Attendance And The Lecturers Of Today

A few days back, one of my lecturers informed me that I have shortage in attendance (below 60% is what he said) in his subject. But what was ironic was that he still kept smiling and spoke properly to me even after that. I expected him to be angry or even hurt (if he was that devoted a teacher!), but he showed none of those signs. He probably realized I am not benefiting from his lectures and that was the main reason for my not attending his classes. But as far as university rules go, I must have 75% attendance in order to be eligible to write the semester exams. So it’s obvious I’ll be attending all his classes from now on, come what may, just because of my fear of being detained for one year, thus proving I’ll be attending his classes not to learn anything from them, but just so that I can get a ‘Present’ on the attendance register against my name. And the lecturer will very well know the reason.
Now, moving from a personal talk to making it more general, this situation is not just applicable to me, but for all the engineering students out there. Which now brings me to my topic of concern – is attendance the only way to judge a student’s eligibility to appear for the exams? Are lecturers today misinterpreting the rules of attendance? Is attendance really necessary?
The way I look at it, a lecturer’s duty is to teach properly and make our lives much easier on the night before the exam. This is possible if they explain each and every topic very well, if they themselves are enthusiastic in their teaching and if they come down to our levels while explaining. Only then will the students themselves feel like attending all of the lecturer’s classes and begin to take an interest in the subject. What is the general approach of most of the lecturers is that we can pass our exams (not learn the subject, but merely clear the paper) if we read their notes only. And obviously nobody would ever want to attend college when all we do is write notes for 6 hours a day, when those very notes are a replica of a textbook we all possess. And this is where our attendance drops.
Now why are the rules of 75% attendance compulsory? This, at least the way I look at it, is because provided the teacher explains us as in the first case, the way it should be, then we can understand a sufficient amount only if we had attended around three-fourths of all the classes that lecturer took. If we had not attended his/her classes, we would not have understood the subject well and are likely to fail. So in order to make us realize we have not taken our studies seriously, we are made to sit for a year if our attendance is low.
But where does the whole system go wrong? When the lecturers teach as in the second case I mentioned (the general approach). It is the lecturers who are to be blamed for students not attending their classes, not us students.
So friends and readers of this post, don’t you all think this system needs revising? Shouldn’t the university set a more decent rule before actually framing it? Shouldn’t a person become a lecturer only if he/she has certain knowledge in that department and has the skill to teach even the most difficult of the topics to the least bright student and not just because he/she was unable to become anything else in life? I hope some teachers do read this post because it’s essential they realize that there are a hundred or more students dependant on them. It’s up to them now, whether they want to help make their future or help destroy it.

Movies And The Youth Of Today

There has been a misconception that Aashish Goel is all about movies. He knows only movies and talks only movies. Well, I don’t quite agree with this, but I’ve realized in this world that if at all you want to be heard, you shouldn’t always speak what you want to speak, but speak what others want to hear. And that’s the whole point of me writing this blog. There are many so-called friends I have in class, who never speak anything general with me, but approach me only when they want to have a chat about some movie or song. It hurts me a bit, but what hurts me more is that I don’t feel like chatting with these people about movies anymore. This has nothing to do with attitude, in fact I know very little to walk around with an inflated ego, but it’s come down to one thing – are my chats benefiting these people anymore? I’ve pondered over it quite a bit and have come to a conclusion that there is a big gap between me and my classmates when it comes to watching, analyzing and accordingly appreciating or criticizing movies. There are plenty of examples which I will be citing without naming anyone of course (I will be naming people if I’m showering words of praise though) but the emphasis in this blog will lie on the fact that meaningful films are losing their importance today and much of it comes down to the reaction by a majority of the audiences today.
Just this other day, a friend of mine had come home to watch a movie and we were trying to choose one, and to help him be the judge, I was telling him the stories in brief of some of the films he would ask me and only if I had high respect for the movie. This was certainly a long procedure and then we finally decided what was going to help us enjoy the evening – ‘Roman Holiday’, that beautiful tale of a Princess who’s run away from home and who lands up in the home of a newspaper journalist. This wonderful comedy was made memorable by the hard-to-miss nuances of Gregory Peck and which made the career for Audrey Hepburn. We were all set to watch it, when I mentioned it’s in black-and-white and that was it. He said “forget it, b&w movies are boring!” Now is this the way movies are to be judged? It’s not just him, but I can tell you, out of the 20 odd friends who enjoy movies I have, at least 16 or 17 would have the same opinion. Movies are movies, how can they be decided on whether they have colour or not? Those days, black-and-white was the only convenient way of making a film and that’s the reason they made films without colour then. And when colour cinematography was not too costly anymore, all film-makers rushed to the new concept. So a good movie back then will always remain a good movie, right? And then, people today often get bored very easily. No wonder slow-paced films always get bad reactions from the audiences today, in particular the youth. I’ve always felt some movies are best when they move extremely slowly. They give you the time to get adjusted to the character, get to know him, feel for him and understand him. I’m positively sure people today don’t think when they’re watching a movie. And the biggest problem is they don’t get involved. A friend of mine commented at the end of ‘Born Free’ that it was too predictable and it should have been a documentary instead. Now if he was as involved as I was, he would have had tears in his eyes and his heart would have melted seeing Elsa come in with her cubs to visit her ‘parents’ and the fact that she remembered them after all these years despite being successful in her new life out in the wild would have been enough to cause those tears drop down to his cheeks. Isn’t this where today’s audiences go wrong? ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ is a highly acclaimed James Bond movie, both with the audience of that time as well as the critics of all time. When it was shown on TV a couple of days back, my friends came up to me and criticized the movie of being too slow. Slow-paced movies are not necessarily boring, as shown time and time again, but continuing on the lines of James Bond, Dr.No, From Russia With Love and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service are testimony to that as they’re often filled with fantastic one-liners and an absolutely unforgettable background score. Perhaps it’s the inability of today’s youth to actually listen to dialogues intently that is causing this problem.
I’m sure most of my friends will fall asleep after half an hour of viewing of ‘Gone With The Wind’, the most famous classic ever. After all, 4 hours of pure dialogue leading to a wonderful story line is not everyone’s cup of tea these days. The same holds true for 'Pather Panchali', which Roger Ebert claims to be his all-time favourite, even though that's two hours shorter than the former. Many might fail to see the message sent in ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’. Am I complaining? The truth is I’m tired of complaining. A ‘Murder’ today would be more appreciated than Guru Dutt’s masterpiece by name ‘Pyaasa’. And it’s easy to correctly predict a ‘Julie’ or ‘Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna’ doing better business than Dev Anand’s ‘Guide’ being re-released today.
I guess these movie channels – Star Gold, Zee Cinema and Set Max are to blame for ignoring classics and showing movies which will only help them earn more. At least Max does some good old ones (in fact Sony has an amazing set of movies, but they never feature on prime time), but Zee’s channel – Zee Classic is only on DishTV and not on regular cable networks. I’m happy they have several good movies in their library, but why the need to shy away from putting them on cable? Star Gold has to seriously reconsider their movies. If a child today is only exposed to these movies, he’ll end up like my friends.
I am not in favour of old films nor am I biased to only meaningful and slow-paced films, but my motto is simple – I’ll appreciate and respect any movie, whether it’s slow-paced or fast-paced, made in 2006 or 1929, art or commercial, provided it is GOOD. And for a movie to be good, only one department is not enough (like say visual effects or music or action sequences), but the movie should be ensemble of good acting, good dialogues, good music (music which blends with the theme of the movie, picturised beautifully with a realistic feel and lyrics which make sense) and many many other areas, headed of course by a superb story.
For my friends, a movie is good only if it is fast-paced, has a sexy actress and good action.
Well, it’s up to you to decide now – who has to change so that the gap or wall I spoke about earlier ceases to exist? Should I stop watching movies made obviously from the heart or should my friends develop a liking towards ‘good’ films?

Innocence And The Kids Of Today

It was not too long ago when I heard a little boy say ‘fuck it’,
And it’s no secret that the world today is falling in deep shit.
Gone are those good ol’ days of innocence,
To have a perverted mind, you needn’t wait for your adolescence!
It’s appalling to see the things small children know these days,
It’s definitely not a good sign and surely has put me in haze,
It’s not just the words they use, but many other a thing,
Certainly matters are made worse when you have a much older sibling.
Gone are the days when a kid would have a sublime heart,
Today’s kids, right from birth are made street-smart.
Now I’m not against the kids of this age,
It’s just that for everything there’s a proper time and stage,
And after all, it’s not the kids to blame,
It’s we, the youth, who are bringing this world to shame.
It’s our habit to think little and let the words just pounce,
To do this in front of someone much younger is something we should renounce.
Movies, even the best ever made, use the F-word many a time,
On probably the most influential medium, this is no worse than a crime,
Most best-selling authors too have this habit,
To steal the purity away from kids, these people too contribute in bits.
Kids often mistake this for being cool and a way of style,
I must say, adults should show that what they feel of all this is bile.
Now, to make children ‘kids’ again, is there any cure?
Can they be innocent again, I’m not very sure.
Something must be done to stop kids from using such language,
But with mobile phones a craze, English is anyway in ravage,
Well, that’s something I’ll talk about some other day,
A day hopefully when we see kids happily play,
When play is just a means of enjoying an evening,
A smile on a face and joy in a heart to bring,
A day when kids learn to respect someone older,
Only then will these very kids carry the country forward on their shoulders.