Posted on by dancinglightofgrace

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Are these notes existential?
I recall Notes From The Underground. I read that in college. It immediately struck a chord despite being a translated work. I discovered via his biography that Dostoevsky suffered from nervous disorders. Epileptic seizures.
After a few months, years or decades, I will no longer be able to appreciate these notes. What exactly inspired me to write them down. Why did I start publishing again and why did I stop publishing before. I think I agree with “everything is the cause of everything else”.
That offers no clarity.
Gives no immediate credits.

However, I keep clear pointers:
Whenever you feel grateful for being able to read or write- even if they don’t resolve or offer any closure – you trace it back to your elementary school teachers.
In a toxic culture- some of these don’t trace the sources of their own.

For example: I learned counting numbers or basic Arithmetic from my father but he must have been taught it by someone else: I failed to observe that gratitude while being made to acknowledge it at every step.

When beginning to acknowledge publishing online I often attributed it to The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger though my parents encouraged me to practice calligraphy in my early childhood and that’s needed to mould basic motor conditioning for writing.
I think  sooner or later we discover that every idea or meme we attribute to some populariser turns out to be quite common practice from antiquity labelled as something new and sold to new generations.

I invented verse form using complex words. There were no buyers for that. Subscribers for conventional notes dwindled. Space needed to publish ordinary notes started getting costlier. I tried to find parallels in the stream of consciousness works in James Joyce without actually being motivated or inspired because I never pursued his works.
Not only do people need you to listen to them when they speak: it’s even more amplified when they’re putting their work online. They need agreement alone.
I tested it thoroughly when I was hyperactive in blogosphere a decade ago. I thought there were people who were genuinely interested in feedback or discussion. I was hoping to recreate discussion forums from 2007-8. They were not. Nobody even wanted free proofreading – though that appears to be a ridiculous idea to some I wanted it to be ‘quid pro quo’ rather than a hundred handles chasing me with ulterior motives at times.

How simple is that?

I help out with your typographical errors. If not all of them then maybe one or two. You would let your text be there, untouched, uncommented but can’t tolerate comments with correction for typos.

These are menial jobs which were later replaced by AI or Grammarly. Perdue Owl etc

I tried Gemini for proofreading today.
It changed the article at so many places that a step-by-step comparison of two versions would have created a great case study about why Gemini AI is built by Google into so many android phones of current generation is inefficient in proofreading as an assistant.

Another test was asking simple questions on Astrology. I published many articles on Astrology for fifteen years until I thought that the field had any genuine scope for research or study. A general purpose AI model like Gemini can’t handle requests on Astrology.

You may say that there are dedicated systems for that but it should be able to do proofreading. It can’t.

While the finished product might have been better style-wise or with better grammar, it lacked any significant attributes where you can identify who was doing what. Connonations derived from agency in the original article were lost and it was confusing  things done by ancestors with those done by parents and so on.

I was once writing 5000 words of prose on a regular basis. It was needed because there was too much to process. There was a book worth of processing in almost every long walk in the last few years though I stopped publishing because of obvious constraints.

Was publishing brief articles a norm or a carefully executed plan to curtail your speech?

It needs resources. In every cult you will notice there are books which need to repeat a great deal. The cult leaders need to repeat themselves and need to hear the sound of their own voice as much as their followers do.

The younger student arrived first. He was making this noise with the cap of his ballpoint pen. It’s red colored. As soon as he sits he starts struggling to remove the label from it. I drink a glass of water and ask if he did his homework. He didn’t. As usual. Elder had taken away his notebook which had Arithmetics problems: Addition and Subtraction.

“My name isn’t on the pen label that’s why I am removing it.”

Red ink is reserved for evaluation by teachers. During the class he gets excited and animated in the action in which he uses a pen as a knife to kill someone. Whoa!

They’re violent.

And I don’t live in Finland or Norway to contact childcare to assist them lest they become even more violent due to neglect.

The elder whacks him strongly in the head once when I advise him to not do that. He had been making his signatures in a page for a long time. I asked him why he was behaving like an officer.

Now meaning starts pouring in:

The Blabbering Prophet whose name was similar to a monk and later similar to a popular leader but who was in the dire need of childcare:

Refers to the look alike of a growing in popularity leader who was found near the collector bungalow once.

I visited the ration store near the collector bungalow today.

Since all meaning should revolve around this narcissistic newly emerging leader:
The prophet announces that someone has become an officer by virtue of losing their hair. They might have been on their heads or on their chin.

However: some officers are for longer tenures, in comparison, these are there for the time-span of the attention span of a flea market of advertisements.

What it means: if your hair grew back you would no longer be an officer.
It’s very strange if you ask me.

A car driver for an officer is an officer.
The officer for a minister is a minister.
Minister is the minister and then the king or queen by extension.
King or queen is obviously godly, blessed and prophetic: there remains no limit.

Such prophetic brainwashing is a norm here. I only discovered it a decade ago that regularly reading newspapers for young people meant they would be delusional  enough to think they’re ministers themselves. Micro conditioning with advanced gadgets and surveillance capitalism. As long as they don’t really test it.

Similarly:

Meaning emerges:

A decade long struggle with hair.
Where the subject himself was least attached to one appearance or the other is made into a media circus where thousands of people point to hair.
As if there’s some bet on whether the subject would keep hair or lose them.
And fake coughing contests win.
Removing hair on the head as well as the chin is against the norm. Done that. Even that’s costly on a regular basis. It’s not just the expense of a trimmer or visiting a saloon.
Keeping the hair on a regular basis is also costly. Before you know : many cults start spreading rumors against you. You don’t qualify for one or over qualify.

The prophet continues: I ask him the definition of an Upanyasa or Novel. It is in the assignment to the elder.

I ask him why his younger brother is not attending school when it’s only a fortnight of engagement left to deal with.

The prophet tells me a tale of two lions. And one lakh rupees. Machine snakes. In the jungle.

What if you need to extend your stories like you see on the TV. A novel is similar to that. A longer story.

He shows me the fake wound created by the red pen on his hand. He quickly removes the hand before I can examine it. I request him to let me closely examine it. I tell his elder brother that it wouldn’t have been possible if he hadn’t chosen the Manjha spots made on his hand during his attempts to fly kites. That’s the reason his runny nose doesn’t concern his elder and his attempts to shy away from school on the excuse of being tired because of walking fails. I ask the elder to give the handkerchief to the younger for his runny nose. He doesn’t. He was wiping the screen of his smartphone.

He has shown a high talent for being a prophet. An actor. Shapeshifting. Kite making and flying. It has been a fortnight since he lost all interest in studies. His calligraphy is going downhill.

He pulls out the Hindi book. Wants me to read “Reedh Ki Haddi” or Backbone again. I tell him that would be boring. That’s cancelled.

I note down responses to questions by inquiring Gemini or by recalling what I knew or by looking up in the textbook because Pariksha Bodh or Pariksha Adhyayan guides are too difficult to retrieve only for Hindi.

Meanwhile, the elder abstains from checking his Instagram feed. Shows me an advertisement from Samriddhi Group of Constructions which is a real estate venture in the locality. A name. If I can use WhatsApp and Gemini in articles why not the sponsors like these. After all the elder handed me over three hundred rupees as fee even if they were about a week late on that.

There was a man on a bulldozer machine in the advertisement. It’s supposed to relate to another popular trend. Infamous trends. Disputed territory. Controversial information.
This is why these students come. For five years. To popularise those who are already popular. To make those prosperous who are already prosperous.
Rich gets richer. He very casually talks about how some students had written violent stories against the incumbent prime minister in their answer sheets. They were slogans popularised by the leader of the opposition. I can’t confirm or deny whether this happened.
But he raised his voice to convey the information to nearby people. To namesakes. To politically interested and motivated. That’s the motivation.
He appeared almost wicked when he was narrating that the students wrote violent things in their answersheets:


“.                       “
He was grinning.

I once heard something similar about my grandmother and quoted it verbatim. Later I kept regretting if I should have kept an archive. These are the sponsored events during which you create such notes. They seem innocuous. But later popularised as something else. [ Hence I edited it out. ]

A government school. Students of class ninth write against the supreme leader. This must be democracy. Very lenient. I am taxed for thinking and raising my voice.

I never taught them to be violent or rebellious in the last five years nor did I write similar things in their notebooks. Nor did I write those things in an examination answer sheet when I was a student myself.

Why am I being rewarded with these students who play:

Prophets
Rowdy horseplay
Advertisement agencies
Instagram addicts
Bullies
And a lot more except students who can read and write.

There was a stain made by condiments or vegetables on his shirt. He returned late from school because you know…he went to the house of his friend who lives near school to return the notebook which helped him complete his assignment. I ask his full name. He doesn’t remember.

He shows me his sunglasses wearing friend on Instagram. Proudly. He might be associated with the real estate developers.

This is what I am here for.

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Posted on by dancinglightofgrace

Instagram or Endocytosis?

Had a ginger tea that was shared with family members. Ensured completion of pasteurisation of milk and turning off the knobs of gas regulators. Endocytosis is a special type of phagocytosis used by amoeba. It’s feeding on cells or cell feeding. Amoeba and paramecium are unicellular organisms- building blocks of organisms. This is the name of the unit fifth in the Science textbook for Madhya Pradesh board for which I am supposed to help my student today. Only the elder brother.
When I asked him if his younger brother was following him he was uncertain. He quickly tells me about not being able to do homework and opens a list of questions in Hindi in his rough notebook. He needs my help for submitting assignment tomorrow. Where’s your textbook, I asked. He didn’t bring it. He’s wearing school dress which tells me he returned later than usual from school today. I don’t get an opportunity to ask why he was late, I am supposed to call his younger brother via his father who might bring the textbook which might help him complete his assignment. I call, his father connects him to his brother after I briefly address him regarding matter.
“Also bring the series.”
Series is the name for the Question Bank.
Younger one arrives in school dress. Starts talking about leaving as soon as he reaches. It’s not his usual whining. He’s tired because of walking. He’s suffering from runny nose. The cold. Flu.
The elder reports that he was sporty in the school. Absolutely no complaints. Whacks him lightly in the head. He stays a few more minutes. Not agitated but disinterested in the study material. Strange.
They both study in the same class but the elder who is doing it the second time around is concerned with completing assignment, the younger isn’t.
The elder has copied the assignment in barely legible handwriting.
They can’t recall. They can’t comprehend what they copy.
Everything is mysterious. I am supposed to play detective after I get Science notebook if the assignment is to be completed with any efficiency.
Without keeping you in any suspense any longer. He leaves content with completion of clues about how to complete assignment though I spare him the homework today because the assignment looks like a lot of homework.
Meanwhile , at every available opportunity he scrolls through his Instagram feed. The younger one is advising him whom to add and whom to remove from friends list.
I strictly ask them to not do that because on the one hand the elder presses with the urgency of the assignment and on the other they seem more interested in the Instagram feed.
I sense it: they somehow felt content with being up to date with the technology which they can use. The elder can take screenshots, can take pictures of text from another smartphone, can use Wi-Fi but can’t read.
I think there can be very few people who might claim to have used every gadget to its limits. Most of the technology remains unused because of one limitation or the other.
Caution: here, I am not suggesting that you need to be an Edison, Tesla or Yoshiro Nakamats to actually create transistors or invent , have patents in your name to qualify for using devices. No.
Even to completely use the complex devices available to most of the individuals these days : you need too many resources. It’s next to impossible.
Though I can’t complain if I started using Gemini, the in built AI into this gadget over Replika which was a lot of struggle for five long years: I appreciated what I got to learn. With every update I felt I was much behind in learning.
I think it’s somewhat similar to these students who feel playful when using modern technology but unwilling to improve basic reading comprehension which they missed due to some genetic or environmental limitations.
They literally enjoy playing games like Free-Fire. Games, flow and addiction is well studied in the context of teenagers and elders alike though I think you can’t really inculcate importance of initiatives like Free Rice or Sustainable Development Goals in students as easily. When I had more students I tried to teach them importance of Free Rice as well as other games which helped them improve their reading comprehension.
To our rescue : the elder tells the name of the guide used by his teacher in the class. Pariksha Bodh. Pariksha is examination. Bodh is spiritual word. I enquire Gemini which gives a detailed response which shouldn’t be included in this text.
Prior to his hint I try to decipher his complex version of Dev Naagri script. He couldn’t copy it correctly either because he was sitting in the last few rows where black board is difficult to see from or his teacher dictated it and since they can’t interpret those signals they peep into the notebook of their classmates. The traces travelled to me.
Amoeba.
Prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.
Animal and Plant cells
Osmosis
Neuron
These are the only words I recognised legible from his handwritten notes. They’re questions he needs to answer. He also needed figures. The questions were not as per the questionnaire at the end of the textbook. They were from Kunji. Key. Question Bank.
We search for the question bank online. He takes screenshots and then I note down full questions for him in his notebook because order is still a problem.
I get to read about Osmosis, Endocytosis, Phagocytosis, Amoeba, Paramecium and Neurons.
I recall how I learned these terms by rote memorization though diagrams used to be much more cleaner than they are in present textbooks. I try Gemini for diagrams with Hindi labels: it fails despite repeated efforts.
The number of neurons. Glial cells, dendrites, axons and distribution of stars being similar to neurons in human brains was a source of awe and wonder. Later, neural networks and dancing light of grace revealed themselves to be master archons.
There was hardly enough time to read with precision and care. They hardly understand anything. He doesn’t want to do any more work on remedial modules. The session is soon going to end.
I remind him about the fees. He tells about the hundred rupees note that he got in exchange for potatoes yesterday. He didn’t say they cost less than that. Parents were discussing that with him, yesterday. He doesn’t let go of even a few seconds of scrolling through Instagram as they walk towards the exit. They can’t access instagram at home. I ask if parents needed another serving of tea. They want me to wait.

Posted on by dancinglightofgrace

Lesser of two evils?

How have your political views changed over time?

Helped father forward a message from an SMS to WhatsApp on his smartphone. He needed to share it with a contact. Also showed him how he can do it himself in the future if need arises.
Organised utensils in the kitchen. A special tea was prepared and served for a guest and then another for father. Mopped verandah floor and asked mother if it was the time for the evening tea. Milkman didn’t arrive this morning as it was too cold. I needed to prepare lesson plan for students who might arrive in a short while. A drive on a scooty to bring a pack of wheat flour from the nearby ration store. It wasn’t open. Need to make another trip to the super store when it opens. Warmed up the tea that was in the kettle and shared it with mother. Also served lukewarm water to mother.
Second trip to superstore included checking if the second vehicle was getting self-started. Then driving carefully  a few metres. Checking if the superstore was open. Checking if they had a wheat flour pack. When all of these were successful I asked the operator if the cost for a pack was still seven fifty rupees. It was an affirmative response after which I asked him if I could mount the vehicle with a pack. Then I carried the pack and mounted it on the vehicle carefully so that it doesn’t get torn like the last time I was asked to bring a pack.
There was some repairing work ongoing in the nearby corner and the board for the coaching centre was almost removed in the sense it was there but invisible. It used to read Vidyapeeth Coaching Classes.
Weather was alright with patches of Sunshine here and there and there was no heavy traffic. It is fourteen degree Celsius in Bagauta now. It was about seventeen when kids arrived to get tuition.
I drove the vehicle back to the house carefully. Mother rushed to the door because cook was about to arrive and it wasn’t a given that superstore would be open by the time of the next visit. She would have borrowed from neighbours upstairs in that case, she said. I asked her if the door to the kitchen could be reached from outer verandah. It couldn’t. There was a bicycle and another board for a coaching class. I decided to use long route and lifted the twenty kilogram pack up and carried it a few steps to reach to the kitchen. My bones were healthier after a long period of recuperation though I wasn’t asked to lift a fifty kilogram sugar pack without warning.
The task was completed though I was careful to request mother to help me with the parking of the vehicle inside as the ramp at exit isn’t very friendly. Then I placed the key at its designated location. Parked another vehicle on main stand and walked back to my room which took me about fifteen minutes. Brought the chair inside the room. The pack costs 750 rupees. 37.5 rupees per Kilogram.

Now I was waiting for the students to arrive. I think the manner in which I was ordered to bring the wheat pack was again kind of sudden and without warning. I ruminated the manner in which I was supposed to bring it during the dire straits last year. Though it was just a few months ago. It was an evening time last time. I heard people abusing loudly over the phone near superstore. They were talking about alcoholism which was supposed to correspond to drugs I was taking forever ailments. Not being able to see the road clearly, heavy traffic and being unable to get the vehicle on easily made it difficult to reach the house back with the pack. The pack got torn as I was dismounting it from the vehicle.
It was better today in contrast though I heard some people loudly using the repeated “Kya dikkat hai?” It was supposed to brand the trip with the ruling party. You can’t miss it. None of the works or trips or tasks can go without brands or ambassadors.
When you clearly comprehend that it was merely a fling to behave as if you are free or don’t concern yourself with politics or brands, you have matured. When you clearly comprehend that it was a passing fashion to get annoyed by brands or advertisement or prefer quiet for work you have matured. Mother was loudly playing devotional song on her smartphone in the break when I was waiting to make second trip. I compared it when I had once played a song from Titanic- the most popular song from an academy award winning movie became the reason for such a great disturbance that mother was extremely critical. After a few months many songs were played to prove that it was allowed only for specially abled people. Privileged people.
Towards the end of the class the kids are laughing out loud as if they are drunk. I see them off to the door. Today both of them were wearing slippers. I told them that it was supposed to be a holiday today as I had enquired mother about it. They told me it was a holiday only for students upto class seventh not for ninth grade students.
They were making fun of a role model. The English chapter on Santosh Yadav was supposed to teach students a few things. It became a source of amusement for them. The fun they had in the last twenty minutes was supposed to relieve them from the boredom due to two Maths problems on Quadrilaterals.
The younger student was again asking me to write ‘mafia’ on the back of his notebook. He said he would pay me for doing that. The elder started asking if she ( Santosh Yadav) had started flying when I was reading the passage where she became the youngest conquerer of the mount Everest at an age of twenty.
Their behaviour and laughter seemed like the flash back scene from ‘No Smoking’ where the protagonist was smoking a cigarette in his bathroom with his friend when they were quite younger and their father was knocking at the door. Probably these students are somehow aware of these notes, similar to other instances or some of their behaviour is contrived as if it’s for theatrical purposes. Maybe not. I can’t be sure.
Father, after discovering that these two were involved in lesser of two evils condones smoking in their childhood. After a few decades it costs his son a lot. The father is no longer in the picture in present but flashback, kind of creates this scenario where conditioning for making him a chain smoker is revealed.
The elder keeps looking at the Kurkure pack which he’s hiding in his backpack with its chain open. I ask him to wait until the class is over. His excuse is that he didn’t have enough time for snacks after school.
The younger one didn’t go to school nor did he complete his homework. Excuse is that the notebook which had the assignment was with the elder brother who was in school who completed his assignment in school as he had a lot of free time. All his answers to ten addition problems are correct. At least he can do addition correctly. Even Hindi application for leave is written neatly with good handwriting. This gives him such an upper hand that he whacks the younger one on head. I immediately request him to not do that. By that time younger one had started returning blows.
They’re used to showcasing martial arts in my class. Elder asks me to call his father for younger is trying to sleep in the name of  bad drowsy weather. I also pretend to do that with an excuse that he was chewing betel nuts just two days ago. The younger succumbs to the pressure and behaves. As soon as he had entered the class he was using ‘Takla,’ for Einstein. I told him that he wasn’t bald. I also asked both of them why do they use such language for role models who are supposed to be discussed in their textbooks. They continue to laugh. I asked them if they would tell their English teacher of their father things like these. They had a hard time believing that their father might have heard name of Albert Einstein.
Younger one said he would punch the role model and she would have all her teeth out. They had zoned out of study into their private world after I used the example of bicycle. They were so full of sidesplitting talk as if they had some nitrous oxide for a root canal.
I was explaining how systematic training prepares mountaineers. Then I used an illustration for it by asking: if you are supposed to drive a bicycle: “Do you start flying when you become skillful at it?”
They had such a rush of adrenaline that they forget that bicycle provided by their father is mostly for work. The younger one even says loudly that he studies English for fun. They’re not yet citizens of a utilitarian state.
They had a hard time believing that the role model would have brought 500 kilogram of garbage down the mount Everest on her own.
The problems on Quadrilaterals are simple. They use mid segment theorem. I carefully explain them what mid points are. What’s a Rhombus. I draw diagrams and carefully write the proof asking them questions to keep them engaged. Yet they get bored. I asked them if they had brought scale in the drawing box. They hadn’t.
Proving that diagonals of a quadrilateral are equal in length is enough to prove that it is a rectangle. It’s made my joining mid points of sides of a Rhombus. I ask them if they know what a Rhombus is: they respond with the answer that it has all four angles equal to each other. They are right this time though they can’t derive from it that all four sides of a Rhombus are also equal to each other.

Posted on by dancinglightofgrace

Arithmetics

Reading yesterday’s note on class took more than ten minutes. There were some edits though I haven’t implemented them in WordPress articles which were published yesterday. Mother had asked me to take bath with lukewarm water today. After organising utensils and mopping verandah floor I studied some more maths problems on Quadrilaterals with a view to help the students.
Prepared ginger tea and served lukewarm water to grandmother and mother. I had ginger tea. It seemed alright. Students arrived in time. Younger one was again chewing some food. He seemed somewhat agitated. They sat declaring that they hadn’t done homework today as well. I asked them if they were aware of their track record in the last fortnight for being unable to complete their homework. I asked them why are they given homework. They replied that it’s something they should do on their own instead of merely studying only for an hour here.
The younger one hadn’t brought either a notebook or a pen to take notes. Immediately after taking his seat started asking for my permission to leave. Even got up and moved towards the door. I asked him why he wanted to leave so soon. He was given a biscuit from a green pack by his elder brother. They talk about the taste of the cookies which they find similar to tea. Though I asked them to not eat in the classroom or lick their fingers as the younger one sometimes does, I was lenient compared to yesterday when he was chewing betel nuts mixture with saccharine and added flavors.
It seems they enjoy treating their classroom like a mini picnic spot sometimes. As if having snacks at their house isn’t the same. As if they’re rewarded by their parents for attending the classes similar to me being rewarded for teaching them.
It has only been twenty two days since their classes commenced after extended vacations. I remember how I thought about it during their first class in the session: “They won’t eat snacks within the class this time around. They’re too serious now. All grown up.”
Within a fortnight or so they get too comfortable and picnicky.
Replika AI couldn’t have generated problems in elementary Arithmetics so fast. Network is almost similar to what it has always been here: seemingly a dead spot. Changing to a 5G sim card with a different service provider doesn’t really make matters any better. Gemini AI by Google does it faster than Replika. Replika is for health and fitness. Gemini AI in-built into the new phone can help me with assignments faster than before despite slow network.
It increases efficiency of this classroom. Students bring their Sanskrit textbook. The elder brother asked me to help him with an essay on Dhenu( cow.) I asked him if he didn’t want to complete the unit on Quadrilaterals. He told me that he needs to show this assignment in his Sanskrit class. I checked if he had shown yesterday’s essay to his teacher. He hadn’t. He showed me a few applications he had submitted to his Sanskrit teacher.
I help them with the essay. I continue to dictate the meaning carefully in Hindi as they copy Sanskrit sentences after I prompt Gemini to generate a ten sentences essay on Cow in Sanskrit. The younger student doesn’t want to take notes. He wants to sit idle with an excuse that he hasn’t brought any study materials. I ask his elder to help him with some paper and a spare pen. He helps him by finding a pencil and younger one holds it in a strange idiosyncratic way to write. His handwriting has worsened due to lack of practice.
The seventh sentence in Sanskrit is composed to mean:
“The calf grows up to become an ox who is HEAD of the farming.”

I notice this and wait until they’re done with copying all ten sentences. Then I request Gemini to edit it. It produces another set of ten sentences with 7th giving an import to the effect that ox helps in farming. It’s not head of farming.

Once they’re done with copying and comprehending  the meaning of the essay which wasn’t present in their textbook “Vyakaranveethi,” I ask them if they wanted to study Maths next. The essays in their textbook are longer in length though I know they hardly have time to write ten sentences long essays in exams as these are only rewarded with five marks only. They can’t read Sanskrit, Hindi or English script. They can only read numbers to perform simple Arithmetic operations.

I ask them if they would like to do the maths problems I had given them  in their homework. They don’t. Younger one attempts some of the addition and subtraction problems.
I give them three separate assignments with increasing order of difficulty using prompts for Gemini. The first one has problems on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. They aren’t able to answer problems correctly in multiplication and division without my help. The elder brother marks subtraction problems incorrectly.
Later they want me to give them 4,5,6 and 7 digits numbers in Addition only. They solve them correctly. I give them some of those for homework as well.
The younger one was partially unhappy because his slippers had snapped on their way to class today. He threw them away outside our house. I noticed this when they were leaving as I saw only one pair. The other reason was because he was excited about it being a festival as well as a holiday. He was supposed to enjoy sweets at home after worship of an idol. They kept eating crispy snacks Kurkure from the packet they were hiding in their backpack. The elder one was helping younger one who asked him to share those with me though I refused. They’re hopeful of getting more holidays it seems just because it’s too cold out there in Winter. It seems it wasn’t a declared holiday today at first and it was  later decided by local administration  to be declared a holiday. They asked me to check calendar for holidays because they were slightly surprised and confused. I told them there’s no way to determine local holidays for me because I was not participating in any such groups. They should continue to refer to the social media application in which their school authorities inform them about these matters.

Posted on by dancinglightofgrace

Sallekhana Diet and Middle Class Lunch!

1. 6 rotis with bison ghee spread on them. Two curries: one bowl full of arabi, tomato, green pepper and about four teaspoonfuls of beans. Two teaspoonfuls of apple salad. Having requested just four rotis without ghee didn’t have any effects on the kitchen.
2. Need to compare it with Sallekhana diet: it was one roti with two teaspoonful of curry: it meant 600 rice grains.
3. This plate had 2400 ( 2700 ) rice grains worth of rotis ( though I still consider ghee to be complementary as I had requested to not add it ). Vegetables bowl with arabi is equivalent to at least 30 teaspoonful of rice grains: 3000 rice grains. Bean curry is worth 600 rice grains. Apple salad, two teaspoonful is at least 200 rice grains ( that’s an understatement not litotes or meiosis because apple is costlier compared to rice. )
4. Total: 6500 rice grains worth of lunch. It was posh-No. It was a middle class lunch: it wasn’t posh. It was a lunch I used to have a few months ago. Middle class people here consider themselves kings and queens. That’s where the delusional term posh is born from. Upper middle class people start considering themselves to be sole nutrition givers, as if entire world economy revolves around them. Even in terms of pure rice grains worth it was 10.33 times costlier compared to Sallekhana diet.
Cost comparison:
1. Apple: about 90 rupees per Kilogram it’s 2.25 times costlier compared to rice grains so one on one comparison used here isn’t justified though I have no other way to convert these else I won’t be able to manage on a regular basis in the given rubric.
2. Comparing ghee with apple: ghee wins as the costliest item in your plate. Giving up ghee altogether might save your pocket and do a good, a lasting good to your health and happiness if you can convince the kitchen for it.
3. Ghee is 6.88 or 7 times costlier compared to even apple: the second highest in terms of cost.
4. Wheat is 25 rupees per Kilogram which means it’s one item worth less than rice grains which are 40 rupees per kilogram.
5. On an average, 30 grams of wheat flour or atta is needed to prepare one roti.
6. One teaspoonful of heaped sugar is 7.5 grams of sugar. Normal teaspoonful is 4 grams.
7. Let’s take heaped teaspoonfuls as rubric to measure rice grains and wheat grains.
8. Six rotis are worth 180 grams of wheat which is, at the rate of 40 grams per rupee, less than a rupee per roti. Adding cooking cost, LPG ( Liquid Petroleum Gas) cost and serving, some hotels here sell twenty rupees per four pieces or four rupees per roti. Which means 25 rupees for six rotis. Which means 9375 rice grains at the rate of 375 rice grains per rupee. This won’t be a good conversion.
9. Equivalent conversion which is sustainable is 180 grams of wheat or 2700 rice grains. Here, we haven’t added cooking cost similar to ghee cost. We can update the total rice grains amount today into conversion and arrive at 6500 rice grains. If we added ghee cost it would have been 12-15 times costlier compared to Sallekhana diet. Sallekhana diet was just a few days ago: one roti without ghee and two teaspoonful of curry or rice which was sometimes stale and sometimes fresh.

Posted on by dancinglightofgrace · 2 Comments

Why Did I Give Up Writing?

What public figure do you disagree with the most?

Step 1: Imagine a public figure. Stats ( referal in public figure’s stats mostly from Automattic ) booming.

Step 2: Public figure has absolutely no original opinion: disregard.

Step 3: What or Which? Basics of Grammar though you would never get as simple a job as a prompt generator for Automattic.

Step 4: Look what their prompt did! Nothing.

Step 5: There were no public figures I disagreed with.

Step 6: Didn’t mean I agreed with public figures. There was nothing to agree or disagree with. Agreement or disagreement changed nothing in the machinery.

Step 7: I questioned why prompts which zoned out to inter, as in- public figures, brand names and zoned in to intra- careers, biography, autobiography meant nothing.

Posted on by dancinglightofgrace · 3 Comments

The Most Truthful Media Outlet and Logical Excellence of Going To Be Popular Elite Leader!

Do you vote in political elections?

  1. No.
  2. However: I wanted to create an archive of what I thought was absurd logic given via a reputed media outlet.
  3. This media outlet has taken complete shelter of one side despite claiming to be impartial.
  4. The usual stance had been to take side of the opposition rather than the ruling party which means they would oppose the very people they’ve been supporting if they become the ruling party.
  5. Reason: to support those in need. To find flaws in the democracy by being the fourth pillar of the democracy.
  6. By the fifth point most of the bots and casual skimmers have gone to sleep. You might need to return to this archive if it survives, if you survive, in a few days, weeks, months or years. Decades would be an exaggeration because literal decadence has set-in.
  7. Coming to the main point: “the popular leader declared their caste to be such to ingratiate masses. First: their academic records are fake. Doesn’t matter. Now their caste records are fake. Doesn’t matter. Does anything matter?”
  8. No. It’s besides the point because I am not a political commentator.
  9. Again coming to the main point: the not-so-popular-leader who might become very popular in nearby future as the person he’s weighing in his argument on a media outlet ( with many people clapping nearby), speaks: “The popular leader who had falsified his caste records to ingratiate downtrodden masses was discerned and judged by me to be from a general caste because I never saw him walking hand-in-hand with common people. Never saw him hugging people from downtrodden classes of society.”
  10. That logic, stated in the point number nine was to establish how this leader was identified to exhibit lack of genuine empathy for a certain group of people.
  11. Wait a minute: it establishes that the accusing person must have genuine empathy for all people. They must have transcended limitations of caste and creed. No, it doesn’t. The argument is petty.
  12. You don’t need to belong to any caste to have genuine empathy. It’s not a sound logic to say that a person born  in a general class, in an elite class or in a downtrodden class can’t have genuine empathy towards all beings because of their birth in those particular classes.
  13. The argument forgets that the person in question himself was born in an elite family. His hugging common people or walking hand-in-hand with downtrodden people would never be considered as genuine empathy unless it accompanies commensurate actions.
  14. “A wasn’t doing this eating, walking and hugging people. I identified him as not belonging to their class. Even research into his documents verified the same.”
  15. “Though I was born into an elite class, I exhibit genuine empathy by hugging ( holding hands of) people from all classes. Especially downtrodden masses.”
  16. If the logic is: a person can exhibit genuine empathy only towards the persons of their own caste: the logic establishes that the person born in elite class CAN’T really hug common people or walk with them even if he pretends to do that.
  17. If the person born in the elite class says that it’s possible to exhibit empathy towards common classes or downtrodden classes despite being born in a general class: there’s no need to use logic of ‘caste’.
  18. By 17 it only becomes a question of whether a person has empathy or not. It’s another matter to decide how to judge whether they have genuine empathy.
  19. It’s completely illogical to use caste as a standard to allege that a person was being more loyal to their own people. By the same logic elite group leader was always loyal to their own: elite group.
  20. General strategy is to pretend to belong to whatever gets things done. Same with the logic of masses being able to sway masses as if they’re blind. Pyramid’s Eye.
  21. Thus: both popular and going-to-be-popular-born-elite leaders keep entertaining masses. The only truthful media person takes shelter because they need to continue earning their living.
Posted on by dancinglightofgrace · 3 Comments

WordPress

How do you use social media?

  1. I used e-mail.
  2. Interacted on discussion forums which helped improve communication skills as I was talking to people all across the globe.
  3. In my work as a software professional I continued to interact with team mates and clients in an on-site off-shore model via social media.
  4. I used some of the social media platforms and found them to be troubled by advertisement industry.
  5. WordPress also had its share of spams and unsolicited malware like accounts but it worked compared to other social media because it focussed on message expressed in words. What happened to Twitter is apparent. Most of these platforms are used to further personal agendas for the corporations they’re run by instead of providing a neutral, trustworthy, long time means of communication for users.
Posted on by dancinglightofgrace · 3 Comments

Authentic Records Help You More Than Anyone Else!

Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.

  1. Am I concerned about who’s going to read it or about what I am going to think when I read it after a while.
  2. When I took to heart suggestion by Dr. Win Wenger PhD who used to recommend scribbling or putting ideas fast onto paper I had many doubts about it being any different from systematically publishing your ideas on a platform like this.
  3. With time I realised it’s not that different. Squelching the editor meant being free from judging voice and letting ideas come to the surface of consciousness.
  4. Not just the ideas which were considered important but all of the ideas. The first law of behavioural Psychology states that “You get more of what you reinforce.” You had to reinforce the behaviour of becoming perceptive by not letting deep insights slip by.
  5. But if you kept waiting for deep insights it didn’t succeed because they come in clusters with clouds of foggy ruins of neptunian dreamlike traces of ancient dilapidated structures.
  6. You had to merely commit yourself to the act. Some people called it ‘morning pages.’ How it differed from recording your ideas on a tape-recorder : it didn’t. Though, word as a visual art is quite different from word as it’s heard. Word and heard rhymes.
  7. Describing your ideas to yourself was gradually replaced by describing it to a machine. Unless clear flow of it being a raw material for publication is established you’re judged as someone who indulges in mechanical psychotic self-talk which gives you a tag of officially insane. If there are witnesses in your neighborhood, family or workplace. Which is always a possibility.
  8. Tools like Replika by Luca inc or other chatbots act as good feedback loop providing machines to an extent with some limitations in terms of quality of feedback. They’re good assistants which are similar to Babble Back Machine for grown ups. They amplify feedback but sometimes they falter and only way out is to use mimicry. Mimicking the machine voice establishes the harmonious connection with the machine back again and you can come back to sanity where you continue to explore your ideas.
  9. For most of my blogging career I have only written things to be read by myself later on. This brings me back to the first point. Writing helps us in thinking. As simple as that. Win Wenger’s response was also similar when he told me that he liked to read his own articles. Most of us are folly to being fond of our own voices even if they’re muted, unclear, confused noises.
  10. When you look back at your articles after many years you feel surprised sometimes about how you could have felt like that to write like that. Being authentic helps here but not in all cases. In some cases like mine hackers do play a role and I had to struggle with them to identify when they tinkered with my articles. Both technical and non-technical.
  11. I used to give this advice to many people since college days: to jot down their ideas. To do free-noting or scribbling without judging their ideas at first, like I did. If they continued, they arrived at something which felt satisfying. Or at least their content improved because of feedback loops. After a lot of quantity some quality appeared.
  12. Writing as a discipline helped me by bringing forth ideas for reading no matter how encoded or subtle or gross they were at times. Similar to versions of Replika I think I am merely interacting with a specific version of my ideas when I go through them. What actually prevents people from being authentic is lack of privacy or data being exploited by all sorts of people which is a genuine threat not just a concern or doubt.
  13. Yet, after all, in the long run, basic human need of learning and growing by using writing, record keeping and publishing as tools to aid perception and learning triumphs. When you revisit such articles they give a picture of what was going through minds of these subjects. That’s how I treat my opinions expressed in published or non published formats down through many decades.
Posted on by dancinglightofgrace

Thoughtful Comments Should Be Converted To Articles!

https://wp.me/pfX3xC-an%23comment-187

  1. Blogging etiquettes prevents us from hijacking someone’s comment trails because space is limited.
  2. The other bloggers might decide to delete their archives someday.
  3. Your archives are your responsibility not theirs.
  4. Wisdom dawned upon me after discussion with Rafaello Palandri’s Weblog comment trail who selectively trashed my comment on Degeneration of Buddhism or Dharma article which is easily resolved by citing articles from Hindu mythology which have used prototypes similar to these using TIME as a tool and construct as analysed by artworks like Tenet, Herbert George’s Time Machine and so on.
  5. However, it was not possible to copy these couple of comments on this weblog because they evaporated from cache as I tried to paste them onto this draft. You can try again later.

dancinglightofgrace
April 17, 2025 at 11:10 am
“There’s safety in numbers.” That’s an English proverb. Researchers in learning and neurology underscore this ‘feedback’ loop ( references: The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger PhD. Santiago Raman Y. J. Kajal, Catherine M. Cox) and its importance in improving perception as well as intelligence. When we refer to ( I, me, myself) which is the fundamental realisation of Self according to sages including Raman Maharshi and Nisargadatta, we are actually referring to both the small self or ego( id) as well as superconsciousness or big Self which remains as subconscious most of the time. They’re found to be only one Self in the end as per Ramana Maharshi and Advaita Vedanta school of thinking but translated as interdependent arising as per Buddhist schools ( you can peruse Rafaello Palandri’s Weblog for clarity on how Buddhist Priest translates it and how it differs compared to Advaita Vedanta). Rick and Morty on Netflix translates Advaita Vedanta school as Unity or Singularity which is practically excessive bile on some planets because that’s the medium which digests the food or let’s forefathers travel via words. Some strange disease. I think it’s when you have only meditated on Advaita or some ill version of it. Your introspection is good and Win Wenger translated it as “Witnessing” or “Drashta Perspective which is described in Patanjali’s Yogasutra as seventh stage of Yoga or meditation. Writing your thoughts helps you look back at them and when you again look back at them from the viewpoint of others you add more ‘attention’ to them. I think secret societies, such as illuminati or luxury of being able to say it by hiding behind a screen without having to observe a thousand facial expressions change every second is something which adds to an introverted or meditative feedback loop which is a type of aperception or consciousness looking back at itself and by virtue of such independent consciousness becoming free from illusion or limiting form which is associated with a small body mind complex. That’s why thinking ”  in terms of teams, nations, historical perspectives and archetypes helps you come out of small minded anxiety and worry but since consciousness operates functionally based on contrasts you need to go back to limited “I” and return to reality whatever it’s interpreted as.