Wither Hindi? Part-II

This series of posts got selected for BlogAdda's Spicy Saturday Picks. Click here to read a mini-review of this series by the BlogAdda team.

This is the second part of a two part series. The first part was published on the occasion of the Hindi Diwas three days ago. Click here to read it before proceeding.

Before, I take up the main theme of this post, I must share an important piece of information that I inadvertently missed in the previous one. Talking of Constitutional or legal categories of Indian languages, beyond the Official and the Scheduled languages, The Government of India declared a new category - Classical Languages - in 2004. Since then, Tamil(2004), Sanskrit(2005), Telugu and Kannada(2008) have joined the elite group.

The eligibility criteria pertains to the antiquity and originality of the language and a rich body of ancient texts, amongst others. However, inclusion of Telugu and Kannada in 2008 started a new political row epicentred in Kerala, upon Malayalam's exclusion. In short, such irrational categorisation has done nothing good for the languages but only given a chance to political parties to rake up the sentiments of the general public, reminding us the Anti-Hindi agitations of the 1960's.

Such problems stem from the fact that despite initial rejection by the Dhar Commission (1948) and JVP Committee (Nehru, Patel and Sitaramayya, 1949); Government of India was forced to follow the linguistic reorganisation of states after the popular agitation and the death of Potti Sriramulu, for carving out Andhra Pradesh out of Tamil Nadu in 1953. Following this development, States Reorganisation Commission was appointed which upheld the language as the basis of reorganisation of states in 1955. Rest is history.

Hence, somehow other socio-economic or political grievances of the states also get mixed up with the language as well as ethnicity issues, creating an unhealthy concoction for the appetite of the Indian federal structure.

Recently, Union Human Resources and Development Minister, Mr. Kapil Sibal started a new debate by calling for compulsory teaching of Hindi in all the Indian schools and hence, create it as the link language between the different linguistic regions of the country.

As such there is nothing new about it as it is in consonance with the provisions under Article 351 of the Indian Constitution discussed in the previous post. You may recall that according to this article, it is the duty of the Union Government to develop Hindi as the medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India, i.e. develop it as a pan-Indian language or a link language in other words.

Moreover, Hindi has been an integral part of the Three language formula evolved by the Union Government in consultations with the states and enunciated in the National Policy Resolution of 1968 and National Policy on Education of 1986, though implemented variedly by the state governments.

According to Mr. Sibal,

Now the lingua franca is English for professionals. When we become producers of knowledge then we can set our language as the lingua franca.

Mr. Sibal is the alumni (infact, belonged to the very first batch) of my school, a prestigious Christian missionary school of this region. He studied in that school when my father used to attend a government school. So, in short, he is generationally one step ahead of my family. It is not difficult to guess what kind of education he must have provided to his children and how proficient they must be in the language that Mr. Sibal desires to make the link language. I might be totally wrong in my assertion about the proficiency of his children but the question I am asking here is, why such hypocrisy?

Secondly, why do we want Hindi to be the link language at the first place? Moreover, will it be fruitful to make such a try?

According to Mr. Sibal,

We should ensure greater emphasis on Hindi. All children are not fluent in Hindi as they are in their mother tongues. Hindi is necessary for students to integrate with the rest of the country. The same students integrate with the rest of world through English.

Well, today I find myself highly integrated with the people around the country. My blog survives thanks to the visitors from places like Madras, Calcutta, Bangalore and Bombay (sorry, Chennai, Kolkatta, Bengaluru and Mumbai, it should read!) and I am sure many of them do not understand Hindi properly. It is English that is binding us. So why should we reserve English for only global integration? Why cannot it be a source of national integration as well?

What is the point in denying our history? British ruled us and gave us English. We cannot deny that it is this English which has made us globally competitive.

English is accused of being elitist. Yes, it is. Who is stopping the Government to make it reach all the sections of Indian society. Mr. Sibal plans to teach Hindi in every school. Is it feasible? Efforts required for making a good Hindi teacher available in a primary school of rural Tamil Nadu or Kerala will be more tedious than making a good English teacher available there. Kindly correct me if I am wrong in this assertion.

Further, talking of the integration with the different regions of the country, the specific region which is having the maximum need for it is the North East. States like Nagaland, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh have stuck to English as their only official language. So why not promote English as the medium for both official and cultural exchanges with such regions?

English education will have the added advantage of making the students more competitive in this era of globalisation. In this respect, idea of English as a pan-Indian language though revolutionary, holds more logic than Hindi.

But is this suggestion really revolutionary? On the ground level, it is English that is being used for communication between a Hindi and a non-Hindi speaking population during cultural exchanges. This is not just limited to the so-called educated elites like us but even to the non-English as well as lesser educated sections who use simple broken English when it comes to crossing the language barrier in a foreign state. Why not promote and improve the standards of English in the Indian schools of all hues and colours rather than aspiring to do the same with Hindi?

Moreover, constitutionally too, English is the official medium of communication between the Union (or Hindi speaking states) and the non-Hindi speaking states under the provisions of the Article 346. English is also the language used in the Supreme Courts, High Courts and for Acts and Bills under the provisions of the Article 348. So why should we emphasise on Hindi as the link language when it comes to the Article 351?

For that matter, coming back to a question raised earlier, that what is the logic behind developing Hindi as the pan-Indian language? As has been elaborated in the previous post, such an idea has failed miserably all these years thanks to the disinterest (rather protest) shown by the various linguistic regions and the importance of English as the global language.

Does Hindi qualify to be the link language because it is spoken by the majority of Indian population (41% according to the 2001 census)? As already elaborated, the actual pure form of Hindi is only spoken in certain areas of the Hindi belt. Infact, the official Hindi used by the Government and taught in the schools, better known as Khari boli (or Khari dialect) is limited to the Western Uttar Pradesh region, originally a rural language, developed only after 18^th century.

Within UP itself, there are various dialects of Hindi other than Khariboli which include Brajbhasa, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Bahgeli and Bundeli. Infact, a person like me cannot understand Bhojpuri or other dialects which are part of Hindi as per the 41% figure mentioned above.

When, there is so much variation within just one state, you may figure out the variations in the complete Hindi Belt including regions like Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh and New Delhi. This will also open the eyes of those non-Hindi speaking Indians who see the complete Hindi belt as a single unit bounded by a single language.

Moreover, asserting a majority language (Hindi) upon others is against the basic tenets of democracy. Some may call it as the false pride of the minorities but then that doesn't change the ground reality that there is resentment against it (valid in some cases, politically motivated in others) and hence, problems in its acceptance.

Such resentment is not just limited to the overt manifestations like the Anti-Hindi agitations in Tamil Nadu, back in 1950-60's which actually played an important role in bringing DMK to power; but also in the recent times can be seen in the form of Maharashtra Governments decision to extend Marathi as a compulsory subject in all the schools of the state, including the ones affiliated to ICSE and CBSE from 2007-08, basically expressing disapproval to the imposition of Hindi on its natives.

However, as shown above, the official Hindi (khariboli) is infact a minority language like all the other languages and dialects; so the resentment is bound to increase.

However, there is no denying the fact that we do need a pan-Indian language. As already elaborated above, English seems a better option for the same. There is no need for making any official pronouncement for the same as it is infact developing as a link language on its own. Yes, officially the stand on Hindi can be given up and in fact it should be allowed to get 'adulterated' in the different regions.

There is no point in making Mumbai out of Bombay or Kolkatta out of Calcutta as you may try to run away from the British legacy but it will keep haunting you. Its better to accept the truth and in this particular case of languages, the truth comes with the added advantage that

• it will have higher acceptance by the various linguistic groups, and
• it will make us globally more competitive.

Lastly, Mr. Kapil Sibal should concentrate on some concrete educational reforms at the basic primary level rather than taking the easier route of superficial reforms in the form of doing away with the Board exams (read Mou's brilliant post with regards to it) or proposing Hindi as the link language just like the Reservation policy (read my take on Reservations) of his predecessor.

The Right to Education though getting the status of a fundamental right under Aricle 21A, back in 2002 by the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act and finally, after intense debate and opposition, its provisions (for free and compulsory education to all the children of the age of 6 to 14 years) being passed by the Parliament and getting the Presidential assent a couple of weeks back on Sep 3, 2009; will face a lot of hurdles when it comes to the implementation stage. The energies of Union HRD Ministry should be concentrated here. Moreover, talking of higher education, even the proposed Bill for the opening of our frontiers for the Foreign Universities, may look promising but has a lot of scope for going wrong. Let us keep all these issues for some other day.

P.S.
This is to clarify my stand on a particular aspect about which I have received a couple of comments - I have no where claimed that English should be our National Language. Infact, I have specifically mentioned - There is no need for making any official pronouncement. There is difference between pan-Indian language and National language; former is by the virtue of its feasibility and convenience while latter is by virtue of its declaration by the Government. India should have no National language.

This was the concluding part of the series 'Wither Hindi?'. I must thank Pra, Roshmi and others whose comments to my previous post helped me in developing this post further. Leave your honest opinions on the same in the comments section.

Off-the-topic Reflections

• Do not miss my latest movie review and recommendation of Resurrecting the Champ on the adjoining side bar under The recent Movie I Liked upon Reflecting widget
  
• Also, I must thank my blog buddies Shankar, Shruti, Vineeta and Bharathi for the recent Blogging awards. I have displayed them neatly on the adjoining sidebar under the Fellow Bloggers' Affection Reflected widget.
  
• You can now star-rate my posts by the new rating widget that is visible at the end of each post.
  

Image Courtesy:
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com (edited)

Wither Hindi? Part-I

This series of posts got selected for BlogAdda's Spicy Saturday Picks. Click here to read a mini-review of this series by the BlogAdda team.

This is the first part of a two part series on the occasion of Hindi Diwas.

Today is Hindi Diwas (Hindi Day). 60 years ago on 14th September, 1949, Hindi was accepted and adopted as the official language of the Union. Recently, while filling an application form for an examination, I was required to mention my mother language. Ofcourse, I mentioned Hindi. However, just a couple of days before that, I had also appeared for a Hindi exam as a part of some other civil services exam. As expected, I was miserable in it.

That raises the question, is Hindi really my mother language?

First of all, I'll delineate my brand of Hindi. In everyday life, I use Hindi as the medium of verbal communication. However, is it really Hindi? The base might be that of Hindi but inadvertently so many words from English, Punjabi and Urdu creep in that if I sit down to decipher a sentence just spoken, I'll realise that it is no where close to the 'pure' Hindi. That raises the question that is the 'pure' Hindi really desirable?

Ofcourse it is, I realised while giving that exam. I found that my vocabulary in Hindi is so weak that I should be ashamed of myself. However, if I had given the same exam during my school days, I would have definitely done a lot better. Infact, my Hindi was so fluent back then that I was called Shastriji (Learned of Shastras) by my school friends. 8 years of just English education has indeed adulterated me.

But am I really adulterated? What is the desirability of the purity beyond that exam?

Recently, an Indiblogger started a discussion in the forums. He asserts that,

We are here to promote Hindi as language and want more use of it at Blogs. Some of the Hindi News Blogs and portals do not write Hindi but Hinglish which hurt us. It is our National Language and everyone must respect it.

If a person wants to promote any language, he has the fundamental right to do so under Article 29 and 30 of the Indian Constitution meant for the linguistic (and other) minorities.

So what about Hindi as it is not a minority language? Well, there are special provisions for development of Hindi as an official language of the Union Government under Article 344 and as medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India, i.e. a pan-Indian language under Article 351.

In this context, first of all let me clarify that India has no National language (Rashtra Bhasha) as asserted above by the initiator of the debate on Indiblogger. Constitutionally there are two types of languages - Official languages and Scheduled languages. According to Article 343, India has two official languages (Rajya Bhasha) - Hindi (in Devanagari script) and English. The States can declare their own official languages apart from English.

Talking of Scheduled languages, we have 22 of them under the Schedule 8 of the Indian Constitution. Originally there were 14 - Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malyalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Sindhi (21st Constitutional Amendment Act, 1967), Konkani, Manipuri, Nepali (71st, 1992), Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhili (91st, 2003) were added later. If you might have noticed, 15 0f them are visible on the Indian paper currency while others which were added later still do not find the place there. Entry into this scheduled list has become more of a political affair, a way of appeasing particular minority linguistic sections.

Hence, to claim Hindi as the national language is a big misconception of not only this gentleman but many Indians. Moreover, though it was envisaged as a pan-Indian language by the framers of constitution, Hindi could never rise to that level because,

• It was not easy for states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh or Bengal having rich traditional linguistic culture to accept any such language forced from above, and
• It was necessary for the Central Government to see beyond pan-Indian to global communication. In that respect Hindi could never surpass English.

Hence, Hindi has not been accepted as an official medium by the non-Hindi speaking states and English though actually envisaged to be an official language only till 1965 under the Article 343, still carries on with that status thanks to the Official Language Act of 1963 and hence will remain there till eternity.

In this context, in the above mentioned debate on Indiblogger, the initiator further asserts,

If you speak French or German mixing with English, I am sure its not going to be liked, then why make Hindi the scapegoat. Its not only my mother tongue, its a very developed language, why not use it properly.

Well, comparing Hindi with French or German is sort of a faulty analogy. For that matter, Hindi is also one of the least developed language of India if you compare it with the rich linguistic heritage of Tamil, Telugu or Bengali. As long as a person wants to use Hindi properly, he/she is most welcome to do so. Requesting (and not demanding) the others to do so is also his right. However, to give wrong assertions like Hindi is the National language or illogical assertions that Hindi is very developed language, so use it properly; totally fails his/her wider assertions.

Article 351, mentioned earlier with regards to development of Hindi as a pan-Indian language, also clarifies that it is the duty of the Union Government to secure its enrichment by assimilating without interfering with its genius, the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and in the other languages of India specified in the Eighth Schedule.

In short, Hindi has been developed as a medium for pan-Indian communication. In that sense, it is very important that rather than claiming its purity, it intermixes with other languages. English has actually enriched itself by adopting vocabulary from other European languages like French and German and even Asian languages like Arabic and Hindi for that matter.

Hence rather than purifying Hindi, there should be an effort to make it easier to understand. In this context, Article 351 should move beyond just the Eighth Schedule and include English within its ambit too. Rather than creating new words for common English terms, those terms should be assimilated as has been done all these years.

Why should I call Hindi as my mother language if I am not able to understand the official Hindi documents which use the rarest possible vocabulary. In this context, the Committee of Parliament on Official Language, 1957; constituted under the Constitutional provision (Article 344) under the chairmanship of the then Union Home Minister Govind Vallabh Pant also recommended that proper encouragement should be given for usage of meaningful and simple Hindi words.

Hindi was developed as the language for the common man just as Pali (Buddhist literature) and Prakrit (Jain literature) were developed centuries ago when Sanskrit was regarded elitist and was confined to the Brahminical learning. So why should we emphasize on purifying or in other words complicating Hindi?

In the next part, I'll touch upon the need for a pan-Indian language and the language that should qualify for being the one. Click here to read it.

Image Courtesy:
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com (edited)

She, Me and Her!

She	Hey Vipsy, this is not right.. haan!
Me	Why? What happened babes? What's not right?
She	You are not spending any time with me these days.. huh!
Me	C'mon yaar.. you know na, I am busy with my examinations preparation.
She	Busy, my foot! You have all the time in the world for that Bi*ch but no time for me.
Me	Hey sweetheart, mind your language. Now who are you talking about?
She	C'mon as if you don't know, right?
Me	Oh.. Oh.. Okeh. Now I get it. What has gone to your head babes.
She	Nothing. But she definitely has conquered your head and your heart as well.
Me	Stop this rubbish yaar. You know I have made some commitments and have to fulfil them. So I have to spend more time with her.
She	What about commitment with me. Even when you came to meet me the other day, it was because of her.
Me	Now you are just exaggerating. Hasn't she helped you in so many ways.
She	How come?
Me	Because of her, you get to meet and know so many people.
She	I don't want anyone. I just want you.
Me	Now don't act stupid dear. I am nothing without all of them.
She	And I am nothing without you.
Me	I know that jaanu. Its just a matter of couple of months. Try to understand na.
She	What understand?
Me	At least listen first. See, as soon as my exams get over, I promise I'll spend much more time with you.
She	Oh really! And what about that new one that you are planning to bring in your life.
Me	Shhh.. hush hush. Thats a secret. Don't tell anyone about her as of now. When she comes into my life, she won't take much of my time anyway. I'll be fully committed and devoted to you.
She	And that bi*ch too.. huh!
Me	Please do not call her like that. I've told you, even that's a part of my commitment, a larger commitment, not just to her but to so many people I've come to know because of her.
She	So that is your priority?
Me	Yes, it is. But I can only handle it if I know you are there to support me. I love you.
She	Oooooooooo.. I love you too Vipsy. Okeh, do what you feel is right but never forget me.
Me	How can I, you idiot. You are my first and hopefully last love.
She	Hopefully? How dare you!
Me	Hey, just kidding dear. As Shahid sings in Kaminey.. Pehli baar mohabbat ki hai, akhiri baar mohabbat ki hai.
She	What?
Me	Oh, you English freak.. It means.. I've loved for the first time, I've loved for the last time.
She	Hehehehehe..... Muahhhhhh...
Me	Now don't get that girlie. Chal got to go now. Catch you later.
She	Ohkiee. Bye.
Me	Bye! See you soon.

As you must have guessed by now, this was an intimate conversation between me and my personal blog.

To some extent her anger is justified that I am spending too much time on Blog-a-Ton while totally neglecting her. But then I just can't help it. Juggling between my studies and blogging, I have to choose between either one of the blogs. And of course Blog-a-Ton can not be compromised with, at this time.

In the nutshell, I won't be blogging here for a couple of months unless or until I feel really inspired. Studies suck all the inspiration out of you, I have realised. However, you never know from where the inspiration might creep in.

Meanwhile, I'll really love it, if you read some of my favourite previous posts. Here are the Top-10 as I have also mentioned on a widget in the rightmost sidebar.

• The Journey of His Lifetime
• Arjun
• Let the Gay be Gay
• My 'de-reservations' about the Reservation
• The Eternal Labyrinth of a Materialistic Life
• A Curious Case of Corruption
• Chandigarh Unabridged
• Who'll Give the Life and Who'll Take it Away?
• Obama Coming
• Indian 'Pataka' League

These cover varied content and presentation styles and I hope you will like reading them as much as I liked writing them.

Ofcourse, most of my regular readers aka blogger buddies must have read most of them. I'll love it, if you read what Empathic Libertarianism is all about or rather what I conceived it to be when I started this journey in case you have not read it yet.

And of course, leave your reflections (aka comments) on these posts even if they are pretty old. I'll definitely respond.

As for leaving my reflections on your blogposts, its frequency will also go down these couple of months. So, please pardon me for the same.

Image Source:
Self sketched

Teachers : Aaj Kal

This post got selected for BlogAdda's Tangy Tuesday Picks. Click here to visit the BlogAdda page containing a mini-review of this post by the BlogAdda team.

This post has been published by me on the occasion of the Teachers' Day as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 2, the second edition of the online marathon of Bloggers, where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Teachers : Aaj Kal by Prof. V.K. Grover Guest Blogger

A couple of days back, my son, Vipul asked me, how can we compare the present day teachers with those from the olden days. My instant response was that the old day teachers were better. It might be a reflex action to such a question as we are taught since our childhood that the old is gold. Nevertheless, the question started a chain of thoughts in my mind. Here, I'll be giving words to those thoughts as my son requested me to do the same.

When we talk of teachers, we need to consider all the teachers starting from the Professors in a big university to a school teacher in a village.

Let us first start with the University teachers because I myself belong to this fraternity. Moreover, if they are good, then they produce students of higher calibre, some of whom teach in the colleges and in turn produce good school teachers, who in turn send well equipped students for the higher learning, hence improving the country's human resources.

In the middle of the twentieth century when USSR launched its first satellite, Sputnik I; USA realized that it was lagging behind in the space technology. During this era of Space Race, USA opened its doors for the scientific intellectuals from all around the world, offering them handsome salaries and attractive working conditions. This gave an opportunity to many Indian academicians to visit USA and work with the best in the trade. Some of them came back with greater acceptability in the Indian society becoming members of an elite class of intellectuals. They took teaching and research assignments in Indian universities that gave boost to teaching and learning, particularly in sciences and mathematics.

Moreover, after Independence there was a major expansion in the higher education which led to quick promotional avenues for the teachers. This acted as a great work incentive as some of them even became heads of institutes at relatively young age. As those teachers were in the main stream of world research scenario, they were very successful as teachers and thus became role models for the future generations.

As the time passed, the expansion in higher education got stunted. There were lesser opportunities for promotions. Moreover, due to political reasons or otherwise, successive governments developed apathy towards teaching community. In order to make sure that the teachers are not marginalised in the society, the university and college teachers formed Unions and fought together to obtain better service conditions which they got in the form of establishment of UGC in 1970's.

However, they had to pay a heavy price for this in terms of loss of respect in the society associated with the noble profession of teaching. Monetary considerations took the priority over the academics and more and more teachers started indulging in private tuitions. In this scenario, the only formula to help the students obtain good marks is to give them some ready made tips and no efforts are made to make the basic concepts clear.

With the opening of I.T. enabled services sector, people are finding other professions more lucrative. Only the mediocre are now left to join the teaching profession. This decrease in the quality of University level teachers trickles down to the lower levels too.

This discussion will be incomplete if we don't talk about the school teachers who really lay the foundation for the future human resources.

In earlier days, in general, people were satisfied with the career they started with and were physically and mentally devoted to it. There are examples of teachers taking free of cost extra classes in the schools for the weak students and devoting extra time in sincerely checking home work of the students. However, as every one is becoming commercial these days, even they are not left untouched. Tuitions are becoming a fashion these days and there are innumerable cases of Government teachers forcing their students to take up private tuitions from them after the school.

In the olden times, the teachers also had a free hand in mending the pupils and even a bit of corporal punishment was a way of life. On the contrary, present day teachers have become more accountable. Parents are averse to any kind of corporal punishment and as such teachers have to work under many constraints; good or bad, is a different subject matter.

If we analyse further, we find that in the past, the access to information was not that good as it is today. Now with the invention of computers and Internet, the students are well informed while the students in the olden days had only one source for learning new things and that was the teacher. Hence he was looked at as the most learned person. However, today students can critically examine the teacher in view of the information available through the Internet and when the teacher is at fault, it automatically leads to decline in respect.

The introduction of the new technologies like LCD projectors and computers, however, also have there positives for the teaching community. A computer savvy teacher can plan his lectures well, make them more legible and give pictorial descriptions at ease, something which older generation teachers could not do. With the fast exchange of information through Internet and updating of technologies, if today's teacher is willing to put some effort, he can do wonders.

Beyond the old and present teachers, what about the future? The phrase old is gold will be repeated in future too. You may wonder that the quality of teachers might further decline. However, this is not the case. At any given time and in any profession, we have some good professionals and some black sheep while the most of the remaining are the mediocre. With the passage of time, we forget the black sheep and the mediocre and remember only the good ones, comparing them with the complete lot of the present professionals. This gives a bias against the present ones.

In future if someone happens to write about the teachers, he/she may come up with some other reasons but nevertheless the reasons quoted here are a food for thought. Some of the maladies plaguing the teaching community, mentioned here, if rectified or better removed can help in arresting any further decline in the standards.

A note from the Host Blogger:
Well, friends when this topic which had been suggested by me on the Blog-a-Tonic discussions, finally got selected, I already had some vague ideas about how to treat it. However, being totally held up due to studies, I thought why not pass the buck onto the person who has more than half a century of association with the education sector, first as a student and then as a teacher himself. Being a Mathematician, my father has always played with numbers. So here, I challenged him to play with the alphabets. He was hesitant at first but finally yielded and came out with a brilliant analysis. What you read here is the final version with minor editions from my side.

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton are Rajalakshmi, Dhiman, Ranee[1], [2], [3] , Avada, Indian Pundit, Sojo, Aneet, Pramathesh, Aativas, Sid, Pra, Ajinkya, Lakshmi, Govind, Shilpa, Bharathi, Shankar, Mytuppence, Azad, Pawan, Pankaja, Saimanohar, Guria, Shruti, Vishnu, Nasrajan and Richa. Click on their respective names to read their posts on Teachers : Aaj Kal. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Don't miss my latest Teachers' Day special review and recommendation of Freedom Writers on The recent Movie I Liked upon Reflecting widget on the side bar.

Images Courtesy:
1. http://www.research.plymouth.ac.uk and http://www.dea.uniroma3.it (edited)
2. From personal collection (edited)