Issue writing episode 3

"The media (books, film, music, television, for example) tend to create rather than reflect the values of a society."

Media has always played a very important role in shaping up the society as a whole. It has been the most powerful agent ever which could change perspectives, instigate emotions, mitigate precarious situations, make someone an overnight hero or bring down stars to dust. Media has indeed often been guilty of having a predisposition to create, but it would be incorrect to say it hasn't been reflecting the values of society.

The pen is mightier than the sword. Truly said. Only that now the pen, apart from maintaining its own potency, has graduated into extended manifestations like the television and the internet which have only worked in media's favor. These newer incarnations have allowed a much wider scope of reaching out to various corners of the world at a much faster rate. And this has contributed into making media all the more important.

Media has indeed indulged in sketching characters and creating situations with which it sometimes becomes difficult to identify with. Characters like 'Harry Potter' and dracula while movies like 'The Dark Knight' present the creative best of the media which hardly reflect the values of society. But on the other hand, there are also examples of books like 'The God of Small Things' and movies like 'Hotel Rwanda' truly gather the essence of various aspects of humanity. ------

The tendency to create and to explore unchartered territories arises from the ingrained character of the human race to desire for what is not, to seek what has been elusive. Media caters to this demand and in the process does stray at times to create unreal characters. But, nevertheless, it won't be correct in its entirety to say they don't reflect the values of a society. Infact, many times it does happen that such characters are inspired from a living example. Also, mostly they are shown dealing with problems the society faces and the idealistic way of going about them.

Both in the past and in the modern times, media has certainly tended to go overboard in a few instances. The tendency to give too much emphasis on satiating the human urge to go beyond the truth of life gets underway at times. But never so much that they shirk from their fundamental responsibility to act as the society's mirror. It is said, our sweetest songs are those which say about our saddest thoughts. Indeed, this goes a long way to explain how media even if tending to create, do not completely lose track of the society's values.

The world has been on the path of progress socially and in the most harmonic way possible. If nothing, media can certainly be applauded for having played a major role in that. Yes, it has tended to create at more than one occasion, but saying it does not reflect the values of society and always relies on just superfluous creations would be stretching it too far.

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This is the essay topic I got in a test in the powerprep software sent by GRE conducting organization - ETS. Under timed conditions, this is what I could render. Not my best work, but I tried to be have a more poised approach instead of taking an extreme stand. But my first instinct after finishing the essay was that I had repeated ideas a lot. Let me know if you think that too.

PS1: 3 hours to take the train to home .. damn!
PS2: I realllllly need to be sure of the meanings of the words
PS3: I faltered in the verbal section which I gave immediately after this essay. I guess the 10 minutes break is indeed necessary.
PS4: I haven't yet attempted an argument-type essay :(

The Society of Ultimate Truth

Osu!

For the uninitiated in Japanese, Osu is a combination of the words - "Oshi Shinobu", meaning to push oneself to the limit of one's ability and yet to continue, to preserve under pressure and to endure. The true implication of the word (pronounced as Oss! with a long 'O') could only be understood by one who imbibes the philosophy of Kyokushin. Read more about it here.

This Sunday I had my first grading test in the form of martial art now followed by more than 12 million people round the world - Kyokushin. Self improvement, discipline and hard training are the three underlying principles of the philosophy of this art. To know more about the history of Kyokushin, visit here and here. The website of Kyokushin India could be accessed here and the website of Kyokushin Bangalore, the one which the Kharagpur Dojo is an affiliate of is here.

Coming on to my grading. I faltered in the very first step of discipline when I reached late for my grading :( . It happened to be that the time was scheduled as 5.30 in the morning. Given the fact that I'm more of a semi-nocturnal character, i.e. it's almost 3 in the morning everyday by the time I go to sleep, and with my GRE impending (this coming Wednesday - just about 80 hours from then), it wasn't surprising that I woke till around 2 again in Sunday morning studying and managed to sleep through the entire time my alarm rang. At around 5 minutes to 6, my senpai rings me (amazingly, I woke up with that ring) and says 'Your grading has already started.'

In a flash all my lassitude vanished and I found myself reaching substantially late in the grading test, something which is not expected from a Kyokushin student. After having faltered in the very basic of conditions, we (around 17 of us ranging from white belts to blue junior. A point to note is that all belts have two levels - Junior and Senior) were made to go through all the steps, stances, strike sequences and fighting sequences in order to be marked. As expected, it was most strenuous for the blue belt guys and the least for us - the ones with white belt which is an official way of saying zero-level.

After around 2.5 hours of a display of what we had learnt over the past 3 months or so, the final few minutes were the ones which actually jaded everyone - the stamina test. Duck walk, frog jump and squats - my! my!! the very thought brings jitters. They were the most difficult part for me atleast (and if you were there, you'd have known it was the most difficult part for everyone else too). But nevertheless, it all ended with the sensei giving us some general funda about the various kinds of fighting techniques and explaining how the sequences taught to us could be actually implemented in real life scenario. (Beware oh you assailant!! :P )

Oh, btw, there was this session in the end where Kyokushin fighting was simulated by my colleagues. That was fun :)

The grading results were out by afternoon. I made it to the white junior grade. Though it was slightly disappointing since I expected a bit better result, but surely instigating enough to persuade me to take the whole thing more seriously in a bid to do better. I always had this urge to learn martial arts, and this has been a great opportunity to do so. Though, certainly I've not been able to do full justice to it since I've been quite irregular in practice. But then the academic rigors of 6th semester and an examination like GRE coming up only made it more difficult for me. Unfortunately, I also had to miss a session with sensei on Monday (that is today) morning at 5.30 due to the same reason - going to sleep at 3 .. Couldn't help it.

Oh, well, then why this post .. maybe I'm getting some writing practice ;) .. no comments :D

For any of you who ever wished to take up martial arts but never could, I'd say it's still not that late (is it ever late?). It just needs a little determination from your side and the will to do it takes you through. For those in kgp and interested to know more about Kyokushin, could run a quick search in DC++ with the obvious keyword - Kyokushin. For others, Youtube is inundated with Kyokushin videos. You might want to look at them.

Arigato gozaimasu :)

Osu!!

PS1: For those who didn't understand the title of the post yet, yes, Kyokushinkai means that.
PS2: Not going to the practice for the next couple of days atleast, yet again!
PS3: Osu!!

Issue writing episode 2

"It is often asserted that the purpose of education is to free the mind and the spirit. In reality, however, formal education tends to restrain our minds and spirits rather than set them free"

I completely jibe with the statement that formal education does tend to restrain our minds and spirits rather than set them free, when its purpose is just the opposite.

Education is supposed to provide the much needed impetus to mankind to strive for achieving newer heights instead of just being didactic. It should be able to instigate the human intellect to think what has not been thought till now; to express in a way never seen or heard of and to reach out to what has been elusive ever since. It won't be incorrect to state that formal education has been quite doctrinaire in its approach. This dogmatic tendency forces an individual to walk down a pre-laid, predetermined path - severely whittling the ways of the unrestrained human mind and spirit.

Numerous examples dot history which conform with this statement fundamentally. Thomas Alva Edison would probably be the most famous instance. Someone who was never interested in social sciences and even mathematics in school, essentially a drop out, is now known to have more than hundred patents to his name which includes the electric bulb - something without which even getting formal education in a classroom might be difficult. Even Einstein wasn't a great student at school and did miserably in subjects including science. He even acknowledged the fact that he did not like studying the way he was taught at school. These and others are countless examples of people making a name in the world of science after having rejected by the society for being unsuitable to get formal education. This only goes on to show how formal education tends to manacle our mind and spirit hardly leaving any room for creativity. It's infact ironical that those very people who never received formal education should form an important component of formal education of future generations.

Go on to the social world and there have been figures like Dalai Lama and Swami Vivekananda, who have actually tried to show the world what the axiom "Education leads to salvation" implies and have gained exalted status due to their approach. Not that they themselves did not undergo formal education, infact Swami Vivekananda was a great scholar, but they always stressed on their view that one needs to free their mind and spirit to experience redemption and this is not possible by the formal education system. These are examples who broke away from the structure of education in search of their souls.

Art, Industry, Literary - you name it and you'll find innumerable instances where formal education has mostly served to pare the wings of young minds and restrained their ebullient creativity. This has been reactionary to the human progress and it would do us a lot of good if we break out of our reverie of formal education being the best thing that ever happened to us. Evidently, formal education does tend to restrain our minds and spirits rather than setting them free.

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40 minutes exactly. 491 words - ehh .. considerably less than last time. I kept restricted myself to 40 minutes instead of 45 because writing an essay sitting in the comfort of my room cannot possibly match the pressure of writing in an examination. My personal feeling just after completing is that I wrote really badly. Infact, somehow I feel I might have digressed from the topic also. Do let me know if you feel that too.

PS1 - #200 in GRE list - again, my bro :)
PS2 - mmmm, maybe you could just leave your comment instead of all the rating thing
PS3 - Tomorrow, viva voce for design lab ... :(

Issue writing episode 1

With this I begin the part I've neglected most for GRE till now - the Analytical Writing section. Here's a look into what makes a 6-pointer essay (the maximum points you get in essays in GRE)

• The essay develops a position on the issue through the use of incisive reasons and persuasive examples.
• The essay's ideas are conveyed clearly and articulately.
• The essay maintains proper focus on the issue and is well organized.
• The essay demonstrates proficiency, fluency, and maturity in its use of sentence structure, vocabulary, and idiom.
• The essay demonstrates an excellent command of the elements of Standard Written English, including grammar, word usage, spelling, and punctuation—but may contain minor flaws in these areas.

I request you to please give me what you feel I should get out of 6 (with a least count of 0.25). Please see to it that your personal bias to the topic does not come underway in giving points, because the stand we take in GRE hardly has any impact on the score.

Here's the first topic I've taken up -

"No one can possibly achieve success in the world by conforming to conventional practices and conventional ways of thinking."

The statement does sound iconoclastic but I happen to concur with it fundamentally. If not impossible, it's indeed very difficult to achieve success in the world by conforming to conventional practices and conventional ways of thinking.

Undoubtedly, the conventional approach is imperative for the stability and growth of our system. Conventional ways are time-tested and give expected, guaranteed results. But, inspite of this all, conventional practices offer almost no scope of thinking out of the box, to discover, to invent and to venture into unknown territories. Infact, come to think of it, the methods and practices now being considered conventional, were at some point of time a revolutionary idea which brought success to the proposer. Only then, with prevalent usage did it become conventional.

Had no one dared to think beyond established practices, we still would've been in the early-man era. Newton would never have gone one step ahead and asked the question, 'Why did the apple fall down and not up?' We won't have known about Archimedes who broke conventional practices of finding purity of jewellery by his principles of buoyancy. We would still be resorting to age-old simple machines instead of the now available complex ones. Countless examples in the field of research corroborate the fact that a revolutionary approach begets success. The scientific world, infact, can hardly advance if they stuck to the conventional ways of thinking.

A look at the industrial world would tell us how much of a fierce competition exists for survival and successful growth among companies. Conventional practices ill certainly keep them running but only until one of them breaks the norm to do something ambitious and succeeds. Yes, the risk factor is high when one does so, but the dividends that could be reaped far outweigh the risks involved. All the successful names we know - Microsoft, Google, Unilever, Shell - each of them are at the pinnacle of their fields because they dared to think different, to break the conventional trends. There are a number of organizations in the market which follow the conventional ways, but then, do we even know which are they. The slogan of Apple Computers - "Think different" captures the essence of the idea beautifully.

The sphere of art has always thrived on breaking cherished and established trends. Every successful name you take - Picasso, Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, MF Hussain - all of them command reverence only because they have a style of their own, one which distinguishes them from the conventional themes and practices of creating art work. Indeed, their talent was fundamentally raised on established principles and rules guiding art, but success betrothed them only once they chose to define a style of their own.

Even in the social scenario, the ones successful are those who defied prevalent practices and ways of thinking. Martin Luther King is an apt example who made it a point to express his views about the black-white divide openly and fought for the blacks' rights. In a time when seeing blacks as slaves had become a convention, even thinking that blacks could gain equal rights was unthinkable. But Martin Luther King did not only think about it, he made it a reality and recorded his name in the annals of history.

Examples can be sought from every facet of life, and the conclusion would always be the same. Conventional ways of thinking and conventional practices could hardly bring success to one's doorsteps. The quintessential human mind is always on the look out to explore new avenues and improve upon existing ones, and this very quality presses us to break the fetters of conventional wisdom for good.

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That's it. It comes to 607 words. The recommended length being 400-700 words. Though I took a hell lot of time to write this, much more than the time limit. But I've written something like this after a really long time, and hence I believe I should be able to write fast enough after a couple of more such essays.

PS1: Please do not forget to give suggestions to improve the essay. It could be the one I get in the exam
PS2: There are a list of around 240 issue topics given by the examinees. This is one of them.
PS3: This is #100 of the list - suggested by my brother
PS4: Have to wake early tomorrow .. 5 am :O
PS5: Don't forget the 0-6 rating (and be serious about that, chap!)