EDUCATION

Internship for home science students
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 26
With the aim to providing job opportunities to students and train them for self-employment, Punjab Agricultural University has decided to introduce internship for the final year students of BSc (home science) from this year.

During the internship, students are being sent for six to eight months’ training with various organisations and industrial units to learn various practical aspects of the elective course taken by them in their final year. Following the training, the students would be told to submit a short report on their practical experiences and basic processes learnt by them.

The students had the option to take any of the four subjects as their elective training, which included clothing and textile, food and nutrition, family resource management and human development. While the internship started last week, the heads of each department were assigned the duty to coordinate with suitable industrialists and organisations to help the students get training during the course.

Dr O.P. Singh, head of the department of clothing and textile, said that six BSc students, who had taken elective course under him, had been sent to Duke Fabrics where they would learn advanced weaving and knitting, pattern-making, dress-designing and computer-aided fashion designing. He said the department had also now coordinated with companies like Nagesh Hosiery, York Fabrics, Sportking Hosiery, JCT Phagwara, Vardhaman Woollen Mills, Shingora Shawls and several others where the students would be sent from next year.

Ten students who had taken food and nutrition as their elective subject have now been sent to the canteen of the Hero DMC Heart Institute and nursing hostel mess of Christian Medical College. Dr I.K. Singh, head of the department, said that the students would get training to supervise the canteen which would include planning of meals, cooking, serving and maintenance of proper hygiene. She said such a training would help students in the flourishing business of tiffin system and hostel canteen management.

Seven students who had opted for family resource management as elective subject have been sent to work in association with various entrepreneurs. Two students are working at a florist shop, two at furniture designing office, two at painting schools and one with Kota-based architects and interior decorators. Likewise, students of human development have been sent to day-care centres, special education centres and playway schools of the city.

65 achievers get prizes
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 26
As many as 65 students of the Satguru Ram Singh Government Polytechnic for Women, Rishi Nagar, received prizes for academics, sports and cultural activities at the fourth annual prize distribution function held here today.

Top three position holders of five years were given certificates and mementoes. Harinder Pal Kaur, Sukhbir Kaur, Shama Malhotra, Navdeep Kaur, Jyoti Sharma, Pooja Sharma, Jaspreet Kaur and Rajbir Kaur, all winners of inter-state sports events, were given college colours.

Besides, winners of talent hunt events also received prizes. Alka Awasthi was declared first in fancy dress contest; Hemlata was adjudged as the best folk singer; Pooja and group won prize for their performance in skit; Harjit and Malika shared the prize for their solo dance performance; Rajpreet stood first in mono acting; Ritika and group were winners for choreography; and a team of 11 girls won prize for giddha.

On the occasion, a cultural programme was also presented, which began with recital of shabads. Two humorous skits titled ‘Fookriyan’ and ‘Ulti Ganga’ enthralled all those present. This was followed by ‘Yeh hai mera desh mahaan’, a choreography based on Indian political scene. Performance of the students in the ballet titled ‘Wangan lailo’ was also appreciated. The programme concluded with giddha by final year students.

Mr Kulbir Singh, Director, Technical Education, Punjab, was the chief guest. Ms Harvinder Kaur Toor, Principal, read the annual report of the polytechnic.

Painting contest on drug menace
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 26
Students from 18 schools of the district will participate in a painting contest on ‘Drug-free society’ being organised by the Guru Gobind Singh Study Circle at Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Dugri, on April 27.

Stating this in a press note, Mr Surjit Singh, zonal secretary, said two groups comprising students from Class I to V and Class VI to XII would participate in the contest.

Mr Surjit Singh added that all participants would have to bring a drawing each from their homes and marks would be awarded on the basis of home assignment and performance on the spot.

He said the participants would receive an album of 32 posters. The top three prize winners in junior group would be presented with books worth Rs 250, Rs 150 and Rs 100, respectively. Besides, 20 students would get consolation prizes. In the senior group, top three students would receive books worth Rs 1100, Rs 750 and Rs 500, alongwith 20 consolation prizes. 

CULTURE

New metaphors for the poetry of earth

IN line with John Keats (‘The poetry of earth is ceasing never’), Varinder Parihar is of the view that nature is the poetry of the earth. The present generation of mankind has lost its ear for this divine symphony. Instead, science and technology have disturbed the ecological balance of the universe, resulting in, as Philip Larkin says — “But all that remains for us will be concrete and tyres”. All this pollution of the earth bodes ill for the future of mankind. The promise, that the scientific progress will usher in an era of happiness and prosperity, has been belied. The world is now being converted into a concrete jungle where consumerism tends to thrive over the garbage of polythene bags.

“Kudrat” (Nature) is Varinder Parihar’s second collection of poems, the earlier one “Mein Kite Hor Si” (I was elsewhere) was published in 1997. In these nature poems, the poet does not celebrate nature a, la Wordsworth but converses with its objects in a confessional tone. In the poem “Patte” (Leaves), he considers autumnal leaves the musical instruments of the wind. In “Baddal” (The cloud), he says that he fell down from the clouds into a grove, while someone else took birth from the womb of his mother. It is of course the poem “Aara Chal Reha Si” (The saw was moving) which is most heart-rending -

The log was weeping bitterly

The paths around were mourning

The winds were sighing deeply

The birds in bewilderment cried hoarse

When in this cacophony

The Saw moves on slowly, very slowly

Born at Malsian on March 31, 1956, Varinder Parihar spent his childhood there and later, he went to Nakodar. After his graduation from there, he studied at Doaba College and DAV College, Jalandhar for his Master’s Degree in English.

In 1979, he went to England and settled at Southampton. He got married in 1983. It was in 1986 that he met the famous poet and translator, Michael Hamburge, at a meeting of ‘Coty Writers’ at Southampton. He advised Varinder to compose poem in his mother-tongue Punjabi. It was, however, in the early nineties that he adopted Punjabi as the medium of his expression in right earnest. Now he has emerged as a Punjabi poet, with a distinct voice both in the UK and in the land of his birth.

At present he is on a short visit to Ludhiana, and is staying with his elder brother Prof Bhupinder (Aziz ) Parihar who is well-known as an Urdu poet. Perhaps both the brothers are carrying on the legacy of their father, Bachint Ram “Aish Karnanvi,” a renowned poet of Urdu and Punjabi. Incidentally, the place of Varinder Parihar’s birth, Malsian, where his father was posted at that time as a school teacher, has been hallowed by the legendary Urdu poet Pandit Labhu Ram Josh Malsiani and his son Balmukand Arsh Malsiani who was also an Urdu poet in his own right. Later these poets made Nakodar their second home and lived there for several years. Like the lake district of England, Nakodar had been the hub of the Urdu poetry for many decades immediately after the Partition.

On the eve of the release of his book “Kudrat” at Punjabi Bhavan, Ludhiana. Varinder Parihar told me that poetry for him was not a pastime but a way of life. A prolific writer as well as a voracious reader he utilizes his time by reading and writing when the rest of the family watches TV. He slips into the countryside whenever he can and the sea-beach also beckons him off and on. An aspect of nature at times plunges him into the vortex of deep contemplation.

His endeavour is to make eloquent the long silences of nature. He warns that nature will retaliate if mankind persists in plundering it so ruthlessly. The ecological imbalance may turn out to be the beginning of the end of time.

He urges his contemporary poets to evolve new idiom by discarding hackneyed modes of expression. New metaphors will emerge when the mindset becomes modern in accordance with the changing times. The paradoxes of life need be resolved by adopting humanistic outlook.

N.S. Tasneem