Visiting ILM Office in New Delhi

 

A visit to Varun's Start up in Delhi. When we were returning from Uttrakhand , Varun asked us to go and visit  his start up in Delhi. We had never been here though I had interacted a lot with his office boys especially Ankit. Varun booked us to Radison on 13th October and we were picked up by Ankit and his brother and taken to his Office which is on the third floor in Delhi. Here we met besides Ankit, Anshul, Jagat and Rahul. The Start up is called the Integrated Learning Modules, we were explained what theyall did. I  looked at some of the teaching material they had developed. They had developed a lot of learning material in different subjects for schools and were now going to higher school too. There were four boys who had done their Enginnering in IT. htpps://integratedlearning modules.com

 

It was indeed a pleasure meeting all of them and understanding the effort which Varun had put in to build this from scratch. He has also develoed Stimulai technologies and had a very good web page for this.  From his College days he had gone to IIT Khagapur and was involved in making Robots and he always though out of the box. When he went to the US he enjoyed helping students with their computer projects and has acquired a lot of knowledge in the process. Indeed a pleasurable day and it is really a proud moment for me as a mother to see the intellectual progress made by Varun.

 

Harela - a festivsl connectwd to the environment

 Currently we are in our native state of Uttrakhand in Haldwani close to Nainital. This is the first time I experienced Harela, first hand,being celebrated with  a lot of celebration and fervour. This is a festival which is celebrated through out Uttrakhand a mountain region filled with forests, rivers and green cover  to reiterate the importance of the environment and the conservation of the green cover. When, I looked into the Chipko movement, I could see the close connect of the people to the environment and this continues even today though there is no  social movement at present around this issue. We take the green environment and it's benefits for granted and this festival is a reminder of this and the need for this ecology. The Government has announced this  as a state festival and it is declared as a holiday and a number of saplings are planted across the state and the local newspapers are filled with these reports. This festival also marks the onset of the fifth Hindu month of Shravan, one of rainy season  when the south west monsoon hits the subcontinent. This is a month starting from mid July to August end, a month that is much celebrated in our literature, sculpture and films with a lot of stories and songs dedicated to the rains. This is supposed to be Lord Shiva's favourite month. Ten days before the festival nine kinds of seeds are sowed in an earthern pot and in ten days the seeds germinate. These green sprouts are then plucked on the day of the festival and sent to friends and relatives along with savouries as a mark of best wishes and a prayers for prosperity. There is a festive atmosphere all around with the same kind of festive food being prepared in the homes. I was happy to see Geetakshi, my  new daughter in law plant the Harela in Hyderabad and she sent me pictures of the pot. Indeed, a beautiful way to show the importance of environment especially in a hilly region. I had a first hand experience of this and could see what is meant to the common population. What a beautiful message this festival conveys. When, I got news of this being celebrated by my relatives abroad, I felt that one  can take a person out of the mountains but you cannot take the mountain out of the person.

Lake Wakatipu

 Cruising lake Wakatipu on a Twin Screw Steamer Earnshaw, which is now more than hundred years old, ship known as Lady of the lake. Constructed in 1912 it was earlier a cargo ship but now a passenger ship. Amazing sights . Also saw a sheep being sheared. Lovely flowers at Walter Peak. The house at Walter Peak was constructed in 1902 and is beautiful.

A journey into Alaska- Landing at Alaska

 It was on June, 9th, 2018 yhat we all except Tarun who had not avccompanied us to a trip to US landed in the state of Alaska, also known as land of midnight sun. For the next eight days  we would be stationed here and explore this state and have  some family time. What struck me and was a totally new and unique experience was that it is now 1.30 at mid night and still the sky is quiet bright and it looked as if it must be evening time around seven in India. I wonder how do people sleep here and what is the concept of night that they have. For us day begins with sun rise and ends with sun set. Here there is hardly any nights during summer and no days during winters. This is a land of glaciers and forests and we plan to explore these and take sime cruises. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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139Asha Shukla, Rizwan Ahmad and 137 others

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Canterbury Christ Church University

I had a talk on women  in the religious Reform Movements in India at Canterbury Christ Church. The highlight of visitingCanterbury Christ Church University was meeting an old and dear friend Gillian Youngs, who is now the Dean of Faculty Church or Arts and Humanities and the Institutional lead for arts, culture and creative Industries. Both Gillian and I had shared a room in a Conference in Hongkong for the first time some where in the late 1990's and have been in touch. Though during our first meeting we had come from different countries and cultures, Feminism was the bridge that connected us and we spoke late into the night on the different issues related to women in our respective countries. I still remember that we also sat down the next day and wrote together a piece on the North South dialogue related to women for some News letter. Gillian spoke of her dream of having a Feminist Journal and how she and her friend Jindy from Australia visualised it as being truly Feminist in its ideology and never wanted this to be fixed permanently with a place or people. I soon found myself in the Board of the International Feminist Journal of Politics by Routlege, Taylor and Francis and later on became one of the editors along with Gillian and Kathy from the third volume and with Catherine and Sandra for the fourth volume for a period of five years. I had learnt a lot from both Gillian and Kathy the two other editors in the team. Today in its twenty fifth year, this Journal had moved from strength to strength and I still continue to be associated with it as a senior Editor and advisor along with Gillian, Kathy, Catherine, Sandra and many others. This Journal has moved from Australia to Asia to Canada, US, New Zealand, in terms of its editors and location and there is no one fixed office or a name attached to it . However, it has brought in a pool of some of the best Feminists through out the world from different continents and some of the best Universities around the world, together with the common concern for an equal and gender just society. At Canterbury, Gillian with her very creative and novel approach to issues, had developed a new space for creative arts called the Daphne Oram Centre for creative arts and we were taken around a newly constructed building of three floors which she calls her baby, where there was a theater and Centres of photography, printing, music, theatre, graphics, computer gaming and many others as regular courses with a combination of the state of the art technology of recent times and also the earlier technologies before the dawn of computers. It combines theory and practical training to give a more realistic approach to creativity amongst the students. This building has yet to be inaugurated. What I found interesting was that a portion of the St. Francis seminary Wall of the earlier period is preserved by building a glass panel on top of it and the building has come up on top of this. This also over looks the Canterbury Cathedral and to one looking at the view it looks as if the cathedral is framed for posterity. Gillian took us to a beautiful tea house, pub called Abode and we had one of the best English tea with the best scons, cakes and pastries freshly made and looked as if they had just come from the Owen. It was a wonderful, beautiful, quiet and cosy place and we could chat and catch up on the few decades of the gap in our meeting. Gillian has some great plans for the University and she comes with a background of an immense experience of working in many different Universities in England in leadership roles. She has been invited to give this traditional site a new and modern touch which she is successfully doing. Also met her partner Keith another very creative person. Gillian was feeling bad that now she is not able to write and publish as much as she did earlier due to her new role but she enjoyed moulding and training students for a new future. A great meeting and I look forward to seeing in the coming years more of the other innovative initiatives that Gillian will be taking to make this University a truly globalised modern University and yet one that is rooted to the past.

 At the  Cambridge University, I  delivered a talk  on,  Indian food and cuisine a historical perspective. They had brought out a beautiful poster and I found this displayed in many places. This was my first visit to Cambridge and I was really fascinated at looking at some of the buildings. Many parts of the town look very medieval though a large number of modern buildings with glass are also coming up. Some of the Colleges too had beautiful architecture especially the King's College. The huge courtyards with the green grass lawns in between two buildings were very appealing. Cambridge University is perhaps one of the oldest University in the world for it was established in1209. It has twenty nine Colleges under its juridiction. Cambridge is named after the river Cam on whose bank it is established. We went around the Archeology and Anthropology museum. 

Suresh had discussion with the Plant Science department. We got to know about the Tigress Project, Transforming Indias green revolution by research and Empowerment for sustainable food supplies and it has ninety researchers working in this Project. Adam Green and group is also working on Telangana and looking at the water tanks. I met a young scholar Aftab Alam who is from Allahabad and is working here as a post Doctoral fellow. It was great interacting with Adam and the other team members and getting an understanding of their work.