MONDAY MUSINGS

Graduation and The Convocation Day

For me, Graduation is only a concept. In real life, you graduate every day. Graduation is a process that goes on until the last day of your life. If you can grasp that, you'll make a difference. My advice to my students on their graduation day has always been “Life is your college. May you graduate well, and earn some honors!”
Personally I avoid convocations. I do not relish the idea of wearing a gown and sweating it out for the next 3 hours listening to speeches. Convocation day is that day of the academic calendar when the Chairman, Director and the Chief Guest all get a chance to wax eloquence. But if you have served under the same Chairman and Director for many years, then their first speech would be modified in the years to come; sometimes the only modification could be the change in the year. Also, I can’t bear to see my students cry. Year after year students have leaned on my shoulders and cried. It can get embarrassing too.

Sunday Sermons

I hate sermons. I have been a vociferous critic of Sermons at Mass on Sundays. I appreciate a short message of recollection based on the Gospel passage of the day. I hate the preaching; that can go on for as long as 30 minutes - sheer drivel at times. Just yesterday we had this young priest; who at the sermon sang a song in Telugu (to an audience that was trying to figure out the language) and then explained it in English! What a bloody waste of time! The Catholic Church should seriously do a rethink on sermons during mass. It can get worse during a Wedding Mass or a Funeral Mass. The priest overcome with joy, grief or sheer power, can have an acute attack of ‘verbal diarrhea’. A quote from Oliver Goldsmith comes to my mind – “You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips”

Have you noticed?

India has an affluent middle class that has grown in just a few years.
We have more millionaires today than ever before.
We also have more poor people than ever before.
We have more street children & more missing young girls than ever before.
We have more rogues, ruffians, riff-raff and dons than ever before.
Eradicated diseases like Tuberculosis and Malaria are returning with a vengeance.
We do not have a single city with enough drinking water.
We do not have a single clean city; all our cities have garbage removal and disposal problems.
Our politicians no longer even pretend respect for the public.
The numbers of criminals who are MLAs have increased.