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Tribute to Campuses: Shaping lives!

by with No Comment ExperienceLifestyleLovePoemUncategorized

STRANDOMS: the stray and random thoughts

MAY 24 ,2025

S.RAMKUMAR

Tribute to Campuses: Shaping lives!

Campuses, the places where we learn and work, visibly influence our outlook and happiness, offering cherished memories for a dynamic life. They are like extended homes for a wishful mind, available to us to refresh at any moment, helping us to think and be happy, no matter where we are.

The three campuses I’ve had the privilege to experience (chosen from many) are the College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (COVAS), Mannuthy, Kerala (where I completed my undergraduate and postgraduate courses and began my career as an Assistant Professor), The University of Reading, UK (where I pursued my PhD and postdoc, and later visited as a researcher), and the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Veterinary Education and Research (RIVER), Puducherry (as Faculty and Dean)

At COVAS, Mannuthy, 1987

COVAS, Mannuthy

The sunsets viewed from the men’s hostel (the only one at the time), the verdant corridor of trees beside the lovely green stadium, and the small hill behind the campus, accessible by crossing the canal, make COVAS a truly unique life experience. The transformation from teenager to young adult, the newfound freedom with lifelong friends, and the wonderful, connected faculty and staff all contribute to the freshness and richness of being on that campus. These experiences shape us for the future. All our loves—studies, sports, arts, friends, fun, tours, classes, outings—blend seamlessly within the wider canvas of a campus that truly lives.

At Whiteknights Lake, Reading, UK 1991

The University of Reading, UK

The landscape with Whiteknights Lake at its heart offers a stunning view, and daily walks within its grounds open up new perspectives. The changing seasons—spring with its vibrant tulips, summer with lush green grass and trees, autumn with yellowish-brown leaves gracefully falling, and winter with days when the lake freezes over, allowing geese and ducks to walk on the ice—have been odes to this campus. Every season holds sweet sentiments that linger through the years as you live.

Canteen Garden, RIVER, 2020

RIVER, Puducherry

RIVER boasts a sprawling green campus with buildings nestled like small mushrooms within a verdant forest. The trees, predominantly neem, provide much-needed freshness throughout the day as we walk and work. The fruit trees, herbal garden, canteen garden, the pond, and the animal rehabilitation enclosure all embody a philosophy of “growing with the green.”

“Campuses truly remain with us!”

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LASTING LOVE

by with No Comment EducationExperienceLifeLifestyleLoveProfession

STRANDOMS: the stray and random thoughts

MAY 5 ,2025

S.RAMKUMAR

LASTING LOVE

True Love is heart’s find of the beautiful virtues of another person.

While physical beauty might initially draw the eye, it is the enduring qualities of affection, sacrifice, and unwavering care that truly bind souls together.

These deeper virtues weave the fine fabric of a real and lasting love, with varying shades!

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tea

It is not tea – it is “teaing”!

by with No Comment ExperienceLifestyleUncategorized

STRANDOMS: the stray and random thoughts

January 17 ,2025

Prof. S. Ramkumar

TEA

It is not tea – it is “teaing”!

Having tea is “tea”ing : beyond a drink, it is always a medium of connect.

Have you ever thought that our daily life can be divided based on the teas we sip? From the bed we wake, usually the first purposive start of the day is with the tea we relish- alone or together! Tea-connect starts with every dawn in the family, and stretch through work places and societies throughout the globe where we exist.

The wake-up and evening teas are the major life boosters. The 11 am tea is the rejuvenator for the day, where closer faces share closer feelings for a break.

Tea is the Universal Socialistic drink of connect.

There is no day without you drinking a tea, or you not seeing somebody taking tea! Life revolves around tea (many varieties now!).
We take it when we are alone to bounce the boredom and kick start an active mind. Any meetings we attend formally or informally… scientific, professional, party …tea sneaks in to the heated or cold discussions, adding vibes across the table. Tea can start conversation in a sad or tough time and divide sorrows. It can refresh the joys and multiply when shared.
The feel of tea, makes better relaxed minds, preparing them lighter to respond!
Tea shops (from the old street-side tea stalls with benches to sit and read daily newspapers, to the present day tea/coffee shops and Net cafes, where people sit and sink into their cellphones) have been important meeting points – formal or informal- bringing people around.
Interesting point is, even through the different revolution-eras the world have gone through, tea still plays its dominant role on the present technology era. One of the universal human-connect mechanisms before, and after cellphone eras is the tea. Only difference is tea is shared between people who are physically in proximity before the digital era; cellphones connect without proximity and tea!
Happy teaing!
 
 
 
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The Anatomy of Experience

by with No Comment ExperienceLifestyle

STRANDOMS: the stray and random thoughts

July 16, 2017

Prof. S. Ramkumar

Education

The Anatomy of Experience

Number of years of simple existence doesn’t imply experience (not at least in the sense I connote) Many say they have long years of experience in a job, or profession – but the number of years of existence need not make you “wise” – rather it may make you “unwise” by thinking that the mathematics of countable years is always equal to “wisdom”. My feeling on Experience is transcribed here.

Definitely by sitting in an ascribed space (of a father, mother, son, daughter, friend etc) or achieved chair (profession, job, tas etc) for many years we are assumed to have gained experience. But need not necessarily be so. The key in Experience I believe is the wisdom imbibed in those years. The crux is “accruing and applying learning over years “ is experience. Or “ Wisdom, if gained, over years is experience”- it is not theory , it is Practice!

e.g. Daughter or son( or any one for that matter) wants to do what they wish which they are passionate about. We have our perceptions influenced by family, our own wishes and friends which may turn us around their wish. But if we have the ability to reflect on what is changing around us and elsewhere, relate their wish to reality and practicality, I feel wisdom is prevailing. Some may term it is maturity of thinking (?).

The layers or process of experience: Essentially experience is a congregate of “live”, “ learn” and “ link” which are interdependent and ever changing.

Live: would mean not mere existence, but the efforts of exploring the happiness and understanding of existence, sacrificing for family and society.. and could mean many things. An interesting definition of Life is “ a cumulative effect of a handful of significant shocks” in The Black Swan (Nassim Nicholas). He says to look into your personal life , choice of profession, meeting your spouse, your movement from once place to another, impoverishments and sudden enrichments .

Life can be moved only forward, can never be rewound (As Jiddu Krishnamurthy says “ Never be prisoners of the past”)

Learn: few essentials of learning and what it means are:

  • Facing success and failure.
  • Understanding that there is no “absolute success” or “failure in life”.
  • All are relative (endorsed by Albert Einstein).
  • There is what is called as book learning, then there is this thing called wisdom

The first is about life’s broken parts, the second its glorious sum.

(Thirukkural :373)

  • To enjoy beauty in everything. As humans, we share the patterns of inanimate and animate life that we find to be beautiful. But they differ. (The Promise of beauty and why it matters , Shakti Meira).
  • The knowledge that we know is much, much insignificant than the knowledge that exits out there ( As reminded by Thomas Kempis in The Imitation of Christ: Guard against the temptation to boast of your worldly learning and accomplishment).
  • Accommodating the views of others and positioning yourself in a society (and why not in a family!)

Link: The third element which completes the concept of experience is how you apply – Live-life and learning to move ahead. Its continuous: linking with children, parents, friends, colleagues, your passions and it’s a day-to-day, moment-to-moment affair, Its this linking that makes you eligible for “wise”.

All religions handhold us to wisdom, the mind-blowing path to ultimate reality. (Bagavadh Geetha’s Jnana Yoga: the mind is used to inquire into its own nature and to transcend the mind’s identification with its thoughts and ego is a process of linking). Knowledge in that sense is lower in order and not a great contributor to experience, but in a general sense : Knowledge is an essential prerequisite for the humans to enter into wisdom. But quite often the paradox is that you get entangled and engaged in “Knowledge” and lose the exciting path to wisdom( a larger debatable topic is whether knowledge is essential for wisdom.. like in case of great saints and gurus who attain wisdom.. well, I am talking about common man).

Knowledge is what we are formally tested for (examinations!) and we are conditioned to from our childhood to attain a graduate or post graduate degree. Graduation doesn’t guarantee wisdom , it vouches for the knowledge (as certified by a School or University). In one way if the educational process is not ideal we are weaned away from wisdom!

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” (T S Eliot)

Next time when we say experience please reflect on your Live-life, learning and how much you have linked it all…

Tethered Education

As we move through the timeline, brushing aside the events, to be symbols for the future, called as history, one thing that remains constant among few is the examination system.

The essence of education as a process to help learners – to control life, enjoy life and ultimately to understand life (Will Durrant, Fallen Leaves)– is largely replaced by the changing priority as a means to appear and score in examination and this is denaturing the form of the beautiful concept of education. Education is now somewhat like tied up to the stub of examination. It rotates around that.

Education, especially higher education, is an opportunity that a learner purposefully searches and indulges in. A person chooses higher education for the purpose of learning and exploring. (that is why we have PhD in all subjects Doctor of Philosophy… irrespective of what subject a person is pursuing- (s)he does History, Physics, biotechnology, English or history). However in our University system or other educational systems , education, that is getting a degree or diploma is linked with Jobs. We start to do a degree or diploma that gives us a job. Nothing wrong in the thinking in one perspective. But the objective learning is often hindered with thoughts of job and examination.

We have forgotten what curiosity and originality are. Richard Gerver ( a school headmaster) in his book Change mentions about how curious a child is from the time (s)he starts speaking, asking equations on why… how what when… to parents and relatives. Once the child is admitted in the School, you can observe that after few years the number of questions raised by the child are less or nil. He has learned to be “uniform” with the class sacrificing different “diverse” talents , which examination do not promote. Rousseau says that “education comes to us from nature from men or other things, he is regarding nature as equivalent to endowment – the inherited dispositions and capacities of theh individual. All great educationists from Socrates (The Bhagavat Gita is the typical example of confronting with a problem and the management solutions offered by Lord Krishna, Arjuna though doesn’t get a certificate for that!) Loyola, Freebel to Dewey or great saints like Jesus have only taught to understand ourselves.

Read the above observations with that of Thomas Fried man (Thank you for being late, 2016): “We entered a world (around 2007) where connectivity was fast , free, easy for you and ubiquitous and handling complexity became fast , free and easy for you , and invisible”. This points to the need of synthesizing the Zeitgeisten summaries of education though different ages to the phantasmagorical technology-era we live now. It is important to have a method of evaluation other than examination in this fast changing technological world to liberate the mind of learners to focus on the joy of learning rather the pains and anxiety of examination. The children are so conditioned from LKG or 1st standard to this unpleasant experience of examination which takes away the joy and fun of real education.

(What could be a new pattern of evaluation for a happy learning… to be continued as time permits!)

confident-teacher-explaining-lesson-pupils

Privileged pleasure: the nano-feeling

by with No Comment EducationExperienceProfession

STRANDOMS: the stray and random thoughts

March 29,2020

Prof. S. Ramkumar

Profession

Privileged pleasure: the nano-feeling

One of the blessings of being a teacher over three decades is the opportunity life gives to witness and feel the success of the performance of students in different roles. It happens quite often, and the moments are so fulfilling that it also gives a clue on the purpose of life. Life has innumerable beads of such feelings (nano-feeling) to thread on. This is not on the success of so many students who have built their reputation in different fields of the profession, but on micro-moments of multi-pleasure experiencing the transitions in a student.

She was one of the many faces in 1986, sitting in the bench in a class room listening to my lectures at that time. A calm, composed, hardworking, silent, systematic student, who was keen on achieving academically, and eager in gaining good marks. Soft spoken and hesitant to complete sentences in front of a teacher (just for the politeness and respect she held for teachers).

  1. I am on a stage. Officially evaluating the Workshop performance of a group of teachers of the University on the posters displayed by each faculty-group. I was observing her from the stage, after 25 years, placed a little far of. She was leading one group, with few others who were also former students. I visualized that the foreign delegate has asked for a clarification to this group which I couldn’t hear from far. But then suddenly I saw her image transform from the “class room girl” two decades back (an impression that lives with me of students!), to an ever ready knowledge source, with much maturity.

My inquisitiveness had no boundary to find on how she performs. As she gently removed her eye glasses from the face, and held on to the temple of the reading glass, her eyes spread wide. Looking confidently at the person she started to clarify. Bold and specific, she actively sprung to a competent, communicative scientist, who never can be ignored. My observations were validated from the satisfaction and glow of gladness on the face of the delegate who asked the question.

Awestruck by the mind-reading on the performance of the student (who is a senior person now), gave me one of the fascinating feeling of satisfaction and joy.

This made me realize (like in various occasions involving former students in their success and performance) the depth of the imprint the images of classroom and teacher had in me! The radiance of competence, confidence and communication in the students’ face is the unit of love that gives an intense, and immeasurable feeling (nano-feeling!) for teachers who cared them.

Interestingly, and not surprisingly this nano-feeling for teachers is the greatest and unique gift the profession gives – not for assessments nor for any gains.

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