Let’s Feel for the Poor!

It happens with most of us irrespective of whether we are at home or at our work place. At one particular time of the day our fan is switched off by the sweeper or the sweepress for sweeping the room. The whole process gets over in about 3 – 4 minutes but it makes us all feel uncomfortable.  We look forward to the task of sweeping to get over as soon as possible so that we may start getting the breeze again.  But how many of us ever empathise with the sweeper or the sweepress for whom there is no breeze whichever room he or she is going to.  We even at times express our irritation and shout also at the sweeper or the sweepress and scold them for making us uncomfortable for a while.  Let’s feel for them.

Why to Mark “Unread’ Read emails?

Why to Mark “Unread’ Read emails?

Often I used to see the option to mark read emails as “unread” and used to wonder at its usage as to why was it needed to mark a mail that has been read as ‘unread’.

But yesterday when I received a call from one of the Directors of DPS Society Ms Vinita Kher who after congratulating me for school’s  good board results of X & XII expressed her concern at not having received our response to an e mail sent by the Chairman DPS Society regarding “QAP” (Quality Assurance Programme) for Cl VI & VIII.

I was taken aback because it had never happened before that we have ever failed to respond to any such mails.

Immediately on going through the previous e mails on my cell I saw that the particular e mail of the Chairman was received by me on 15^th May 2015 when I was within the premises of the Golden Temple Amritsar.

I had seen Chairman’s letter regarding “QAP” but due to bad net connectivity I was not in a position to download the attachment and see,

Later it had just skipped my mind. As thee mail had already been opened and read by me I didn’t go through it again till Kher Madam reprimanded me ( though in a very sweet manner).

Last date for sending the desired information was 30^th May. As soon as I got the call from Kher Madam we managed to send the details which were asked for within an hour or so.

I always tend to see the silver lining in the cloud.

The whole process of sending our response to “QAP” to DPS Society taught me the importance of marking read emails as unread.

Next time whenever attachments will not get downloaded or any email which shall be need for future reference shall be marked “unread” by me.

Thanks to Kher Madam! 4^th June 2015.

Sukhwant Singh Thaper,

Principal, DPS Nighai

O Lord! Help Us to Understand You.

O Lord! Help Us to Understand You.

Whenever big natural disasters like Tsunami, Hurricans, Floods etc. or manmade destructions like ISIS’s mass murders, 9/11, etc. take place it is often seen that we start questioning about the existence, or non-existence of the God. We tend to do so because we have inadequate minds to assess the happenings in the universe. We can’t comprehend the entire process of the universe.

Today’s morning assembly of class VII was based on the theme ‘Friendship’.

It began with a beautiful thought, “We should let our enemies have 100s of opportunities to become our friend but we should not give even one chance to our friend to become our enemy.”

 Children presented very beautiful thoughts, speeches, poems and sang songs related to friendship.

While listening to the students many thoughts went through my mind as to who are our good friends. Inspite of all our goodness we all come across friends who at times for some reason do things or say things that gives us pain. But still we long for them and run after them. On the other hand there is one source or one energy from which we receive our strength and sustenance, but yet become so selfish that we don’t even try to befriend this source and be grateful to it.

We may have faith in the existence of God or not. But we can’t deny the existence of a Power or an Energy that is controlling the entire universe. We can’t just get away with a scientific definition that the gigantic masses of bodies in the universe are floating in the space due to gravitational pulls of each other. Who has set them in the fixed orbits? Who has fixed the galaxies to be where they are?

What does it mean to befriend the God or the Lord or for that matter the Power or the Energy.

What does it means to me is to accept Its presence all around us?

It is this Power or this Energy or in other words the Lord or the God Himself who controls everything.

 He as well as His ways are incomprehensible for mere mortals like us.

All that we need to do is in good times we can appreciate Him and His creation and during tragedies or difficulties learn to accept the happenings with grace.

If I can appreciate the beautiful colours of the flowers around me and the chirpings of birds and the murmur of a flowing river then oh Lord please also bless me with a mind to be in awe of your Supreme Power or Energy when we see things that our under developed minds are not able to comprehend or for that matter enable us to comprehend them as big tragedies that it is all part of your doing and you can’t do anything that is wrong.

30^th April 2015

Wrong Parenting

Wrong Parenting

“ Mummy ! Am I a bad boy?” Sweet voice of a boy drew my attention.

It was early morning of 8^th February 2015 and I was sitting on my seat in all readiness to alight at Shaktinagar. I had boarded Triveni: Express night before at Allahabad where I had gone for inspecting a school at the behest of CBSE.

The boy who was asking the question was almost in tears. I couldn’t see them because they were sitting in the next coup of the compartment. From the conversation I could make out that the little boy was travelling with his parents and his paternal uncle.

Mother of the child responded by saying.

” No Dear! Why are you asking so?”

To the boy again responded by saying “ Mummy, Papa says I’m a bad boy. Please tell me am I a bad boy?”

Before the mother could respond his paternal uncle responded by saying, “Forget your case son, your father is bad himself.” To this the boy said, “ No, he is not bad, he is my papa,” His uncle retorted with explanation, “Your Papa is bad himself because see he is eating away the chips from your packet.” The boy literally went into tears and I could make out that he must have gone into his mother’s lap for being helped out.

His mother tried to cajole him for a while and said, “Don’t cry my baby”, and scolded both her husband and her brother-in-law for bullying such a small boy.

Utilization of Technology & Net Connectivity

Utilization of Technology & Net Connectivity

While addressing the students today after the ‘Inter House Hindi Extempore Competition’ got over I advised the students regarding how to benefit from such competitions.

We can always benefit from our surroundings provided we are attentive and eager to learn. God has blessed us all with equal power of intelligence.  No one has more or less intelligence. It’s how we put this intelligence into use makes us or breaks us.

As we had provided Hindi proverbs to the students who took part in the extempore it prompted me to share school days experience of how we were dependent on only books for learning various proverbs.  Our interests were restricted to the availabilities of books.  Present day of technology and net connectivity has made almost everything available on platters (like, Google, Firefox, Chrome, Wikipedia, etc.).  All one needs is to develop the seed of desire to learn and the rest of the things get unfolded.

As few students get diverted in the class or in such gatherings and start talking with each other they do not stand to gain as much as the ones who remain focused. Similarly while browsing the net also few of us tend to get diverted towards few wasteful activities like games, music, videos which may not be so useful to us. Though such activities are also essential for our entertainment, one should be wise enough to know how much time and energy should be put into them.

Entertainment needs to be taken as salt in our food of learning and progress; as water that we drink in the middle of our meals in order to facilitate the process of swallowing and digesting the food and not be the other way round.

Sukhwant Singh Thaper

Principal, Delhi Public School Nigahi

23.04.2015

It is indeed difficult to keep everyone satisfied.

1.       If working in a particular place with full dedication and love and enthusiasm for a long duration is a mistake then I have really faulted.  One feels at a loss to answer a question imposed by a media person that complain has been received that you have stayed here for a long time.  It leaves you blank.  Specially when all these years (16+) the dedication, love and enthusiasm has been equally (if not more) reciprocated by one and all including students, staff, parents, management, general public, state administrators, media personnels. 

Frog & the Lotus

Frog &  the Lotus

In Guru Granth Saheb Ji man’s mind is compared with that of a frog which keeps submerged in the filth in the lake next to a beautiful lotus flower.  The bumble bee inspite of not being a resident of the lake comes from far off place and relishes the nectar of the lotus.  Guru Granth Saheb Ji draws a similarity with the human life.  Our mind is like the frog and the filth of the lake is the materialistic life (maya) with which it has got enticed.  This attachment to the materialistic life is so acute that one totally forgets the pleasures that one can draw from the spiritualistic world. 

Sukhwant Singh Thaper

Principal

Delhi Public School Nigahi

21.04.2015