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  Collective Knowledge, Community Care In this digimodern world, where is postmodern enquiry? We have outsourced our lives to metrics. Digital culture rewards those with the highest social currency. If you have burned more calories and taken more steps than others in a day, and this information garners likes and comments, your day may be considered successful. This kind of quantified success must be virtually validated. We feel compelled to maintain a digital ledger of worth. So many of us crave to be algorithmically worthy. Did the postmodern world of relentless enquiry lose itself in dashboard analytics and the gamification of life? Is our branded self-worth and consumption-driven selfhood the be-all and end-all of life? Nowadays, social media algorithms reward herd mentality. The voices that are amplified are those of people with better networking, and greater power and resources. Their views are circulated widely, drowning out the opinions of the weaker who need to be h...
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  Ask about the meaning of the life you live Nowadays life has become a checklist of what you are to accomplish. Those who achieve more of them at a higher scale with impressive Linkedin profiles certifying them as ‘award winning’ and carefully curated Instagram pages highlighting glamorous lifestyles have enviable lives. Advertisements which pop up urging you to attend master classes asserting that many who have done it have miraculously transformed their lives to earn flamboyant success and win trophies in the pursuit of happiness fuel the need to attain this picture perfect life. The commodification of fulfilment has a list to tick off like: High earning job High bank balance Fame and reputation Grand apartment Car Kids studying in the best institutes Children dabbling in a wide range of co-curriculars Shopping Designer wardrobe Daily fitness regime, sports, and a toned body Good health Powerful networking Travel Regular social life with drin...
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    Tree Spotting When I was at school, we had regular class tests. My guardian would take out my textbook while I was in the car and quiz me. She would read out the chapter to me. If I could not answer verbatim, I would be slapped and rebuked, “Dumb girl!” In her school, teachers would give more marks to those who wrote answers word for word as they were printed in the textbook. We would travel in a car along with our cousins to school. My intention was to view the world outside the car window, especially the treetops. I wanted to check out the birds and their nests. When I could not achieve an A+, my guardian would jeer at me, “You are so immature! Mature girls want to score more marks and revise lessons in the car. You observe the nests of birds like a child. Are you in nursery?” A childhood should ideally be spent under the shade of trees, climbing and nurturing them. Tree watching should not be shamed or punished. Our rapport with trees should continue lifelong....
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  The White-Footed Deer Poem by William Cullen Bryant   It was a hundred years ago, When, by the woodland ways, The traveller saw the wild deer drink, Or crop the birchen sprays.   Beneath a hill, whose rocky side O'erbrowed a grassy mead, And fenced a cottage from the wind, A deer was wont to feed.   She only came when on the cliffs The evening moonlight lay, And no man knew the secret haunts In which she walked by day.   White were her feet, her forehead showed A spot of silvery white, That seemed to glimmer like a star In autumn's hazy night.   And here, when sang the whippoorwill, She cropped the sprouting leaves, And here her rustling steps were heard On still October eves.   But when the broad midsummer moon Rose o'er that grassy lawn, Beside the silver-footed deer There grazed a spotted fawn.   The cottage dame forbade her son To aim the rifle here; 'It were a sin,' she s...
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  The Last Boat The translation has been googled By Rabindranath Tagore At the close of the day, in the land of sleep, a veiled shadow Makes me forget, forget my life. On the other bank, a golden shore edges the gloaming, Which like an enchantress disrupts my work. The wayfarers who head back after completing their task, Do not look back at the trail they leave behind. Like a receding tide, intoxicated, I am drawn away from home. The dusk sets in as the day leaves. Please come, o ferryman, one Who can row me across on the last Ferry at the end of the day. In the dusk, a few ferries ebb with the tide To the other side. How will I recognise the ferryman among the other ones Waiting at the arrival to take me to my destination? Downhill, by the thick vegetation at the bank, The shade moves like a shadow. Where is the ferryman who is willing to halt When I call out? O come, The one who will row me At the close of the day in the last ferry....
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