home schooling?

In todays world with the multitude of offerings (both free and premium) there is the increased debate on the merits of home schooling. On the face of it in a simplistic manner the answer is why not? - after all formal schooling as a method of imparting knowledge is a recent phenomena. The earlier method wherein the child was apprenticed to the father and hence learnt his trade didnt have any formal schooling in it. Of course it also meant that there were limited children for this to succeed and with the failure of the limited children per couple the need for "formal education" took shape.

Also the break down of the ruling elite to a democracy has meant that the children of the ruling class had to "learn" as they no longer had a guaranteed "job" (of course the public in countries where there are democratic dynasties would disagree). It is this need to learn new skills other than what their parent knew that has led to this system of formal education. The cost of this education and also the lack of specialised knowledge (as apposed to apprenticeship) in what they learn has meant that we have a lot of average and below average people competing for a broad spectrum of jobs resulting in the search for the one person who is as interested in the job as he would have been in his traditional one.

this break down of traditional jobs has led to a complete loss of excellance in many fields of human endeavour. just image the costs saved by society if there were a family tradition!! of course the job of the government would then just be to manage the "perceived low end job" or in other words that caste and creed do not rear its ugly head. even in the present system we have a caste system - those who have an ivy league education in their respective countries look down upon the rest of the educated lot!! a pro degree takes you longer than others and so on.

so is the current costly system of imparting formal education the way or ??....

story of india (world?) contd..

There is a mention of ganesha (the elephant headed diety) who when he was once mocked by the moon cursed it to disappear (moonless night). But the pleading of the moon made him relent and he reduced his curse by producing the effect of waxing and waning of the moon. In the earlier blog we have seen the stories of the dashavataram with possible origins in the creation of the universe - this story might be one of the other celestials events recorded - namely the moving of the moon from the geo-synchronus orbit around the earth to the current satellite state.
Also in the ramayana - kumbakarnan is supposed to sleep for 6 months and awaken for 6 months - possibly so as he was a resident of one of the poles? This presupposes that people could move quickly in real time between srilanka and the poles to get him for the battle - again pointing towards a mode of transport quite advanced in its design and capability.
Additionaly there are innumerable references to scientific feats and the shape of the "lingam" is similar to that of an atomic reactor. What if humankind in the past had harnessed the power of the atom and the mahabarata war resulted in a nuclear holocaust and it has taken the earth a few million years to rejuvenate.
There is enough evidence of the use of scientific advancement at that time - rama after his victory over ravana "flew back" to ayodhya. the transfer of a foetus from one person to another (balaram), "beam me up scottie" to borrow a popular phrase (krishna's birth?), cloning (kauravas), fertility clinic (pandavas), cosmetic surgery (sishupala), female foeticide which meant MRI techniques (one woman - 5 husbands - common in rural north india today) - so on and so forth.
readers are invited to post more examples.

story of india - BBC series

For those who have seen this - one cant but look at the history books afresh.

The time frame of our recorded civilisation stretches probably to the time of creation itself. Maybe we were interstellar travellers and landed here as it was suitable for our day to day living? One has to look at the dasa-avatharam for a clue - not the kamalhasan one!!

matsya (giant horned fish) (pralaya after 7 days - similar to noah's ark plus world created in 7 days) - plus the first reference to MANU or MAN - prehistoric man? caveman or the mutated gene of man from some kryptonian spacecraft?
koorma (tortoise) - nectar churning from which emerged SURABHI (the cow), VAARUNI (wine), KARPAKAM / PARIJATHAM (a tree), APSARAS (nymphs) CHANDRA (moon), SRI (Mahalakshmi), UCHAISRAVAS (the white sonorous steed ), AIRAVATHAM' (Indra's elephant). Finally, Lord DANVANTARI (the divine physician) who is none other than another incarnation of Lord Vishnu appeared with a golden pitcher with AMRUTHA (the nectar of immortality) - an elixir of life that can prolong life indefinitely. (It is also believed to have the properties that can change any base metal into gold) Both the Devas and Asuras were excited and a fight royal ensued. (big bang theory on creation??) - Circa 2 billion + years ago
varaha - (Boar) - retrieval of the earth hidden by asuras - the actual placing of the earth after the big bang as the third rock from the sun?
narasimha (half animal - half man) - first establishment of "law and order" (dharma) - the boon was a contract which had a loophole?!!
vamana (dwarf) - first conflict of ego and selflessness - mahabali won (ego was conquered) and became immortal.
parasuramam (first human??) - at retirement of this avathar after the naquishing of 21 generations of kings Parasurama threw his axe into the western ocean. The ocean receded upto the point where the axe fell and the land so reclaimed is known as Parasurama Kshetram. Scholars say that modern Kerala is this Kshetram.(movement of tectonic plates - creation of the himalayas? - circa 180-220 Million years ago)
rama - after the subsiding of the tectonic shift - first recorded clash of civilisations(india- srilanka war)? and also the establishment of dharma by humans with all their failings etc?
krishna and kalki - as human population increases and pressures on dharma (safeguarding of nature) increases - we have these vocal protagnists who come to remind mankind of the destruction that awaits us if we do not follow the path of dharmam. global warming is but just one of the side effects. if one were to link the story of durga she kills the demon whose blood is supposed to spawn more of his ilk (virus like aids etc) - hence she become a chandi who drinks all the blood.
NOTE: the ordering of the avathars follow a pattern easy to commit to memory - hence in reality maybe koorma, varaha and then matsya?
hence being a HINDU means a person who is one with nature and maybe knows the birth of our planet - in fact the red indians were the closest to living with nature - maybe a part of the tectonic shift which finally gave the structure of the 7 continents moved some of the ancestors to america and they continued living in harmony with nature as that was the way life was sustainable for billions of years?!!?? all the temples etc are recent post AD results maybe to compete with the MLM of christianity and islam and other religions?? man in india and most of the "barbaric" world was in conformity with nature.
i think we who have been labelled hindu's by the british for want of a better term can start a campaign to rename ourselves as "people living in harmony with nature" - that makes organisations like the greenpeace, wwf etc hindu organisations!! LOL!!
the phrase marked in red above - the importance of gold - recent nanomedicine delivery inside the body requires the medicine to be coated with gold as gold attaches inside the body to cancerous cells(bad cells - ignoring the good cells) - once it so reaches the bad cells it then delivers the medicine contained within. thats why the brahmins wanted to eat off silver and golden utensils as obviously the daily small nano delivery of these metals into once body kept the "bad cells" marked where the daily antiseptic in the food ie "haldi" would go and attach and help heal faster? (maybe this merits some reasearch)

as for the series itself - the presenter was a bit harsh in his judgement of the british at what they did/didnt do at the time of leaving the sub-continent - i think they just did what they felt was best at that time and in those trying circumstances (what with jinnah and nehru squabbling like kids) - and on the ground the bitterness of losing the jewel crown (as india was often referred to in the british world raj) might have resulted in the non action which led to the harsh realities of partition.

Gas Bag

The lastest attempt by the goverment in prepoll gimmicks to cut the price of cooking gas by 7.5% is nothing but that - just a gimmick. on the other hand if they had been honest and raised the prices by another 10%, we would have had a case of plenty.
Let me explain - with the 10% raise elevating the price of LPG in the country to international prices the governement would have hit two birds with one stone - in the times of recession got competition in the "gas" sector (thus ensuring the same availability of gas as cellphones today- the 1Crore plus waiting list for gas connections will vanish overnight as most of those on the waiting list are speculators) and also ensuring investment and jobs. Sadly the people are happy with this 7.5% cut in the price which translates into a possible 6-7$ difference per household on an annual basis as against a 1-1.5% positive GDP impact a decontrol of Gas prices at this juncture would have had.
This would only leave kerosene to be dealt with. Considering the largese issued by the latest pay commision a time frame of 2-3 years may be notified with periodic price increases to bring up the price of kerosene to market rates.