Yet Another Point of View

And, as if that justifies everything. As if it justifies that 12-year old Rouvan Rawla was repeatedly rebuked, harrassed, humiliated and finally caned by Principal Sunirmal Chakravarthi of Le Martinere school in Kolkata. He was caned so hard that the cane snapped in two. Worse, it broke the spirit of the boy so badly that he hung himself in his room four days later. In response to the protests and outcry, the Principal has now "apologized". He said, ""I have to admit that when I caned this boy, I made a mistake and am willing to face consequences of that. But to link the caning of this boy to his death 4-5 days later is stretching it." Really?!! Is it really such a stretch to understand the connection between a 12-year-old's fragile, impressionable psyche and the emotional trauma caused by physical and public humiliation? Hmmm, doesnt sound like rocket science to me. And the Principal is supposed to be the expert of children's education, personality de...

There's this guy who decided to focus on a bright twinkle in a dark sky. Everyday. For a thousand weekdays. I stumbled upon an online write-up in The Huffington Post on Neil Pasricha's book The Book of Awesome . He had started it as a website 1000 Awesome Things back in 2008. In each post, he writes about "one simple, universal little joy" like "snow days, bakery air, or cashiers opening up new lanes at the grocery store, the smell of rain on a hot sidewalk, and waking up and realizing it's Saturday." Most of the posts are bang-on and just about everybody, from every part of the world, could relate to them. He also peppers the post with personal vignettes and that makes them all the more endearing. They are well-written and that's probably the reason why the book works. "Awesome!" is not usually my chosen exclaimation of sheer delight, but were I to use it, what would be my top 10 instances? Its actually tough to shortlist ten, leave alone...