Principal's Words of Wisdom

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire,
you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will."
--George Bernard Shaw

“All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times;
but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly,
till they take root in our personal experience."
--Johann von Goethe

“Choose again.
Pretend that you are enlightened.
Pretend that you are loved by God.
Pretend that you are perfect just the way you are.
Take a deep breath now and PRETEND WHAT IS TRUE.
Then everything will make sense.
When you pretend something that is true, then you immediately become
that Truth.
First the energy of God descends upon the Earth, then it pretends
whatever it wants to be, then it ascends back to its source. You are God
pretending to be whatever you are right now. Do you understand what
this means? You have allowed yourself to descend, but by pretending to
be less than what you are, you have not ascended back to God."
--Thomas (Indigo Child)

“Love is much more fundamental than any kind of thinking or believing.
It is the root and basis of who you are, at the most fundamental level.
This means that anything other than love as an expression of your being
is artificial and unnatural and is a result of not knowing who you are."
--Bill Harris

“Too Slow for those who Wait,
Too Swift for those who Fear,
Too Long for those who Grieve,
Too Short for those who Rejoice,
But for those who Love
Time is not.”
--Henry Van Dyke

“The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he
is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and
through with a profound yet temperate happiness. He alone lives, while
other people, slaves of ceremony, let life slip past them in a kind of
dream."
--Virginia Woolf

“It is not the strongest of the species who survive, not the most
intelligent, but those who are the most adaptive to change."
--Charles Darwin

“Love is unconditional acceptance. That quality is also our essential
nature, who we really are."
--Peter Shepherd

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor
touched... but are felt in the heart."
--Helen Keller

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher
regard those who think alike than those who think differently."
--Nietzsche

Contributed by Professor Seema Shah (Principal)

A Walk To Remember

We use to walk down Juhu beach each evening, chatting away for hours about the daily mundane things, college fun, latest movies, fashion and crushes. We could talk on almost anything under the sun. It is said that all good things come to an end; our friendship too saw a similar fate. From a time when we would meet each other every day we began meeting lesser; small unresolved arguments kept piling up, we reduced talking on the phone and immersed ourselves in our own lives.

It was on my birthday that she called and said, “Hi, let’s meet. It’s been a long time and I guess this is the best time to catch up on our lives.” After about two weeks I finally met her. She greeted me with that same welcoming smile that she was used to when we had become friends. I had missed that smile for days now. As our meeting approached an end my friend gifted me a letter and a watch and said “This is a memento for our good times. I have missed you and our friendship. How I wish time could revert! This watch is symbolic of our moments of friendship and each time you look at it remember our friendship even if it means for that little moment”.

I didn’t know how to react and I could feel a tear trickling down my cheek. I wanted to tell her that I missed her too, let’s be the way we were before, but I didn’t say a word and we parted. She was crossing the road and suddenly I heard a loud crashing sound. I turned around and was shocked to see that my friend had met with an accident. A speeding motorcycle had knocked her down. I ran to her and as I held her in my lap, she mumbled, “I miss our friendship” and lost consciousness.

With the help of a few people I rushed her to the hospital and called her parents. A major six-hour surgery was performed; she had a serious head injury. While the surgery was going on the only thing on my mind were her words “I miss our friendship.”

I opened the letter to read it. She had written a lot of things, she also pointed out the reason for our distance, she said we should have trusted each other and resolved our issues before they could become barriers between us. She said that for once if only we hadn’t cared about our ego and instead cared more for each other, our friendship might have been intact.

Ego. It was ego that had created the rift between us; it began with small things and went on piling up till our friendship finally became overshadowed by it. Ego does nothing more than isolating us from our dear ones, and on any day relations are more important than ego. We kept our self esteem above our friendship and unlike before we stopped making the little efforts to sustain our friendship. Petty issues such as: “Let her call, why should I?” instead of saying, “Why shouldn’t I call her up? Maybe she is busy.” made us ruin our friendship.

As I remembered the times we had spent together tears kept rolling down my face. Even then I didn’t tell her, “I missed you too”. The doctor came and told us that due to severe internal brain injury my friend had slipped into a coma. He said the time of her recovery couldn’t be predicted. I broke down on hearing that. It’s been two months now since that accident; I visit my friend each day in the hospital. Her external injuries have healed, she is still in a coma. Each day I go and tell her what happens throughout the day, and now I tell her each day before leaving “I miss you. Get up, let’s walk down Juhu beach again”. I know she is listening, how I wish I could have told her that before.

I know you are listening to this article as I read it to you. Don’t worry my friend, very soon we will walk down Juhu beach and this time we will immerse our ego forever in the sea….

MEGHASHREE BAHETI (BE-INFT)

Have Some More Laugh...

1]Grandpa and granddaughter were sitting talking when she asked, "Did God make you, Grandpa?"

"Yes, God made me," the grandfather answered.

A few minutes later, the little girl asked him, "Did God make me too?"

"Yes, He did," the older man answered.

For a few minutes, the little girl seemed to be studying her grandpa, as well as her own reflection in the mirror, while her grandfather wondered what was running through her mind.

At last she spoke up. "You know, Grandpa," she said, "God is doing a lot better job lately."

2] There was a farmer who grew watermelons. He was doing pretty well, but he was disturbed by some local kids who would sneak into his watermelon patch at night and eat his watermelons. After some careful thought, he came up with a clever idea that he thought would scare the kids away for sure. He made up a sign and posted it in the field.

The next day, the kids show up and they saw the sign which read: "Warning! One of the watermelons in this field has been injected with cyanide."

The kids run off, made up their own sign and posted it next to the farmer`s sign. When the farmer returned, he surveyed the field. He noticed that no watermelons are missing, but the sign next to his read:

"Now there are two!!!"

13 Going On 30 : Save The Child Actors

Once there was a world where the sound of children rushing for the school bus would fill the mornings. Early evening, they would be back home to grab a quick bite and rush off to the playground. Evening was also for doing homework, followed by dinner and a good night’s sleep. The word ‘stress’ existed largely in dictionaries and ‘competition’ meant an elocution or a drawing competition. The seriousness of life came to them as they grew up and they gradually understood these words better.

Many children today rush to shoot from school, paint their faces and don fine robes. They complete homework between the shots. They work like adults do. Kids sing emotional songs or gyrate to songs at an age when they are incapable of understanding their meaning, but are applauded for their mimicry. The TV channels and mobile phone companies make a fortune at their expense.

Talents hunt shows for kids make children realize the meaning of stress the hard way at an age when their mind is most fragile. The prize money is a tempting factor to participate on such shows. One child wins the show and walks away with the coveted title leaving behind several others whose confidence is shaken.

Parents even lend their kids to celebrity couples on reality shows aiming to let couples find out for themselves how taxing parenting can be. Does parenting really require classes? It is mindless entertainment and to actually lend babies just weaned from the breast for such shows defies the notion of parenthood. How ethical is it to stand by and watch babies being traded like this?

The winners of talent shows or protagonists on TV shows become posters of glamour overnight. They win accolades and speak about their life and work to other channels waiting to cash in on their popularity. Their statements sometimes come under the scanner, and they are taught to speak diplomatically. The parents of these star kids do bask in their child’s glory.

Isn’t this a form of child labour too? All this fame and popularity lasts as long as their show does. TV stars have a short shelf-life. Any warnings or discussions on this topic only become new sensational stories sure to become stale news tomorrow. All the words of wisdom about a child’s innocence seem to fall on deaf ears. We have gifted kids with stress and ushered them into the world of extreme competition and insecurity. The question still remains ‘Who benefits from this whole situation and how much remains to be seen?’

Tanvi Gokhale (TE IT)