I would keep the inaugural post sans any facts or analysis or solutions.
Just a simple re-cap of the last few lectures of 'Development Communication.'
There was a discussion on what we consider to be 'the most important thing in our lives.' Happiness, money, love, family, contentment and so on were nominated and voting pronounced that happiness was the clear winner. The logic behind this was that each of the other contestants (money, love, etc.) ultimately make us happy.
Something that I had never really acknowledged earlier was the importance of luck in our lives and the discussion made me do so. We might have everything we could ever want but if we,unluckily, do not have luck on our side,things could go seriously awry.
The next class saw a discussion on 'empowerment.' This was triggered by our teacher asking each one of us 'if we are empowered' and 'if we have cell phones.' The interesting homework was to ask our parents if they would give us dowry for our marriage. In the following class we came ready with the answer. An assortment of answers were voiced. Some extremely conventional, some extremely intriguing. No points for guessing the former. The latter ranged from statements like - 'if you don't study, it would be difficult to find a guy and we would have to give dowry' to 'we want you to earn your own dowry.' Another parents' response to the question, which I personally found very interesting, was that they would give their daughter dowry in the form of 'gifts' which only she can use and would be like her personal property. For this our teacher came up with an equally interesting remark - 'yes you will tie the washing machine to yourself, right?'
Personally, I feel that I would never want to spend the rest of my life with a person who demands dowry and this view was shared by a majority of my classmates.
Overall, they were brainstorming discussions which really made us 'think' and agree or disagree with the notions or statements put forth.
