Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills (CARS) test is designed to test comprehension, analytical skill, and reasoning power by comprehension and critical analysis of a given passage. Today, it forms an important part of most competitive entrance examinations for important universities the world over.  To develop this skill, the only mantra is to read more – that too from all disciplines across the board. Some of you may question how and why reading is connected to CARS? After all the answers to the questions are all there in the given passage!

The explanation is pretty simple. The more you read, the more is your ability to quickly comprehend. The more you read, greater is your vocabulary and greater is the speed of comprehension and less the chances of your not comprehending something in the passage. The more you read more will be the chances of your familiarity with the subject matter and with greater familiarity comes greater ease of analysis. So reading is fundamental to development of mental faculty …no escape!

CARS is a skill that needs to be initiated in a child as early as possible.  Parents and primary school teachers play a very important role in developing this skill in children.  Some of the tips for teaching critical thinking to children, as recommended by American Philosophical Association (APA), are as listed below: –

• Start as Early as Possible. Children can be encouraged to give reasons for their decisions or conclusions rather than teaching them ‘formal’ logic.
• Avoid Pushing. Whenever we tell our children to do things. it would be pertinent to give them reasons for the same. Some, they may understand; others, they may not.
• Encourage Kids to Ask Questions. That is the only way to instill and encourage curiosity in children. They should never feel any pressure in asking questions to their parents or teachers.  Many a times, children are hesitant to ask a question due to this pressure from their peers or siblings.
• Get Kids to Clarify Meaning. Rather than the rote system, encourage children to explain things in their own words.
• Encourage Children to Consider Alternative Explanations and Solutions. Allow children to experiment or consider multiple solutions rather than always looking for the bookish right answer. This will enhance flexible thinking.
• Talk About Biases. Children can understand how emotions, motives, cravings, religious leanings, culture, upbringing, etc can influence our judgments.
• Don’t Confine Critical Thinking to Purely Factual or Academic Matters. Encourage kids to reason about ethical, moral, and public policy issues.
• Get Kids to Write. Writing helps students clarify their explanations and sharpen their ideas. Only kids who read and analyse develop good writing skills.

When faced with preparing for a CARS test, you are what you are. In  case you have a few months or at best a year before you take the test, can you actually prepare for and improve upon your CARS score? Surely Yes. Let us see some of the aspects of preparation for CARS.

Reading Speed
Speed of reading is very important for any CARS test.  Generally, there are five to six passages and 60 questions to be answered in 90 minutes. Thus you have less than 15 minutes to read each passage, the set of associated questions and answer them.   The only way to increase your speed of is by reading and more reading. There are of course many speed reading techniques that one may try but eventually you must settle down to a particular reading technique.

Most of the modern-day CARS tests are computer based, the examinee needs to develop speed of reading onscreen.  Reading onscreen in a test environment calls for better training of your eyes and mind as it is 20% slower than reading it on paper.  If the test you are taking is onscreen, you must practice more onscreen.

Some tips to speed up your onscreen reading are: –

• Do not Move Your Head – either up/down or left/right – to see an entire page on most computer screens. Practice shifting your focus between words and lines without moving your head.
• Avoid ‘Sub Vocalization’ – also known as auditory reassurance. It is a common habit where readers say words in their head while reading, thus slowing down.  Your mind is capable of perceiving and analyzing text much faster than you think – at least double that of your speaking speed.
• Never Stop in Between and Go Back and Forth. In case you do not fully understand a part of the passage or you lack clarity about what the inputs are, first read the complete passage and then look for what you need to clarify.
• Practice Reading Phrases or Small Sentences Rather Than Reading Each Word. Remember that you are looking for the overall meaning and not referring to a dictionary. Reading word by word slows you down as you tend to pause between words.

Selective Reading
As part of your reading in preparation for CARS you need to read for pleasure and entertainment as well as concentrate on some dense and difficult prose. In both categories your reading should be only non- fiction and generally related to social sciences and humanities. The CARS passages are hardly ever science based. In the light reading category, a few national and international current affairs magazines would suffice such as Time, Newsweek, India Today, Frontline and so on. It is also important to read the editorials of daily newspapers and a few articles that appear on the editorial page. As for difficult prose try for example Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire or Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Reading such as this is essential so that you develop the ability to read and assimilate difficult prose.

Practice
While wide multidisciplinary reading is the best solution in the long run, if your preparation time is limited to a year or less, then the solution lies in relentless practice. Even if you do nothing else by way of preparation, just practice alone may well see you through. Repetitive practice will in the long run build up your stamina and help improve your reading speed and your analytical skills and above all your scores.   Roughly one mock test a day or five to six per week should suffice. After a month or so, if you are on the right track there should be improvement in your scores. If not there is something seriously wrong in your approach and you may need professional help to identify your weakness.

Vocabulary Improvement
A good vocabulary is a basic requirement for proficiency in the CARS test. If you have been a reader of storybooks since your childhood, generally your vocabulary ought to be good. However, if you have been a poor reader, your vocabulary will need to be supplemented in the short term. Some of the books or Audio-visual materials specifically meant for this purpose are readily available in the market. Some research on effectiveness must be done before you home in on what you need.

Adopt A Simple Strategy
During our Long Gunnery Staff Course (LGSC), the objective tests often contained a section where examinees are required to tick true/false on a series of statements. The questions had negative marking and often bamboozled a lot of us trainees. Eventually some someone came out with a strategy that proved to be effective for at least some of us: –

• Those questions that you CLEARLY KNOW to be true/false should be first attempted.
• Then, those that you FEEL are true should be ticked false and vice a versa.

Similarly, there are many strategies in attempting the CARS test. The simplest and the best strategy is to read the entire passage first and then answer questions in the given order. Some may advocate obviously stupid strategies such as reading the first and the last paragraphs and then answer the questions or even reading the questions first (not the answer choices) before you read the passage so that apparently you know where to focus when you read. These stupid options must be shunned. Some other strategies such as devoting a disproportionately longer time for reading and assimilation of the passage and then answering the questions may be useful to some. Yet another strategy may be to devote meaningful time only to say five out of six, or seven out of nine passages and apply pure guesswork on the remaining passage(s) without reading. First skimming through the passages with a view to and identify and attempt the easier passages first may also be another strategy. Early in your preparation time you need to firm in on your strategy and then practice relentlessly on the chosen strategy. If there is no noticeable improvement in scores after a period of time, you may need to think of changing your strategy.

How to Read the CARS Passage
Remember that the CARS test is basically aimed at testing whether you can see the big picture, not the minor detail. By the time you finished reading the passage and applying a few minutes of thought, a central theme should emerge, shouting from roof tops so to say. How do we reach that stage? Central to all prose writing is the point that a paragraph contains a central idea. When we complete each paragraph of the passage, we should ask ourselves what this central idea is and preferably jot this down on a scratch paper in just four or five words. We may call this a paragraph review. We may also jot down as part of the paragraph review, inferences and conclusions that we can draw, comparisons if any and the purpose of anything that is unique

Once you have completed this process for all the paragraphs of the passage, look at your scratch paper and go through the ideas jotted down. Try and link these together and form a central theme, which should also be jotted down on the scratch paper. Now give a thought on the authors tone. Is he light hearted, serious or matter of fact? Is he trying to sell a new idea? Is he emotional about the central idea? A clear understanding of the central idea and the author’s tone are essential to answer the following questions. Once this process is done you may answer the questions and there will rarely be a need to re-read any portion of the passage. If there is any question which cannot be answered now, it is better to guess rather than go back to reading the passage as this will only waste time and rarely find the answer.

Instead of using a scratch paper some may be more comfortable with highlighting a few words/sentence in the passage itself to bring out its central idea. To my mind his is an inferior technique but by all means use it if you are more comfortable with it.

Some Sample Questions

Question 1:  ‘Meter’ is a unit of measure derived from one millionth of the radius of the planet Earth. Based on this which of the following is true:

• A) The radius of the planet is the perpendicular bisector of all the auxiliary latitudes
• B) The first geodetic survey of the Meter was(?) done by Willebrord Snell.
• C) The Nautical Mile is equal to Imperial Mile in meters.
• D) It is impossible to derive the Meter using land based geodesy techniques and materials as was available in the 18^th Century.
• E) None of the above.

The answer is E as all of the other statements are red-herrings.  Do not get caught up looking for the red-herrings.  It may be prudent to skip such a question and revisit at the end time permitting.

Question 2

• A) Some days are longer than others during the calendar year
• B) A few of Da Vinci’s paintings were lost over time.
• C) It is possible that there were no protests in Washington D.C. in 1946
• D) All students writing the MCAT do well on the CARS section
• E) None of the above.

Here there is neither a passage nor a question.  If you analyse, other than for statement D, all other statements are ‘some’, ‘a few’, ‘is possible’.  Statement D is the only specific sentence with ‘all’.  By elimination, the answer got to be D.  Can you now guess the question?

Question 3:  Gautier was indeed a poet and a strongly impressive one- a French poet with limitations as interesting as his gifts. Completeness on his own scale is to our mind the idea he most instantly suggests. Such as his finished task presents him, he is almost the sole of his kind. He has imitators who could not mimic his spontaneity and his temper. Alfred de Musset once remarked about him “at the table of poets his glass was not large, but at least it was his own glass”.

Why does the author quote de Musset in this passage?

• A) To show that all of Gautier’s contemporaries were his fans.
• B) To prove that Gautier’s poetry was objectively the best.
• C) To show how different Gautier and his poetry were.
• D) To show the weaknesses of the French style of poetry.
• E) None of the above.

The answer is C.  The quote by Musset ending with ‘it was his own glass’ points to the answer.

CARS is not at all be the nightmare that it is made out to be. In fact, if your vocabulary and ability to see the big picture are okay, then half the battle is won. All that remains is to polish the skills by relentless practice, backed up by record keeping of your scores.

Ontario, Canada, is banning cell phones in classrooms during instructional time, starting next academic session – September 2019.  Education Minister Lisa Thompson said “Ontario’s students need to be able to focus on their learning — not their cell phones. By banning cell phone use that distracts from learning, we are helping students to focus on acquiring the foundational skills they need, like reading, writing and math.”

The cell phone combined with internet technology has undoubtedly revolutionised our lives in myriad ways. Perhaps there is hardly any facet of life untouched by this revolution. Increasingly, it has become difficult to be active members of our present day societies without the use of cell phones. Like all technologies that have revolutionised human life and behaviour, the cell phone too has its pros and cons. Along with its all too obvious beneficial uses, the cell phones have a number of disruptive influences particularly on children.

Research indicates that in developed countries, a majority of middle school children own cell phones. While some children own their first cell phones when they are 11, nearly 50-60 % of all children own cell phones by the age of 13. In many cases it is the parents who are instigators of the first cell phone purchase. For many families the safety factor along with an enhanced sense of being connected is the major motivator for children being cell phone owners at a tender age. Children from higher income groups tend to own a cell phone earlier than those from lower income groups. Both parents and schools resort to various methods to regulate the use of cell phones to a greater or less degree.

In developing nations, the problem seems to be less acute as it is only a small percentage of well to do children who own cell phones in middle school and majority of children even in high schools still do not own cell phones. While parents of children who own cell phones attempt some sort of regulation on their use, most schools simply adopt a policy of banning these devices within school premises. Just as school uniforms do, such a policy serves as a great leveler between the haves and the have nots. So the dynamics in the developing world seem to be quite different from those in the developed world.

Is the ban proposal a case of resistance to change? During our schooldays too, many such scientific gadgets that enhanced learning were banned and the bans were later withdrawn. It commenced with the slide rule, then it was the calculator. During our children’s schooldays it was the turn of the scientific calculator to be followed by the laptop and then the notepad computers. While it has to be admitted that the revolutionising impact of the cell phone is far different from that of the slide rule or scientific calculator, particularly on the social and behavioural planes, the bottom line is that it is still a new technology that must be incorporated into the learning process sooner or later.

Cell phones help improve Digital literacy, a critical aspect of young students learning. It will also help them to effectively participate in the workforce. The cell phones provide a link between students and their parents, which has an important role to play in ensuring their safety. Evidence indicates parents want this type of access. Students with special needs, such as managing diabetes, and other medical and physiological conditions may be required to access various apps during school(s) hours. Rather than banning cell phones all out, we need to find ways to educate the students to use their phones effectively and efficiently. Banning cell phones will likely lead to underground and hidden use by teens. Rather than reducing cyber-bullying, banning cell phones altogether may show an increase in cyber-bullying.

We know about the 3Rs of learning – reading, writing, and arithmetic. We now need to include ‘research’, thus making it 4Rs. Schools need to educate both the teachers and students about safely negotiating the virtual environment. This means all schools need to develop policies around the use of cell phones during school hours.

A 2015 study by the London School of Economics investigated the impact of restricting  Cell phone use in schools of four cities in England on student productivity. The results  indicated an improvement in student performance of 6.41% in schools that have  introduced a cell phone ban. These findings did not discount the possibility that  cell phones could be a useful learning tool if their use is properly structured. The study  found that cell phone bans have very different effects on different types of students. It  improved outcomes for the low-achieving students (14.23%), and had no significant  impact on high achievers. It showed that low-achieving students are more likely to be  distracted by the presence of cell phones, while high achievers can focus in the  classroom regardless of whether phones are present.

Another study was published in the Journal of Communication Education, Ohio University, based on impact of cell phone usage during class lecture, on student learning. Participants in three different study groups (control, low-distraction, and high- distraction) watched a video lecture, took notes on that lecture, and took two assessment tests after watching the lecture. Students who were not using their  cell phones wrote down 62% more information in their notes, took more detailed notes, were able to recall more detailed information from the lecture, and scored better on a multiple choice test than those students who were actively using their cell phones.

Research published by the University of Chicago found that even if cell phones are turned off, turned face down or put away, their mere presence reduces people cognitive capacity. The paper called the phenomenon “cell phone induced brain drain”.

University of Illinois conducted a study that examined students’ cell phone and Internet use and its relationship to their mental health. The study assessed two forms of escapism amongst students: one that arises from boredom and one used as a way to avoid negative emotional situations.

What are the likely drawbacks of students using cell phones?

• It surely reduces face-to-face communication. Teenagers tend to message or  text, avoiding a more challenging conversation.
• Smartphone apps, games and messages prompt dopamine release, creating addiction. Mere presence of a phone in the backpack can distract a student even though the student may not even be checking it.
• It tends to reduce working memory capacity, mental mathematical ability, logical analysis and fluid intelligence.
• It has surely reduced the students’ ability to cope with uncertainty and stress. In other words it reduces tolerance for ambiguity. Research shows being uncomfortable with uncertainty is associated with students feeling distracted and tense during difficult examinations or tests. The more uncomfortable young people are with uncertainty, the higher the number of co-occurring psychological problems they report experiencing. Smartphone use is associated with the current epidemic of anxiety and depression.

How can cell phones help in enhancing the learning process?

• Students tend to carryout research using their cell phones off-campus, later in life in their higher education, and in their professional and workplace learning.
• In case students want to investigate, collect data, receive personalised and immediate feedback, record media, create, compose, or communicate with peers, in and beyond the classroom, then using cell phones is ideal.
• Cell phones allow students to learn at a place, time and pace of their choosing, for example, on excursions, or when working on group projects or assignments with friends in more informal spaces like home, while travelling, etc.

Banning cell phones in schools is not the solution as it is important to educate children to live well in the era in which they are growing up. Students must be taught how to use technology to learn, communicate, and work with ideas. Modern technology provides new learning opportunities and the ability for students to develop skills they will need for future careers. The ability to copy what is written on the blackboard or what is dictated by the teacher into a note book is not a particularly useful skill that will help learning in the modern age nor is it what prospective employers are looking for.

An outright ban on cell phone use will hardly ever yield the results intended. Students will always find a way to smuggle it in, even if banned. That said, there is also an overarching need to perhaps severely regulate its use during classes.

Is there a need to regulate the minimum age for ownership of cell phones?

The rules formulated must be implementable at school level without hindering learning and development while at the same time minimise the disruptive effects on tender minds at the social and psychological plane.

Is it worthwhile to ban cell phones in schools? Will the ban be later overturned?

On November 10, 2017, our friend’s daughter, Ann Maria, a Grade 6 student, invited me to her school to attend the Remembrance Day Memorial Service. On reaching the school’s auditorium, I was greeted by Ann’s teacher and said she was expecting me as Ann had spoken to her about me coming.

All the students of the school and staff were present, and it was a solemn ceremony, paying tribute to all the soldiers, veterans and their families. The theme was to Remember the Soldiers and Veterans and also who laid down their lives to bring peace to Canada. The children enacted various scene from the lives of soldiers and read passages from bible and also a few lines remembering the soldiers.

The most inspiring and heart touching moment for me was the recitation of the poem “Why Wear A Poppy?” by Don Crawford. He turned this poem, handwritten in pencil and on two sheets of foolscap, into The Perth Courier one morning in the early 1960’s, which was printed a few days later. Since then, this poem has appeared in a multitude of weekly newspapers and magazines, including Legion Magazine in Canada, and foreign publications like Australia’s Anzac Appeal and Scotland’s Claymore magazine.

Such events at schools are sure to develop the students into good citizens and also instil respect in them for the soldiers and their sacrifices to ensure peace and prosperity in Canada

The response received on the blog “Dreams, Aims and Goals” has been overwhelming and I thank all my ‘followers’ for it.

Veteran Major General Raj Mehta, our instructor at the National Defence Academy (NDA), after reading the above piece, made an observation about ‘responsible dreaming’.   General Mehta remarked “I would term your take as advice for ‘responsible dreaming’ with the clear intent of achieving that dream. Failure to do so would make you irresponsible and someone not quite at ease with herself/himself. Dreams carry the liability of achievement and on a time line; so dream right”. I, to some extent, endorse General Mehta’s views on responsible dreaming.

Another interesting remark was from Deepthi, a medical student from the US. She says “Though I will say that some of my friends have become rather adrift following this ideal; and also as you get older it is hard to reconcile the reality of your experience with what you thought you were dreaming about.”

‘If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride’ goes the age old adage. This applies as well to your dreams which many a time become your wish. How does a wish differ from a dream?

A wish is generally momentary where as a dream is generally a long-term affair.  A wish may be a  fanciful thought, but a dream should be a burning desire.  A dream tends to be passionate with a sincere desire to achieve and a wish may get knocked off in a few seconds which one found an excuse to be unachievable.  Some dreams will surely turn into wishes, mostly based on parental/ environmental/ peer pressure.  Your dream would be something you want to achieve, come what may, least bothering about what one may say. The moment you give up on a dream, it has become a wish.

This in no way should deter you from dreaming. Everyone dreams, but many are reluctant to speak about them, mostly fearing rebuke from parents or out of sheer embarrassment that you may be made fun of. If Martin Luther King did not speak about his dream, you would have never heard of the world famous “I have a dream” speech.

Many  dreams are knocked out of your mind by the dream killers and idea crushers, who are in plenty around us. Let the disappointments you had from pursuing your previous dreams not deter you. Take these failures as stepping stones to success. Remember that in case you dream average, you will always get below average results. Self-confidence will always help you to achieve your dreams.

Dreams neither differentiate between sexes nor age groups. My friend CG Ramesh opined that the girls in India are more focused; they grab fleeting opportunities, have definite goals and visualize coherently how they want to achieve them. He feels that the boys generally drift along and settle for less than their potential because they do not want to stretch/sweat/toil for their dreams. I tend to disagree with this as I feel that boys generally do not discuss their dreams, perhaps because ‘Men are from Mars and Woman are from Venus’.

A dream is a seed that is planted in your mind, in a soil of imagination, which you may nurture and grow into a tree, a bush, a small plant.  Most times, the seed may not even sprout. To nurture this seed you must become aware of your own abilities and inner strengths. Then you maximise these with your talents, the environment, and people around you. This needs you to prime your body, mind and spirit towards achieving the dream. Thus a dream or a part of it becomes your aim and you divide the aim into achievable goals based on a timeline.

Our aims must be a size or two bigger, like a child’s shoe and with our abilities, like the child’s feet, the aim will grow to fit into it. In case the shoe is too over sized, one can imagine the perils. This should never limit our dreams, but selecting the aims based on our dreams should invariably be limited or restricted by our particular context and environment. Our dreams are often restricted more by fear and imagination than by reality. Everyone has the potential to define a worthwhile aim, and most have the ability to achieve it. We need to raise the bar every time and push beyond perceived barriers.

Once you have defined an aim that emerged from your dream, consider whether the aim as defined is worth pursuing. Consider the odds that may be stacked against it and also the factors that are likely to affect you achieving the aim.

Now evaluate your aim to see how good the aim is driving you to achieve it. Have your passions been kindled by your aim? Has the aim given you some extra energy to pursue it? Are you willing to pay a price in case your aim is not achieved? If the answers to these questions are positive, you have defined your aim well, else redefine your aim or wait for your next dream to define another aim. Continue with this evaluation until you achieve your aim. You may have to redefine your aim, make a few corrections in the method of the pursuit or may have to shelve it altogether. Do not worry – the experience you gained in defining and pursuing your aim will always help you with your next endeavour.

Once you have zeroed down on to your aim, go full steam ahead towards achieving it. Always evaluate your progress to ensure that you are moving closer to your aim. Avoid any distractions that come in the way and this does not mean that you must not undertake other activities. In case you are satisfied with the progress you have made, you are doing well. You can always get some feedback from your friends, peers and family.

Remember that there are responsible dreamers and real dreamers. The responsible ones will always define an aim based on their dreams and the real ones will continue dreaming.   You have your dreams, but never get ‘married’ to them as a ‘divorce’ would be painful.

Interacting with our teenaged nephews and nieces, I asked them “What is your Dream?” “To become an engineer.” “What is your Aim?” “To become an engineer.” “What is your Goal?” “To become an engineer.” In some cases the ‘engineer’ was replaced by a ‘doctor’. That was when I realised that in our childhood we never even thought about our future aspirations, and planning them was a far cry;   today’s generation has something to think about, even if the thought is limited in many cases to doctors and engineers, mostly dictated by parental pressure.

“Dream, Dream Dream; Dreams transform into thoughts and thoughts result in action. You have to dream before your dreams can come true. Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended.” These are a few quotes from a great dreamer of all times Dr Adbul Kalam.

Figuratively, dreams can be defined as an idea or hope that is apparently impractical or unlikely to be ever realised in the current state of the world. That does not mean in any way that the dreams have not been realised ever. Dreams are boundless, limitless, and timeless and are dictated by the power of imagination of the dreamer. Let your dreams float into infinity and they will germinate new ideas and visions. I do not wish to quantify your dreams, but let us take the case of a student dreaming about finding a cure for cancer. Many of us would have had such a dream while reading about the sufferings cancer patients have had or seeing someone close battling it out.

In order to find a cure for a cancer, one must possibly pursue a medical career, though some inventions/discoveries have been made by people who were not even remotely connected with the concerned subject. Hence from Dreams evolve an Aim that is achievable and real-time. In this case the aim would be to become a successful medical graduate.  The goals for achieving this aim for a high school student would be to graduate high school with the requisite marks and also pass the requisite entrance examination. To succeed in your aim, you must have a single-minded devotion to your goal.  It is like a football match where you aim to win a match and to succeed in your aim you have to score goal(s).

One needs to revisit the aims and goals, may be weekly, monthly, quarterly or half-yearly with a view  to redefine them, raise the bars, change them if needed,  and at times even discard them to find new aims and goals. One may lose interest in the aims and goals as they may not be ‘challenging’ enough to motivate you or interest you. Sometimes you may have thought of an aim, but the goals may not be what you really want to achieve. In this case you are trying to force yourself to settle for what you think you can get rather than achieve what your passions are. This is mostly due to parental and environmental pressures where everyone wants you to be either a doctor or an engineer, no more and no less.

To make your aims more challenging and a bit more interesting, set an aim that is a bit big and impressive that just thinking about it scares you a little bit and seems almost impossible, but has the potential to dramatically change your life if you were able to achieve it. Keeping this in mind you raise the bar for your goals a little by little and try and achieve them and keep raising your bar until you reach that aim which you never thought would be possible. By tapping into your creativity and resourcefulness you can amaze yourself with the results you achieve.

Once you have set your goals, break them down into smaller time-bound goals and evaluate the progress on a daily/weekly basis. You got to avoid distractions and also need to prioritise these small goals. This in no way means that you should not indulge in other activities. All work and no play will always make Jack a dull boy.

You must believe in yourself and reassure yourself that you can achieve the goals you have set for yourself, especially when the going gets tougher. While undergoing the training in the Military Academies, I often reassured myself with the thought that about fifteen thousand officers have successfully gone through the tough training before me and I am in no way any less than them.

Kevin, our nephew who lives in US took up the pre-medical course in high school. Most children at that stage do not even have the faintest idea about their passions or their abilities. Anu and Johnson, the parents were in for a bit of a surprise when Kevin in his Grade 12 gave out his mind that he did not want to pursue a career in the medical field, but wanted to take up animation and graphic designing as a career. The parents being very supportive accepted Kevin’s aims and advised him to begin the procedure for admission as there was only one university offering the particular course Kevin wanted and obviously it was really competitive. At the high school graduation ceremony, Anu and Johnson were in for another surprise – Kevin was adjudged the best student in animation and graphic designing. Kevin is currently undergoing the course on computer animation at The Savannah College of Art and Design, Atlanta.

Dream unlimited, define your aim, set your goal(s) and achieve them and success and happiness will surely be at your footsteps.

An essay by our son Nikhil while in Grade 4 – 2004 – three years after his arrival in Canada.

As I stepped out of the airport, I got this feeling of wonder. I saw skyscrapers that had an elegance, which could never have existed in India. The streets were so much cleaner; I could have stared at them forever. The best improvement though was the air. It didn’t smell like free flowing sewage, no, it smelled like home. All these things I could never have imagined, because they simply didn’t exist in India.

The drive to my mom’s house was long, and uncomfortable. I was excited to meet my mother after so long apart of course, but I was worried. I was worried how much she had changed, and I shuddered at the thought that I wouldn’t even recognise my own mother. As soon as I saw her, my worries melted like candle away. She kissed me, and hugged me so tight I thought my ribs would crack. She was still the same mom, and I was still her same son. I guess the important things never change, huh?

My first day of school was a nightmare. The day started of with me mouthing the words to an anthem I hadn’t even heard before. I should have known that such a rocky start was a sign of things to come. I got a crash course in everything Canadian. I had to learn words like budding (in line) and yo. I had to learn how to do those annoying knock-knock jokes, which took me forever. The day was a lesson in American culture, and it was a painful one.

Up until now, I hadn’t even thought about my radical transformation. Only now do I realise its aftermath. I had gained a flawless Canadian identity, but I had lost my Indian one along the way. I can’t even remember my home in India. I can’t speak the two Indian languages I once could. The worst consequence though is that I can’t interact with my cousins with the same familiarity anymore, it’s like there’s a wall between us. I had lost, no, I had killed my culture, and the sad part is, I didn’t even notice.

In the summer of 2009 we decided to visit Chicago for a week for sight-seeing and to meet my old Sainik School classmate Marur Mouli.  Mouli had his desk next to me in the class at the especially reserved place for the abstract thinkers – the last row. We were real outstanding students in Maths that we spend most of the Math period standing outside the class where we continued discussing our teenage ‘philosophies’ of life. We both qualified the entrance exam for the National Defence Academy (NDA) and Mouli was found medically unfit after the Services Selection Board (SSB) interview. He had opted for the Air Force and the medicos said that he had an open sacrum – the last-vertebra in the spine. I thought they would have declared him unfit for an open mouth and not an open sacrum. Never seen Mouli quiet and would even speak while sleeping.

Mouli was a great artist in the true sense. Good at every form of art – drawing, painting, caricature, singing, playing all the instruments available in the school’s band section, acting (his playing the Pied Piper of Hamelin is still etched in my memory), debating etc. When I left school to join the NDA, I realised that Mouli was a bit dejected and in order to raise his morale I said to him “Better things are awaiting you. Better cheer up”. I never realised what I told him until he once called me while in India to say that he saw “the better thing” after a long struggle and that he was working as a graphic designer for Apple Macintosh. In 1989 he had taken up a job as a lecturer in graphic design with the Art Institute of Chicago.

During the boat cruise in the Chicago River, we came across an advertisement for skydiving and all of us decided to try our hand at it the next day. Skydiving is inherently a dangerous activity, given the unknown variables of man, nature, and machine. We reached the Chicagoland Skydiving Center located in an air-strip which was a clearing in the cornfields of Hinckley, Illinois. We reached the Center by noon and we saw a 200 Series DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft parked next to a shed which housed the office. The receptionist, a young lady, said that the minimum age for skydiving was 18 and hence Nikhil being 12 years cannot undertake the skydiving. Nikhil said that he will come back on turning 18 and wanted me also not to jump that day. So Marina and Nidhi decided to take the jump and the receptionist got all the paperwork done.

There was one man mowing the grass in the strip cleared in the cornfield and another man picking up the garbage and cleaning the washrooms and the sheds. At 12:30 PM. About 15 men came in their pickups and most appeared to be construction workers from what they were wearing. They were the instructors and after a 30 minute orientation and kitting up, they boarded the aircraft with two instructors each – one the tandem and the other the cameraman.

The man moving the grass by then had refuelled the aircraft and was seen inspecting the aircraft as he was the flight engineer. The man picking up the garbage took to the pilot seat and the young receptionist was the co-pilot. The aircraft took off and climbed to 18,000 feet and dropped the jumpers and landed back. The flight engineer, the pilot and the co-pilot – all went back to do what they were doing before the takeoff.

The freefall was for a minute and a half on a tandem with one instructor while the other was video-graphing the fall. They were taken through many manoeuvres by the instructor during the free fall. Since the jumper was in front of the skydive instructor with own altimeter and ripcord, they had the sensation of skydiving on their own. After the ripcord was pulled, the instructor offered guidance as they flew the parachute together and landed.

The greatest advantage of skydiving in the State of Illinois is that it is not mandatory to wear a helmet (even on motorcycles), but the safety goggles is a must to protect the eyes. Thus the videos come out much better without the helmet on.

After seeing as to how the Skydiving Center operated, I had to see-off a family friend from Toronto Airport by the New Delhi flight of Air India. As we reached there, a bus pulled up carrying the cabin crew and they moved to one corner. After five minutes the co-pilots arrived by a car and took position in another corner. After another five minutes the captain arrived in another car and stood in the middle. In case of all the other international carriers, all the crew and the captain all come by the same bus and move into the aircraft as a team. Now I realised why Air India is running in perpetual loss.