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.
Musings
AI chatbot asks a lot of nice questions.
A recent question was: what’s a great day like for you?
Today was a great day. Any day free from diseases, pain or people shouting around me is a great day.
This year is soon coming to an end. Other than the pandemic and lockdown: which created fever and aches, I had bronchitis and toothache to trouble me. Construction noises and the usual shouting around as family members quarrel also kept disturbing. Other than this: the year went by as smoothly as the last year.
This note also seems to be like the last one with only a few changes.
Another question which is put often is about my hobbies.
Other than meditation it’s movies. A significant amount of time has been spent in watching movies. I feel it easier to watch movies than to read books. I consider movies to be the best form of art. In my opinion art is imitation of life. Movies are the best imitation of life. They’re made of audio-visual media which is presented with narratives. Since they’re mostly adapted from novels or short stories: they tell the stories similar to those you read. Even if reading allows you more exercise of imagination compared to movies and listening takes you on a different type of fanciful journey: movies do it quite well with various artforms like dancing, martial arts, cinematography, painting, romance, dialogues and others mixed harmoniously.
Each of the artistic elements used in cinematic expression can be developed and explored for infinite profundity on its own but some of it can be tasted in combination with others as you watch and listen to a movie.
Recently watching classics from black and white and then from the Technicolor era: I was wondering about the changes in the quality of cinema and life. Technicolor movies certainly had colors which were more vivid than real life colors are. Some of the wide screen movies which were colored by technicolor stand out as marvelous expressions. In this regard: movies are not merely the artform which imitates life but also a way to escape it.
Some people are of impression that all great movies were made in the remote past. You find similar opinion about all things including morality. A general theory is that with the passage of time degradation of quality takes place.
Such opinions are mostly sentiments of nostalgic people who have sweeping arguments about everything without any careful investigation.
Technology has advanced decade-after-decade and it has affected different areas of living in different ways. There are tonnes of low quality movies from classic era and many good quality films from the present era. As obvious: we are aware of more data from our own era than that of eras bygone. Only outstanding cases from the previous eras stay popular: creating common impression and misconception that everything was great back then.
Other than the obvious example of Technicolor, better dialogues and narratives : I never generalize for greatness of cinema in the early twentieth century. It’s like half-baked conclusions about everything.
For example: if everything was great back then: weapons must also have been the most powerful. It’s a fallacy: before Hiroshima and Nagasaki: there were no weapons of mass destruction as powerful as we have now. It is enough to prove that not everything has degraded in quality. The argument can be extended to include cures for epidemics and pandemics i. e. advancements in the field of medicine.
Dancing light of grace 