The Unruled Notebook

This morning, I got a good dose of philosophy from the newspaper. It isn’t very often that you get to read unique articles and this particular one definitely made my Friday morning a thoughtful one. It was the ‘World View’ column with the title “Pencil Erasers may be the ‘devil’” that caught my attention. It got me thinking about the process of unlearning taught to us at school. A lot of questions popped up. Why do we hide our mistakes? Why isn’t it okay to make mistakes? Why are we taught to make up for a mistake? Why aren’t we taught to look at the mistake and learn from it? Why do we erase a mistake? Why aren’t we being naturally ourselves? Why do we need an eraser? The last question is what instigated me to write this post. What if Edward Nairne had not invented an eraser by accident? What if we were never introduced to the concept of the eraser at school! I should admit that the little wad of rubber that undoes all the mistakes made by your mighty pencil is inde...

I was up early this morning, shrugging off the coziness of a Sunday that went by and looking forward to a new week. Sipping my filter coffee and waiting for some morning cognizance in the form of ‘The Hindu’ daily, I noticed that the paper-man was late  today . Looking outside eagerly, from the balcony, I saw an unusual buzz for a Monday Morning. Yellow buses and vans haphazardly hovered through the narrow road; I noticed a few kids sporting bright uniforms carrying water bottles in different hues, looking so animated. Caught in a reverie, I thought the newspaper man’s kid must also be in one of these buses. May be he got busy attending to them, I mused. This is the time of the year when ‘sunny’ boy   gently subsides as monsoon beckons and we are ready for yet another beginning.   Of excitement and apprehension, the smell of crisp uniform and the meeting of new friends, the thought of mom’s love and the thought of a new teacher, school going is a mélange of an eerie...