THINK POSITIVE

  By Manoj R. Kodachwad   (Image generated through AI for representation only) It wasn’t a regular class. I was in 8th grade, and school had just begun. But instead of our teacher holding the book, it was our principal standing in front of us, taking a special class - a lesson that, even then, I didn’t realise would change the way I think and see the world.  He asked a simple question: “Where does beauty lie?” What followed was almost funny. Answers came from every corner of the classroom, and many still make me smile today. But none of them were quite right. At the end, he said something that made the room fall silent: “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.” We were stunned. How can beauty lie in someone’s eyes? Everyone looked around, confused. And then he explained - each of us finds different things beautiful. What I may see as beautiful might not seem beautiful to someone else. That is why beauty truly lies in the eyes of the beholder. As I grew olde...

Happy 79th Independence Day!! We celebrate freedom every year, but do we actually understand it? Or has freedom become an excuse to break rules and forget our responsibilities? This 15th August morning, I woke up to the disturbing noise of loud exhausts and continuous honking by a group of bikers near my home. It instantly took me back to my good old school days when Independence Day carried a very different vibe—a sense of pride, a feeling of freedom, and a day filled with the reverberance of patriotic songs and themes. However, these days, at least in my city, the occasion has sadly turned into an excuse to create nuisance on the roads through bike rallies, blaring exhausts, endless honking, and blocking traffic. Many young people think this is what freedom means—to break rules, behave in an uncivilised manner, and act as if they are above the law. This left me wondering: Is this the freedom we got, or the one we chose? Over time, the memory of India’s great struggle for independ...

Movies play a vital role in our society. Some movies or scenes from movies make a big impact on our lives. One such movie scene in my life is an old 80’s Kannada movie named Rama-Lakshmana. Although I don’t recall the whole movie, there is this song titled “Nodiddu Sullagabahudu” (which means whatever you see could be false) that had a great impact on me. This song which is in a “Katha Roopaka” form, narrates a story of a woman called Gangamma. Some of you might have had this story in your school book.  The story briefly goes like this: Gangamma decides to go out and fetch water from outside. But seeing her baby sleeping she calls out mongoose and tells it to take care of the baby. After a while when Gangamma returns, she sees the mongoose standing at the door with blood around its mouth. She immediately concludes that the mongoose had killed her baby and kills the mongoose. She then rushes inside to see the baby. She is shocked to see that the baby is laughing in the cradle and ...