Bit of This and Bit of That

During my pregnancy, my sister-in-law from Kolkata asked me how much donation is required for school admissions in your city? I honestly informed her about my ignorance on this subject matter and just few days thereafter read an advertisement of a school that highlighted the fact that they don't take donations. I was assured that I will not have to dig a hole in our pockets for the admission of our yet to be born child. When T was 2 years old, we inquired in half a dozen schools and came to know that donation is an old fashioned term and the new terms used in the market were Admission fee (huge and non refundable), Security deposit (meagre and hence partly refundable) and Tuition Fee (astronomical and of course non refundable). All this did not include cost of uniform, books and transport which had to be forcibly bought from fixed vendors allowing them to grow richer every year. One year tuition fee in most of the schools was equivalent to four years of Engineering fee f...

My dad owned a not so smart phone till Diwali. He used it to make calls, send messages and check time. He always wondered why the smart phones of the younger generation are always drained out of battery life. He blamed it on the Gen X, Y, Z for not being responsible, for ignoring the elders and chatting long hours with GFs/ BFs. He also blamed the new brands like Samsung, MicroMax, Google, etc. that caused the shut-down of the good old Nokia market. My brother, who too belonged to this category of irresponsible generation, gifted him a smart phone, loaded with a cool data pack and installed WhatsApp. He patiently taught him the smarter ways of communication over the next few days. Now my smart dad is part of so many groups on WhattsApp, invites/ encourages others to join too, religiously reads every post and forwards it to the entire group. All this, while the smart phone is plugged for charging.