chroma thoughts...:)

“Your’e quite disturbing to be around.”  “You brood a lot”. “You don’t participate”. “You’re not fun”. “This indifferent nature is quite redundant”. These are the other occasional dialogues that come along. Actually I can be a lot more disturbing person to be around, than you imagine to be. When anxiety creeps in, its like going berserk in the inside. One can’t really explain how that is. There’s a surging need to scream out loud. But hush… There are people around. As a matter of fact, I’m saving you guys from experiencing the outlash of it, with that attitude. That’s how I try to keep calm and composed. That’s how I hold myself in. Brooding.  “Did you go to _______________ alone?”  Yes, I go to the movies alone. I go to restaurants alone. I go to lot many other places alone. I do a lot other things alone. Once upon a time I too used to judge myself for this. But later, it came out to be one of my greatest strengths. I believe the capacity to do things alone corresponds to

Violence is a central concept for describing social relationships among humans, a concept loaded with ethical and political significance. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.”  Yet, the most common form of violence I observed in context of the schools and communities I work with is Non-verbal violence, commonly termed as verbal abuse, which encompasses a relatively large spectrum of behaviours, including: accusing, undermining, verbal threatening, ordering, trivializing, silencing, blaming, name calling, overtly criticizing and also verbal violence disguised as jokes.  Here, I would like to share the discussion we had within our debrief group on the importance of Education for Peace in the school-comm

Pragat Shaikshanik Maharashtra ( PSM ) is an initiative of the Maharashtra State Government towards an educationally progressive Maharashtra. The RTE Act of 2009 came into effect in the nation on April 1, 2010. In Section 2, clause 3 of the Act, it states that all children between the age group 6–14 years are entitled to receive quality education. Annual status of education (ASER) 2014 survey showed that majority of children in Maharashtra cannot read basic sentences. Considering the statistics, only 27% class 8 students could read a basic text and 31% could divide numbers, in the State of Maharashtra. The state level assessment tests by the Maharashtra State Council of Education and Report (MSCERT) by the year 2014 revealed that the average reading skill of class 5 children was 51% and Math skill was 53%. Alarmed by the situation, the Department of School Education and Sports, Maharashtra released a Government Resolution (GR) on 22nd June, 2015 aiming for ‘Educationally Progressi

Hello everyone!   Project Utthaan is an initiative to set up reading spaces and a book reading culture in Thane Municipal Corporation schools. Phase One of the campaign found success in setting up library in TMC School No: 03, Yashodhar , Thane. Moving ahead, Phase Two the project will be undertaken three Gandhi Fellows namely Ashik Krishnan, Chandrani Roy, Debabrata Saha to organize library and the associated processes in 17 TMC Schools they work with. The 17 schools includes 10 Marathi, 3 Hindi, 2 Urdu, 1 Gujarati and 1 English medium school.    A physical library is non-existent in most of these schools and lack in space, infrastructure and money to afford the luxury of one. While some schools have enough books, some have a few and some don't have any. Considering the student strength of each school and the number of existing books, we are targeting to achieve 2000 Marathi, 1000 Hindi, 400 Urdu, 50 Gujarati and 500 English books and provide a libra

Friends, co-enablers and countrymen! I am putting up this post to mention the immense thanks I have towards each one of you who supported the campaign till date and also to solicit your further support and hand holding in achieving greater ideals. As you know, the aim is not just to set up libraries or reading corners in underdeveloped schools, but to provide a learning environment for our kids that embarks the creativity in them. Moving ahead, three of us; Chandrani Roy, Debabrata Saha and myself will be working on to set up libraries and the associated processes in 17 of Thane Municipal Corporation schools across various mediums of Marathi, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati and English. While some of the schools have enough books, some have a few and some don’t. While some have its own reading space, others don’t. Considering the strength of the school and the number of books the schools already have, we have put up the following target. We are looking out for children’s liter

TMC School No: 03.Yashodhar, Thane Working with the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) schools as a Gandhi Fellow has always opened up multiple learning opportunities for me. It was a revelation upon experiencing the non-existence of libraries or reading corners in the schools I worked with. When I think about it, library and books have been part of my life since childhood and have had a major role in the development of my thoughts and perspectives. It was in December 2016 that I started an online campaign to set up a library in TMC School No: 03, and English medium school located in Yashodhar, Thane. Since then, I had been receiving books from my friends and a few unknown well-wishers whom I address as my co-enablers in the process and conducting book reading and story-telling sessions in the school. I had been carrying different books with me during each of my visit to the school and performing these sessions in different classes. The books The major constraint i

As many of you know, I am a Gandhi Fellow with Kaivalya Education Foundation and I work with Thane Municipal Corporation schools on Headmaster Leadership and in strengthening of school processes, keeping in mind the increment in Student Learning Outcome. Admission drive for the current academic year is running in all the schools and the story I'm sharing here is about a father who came to school last week to enrol his three children. He and his family had just moved to Thane from his village in UP. He was assisted by the lady of the house in which his wife works as a maid, to help them out in the admission process.    The boy was less than 5 years old and the girls were of 10 and 11 years old respectively. Also, the girls hadn't had any formal education before. As per RTE, any child between the ages 6 and 14 who hasn't attended school before can be enrolled to age appropriate classes.   But what turned out was that both the girls had the same date of bi

Friends, supporters and countrymen! Shouting out a big thanks to all.    This is to share with all that 32 new books worth Rs . 4853 and 25 used books worth Rs . 3801 have been received during the past 3 months of the campaign. I had been carrying the books along with me during my school visits and 9 successful book reading / story telling sessions were conducted across the two of Thane Municipal Corporation schools I work with. My field support in the schools for this academic year has come to halt and I express my deep gratitude to each of the contributors who helped in providing to my students the learning environment they deserve.    I hope to get functional libraries installed in both the schools i n the next academic year which commences in the second week of June. When I'm in need of help and I will, seek from you. May the force be with us. 

Ra’s Al Ghul In the comics, Ra’s Al Ghul is often described as a 700 year old international terrorist, his arch enemy being the Batman. With the magical powers of the Lazarus Pits he has been able to live such a long life to see the world entering the modern age, a period of significant development in the fields of science, politics, warfare and technology. Cognizant of industrialization destroying much of the world’s natural beauty, he abhors humans and their activities, setting him up to a path of eco-terrorism. He concludes his ultimate aim in life to bring perfect environmental balance on earth, by annihilating most of humanity. By and large, he tries to eliminate the human race by a biological warfare such as genetically engineered virus, only to be stopped by the Batman or the Justice League rightly on time. The movie (Batman Begins, 2005) version of the character believes Gotham city has become “a breeding ground for suffering and injustice” and that it has bec

RAG: Natural disasters, pollution, global warming, resource depletion, ozone layer depletion, waste disposal, climate change, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, ocean acidification, genetic engineering, urban sprawl. One cause for all. Humans. UL9: Everytime I try to vanquish off the human race from my earth, they assemble. To stop me. RAG: I’ve lived over 700 years and seen what levels of destruction humans are possible of. Which is why I want to save my earth from ecological devastation by eliminating most of its population. UL9: Being a few seconds in the internet made me realize what you came to know by living 700 years. Perfect environmental balance can happen only with the human race extinct. What makes you think at least some should survive? RAG: Like the pit restores my youth, me and my league will construct everything back to equilibrium. UL9: Construction. It can happen only with destruction. Destruction and extinction of the entire humanity. But many

“Bhaiya, aap ka jaath kya hai?” “Bhaiya, aap Christian hoon?” “Ya aap Muslim hoon?” “Ya Hindu?” “Aap konsi jaath se hai?” And the questions go on and on.. And these are kids from class 3 to class 8 who are asking me such questions. And I always reply that I don’t have a religion or a caste. Then the next question arises. “Aap ka surname kya hai?” Again, they are not able to figure out anything from my surname. Actually it makes them even more confused. And the next question comes. “Aap kahan se hoon?” I reply that I was born and brought up in Kerala. Then the next question comes. “Kerala mein koi jaath nahi hai kya?” I take a deep sigh and say, “The people in my life either don’t have any, or they have all.” And what happens next is that they run away to engage themselves in their own little activities. I wouldn’t say that it was strange for me to see the idea of religion and caste to be so grounded in their minds, but at some level, I denounce it. When I once told an 8t