith. In no time millions of across the world would read, react and ponder over these ideas and in no time, the writers will have the feedback of what they wrote. This is the power of this new tool calling blogging. It is giving not just giving the voice to the people to reach other people across the globe, it is also now increasingly becoming institutionalized. Some of the major organizations now have blogs. Any major website will seem incomplete without a well written, well fed and well read blog.
One of the beauties of blogging is that it can nurture a wide variety of themes and topics. It can be as professional as journalism with deep insight and understanding and at the same time it may look purely fun-content meant to amuse people. Yet both of such content can attract millions and can be extremely popular.
In this paper I will analyze two blogs in greater details. Both are entirely different in their content but to some extent they are expected to share their target audience.One blog is called Think progress (www.thinkprogress.org) and the other is Stuff White People Like(http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/)
Think Progress
As a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund(CAPAF), this blog intends to provide a platform to advance progressive ideas and policies. This blog gained popularity in terms of its credibility in the recent times. It has been voted as the Best Liberal blog in 2006 in the Weblog awards and was also chosen as an Official Honoree in 2009 Webby awards. The Sidney Hillman foundation has also awarded it as the Best blog of 2008 giving it the Award for the Journalism Excellence
The blog has an activist’s tone, as it “fights” for the following themes:
• Social and economic justice
• Healthy communities
• Media accountability
• Global and domestic security
• Public corruption
• Incompetent establishment
• Corporate malfeasance
• Radical right wing agenda
These themes are listed under the stub “what we are fighting for”. It is clear that the blog has adopted an activist’s tone. The rest of the blog, under different sections categorized according to the different themes listed above, speaks about each of the themes vis-a-vis the government policies, reader’s feedback and expert’s opinion on it. Each member of the editorial team has a well-written, crispy biography, starting from Harvard educated Editor-in-Chief to “The New York Times, CNN, NBC Nightly News, and The Drudge Report” researcher. This adds certain degree of credibility as it makes the writer’s background absolutely clear with the team he or she is working with.
Also the blog is always focused on policies and ideas relating to the 8 themes mentioned and therefore its perspective never appears ambiguous. It regularly reports on government’s policies, its flaws, its strengths and its general reception in the public. A regular way of doing this is through quoting the White house and through putting the video of the concerned politicians and policymakers. Very often there are also interviews of the concerned officer on the relevant theme being discussed. This keep s the content of the blog very focused and provides an opportunity of journalistic balance and objectivity by inviting reader’s comments, reference to other website and videos.
In addition to the regular news on the 8 listed themes, it also a detailed report that reader can subscribe to. This detailed report is published regularly and varies from topic to topic. The present report is on clean energy. One of the striking features of the blog is that it invites “news tip” from the readers. If readers have any news that they want to share, they can send it through a box-space with their email and name. This is a clear and simple use of Citizen’s journalism, which adds a unique interactivity and reader’s participation in the content- range. Another feature on the blog is that of the most-popular-topics. This enables readers to know which the most-read news items are, thus one can see which topics are mostly picked by the readers. This further complimented by other options such as Most Linked , Most Commented, Most Emailed with the option of reading news in the 24 hours, Last Week and Last Month. The later is an achieving system while the former is a way to measure the reader’s interest on different yardsticks such as comments, emails etc.
Besides the blog also list several other external links that speak about government policies and international affairs through its drop down stub “blog roll” while at the same time clearly showing links to other affiliated websites such as The Wonk Room.
Content of the blog and its design and interactivity is most likely to be appealing for people in Development sector, Non-government organizations, Advocacy groups and activists. The wide variety of them is just apt even for students of Social Sciences and Political Sciences particularly students of graduate studies. The depth of analysis, issues and news is diversified and rigorous. It provides good balance by listing the different point of views and also making it clear the way readers perceive this news. It therefore makes it systematic for the readers to navigate the blog and pick and choose the content of their interests.
Some of the advertisements on the blog are that of telecommunication companies like AT&T. This looks relevant because it is expected that a great of deal of the blogs readers are working and are expected to be a regular user of cell phones. However, the advertisement box is clearly marked and that makes the blog look very clean without distractions. The 8 themes have colors and all news attached to each theme has similar colors. This makes the whole blog very easy to read and pick the news items according to ones interest. The use of you tube video and the editorial comments on it makes it really handy to differentiate between what is being said by the government and what is the stand of the blog’s editorial. Together they present a balanced look, readers can, of course, add their comments, which is always easier when the source and the initial comment is available right on the blog where there is comment space.
The choice of colors, mostly primary colors is also simple yet striking. It avoids any distraction and the focuses the readers more and more on the content and on the form of the blog. But somber look of the blog does facilitate the readers’ concentration and navigation. Besides, paid advertisement space, the blog also has a separate link for donations.
The serious content, in the journalism terms can be categorized as hard news, which is well presented and well balanced. The debate on the weather blogs are an alternative to journalism or not, seems to be ending with the professional look and journalistic credibility that Think Progress is gaining. A Journalisticc award further enhances its credibility and its ability of a journalistic voice through blogging. The editorial team also adds to its richness and insightful analysis of the subject through its experience and wide exposure to journalism practice.
Stuff white people like
In stark contrast to the previous blog, this blog is “soft news”. It basically lists some of the major things that white people like. It is a one- person view and hence is extremely subjective, and not so credible. But this blog has gained immense popularity, not because of its credibility but probably because of its entertainment fun value. It is listed as no 11 blog on Technorati and has already got over 30 million hits. The beginning of this blog is rather interesting and its success unexpected. This is what the writer of the blog says about how the blog and came into being in the interview posted on the blog:
My friend Myles Valentine and I were talking over IM about the TV show The Wire. Myles said he didn’t trust any white people who did not watch the show. Somehow we ended up talking about what they were doing instead of watching it and we came up with answers like “yoga,” “plays,” “getting divorced,” and “therapy.” I thought it was a funny idea for a blog and signed up for one at wordpress.com and just started writing.
On being asked if she expected it to be so popular, the writer answered, “No. I started it with the hopes that maybe 10 of my friends would read it. I never expected it to be read by this many people.
This explains the power of media and blogging as one of its tools.
The tone of the blog is humorous and funny and yet it sounds factual at times. The home page of the blog candidly confesses, “This is a scientific approach to highlight and explain stuff white people like. They are pretty predictable.”
In the answering the question “ what white people like”, the blog enlists over 125 “stuff” like Netflix, Bob Marley, yoga, Having two last names, Religion their parents don’t belong to , Not having a TV and Difficult breakups in addition to many others. It is clear that the writer is using humor to write the daily narratives of life most likely in a Western country. The target audience is mostly likely to be students of Cultural studies, International students in campus and of course the white population.
The blog is extremely smart in raising revenues. It has relevant advertisement according to each blog posting. So the blog posting on Netflix had Netflix advertisements, being posed by Google whereas, the posting on Travelling has some travel agents whose advertisements were posted. This enables reaching a very targeted audience according to the content being provided on the web page.
The blog’s design is really easy to navigate with a book with the same title as the blog. It has a “full lists of what white people like” stub with posts, comment and search box. The design is simple and avoids any crowded look. It auotmativ\cally directs the readers to the posts being posted. The advertisements space is also limited and strategically located in small rectangular boxes to avoid any distractions. The templates have ay youthful pictures in bright colors such as organic food, dogs and natures’ shots. Mostly these pictures are the themes on which the posting are written on.
Conclusion
Both the above blogs are focused on different audience groups. These two sets of audiences may have been located in the same regions, the US and Europe, being the two most likely regions, yet their content is so different. Tone of language, design, readers participating and other factors also substantially different but blogging as a tool is common, and that underlines the power of blogging. It can handle such diversified content in the same form. This is revolutionary. The convergence of words, pictures videos and sound has never been so powerfully used in such a diversified content range. The resulting interactivity also makes it possible to adapt itself to the taste and nature of other readers, whose demographic information can be easily found put, given the online tools available to locate the reader’s location etc. This adaptability is the backbone of blogging. It can reach many audiences at the same time and yet remain focused on its core content.
Blogging will continue to mainstream the content and form that has not been able to reach the global audience due to the binding, rigid informational structures, which are now melting. In blogging, the global audience has found a global tool to reach the global demography. The stories, arts and culture, which were once considered distant and whose amalgamation with other popular forms, was perceived unlikely is now meeting its audience in all colors and textures, using a common connecting thread called blogging.
.
One of the beauties of blogging is that it can nurture a wide variety of themes and topics. It can be as professional as journalism with deep insight and understanding and at the same time it may look purely fun-content meant to amuse people. Yet both of such content can attract millions and can be extremely popular.
In this paper I will analyze two blogs in greater details. Both are entirely different in their content but to some extent they are expected to share their target audience.One blog is called Think progress (www.thinkprogress.org) and the other is Stuff White People Like(http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/)
Think Progress
As a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund(CAPAF), this blog intends to provide a platform to advance progressive ideas and policies. This blog gained popularity in terms of its credibility in the recent times. It has been voted as the Best Liberal blog in 2006 in the Weblog awards and was also chosen as an Official Honoree in 2009 Webby awards. The Sidney Hillman foundation has also awarded it as the Best blog of 2008 giving it the Award for the Journalism Excellence
The blog has an activist’s tone, as it “fights” for the following themes:
• Social and economic justice
• Healthy communities
• Media accountability
• Global and domestic security
• Public corruption
• Incompetent establishment
• Corporate malfeasance
• Radical right wing agenda
These themes are listed under the stub “what we are fighting for”. It is clear that the blog has adopted an activist’s tone. The rest of the blog, under different sections categorized according to the different themes listed above, speaks about each of the themes vis-a-vis the government policies, reader’s feedback and expert’s opinion on it. Each member of the editorial team has a well-written, crispy biography, starting from Harvard educated Editor-in-Chief to “The New York Times, CNN, NBC Nightly News, and The Drudge Report” researcher. This adds certain degree of credibility as it makes the writer’s background absolutely clear with the team he or she is working with.
Also the blog is always focused on policies and ideas relating to the 8 themes mentioned and therefore its perspective never appears ambiguous. It regularly reports on government’s policies, its flaws, its strengths and its general reception in the public. A regular way of doing this is through quoting the White house and through putting the video of the concerned politicians and policymakers. Very often there are also interviews of the concerned officer on the relevant theme being discussed. This keep s the content of the blog very focused and provides an opportunity of journalistic balance and objectivity by inviting reader’s comments, reference to other website and videos.
In addition to the regular news on the 8 listed themes, it also a detailed report that reader can subscribe to. This detailed report is published regularly and varies from topic to topic. The present report is on clean energy. One of the striking features of the blog is that it invites “news tip” from the readers. If readers have any news that they want to share, they can send it through a box-space with their email and name. This is a clear and simple use of Citizen’s journalism, which adds a unique interactivity and reader’s participation in the content- range. Another feature on the blog is that of the most-popular-topics. This enables readers to know which the most-read news items are, thus one can see which topics are mostly picked by the readers. This further complimented by other options such as Most Linked , Most Commented, Most Emailed with the option of reading news in the 24 hours, Last Week and Last Month. The later is an achieving system while the former is a way to measure the reader’s interest on different yardsticks such as comments, emails etc.
Besides the blog also list several other external links that speak about government policies and international affairs through its drop down stub “blog roll” while at the same time clearly showing links to other affiliated websites such as The Wonk Room.
Content of the blog and its design and interactivity is most likely to be appealing for people in Development sector, Non-government organizations, Advocacy groups and activists. The wide variety of them is just apt even for students of Social Sciences and Political Sciences particularly students of graduate studies. The depth of analysis, issues and news is diversified and rigorous. It provides good balance by listing the different point of views and also making it clear the way readers perceive this news. It therefore makes it systematic for the readers to navigate the blog and pick and choose the content of their interests.
Some of the advertisements on the blog are that of telecommunication companies like AT&T. This looks relevant because it is expected that a great of deal of the blogs readers are working and are expected to be a regular user of cell phones. However, the advertisement box is clearly marked and that makes the blog look very clean without distractions. The 8 themes have colors and all news attached to each theme has similar colors. This makes the whole blog very easy to read and pick the news items according to ones interest. The use of you tube video and the editorial comments on it makes it really handy to differentiate between what is being said by the government and what is the stand of the blog’s editorial. Together they present a balanced look, readers can, of course, add their comments, which is always easier when the source and the initial comment is available right on the blog where there is comment space.
The choice of colors, mostly primary colors is also simple yet striking. It avoids any distraction and the focuses the readers more and more on the content and on the form of the blog. But somber look of the blog does facilitate the readers’ concentration and navigation. Besides, paid advertisement space, the blog also has a separate link for donations.
The serious content, in the journalism terms can be categorized as hard news, which is well presented and well balanced. The debate on the weather blogs are an alternative to journalism or not, seems to be ending with the professional look and journalistic credibility that Think Progress is gaining. A Journalisticc award further enhances its credibility and its ability of a journalistic voice through blogging. The editorial team also adds to its richness and insightful analysis of the subject through its experience and wide exposure to journalism practice.
Stuff white people like
In stark contrast to the previous blog, this blog is “soft news”. It basically lists some of the major things that white people like. It is a one- person view and hence is extremely subjective, and not so credible. But this blog has gained immense popularity, not because of its credibility but probably because of its entertainment fun value. It is listed as no 11 blog on Technorati and has already got over 30 million hits. The beginning of this blog is rather interesting and its success unexpected. This is what the writer of the blog says about how the blog and came into being in the interview posted on the blog:
My friend Myles Valentine and I were talking over IM about the TV show The Wire. Myles said he didn’t trust any white people who did not watch the show. Somehow we ended up talking about what they were doing instead of watching it and we came up with answers like “yoga,” “plays,” “getting divorced,” and “therapy.” I thought it was a funny idea for a blog and signed up for one at wordpress.com and just started writing.
On being asked if she expected it to be so popular, the writer answered, “No. I started it with the hopes that maybe 10 of my friends would read it. I never expected it to be read by this many people.
This explains the power of media and blogging as one of its tools.
The tone of the blog is humorous and funny and yet it sounds factual at times. The home page of the blog candidly confesses, “This is a scientific approach to highlight and explain stuff white people like. They are pretty predictable.”
In the answering the question “ what white people like”, the blog enlists over 125 “stuff” like Netflix, Bob Marley, yoga, Having two last names, Religion their parents don’t belong to , Not having a TV and Difficult breakups in addition to many others. It is clear that the writer is using humor to write the daily narratives of life most likely in a Western country. The target audience is mostly likely to be students of Cultural studies, International students in campus and of course the white population.
The blog is extremely smart in raising revenues. It has relevant advertisement according to each blog posting. So the blog posting on Netflix had Netflix advertisements, being posed by Google whereas, the posting on Travelling has some travel agents whose advertisements were posted. This enables reaching a very targeted audience according to the content being provided on the web page.
The blog’s design is really easy to navigate with a book with the same title as the blog. It has a “full lists of what white people like” stub with posts, comment and search box. The design is simple and avoids any crowded look. It auotmativ\cally directs the readers to the posts being posted. The advertisements space is also limited and strategically located in small rectangular boxes to avoid any distractions. The templates have ay youthful pictures in bright colors such as organic food, dogs and natures’ shots. Mostly these pictures are the themes on which the posting are written on.
Conclusion
Both the above blogs are focused on different audience groups. These two sets of audiences may have been located in the same regions, the US and Europe, being the two most likely regions, yet their content is so different. Tone of language, design, readers participating and other factors also substantially different but blogging as a tool is common, and that underlines the power of blogging. It can handle such diversified content in the same form. This is revolutionary. The convergence of words, pictures videos and sound has never been so powerfully used in such a diversified content range. The resulting interactivity also makes it possible to adapt itself to the taste and nature of other readers, whose demographic information can be easily found put, given the online tools available to locate the reader’s location etc. This adaptability is the backbone of blogging. It can reach many audiences at the same time and yet remain focused on its core content.
Blogging will continue to mainstream the content and form that has not been able to reach the global audience due to the binding, rigid informational structures, which are now melting. In blogging, the global audience has found a global tool to reach the global demography. The stories, arts and culture, which were once considered distant and whose amalgamation with other popular forms, was perceived unlikely is now meeting its audience in all colors and textures, using a common connecting thread called blogging.
.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Muscial Hip-hop: In Dissonance & Harmony
Human experiences are a matter of every passing second. Such experiences are expressed in many forms. Music is one of the most popular forms in which the human experience is manifested.
Historically, it is a common knowledge that music is used by some of the great revolutionaries like Che Guevara for political purposes, Gandhi for social movements and even now special jingles are used by armed forces across the world to keep the cadets motivated, soldiers inspired and general public interested to join the force in solidarity.
In I love Hip Hop in Morocco, hip-hop as a genre of music was seen as a tool to express free speech, love for music and solidarity. Whereas in Dissonance and Harmony, music was seen as an expression of freedom under oppressive regime/occupation, it can be seen as a language that breaks the barriers of monotony of life as just being romantic-content and verbose form. As one artist says,” Music should be used to convey the society not just love all the time.”, we see that music is perceived as communicating the silence, communicating the horrors of war and turmoil and the urge to break out and “go away”. In both films, however, it is apparent that music and lyrics are perceived by the artists as something that can soothe, and fill the void, both individual and collective. Both films not only narrated the story of the artist’s journey to a Hip hop festival or to a distant city of Los Angeles, but films also narrated the conflicts within which each of the artists had to negotiate every day.
The only woman rapper in I love Hip Hop in Morocco doesn’t only wants to express her ideas of freedom and individuality through rap, but she also has to negotiate with her family, society and her gender. In Morocco, where hip-hop or any kind of music is not in a popular traditional culture, she is trying to be a part of hip-hop festival performing with other male singers to the public. Her family is supportive but the society at large isn’t. Members of another group Fnaire, chooses not to use certain words like “fuck’ which they perceived as not being a part of their language/culture. But hip-top itself is not part of their culture too. But hip-hop is their craft and they use it to self-express. Self expression is indeed a part of their faith and culture. But the form is problematic. And hence, intense negotiation.
DJ Key, another artist abandoned his work in architecture to follow his dream of hip-hop. This is yet another site of conflict between the pursuit of livelihood and the pursuit of dream and passion. In the midst of this conflict and negotiation, what emerges is an unlikely music in the form of a hip-hop concert in the midst of an uncertain audience and an nonsupporting general societal fabric.
The groups in I love Hip-hop in Morocco expresses it desires and love for the free speech through “ rebellion” social form of expression, perceived as Western ans alien, while at the same time remaining deeply rooted to their culture, faith and families. This can be seen as a conflict between the form and the content; what the artist is expressing may get a receptive audience in a Moroccan society. So the content has a social space and “social ears” but the form, the hip-hop, is apparently too alien/anti-culture/anti-faith and unacceptable and hence we see a lack of “social eye” for this. Also, the logistical support for the artist came from an American filmmaker and the American Embassy. However, all of the support was internally raised i.e., within Morocco. The other film we saw was different on this account.
Besides, while I love Hip-hop in Morocco is an attempt by rap artists to perform in their own country and create a free speech space for themselves, Dissonance and Harmony was set in a different site; War torn Iraq, highly politically volatile Egypt, Lebanon and Jordon. The artists from these countries are in the midst of physical ruin, social isolation and under their own government’s embargo on their artistic expression. An Iraqi guitar player was banned from the television, is one such blunt example of social exclusion of artistic expression in their own nation, which was torn apart by external forces as a result of international politics. In such circumstances, their art was affected with the economy, local culture, polity and general day-to-day life’s mobility. To worsen things, the globalised media created stereotypes that completely made these artists of the Arab countries almost inconceivable in the minds of the world specially the American audience, who could only imagine an Arab with a gun and nota a guitar or a violin. This documentary therefore can be seen as a bridge-builder, between the artists of the Arab world representing their Eastern societies and the artists of America and American audience representing their Western societies. Thus the film clearly tries to break the “perceived conflict” that is created by the popular media especially the news media in the minds of the Western audience.
In both films however we see that “Americans’ are trying to popularize music, Hip-hop in Morocco and other forms such rap in the Arab countries. This can still be read as cultural imperialism, by few if not many. For, in both cases, music was the focus and the major theme of the film’s narration. Whereas many will agree that music is not the major theme in a Muslim mind in a Muslim society. It is in fact a matter of debate and controversy. It is true that music doesn’t have a language and it therefore, transcends culture in many ways yet themes such family norms, prayers, social justice, charity and community are themes which would probably be more receptive in the Muslim world and its societies.
In Dissonance and Harmony I also observed a kind of “fascination” for the west specially the US in the language and affirmations of the Arab artists.(Can we understand this also as a produce of the popular media as it created Islamophobic images and sound..?)Their desire to come to the US and perform and make space for the Arab artistic expression in the minds of an American audience was remarkable. But it would have been more remarkable if their attempts to make a favorable artistic-image were directed to their resisting governments I particular and societies in general. Clearly for this the logistical support was not available. What was indeed available was a support system to come to Los Angeles, and do a show for the American audience. This can be viewed as conflicting but justified given the resistance from the authorities to the music as an artistic form of expression in the Arab culture in general.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Hard Focus Hard Realities:Chasing the Peace
Islam means peace. All its prophets including Abraham, Jesus and the last one, Muhammad propagated peace and social justice. Amongst its first revealed words of Quran are “Read” and “Pen”. Yet in the recent times of Islamophobia, all of these have been attacked. Islam is attacked for being a violent religion; terms like “fundamentalist” and “Islamic terrorism” are widely accepted as a standard terms used especially for “radical” Muslims in one part of the world or the other. Cartoons of the last prophet of Islam, a religion practiced by almost 1.5 billion people across the globe, have been depicted in the most objectionable way by a mainstream newspaper of a developed nation. The Quran is being termed as some kind of terror-text by movies like Fitna, produced by a Member of Parliament of yet another developed nation and recently a movie called Obsession, copies of which were slipped into thousands of newspaper across the US during the recent election time, was an attempt to propagate hate-speech against the fastest growing faith on earth.
In addition to all this, in our class-screening of Real Bad Arabs, what struck me was the sheer number of biased representations that were made against the Arab world in the Hollywood movies. Through these movies, the fears and observations of Edward Said in Orientalism were reinforced. We see Muslims, especially the young Muslims as angry, yelling, out-of-control, threatening, holding guns and knives draped in Yasser-Arafat-style- checks-scarf. They are shown as villains and in almost all the movies, they are showed to be killed in vast numbers, emphasizing and underlining the fact that they are too many in number and hence are a bigger threat. Edward Said, in his monumental work, Orientalism, has observed how the West especially the US has perceived the strange-looking Arabs with their strange-culture and strange- space as threat. Their different culture, instead of being perceived as a part of the diversity in cultures of the world, was being perceived as a “threateningly-different other”. This lens, through which Europe and America sees the Middle East as a threatening , backward, uncivilized, barbaric people, culture and space, all of which must be “fixed” in order to restore and retain their own freedom and peace was being termed as Orientalism, by Said.
These lenses were evident in the films that were featured in the documentary that we saw. Two of the most striking features were the representation of Muslim-youth, as being angry and aggressive, and women being suppressed and being objectified as mere sensual-objects like belle dancers.
The text Islamophobia shows a veiled woman as one of the symbols of Islam. The film also reinforces the same image as one of the images of Islam. Women are showed in Islamic veiled as oppressed or are shown as sensual-objects as belle dancers, being used by men, clad in traditional Arab dress. To my mind, this is mere stereotyping of a region with over 250 million people with different traditions, cultures and history. The practice of Muslim women covering their head with a scarf is a common practice .However, what is uncommon is the form in which the head is covered. This covering is variable across Middle East depending on the local culture and traditions. However, this differentiation is not seen in the images that appear in the documentary. The image being showed in the book as symbol is an image of a woman, who covers her full face with a black cloth with only eyes visible, is a deliberately selected image, which does not represent the whole of Middle East. Such a form of hijab is mostly visible only in a few countries like that of Saudi Arabia India and Pakistan. It is shocking how a generalized image of Arab Muslim women is represented.
The media is clearly biased on the factual representations. It strategically “failed” to inform its viewers the fact that until 18th century the worse kind of oppression was given to the women of Europe; Britain legally allowed its men to sell-off their women like a commodity whereas Swiss law legally allowed its men to have 50% legal share over their wives’ salary. And in the United States, voting rights to women were recent phenomenon and so was the right to acquire or buy property. Or, for that matter, even use their maiden name after marriage, without the husband’s permission. Furthermore, the closest to which a woman came, in terms of acquiring a political office in the US was in the recent elections when Sarah Palin was nominated by the Republicans as its candidate for the Vice Presidentship. Sadly enough, party lost the elections and the dream of seeing the first woman Vice-President, after over 200 years of feminist movement was instantly killed.
On the contrary, Pakistan, a Muslim dominated country had an Oxford-educated, woman-head, Benazir Bhutto, being democratically elected, not once but twice; Bangladesh, again a Muslim dominated country was headed by two different women namely Khalida Zia and Sheikh Hasina; Turkey had its Vice-PM as a woman and Iran had a women Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Abidi. Even historically speaking, the first Muslim person was a woman called Khadija, who was a working woman almost 1500 years ago, who gave a trade-contract to Prophet Muhammad, married him after being widowed twice and herself initiating a marriage proposal with him. Khadija was also the first women to wear the veil almost 15 centuries ago and demonstrate all the traits of a successful, modern, working woman. Yet in the long discourses and study of veil in the 21st century her portrait is missing. The whole architecture of the literature available on veil or hijab is completely devoid of the first woman, who practiced veil for the first time in history, and from whom all the discourses must start. All such work, therefore are manifested in unfairness and are unfit for any rigorous, academic investigation or any serious study.
Another misrepresentation in the Real Bad Arabs that struck me was that of Muslim men. They were shown as aggressors, violent and armed at all times. In the Hollywood movies like True Lies and Sleeper Cell, they are being shown as ruthless armed terrorists, who can strike anyone, anywhere. Even more biased are the news media reports like that of a Oklahoma City Attack, which claimed 168 lives and left over 800 people injured and is considered as the largest terrorist attack on American soil in history before the September 11 attacks. It also remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in American history. Within few minutes of attacks, the whole media machinery starting pointing fingers on some Middle eastern youth as the culprits behind the attack without doing any systematic investigation showing any kind of journalistic rigor. At the end of it all, it was found that the attack was carried-out by a local American, who grew-up in the same city and had connections with militia.
Such images and incidents only underline the ulterior motives and hidden agendas when it comes to representation of Arab people in general and Arab-youth in particular. The images of youth in the Hollywood movies being perpetrators of violence is in complete opposition to the fact that in the recent times, most of the Muslim regions such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Gaza are under armed-conflict, mostly initiated by the West. Victims of these global-conflicts are mostly civilians, who are overwhelmingly Muslims, mostly children and youth. And, therefore, what we see in the movie-images are the actual victims, who are shown as perpetrators.
Edward Said's observation in Orientalism that such misrepresentation is intentional is crucial. To have such representation in the media and creating threat in the minds and hearts of people especially American people to justify huge military budgets and military aid to countries like Israel, which is responsible for the longest illegal occupation, according to the UN charter, seems intentional and the smell of greed of critical resources like oil can be felt. Such suspicions become more profound considering the strong corporate lobby in Washington DC for the production of oil and related products. A film like Syriana highlights such strong linkages and exposes the hidden agendas. Besides, works of John Pilger such as Palestine is still an issue and Fiske’s Palestine, Propaganda and the Promised Land are other monumental journalistic work which shows how Israel is funded by the US to torture civilians, especially the youth of Palestine to strengthen the state of Israel through illegal prosecution and occupation.
Furthermore, the representations that we see in the Hollywood films featured in the Real Bad Arabs can be seen as an extension of political propaganda tactic and to project Muslims as evil- villains, who can only be controlled by violence and hence it is justified to use violence to control them, as they pose a serious threat to the “civilized” world. In my view, not only are such representations dangerous for the world–peace but I think it also kills the potential of peaceful co-existence between several cultures. For, it only strengthens and supports Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilization that instills fear and justifies violence against an unknown, unexplored, distant culture, probably just because it has precious resources and because it stands on, and practices its own culture, which may appear “different and strange” to the West.
In the midst of such misrepresentation John Pilger’s definition of Journalists as “not merely the messengers but also the people who understand the message and its hidden agendas” appear like a savior. It calls for courage and an insider’s insight for the truth to prevail. It is clearly not enough to switch to one television news channel and perceive as it as the window of the world. What is required is to go beyond what is shown and what is not shown, and read what is written and understand it in the light of what is not written. That will reflect the true nature of the news and real agendas of the News makers. Same is true for the so called Hollywood films, which, in reality works as propaganda and PR tactics in which defense personnel modifies scripts, builds characters and writes screenplays to change the public-perception of reality thus instilling a new- constructed reality. This is done for various reasons, most of which are political including boosting military- recruitment and propagating hate against the unknown, unexplored, different “threat”. Thus, in the end, perpetually marginalizing the future of peace and cross-cultural co-existence.
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