It’s Never too Late to Start - Bharti Rao

Courtesy: Reddit.com

Today’s world is full of hustle & bustle. Everyone is trying to keep pace with this fast & moving world. Everyone is trying to grab each opportunity that comes in their way. Due to our failure we feel as if we are left behind. We start losing our confidence and feel that now we are too old to prosper. It’s too late to start again. We forget to remember that it’s never too late to start.  There is no age barrier to start. Always keep in mind that age can never stop you from flourishing until you want to 

There are many living examples who started and succeeded in their late years like Laura Wilder, Harry Bernstein, Gladys Burrill, etc. These personalities succeeded at the age of 62 to 92 years. We should never give up, we should always push ourselves forward and will surely achieve our goal with the light of hope. 

Surely it may be a slow progress but remember it is still advancement. You will always reach your goal if you have a positive approach and strong determination. Seeing you people may doubt your abilities. If you have belief in yourself and passionate, then you will prove that the doubts against you were wrong. 

If you want to make your dreams come true and become reality you have to face all the challenges, criticism that comes in your way bravely. If you want to enjoy the fruits of your hard work you need to be determined, courageous, hopeful, patient etc.

Bharti Rao

The Fabindia School

bro@fabindiaschools.in

Being Focused - Urvish Singh

Being focused means that you have clear goals and objectives and your work is dedicated to achieving those goals and objectives. When you are deciding what you are going to do in any given moment; you base your decision on how you can make the most progress towards your goals with the time and resources available.

Being focused in the present moment means that you are solely focused on the one activity that you are trying to complete. Anything else is unimportant so you shut out all distractions and give your full and undivided attention to the task at hand. It’s difficult for people to remain focused on one task for a variety of reasons. 

For one, we live in a world where we are constantly bombarded with TV, radio, cell phones, Internet social media, as well as a much larger population that lives closer together than ever before. the benefits of being focused are 1=u are quicker 2=u produce higher quality 3=less stress and Being focused is the key to success. It is not about doing the most work; it is about doing your most important work to the highest standard. Only being focused allows you to do that.

Urvish Singh

The Fabindia School

ush@fabindiaschoos.in

The Importance of Good Manners - Punita Chouhan

Everyone praises good manners but few can practice them. They are medicines which

are good for every disease. Good manners are the sign of all progress in the world. They are the beauty and glory of our actions. Other qualities do not affect us so much as good manners do. Bad manners create evil beings. The wicked people who insult us are never liked by us. We must have regard for the opinions of others. That is a sign of good manners.

Man is the maker of his own date. He has a key by which he puts himself in dark or in light. If a man follows the evil things and becomes loose charactered he cannot improve his life and would be a burden on society, but if a man possesses good qualities, he can improve his life, society and the country and he can achieve his goal.

Good manners are the backbone of our life. They exert the greatest influence on the career of a man. A man of character is the key to the progress of society. Physical strength is nothing when compared to moral strength. We should build our character because it is a source of pleasure to others. Behaving well with others means having regard for their personality. Wealth gives us temporary luxuries but good manners and strong characters give us permanent happiness. Everybody in society will be happy to know us if we have a good character.

Punita Chouhan

The Fabindia School

Role of an Educator in Student's Life - Monika Vaishnav

An educator is not only the person who teaches in the class, but he is also the one who gives shape to the future of the student and shows him the right path. He does more than just being an employee. He becomes a teacher while he teaches in the class, he becomes a parent outside the classroom as he always takes care of the children whenever they are with him and he also becomes a friend when something needs to be taught apart from the studies or curriculum. He indirectly helps the parents to make their foundation stronger for life.  He prepares his lesson to teach in the class every day. He has to think about the performance of every child.

The educator has to build trust in children for himself because without trust he can't deliver the knowledge how much he wanted. He is always ready to help and guide the children whether it's about academic or non-academic. He always wants to enter the class with a small to make children happy. 

Sometimes, he has to be strict with them or scold them but as an educator I know he would choose this only if it is the last option. He too feels bad if he does that but sometimes, he has to correct them at the right time, if he doesn't, the child may have to face more than just being scolded by the educator. He is the person who will be more than happy on their success and progress and will be proud of them. His every action in the school is always in the betterment of his students. He never expects anything in return from them. 

I would like to add a quote, " Teaching is the profession that teaches other professions". Every student has one teacher in life who taught or guided him to be what he is today. He always wants his students to achieve their goals and make everyone proud of him. The school years get over one day but the bond and trust the educator and student build remains forever.

Monika Vaishnav

The Fabindia School

Lockdown: Time to rediscover ourselves - Ajay Vijayvargi

Two successive lockdowns​ of 21 and 19 days due to the pandemic helped many of us 

discover our talent and potential. Being at home for so many days  in touch with our friends, family members, colleagues and students (those who are in education stream) and searching out old friends from our school and college life on social media platforms - Facebook, Instagram etc.

Those who are fitness conscious started doing yoga and other fitness exercises with the help videos on internet. Some enjoyed watching T.V for hours on various channels and improved their General Knowledge on various topics - Geography (spread of Covid- 19 from China), Life Science (symptoms of Covid-19, fever, difficulty in breathing, Hydroxy Chloroquine Sulphate), Political Science (how various leaders blaming China and WHO ) etc.

Many of us stuck to mobiles and laptops  and learnt new concept of Work from home and improved our knowledge on various apps as Google Classroom, Zoom, Hangouts and many more,kept themselves updated with these futuristic apps and concept.

Most of us also learnt the importance of freedom after being stuck at home due to lockdown, living with limited resources like no online deliveries by Zomato, Swiggy  etc,in red zones no vegetables, fruits, milk. No junk food, we learnt  life can be lived without all these. Most of us tried hands in kitchen whether it is simple cup of tea or some recipes from You tube.

The list is endless and unknowingly we discovered many values such as Unity - we all stood united to minimize the spread of pandemic, appreciation for ladies at home as during the lockdown when everyone is at home, their work in the kitchen has increased many times, help poor in the neighborhood with food, this list can also be endless.

We all collaborated​ in nation's progress by staying at home, trusted our leadership, developed  new vision towards our lives.

 Ajay Vijayvargi

The Fabindia School

Let's build a better world - Sharmila Vijayvargi

How can we make this world a better world? We can make this world a happy place by achieving peace.

I would like to share a story of Henry Ford. Henry Ford, the builder of an automobile empire once said, "Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is a success."  We can add to this that living together lovingly is peace. Peace is coming together and working as one. It is not separating and working against each other. The necessary things for peace are loving, caring, generosity, friendliness and sharing. In living together, one must feel warm fellowship with others in spite of differences. The road to peace is long but once you get to the end of it, heaven is at your doorpost.

In the present difficult times, everyone should focus on achieving peace by living together.

Peace on Earth to men of goodwill!

Sharmila Vijayvargi

The Fabindia School

Writing: The Power of Thought - Urmila Rathore

Writing is an important virtue to put all the thoughts and ideas clearly. Through writing, we can communicate clearly because this helps us to build a structure that will allow to express ourselves better and communicate complex ideas in a simple way. This way we gradually progress towards effective writing. Mistakes of grammar, punctuation and structure spelling are all progressively eliminated. Since these basics are more essential for good writing so automatically it improves our language skill and vocabulary.

Effective writing also demands thinking and imagination skills which improve by practice. I remember a line of Bacon's writing "Writing makes a man capable of thinking with logic and reason". He also describes that our thinking, speaking and writing abilities add charm to our personality.

Nowadays people don't have much time to listen to someone's concern but writing gives us the freedom to share good or bad thoughts. It reduces our stress effectively and later we feel joy and satisfaction.

Writing can even make us feel nostalgic through carving out childhood poetry, essays or letters to our dear ones.

When asked of its importance, I exemplify it as, “What if Shakespeare wasn’t a good writer? Perhaps, we never would have been able to understand the tragedy that occurred with Caesar, or literature itself would not have enjoyed its virtue as it does today.”

Urmila Rathore

ure4fab@gmail.com

Change begins at home

Sometimes I wonder. What is the cost that we are paying for progress? Can progress come hand in hand with preservation? By preservation I don’t mean just preservation of our natural heritage but also our traditions, our historical heritage and our culture. In the enthusiasm to embrace a more modern or progressive approach and thought process, with each passing generation are we losing touch with who we really are? This is a very highly debatable topic and much can be said about it, so I shall try to address but fragments of it.

Many believe that tradition and preservation cannot go hand in hand with progress. I’m not sure if I agree. To overlook traditions in our race to move ahead is to take the easy way out. It is definitely a far shorter route that will yield quick results and help many earn the quick green buck. But as a young nation are we going to just sit back and watch our future destroyed in this race while our natural and traditional heritage is being pillaged and deformed?

While I ponder in my thoughts over this issue I can think of many examples that can prove the necessity to maintain our traditions. The most primary purpose served by our traditions is that they define who we are and give us a sense of belonging. While many will call our traditions a detrimental factor to progress they seem to forget that most customs have a very logical and sometimes scientific reason behind them being formed. Take a simple thing as fasting. The only thing people focus on is that a person is fasting for a religious purpose therefore it is useless and he or she is caught in the mental depravity of rituals. Why don’t you stop and think that maybe getting people to fast through the medium of religion was actually just a simple way of getting them to give a break to their bodies from over indulging and allow their bodies time to heal. This is what naturopathy is all about isn’t it? While we continue to belittle these simple traditions and customs there is an increasingly large number of our own populace and that of foreign countries that is slowly turning back towards either naturopathy or Ayurveda as a form of healing as compared to more modern medicine. Maybe there is a good reason for us to allow our traditions to remain.

The thought process associated with modernity has turned it’s back on who we are and where we come from. Traditions and preservation are seen as road blocks in achieving success. Well if short-term monetary gain with no regard for the future and for others is what is in mind then Yes ! letting go of your ideals is the best way forward. The other route forward might be a slightly longer one with maybe a higher gestation period but the fruits will last longer and preserve our heritage.

Somewhere the need to hoard has aided consumerism and this ravenous appetite for development at the cost of depleting our natural heritage and resources. The daily wage earner does the least amount of wastage and damage as he only buys what he can consume and is not the driver of this humongous need to hoard.

Coming to conservation, which is very close to my heart. One of the most successful conservation projects, that has ever been launched in the world was Project Tiger under Indira Gandhi. The success rate of the project was phenomenal initially, as the tiger populace in the country was significantly revived. Once again the government due to it’s lack of vision and ability to try and take progress and conservation hand in hand gave into economic greed and let the project and the tiger population deteriorate after it’s initial success.  At this point in time, with a new government in-charge, we stand at a crossroads waiting for them to decide which way to take our country. What price are we going to pay for progress this time? Will the downfall come at an even more accelerated rate in their race to prove how successful they can make our country economically as compared to their predecessors? Or will there be an effort to ensure that progress and preservation go hand in hand? The bigger question that comes to my mind is that, are we the people, going to once again sit quietly and watch and complaint to each other about the state of affairs or are we willing to take the initiative in raising our voices?

“Do not cut down the forest with its tigers and do not banish the tigers from the forest; the tiger perishes without the forest and the forest perishes without its tigers”

- Mahabharata, 400 BCE, Udyogaparva.

And we perish without our forests.

A very famous comedian by the name of George Carlin had once said in one of his routines. The earth doesn’t need us to heal it. The earth will heal itself and the earth will remain. What will go is the human race.

Change begins at home. To state a small example, when my father was building our home many years ago, the land was originally a mango orchard. When the time for construction came I put my nine-year-old foot down and refused to allow him to cut trees in order to build the house. As a result only one tree was cut and the rest of the trees were incorporated into the designing of the house. Today even in the sweltering summer heat there is much life that has survived due to this and these trees continue to house many different species of birds and insect lives and allow us to live in harmony with nature. We still have a home without having destroyed what gives us life. Change does not have to be at a very large magnitude. If only such things can be done at an individual level then much can still be saved. All we need is to be that catalyst towards change and progress needn’t come at a price that is unaffordable.  

About the author: Neha Parmar is a wildlife photographer and a conservationist with some tolerable talent for writing. If you liked, connected or have a contrary perspective with anything that you read please feel to share your feedback. 

To see more work by Neha Parmar 

https://www.facebook.com/NehaParmarPhotography. 

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