Backs to the Future

The other day Harsh pointed out the immense increase in the numbers of pre-schools (and nurseries, unless they are all the same), measured purely by the number of vehicles carrying children to these pre-schools. This was further underlined by an ad in the ToI for an exhibition on pre-schools.

That's right. A pre-school Expo (termed "Future Kids" - which seems wrong. The kids are already present, aren't they?). Cars, real estate, pots and pans, handlooms, and even plant fibre have had such shows dedicated to them. But this is the first time I've heard of a pre-school expo.

Of course, children are going out of the house much earlier than their parents used to (some of their grandparents never even left the house). I'm sure that as a result, they will grow up to be better informed and more socially confident than us (err, than me). Kind of Virat Kohli vs. Venkatapathy Raju. There's no contest, really.

Calculating using the current rate of acceleration, by 2030, pre-schools will also begin offering IIT-JEE coaching. It's not that absurd - this is the land of Abhimanyu after all, and perhaps Kota's famed coaching classes will have auxiliary maternity rooms where the immortal words of Halliday and Resnick will echo throughout the day.

And remember kids, unlike in Abhimanyu's case, the answers to equations involving concentric circles will be available at the end of the book.

Three Idiots...

...Aamir Khan has now kissed both Kapoor sisters.

...a film so designed to be 'feel-good' that it's almost obscene in how 'good' the audience is made to 'feel' - solicitation of pleasure laws should apply, for aren't people paying for this?

...if you want to make movies with 80s sensibilities, then you should have made them in the 80s.

...the lack of attention to detail is often insulting, that this is almost a sci-fi film. Predicts mass use of futuristic tech in the late 90s (calculating for an engg. student born in '78) such as cell-phones, webcams, broadband.

...in addition to Chetan Bhagat, the writers did not prominently credit those who write the jokes that eventually become email forwards.

...funny that a film whose story consistently praises 'innovation' over the 'formulaic system' uses a mix of old Bollywood techniques, with only the occasional meta-film references that we are used to from modern Bollywood films.

...the best 2-3 sequences or one-liners in the film went largely unnoticed in the audience; occasional sparks of originality glimmered anonymously.

...Engineering education might need a positive PR exercise in India.

...after vamps, kisses, and revealing costumes went mainstream, certain hindi words that were solely the preserve of Ranjeet & co. have ceased to be embarrassing in family films.

...life isn't worth living if one isn't a hero of one's film, i.e. if your life has an Aamir Khan and you are not him (one more coin in the doesn't-Aamir-Khan-do-the-same-characters? fund)

...and finally, we're in serious trouble if such a large quantity of people in the audience need to be given hope and reassurance (but ultimately, you've got to take the hard decisions about what you want; watching it vicariously is no use)

Alternatives: read Richard Feynman's "Surely, You're Joking Mr. Feynman", get a copy of "In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones", or try a more honest, though raw rendition of the same themes in "Silicon Jungle", a film by Rabi Kisku, an IIT Madras student.

The CAT purrs online

About four-and-some years ago, I had hoped the Common Aptitude Test conducted by the IIMs would become a computer-based test. Finally, this year, the exam will be taken by applicants using a keyboard and mouse over a 10 day period.

This is a step in the right direction, but I would still like it to go all the way, like the GRE: no specific time periods for the exam, only a valid score needed at the time of applying to the IIMs. The reasons outlined in that old post still hold, I think.

Fellow BC quizzer Aniket doesn't believe this is such a good idea. I hope for the sake of participants like him that the organisers get the logistics right and don't end up falling between two stools.