Memory- a Gift of God

 

Memory- a Gift of God

Everyday my dear granny goes to temple,

 To light candles before God,

 She prays on bended knees for our well fare,

My dear granny cook food for me every day,

People say granny does her routine duty,

But friends more than routine duty,

 She is more exposed to same activity,

Like a golfer practicing a swing thousands of times.

 That makes stronger connections,

 Between neurons in granny’s brain,

In return she gets gift of God-good Memory.

 

People also ask me how come your granny,

 Is so active and energetic with sound memory,

The secret is my granny also does project challenging,

 Along with her routine duties with amicable joy,

She does creative activities like reading fictions and painting,

 Learns new skills to make her brain active and strong.

 

Fact is each of the brain’s 100 billion nerve cells,

 Can have 10,000 connections to other nerve cells.

These creative projects my granny does,

 Makes- synapses, creates new circuits,

 Between nerve cells, which essentially remaps her brain.

The sheer number of possible connections due to creative activities,

Gives granny’s brain unfathomable flexibility,

 And builds up functional reserves,

 That provide safety valve against future cell-neurons loss,

That makes granny’s memory strong.

If my granny avoids doing creative challenging activities,

Then some parts of her brain’s neurons,

 Which are not being used regularly,

 Will automatically get pruned,

Granny’s brain will be in state of mental pruning,

That will make granny’s memory weak.

 

Friends! to retain good memory -gift of God, best is one should remain,

 Engaged in creative activities like my granny,

 Let ones brain do challenging activities,

So to have strong connection between neurons of brain,

As memory is game of connections,

Please do treasure this God gift of good memory.

Sukarma Thareja

Alumnus IITK 1986

Associate professor-Retired

CSJM University

India

Web site-sukarma thareja

https://sites.google.com/site/drsukarmaranithareja/home

please do read

science of Life and Nature(Paper Back): A Photo Poetry Collection: Sukarma Thareja: 9781521260067: Amazon.com: Books(10 dollars)

Amazon US link :

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521260060

 

 

 

 

 

Are you Independent Woman

 

I  worked for IT company.Just after my marriage for this IT job, I used to travel for office, assignment five days a week.I was loaded with deadlines.My   salary was credited every month,and people called me” independent” woman.

After some time,I was blessed with child. Raising child was a big pleasure for me.I decided to leave my job for few years,to raise my child comfortably.

I used to stay at home.I Worked for the husband and family,cooked for family,I used to decide what they should eat, so that they could have control, over their health and happiness,took care of the children.I also  monitored their growth, behavior and their education, helped them with with their study and life, and tried my best to build their overall best personality,managed the expenses  of the house. I was happy with my selfless contribution to family,

Up to my surprise,people around called me now called me“dependent”  woman.I got impression that people consider, this path of woman,as something like act of  slavery.Being mother and home maker,I searched the dynamics of same.The fundamental problem here was,people measured ‘being independent’  woman with only money,

When I earned  money,  I was named as ” independent” woman.In my opinion  I was not. I was only financially” independent.After some soul searching I concluded,to start with, marriage is all about being inter-dependent, husband brings in some value,and wife brings in some value to make the, marriage beautiful experience for both of them. This ‘value’ need not be always money, It could be time, service, management, comfort etc,

There is nothing wrong in being a house-husband, Or house-wife as long as their partner is okay with it.Being” independent” is just one fancy imaginative term. A family, corporation, or any ecosystem sustains, because the people inside are inter-dependent,I wish society understands this basic philosophy,and stop labeling woman  as “independent” or “dependent” woman, and respect her for her selfless contribution to family,society and nation,and name her as “nation” pride.

Sukarma Thareja
alumnus IITK 1989
India

Are your kids Glued to Mobile Phones

Recently I visited# primary school kids in my village primary

 school.It was a pleasant experience.Children did not have

 smart  phones. 

In my city school I have met more children under the age of five

 than  I can count, where when I spoke to  them or ask them 

a question, they reply without making  #eye  contact

I read years ago that one of the major problems  with

#phones is that parents no longer make eye contact with their

 children. This is a big problem because learning# language,

 connecting with others, and attention spans are all super

 influenced by eye contact which is missing because of use

 of smart phones.

My sister is a teacher of third grade kids and she  said none 

of them make eye contact with her. Furthermore, after

 spending a whole year with their classmates,she noticed

 her class kids don’t know more than half of  the names of

 their classmates. That didn’t happen in our school days,

 We knew every kid of our class.

To correct this unpleasant situation, my sister now makes her

 third graders say hello to each other, every single student 

in the class, by name every morning  while making eye contact.

 

I’ve also noticed in cities hardly any  kid play outside.   When 

we were small  my #neighborhoods were filled with kids  outside.

We used to ride bikes or play  sports . Now  to my  surprise

 all outside places of playing are  empty everywhere .All these

 odd happening have strong reasons  and my submission

 why it is so is following.

 1.I know a lot of parents of little kids  use # iPads as a 

 babysitter. I see how tempting it is, it keeps children

 quiet at dinner or when they’re # bugging their parents.

 But, I think it’s not a right approach to do so.It is going

 to have some detrimental effects on  creativity or social

 interaction skills of small kids.

2.Another observation which made me think deeply is when

 kids  come  to middle and high school, I  noticed they’re all

 glued to  their phones. They take social media with them 

everywhere.  It’s like they never leave school talking to

 friends online.

3. First of all, that’s super distracting.  I myself wouldn’t 

have focused as  well in school  if I had a smart phone at

 that time. Second, phone indues # anxiety.

 High school was enough  hard for me, I distinctly remember 

when  I used to go home, home at  night I was a # uncool kid.

 I can’t imagine having my whole  life on display in #smart phone

 when my little #brain was  still developing and I had so much

 anxiety.

My observations written in this article might sound

 like I’m a very old woman who hates on technology.But friends 

these are my observations.Its high time we should think# positive for

about our next generation while using smart phone technology 

for  teaching. 

 Moral of story-I just feel that the current generation is

 a #science experiment  as being the first generations raised

 by technology, and  I think we’re starting to see the

 effects of it.Let us be# responsible citizen/parents and use

 technology  for making positive impact on# next generation.

Sukarma Thareja

Alumnus IITK

India