The parent trap

Times Computing :: Editorial Column “As I Like IT” :: Valentine de Souza :: August 18, 1999

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So many questions. So many fears. So many uncertainties. Boy, it’s sure tough being a parent these days. Trying to give your kids the best possible upbringing in the horrendously competitive world of middle-class India, doing the “right thing,” following the beaten path. The standard formula must be a good one, you reckon, because everybody uses it.

So you blithely jump onto the bandwagon and put your kids through the scary roller coaster of education-by-rote, extra coaching, the mad race for dizzy “percentages,” and the inevitable shot at engineering/medical college admissions. Battered and worn at the end of it all, most kids submit to a life of mediocrity thence; the few that excel do so despite the system rather than because of it.

So who’s paying for the lunch?

Times Computing :: Editorial Column “As I Like IT” :: Valentine de Souza :: July 28, 1999

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About a year ago, on the Interact Inn India mailing list, there was a posting from an outraged Net regular, complaining about the pop-up ads that Tripod had just started featuring. He vowed to move his website (hosted for free by Tripod) to some other free service offering similar facilities sans pop-ups and other miscellaneous irritations.

Justifiable reaction from a die-hard freeloader, perhaps; but the puzzled consternation expressed by many a user when a free service reveals the “catch” with a flourish, never ceases to amuse me. Like they thought the freebies were being given because the provider liked the sound of their name or something!