10 January 2020\Class 1\Ms.Prarthana Patil
Verses are mediums of transmission. We are far afield from a low guttural sound produced by our primitive counterparts to the hundreds of tongues and vernaculars at the present.
TRANSLATION:Words are means of communication. We have come a long way from the first grunt by a caveman to thousands of languages and dialects we have now.
The class was about getting an actual meaning across to another person without misleading them, which the video summed up pretty well.
We started with the word ‘despicable’ and wrote down a lot of words associated with it (hate, dislike). Some of these words were synonyms (unpleasant, disdain, loathsome) but they were still not able to convey the meaning of Despicable (a person who deserves to be hated).
We learned that even if we can get close to the message we are trying to convey, there will always be a window for error and misunderstanding. In a field where communication is important it’s a must to emphasise that the message sent across is the right one.
We were divided in groups and each one was given a word to convey through a skit. We managed to get ours right in a matter of few minutes because of the great performances of our team members or maybe our word ‘obnoxious’ was close to the synonyms of despicable which the class had discussed before.
After the skits the faculty told us about a thesis proposed by senior students. The idea was to install a gender-neutral restroom in the BMC offices to promote gender equality.
The faculty explained that we must now categorize, while the idea was noble and seems like a good thing to promote, design should take into consideration the needs of others as opposed to art.
We throw around words like literate, open-minded, close-minded while not considering others. The entire class agreed that the thought behind it was good but pointed out factors like hygiene, practicality (urinals and stalls), the cultural background of the people working there, which is our target demographic in the BMC office.
We completely forget where we are sitting now in a nice air-conditioned room with our bellies full of food, taken care of by our parents no worries about paying expenses. If someone wakes me up the morning, knocking my door and announcing that he’s there to save people from cancer I will know he’s there for a good cause but at the same time I will tell him that I simply don’t care because all I want to do now is sleep or have food and water.
The fact being that I will look after my basic physiological needs before I even give a thought to other issues in life as stated by Maslow’s Hierarchy. The people in our classroom have the luxury to think about spreading awareness of topics such as these. I unfortunately have to use the word ‘luxury’ because we come live in a society where gender inequality resonates across our religion, rituals and even daily practices. The people working in the BMC offices are there to earn their daily wages to support their families they’ll look after their basic needs before they even think of such topics and that’s simply how it is.
We learned that we can’t project our ideals on other people and persuade them to follow just because we feel that it is the right thing to do.
My Odyssey 