Creating Symmetry Without A Geometry Box

How to draw symmetrical shapes using a geometry box? We all learnt it in the school.

But Nature creates shapes and patterns without any tools, instruments or aids like a geometry box. See the picture below of a leaf of Umbrella Palm. Is it not perfectly symmetrical? Nature's own art studio! Give the picture a caption and win the 63rd edition of KBG- Kaun Banega Ghumakkad- your own online caption contest!

Here is another view minus the Contest Logo to help you visualise the caption better.

Once again, give the above picture a caption. You could win KBG-63.

How to Submit a Caption

For the first-timers on KBG, you can respond using any of the six channels below:

1. Leave a comment on this post
2. Send email to hbindia@gmail.com   
3. Respond on the FB post
4. Comment on Instagram @ghumakkadhb 
5. Comment on Twitter @HarshBh21184761
6. Send a WA message. If you want your WA number to be added to Ghumakkad's list, send an email.

Now get going and give your caption pronto! If you feel like, you may suggest more than one caption.

Hope we have helped you in overcoming the Covid boredom to some extent.

Previous Contest

KBG-62, the 62nd edition of Kaun Banega Ghumakkad Caption Contest featured a picture of leaves partially eaten up by caterpillars during the monsoon.

This picture fired the imagination of 300+ readers! We received more than 30 captions. For a complete list of the captions and the winning entries, click the story 'Need and Greed'. Two of the winning captions of KBG-62 are reproduced below.

Be your creative best and shoot your response. Most catchy captions will be the Winners of KBG-63! All the best.

Thank you all the readers for your continued support.

Stay connected, stay safe.

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/ 22nd September 2021

#Umbrellapalm #symmetry #nature #patterns #leaves #naturesartstudio #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #KBG #kaunbanegaghumakkad #onlinecontest #lockdownfun #takeabreak #captions #powerofobservation #craetivecaptions #pqs #picturesquequotations #naturetheteacher #learningthroughpictures #secunderabad #observeand learn

50th Year of 1971 War

Are wars good for humanity? Do we need it?

42 years ago, Ghumakkad then a Lieutenant in the Indian Navy, had 'dedicated' his Master's Dissertation on Naval War Gaming at IIT Kanpur to its 'own obsolescence'. Am reproducing the dedication below as it answers the opening questions:

"It is not pleasant to think that warfare is fundamental to the nature of man, and indeed it may not necessarily be so. However, through all recorded history we find this unfortunate trend. Perhaps, some day the present effort will become pointless/irrelevant i.e. when wars will no longer exist. In that light, this work is dedicated to its own obsolescence."

Independent India has witnessed many wars. 1971 war fought both in the eastern and western sectors, gave birth to a new nation Bangla Desh.

Swarnim Vijay Varsh स्वर्णिम विजय वर्ष - meaning the Golden Jubilee Year of the Victory- is being celebrated in India. The Prime Minister of India had flagged off four Victory Flames- Vijay Mashal विजय मशाल - from the National War Memorial in New Delhi on 16th Dec 2020. India had won the war on 16th Dec 1971. The Victory Flame is traversing the length and breadth of the country including the villages of PVC (Param Vir Chakra परम वीर चक्र ) and MVC (Maha Vir Chakra महा वीर चक्र ) gallantry awardees of the War. The Flame after visiting A&N Islands onboard a Naval ship and other towns in southern India by road, arrived in Secunderabad on 9th Sep 2021.

Naval units and Veterans of Secunderabad received the Flame with honour and reverence at a ceremony held at Navy House Secunderabad on 11th Sep 21. This story briefly recreates the solemn occasion. Naval children in station energised the audience with their inspiring performance. Naval band from the Eastern Naval Command, needless to add, brought nostalgia for all Veterans like me. The whole event was coordinated by Lt Cdr Akhila Somaraju a lady officer of Indian Navy. Hail the women of the world!

Glimpses of an unforgettable morning.

The Victory Flame was received with the dignity and reverence. See the short video clip below.

Naval war veterans were felicitated on the occasion. Though in their 70s and 80s, the josh in the veteran officers and sailors was visible. See the picture below.

The Naval Band enthralled us all with number of performances. Here is Indian Fleet March played that morning. In case you are unable to view the YouTube video, you may click this link.

The climax of the event was dance performances by Naval school children of Secunderabad. Drawn from different schools and age groups, the children reside in different locations in Secunderabad. It was admirable to see such excellent collaboration and coordination despite Covid restrictions. Am sharing three of their performances here. The first performance was based on Teri Mitti from the film Kesari. YouTube link is here.

In the next clip, the children enact 'How is the Josh' and other numbers. YouTube link is here.

They also gave an electric performance based on AR Rahman's famous song Jai Ho from the movie Slumdog Millionaire. YouTube link is here.

After their performances, I went backstage to congratulate the teachers and the students. They were a spirited lot as you can see in the picture below.

As mentioned in the beginning of the story, the whole program had been put together by a lady officer. Ghumakkad requested her for a picture.

As the Victory Flame moves on to cover the rest of the country, we once again salute the brave sons of India who laid down their lives during the 1971 War. All the four Victory Flames will converge at the War Memorial in New Delhi. The Prime Minister will formally receive the Flames on 16th Dec 2021 on completion of Swarnim Vijay Varsh. Proud of India, proud of our Armed Forces.

Jai Hind!

    - Harsh Bhargava-the-Ghumakkad and former Commodore, Indian Navy/ 18th Sep 2021/ Secunderabad

#Swarnimvijayvarsh #indianarmedforces #indiannavy #veterans #1971war #vijaymashal #vitoryflame #50thyearofwar #secunderabad #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh

Teachers too Get Bored!

Do teachers also get bored of teaching online? Ask any teacher. Or, ask yourself if you are a teacher. Honest answer will be yes!

Covid lockdown enforced online classes. A month or a term was bearable. But a year and a half of online teaching posed newer challenges. Both for teachers and learners. So, how do we overcome the boredom? One way is to stop teaching! What? Yes, do away with the slides and lecturing. Take them away from the subject which has bored them. Ask them 'Shall we see a movie together?' Or, 'Shall we go on a hike?' Invariably you will hear a chorus 'Yes Sir!'

We had shared our excitement of movie-based learning a few days ago. It sure helped both the students as well as the teacher- to overcome the online boredom! You may browse our story 'Shershaah-- Beyond the Movie'. Similarly, there can be more ways to beat the Covid boredom in online classes like online games, quizzes, role plays and team competitions. Do share your experience of online boredom.

Readers may browse Ghumakkad's posts on Teachers' Day of previous years listed below:

Who Inspires A Teacher

The Fun is about to Begin

Teachers Open the Door

Teacher Goes Beyond the Classroom - IBS Hyderabad

A Teacher Keeps Learning

Inculcating A Spirit of Enquiry

Covid Couldn't Deter Us The Teachers

Ghumakkad-the-teacher firmly believes that real learning happens outside the classroom! Be it the Internship, field assignments or even a hike in a forest! See the picture below.

On the eve of the Teachers Day 2021, I reiterate that we teachers exist because of the students and not vice versa.

Thank you all my students, former students, fellow teachers and my teachers for enriching my life. Sincere gratitude to each one of you.

Happy Teacher's Day 2021.

    -  Harsh-the-Ghumakkad-learner-teacher/4th Sep 2021

#teachersday #teaching #learning #students #learnercenriceducation #learningbydoing #experientiallearning #learningwithfun #beyondclassroom #livecases #casemethod #internalisation #covidboredom #moviesforlearning #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh

Shershaah - Beyond the Movie

"Yeh dil maange more" ये दिल मांगे more!

"Dushman ek chalaye to aap do chalao" दुश्मन एक चलाए तो आप दो चलाओ.

"Waapas to zaroor aaonga, tiranga le kar ya phir tirange mein lipta hua" वापस तो ज़रूर आऊँगा, तिरंगा ले कर या फिर तिरंगे में लिपटा हुआ 

These words of Capt Vikram Batra, Param Vir Chakra, kept echoing in our mind much after seeing the movie Shershaah. The movie is based on the life of a brave son of India who made the supreme sacrifice in the Kargil war.

Ghumakkad conducted a video case study based on the movie Shershaah in his PGDM class. The students were asked to watch the movie before the class. The posters in the picture below are courtesy the film producers.

Old movies like Lagaan, Patton, Twister, The Bridge On The River Kwai etc have been used for management lessons in many B-schools earlier. But we wanted to use a recently released movie and derive lessons for MBA students. It adds to the excitement in the class both for the students as well as the teacher. The teacher has to prepare in advance. Which scenes to discuss, what questions to ask and which concepts or lessons will it bring out? Needless to add that the effort was worth it. Video cases are a powerful pedagogical aid, specially for management education. It also helps the institutions to keep their syllabus current.

The video case discussions were based on the movie. We did not discuss whether the movie portrayed Capt Batra's life or the Army operations accurately or not. That is left to innumerable film critics. Our case discussions were focussed on learning from real life and thus brought out the following lessons from Shershaah the movie:

1. Leadership
2. Motivation
3. Goal setting and goal clarity
4. Team work
5. Inter-personal relations
6. Courage and fearlessness
7. Decision making
8. Building trust
9. Group Dynamics
10. Leading from the front
11. Dealing with uncertainty
12. Determination and Perseverance
13. Ethics and Values
14. Nation first
15. Task Orientation
16. Training and Development
17. Competency Mapping
18. Managing failures
19. Staffing Decisions
20. Humility

Any teacher or student who wants to know which scene in the movie to correlate with the above concepts or topics can mail me at hbindia@gmail.com . It would be my pleasure to help. I firmly believe that knowledge multiplies with sharing.

Two years ago, we had conducted another video case study based on the movie URI- The Surgical Strike. It also generated lively discussions in the class. You may browse our story linked below which has been read by more than 3000 management professionals/teachers/students:

Uri The Movie with Many Lessons in Management

Do give your feedback if you have also conducted any of the above case studies based on these two movies.

In the Google-dominated world, the students love being 'current'. We conducted the case study within a fortnight of the movie being released. It added to the thrill factor of learning. Had the classes not been on-line, the level of excitement would have been a notch higher. But Covid dictated otherwise. Let Covid not bog you down! Class of 2022 at VVISM Hyderabad- you guys did a great job!

Just one more thing. We have neither been retained nor paid for promoting this movie. It is purely for purposes of learning and sharing. It should not send a wrong message otherwise.

Thanks for browsing. Stay connected.

   - Harsh-the-teacher-Ghumakkad/27th Aug 2021

#mba #pedagogy #casemethod #videocases #learning #reallife #Managementlessons #shershaah #googledominatedworld #beingcurrent #learningwithfun #learningtogether #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #teaching #teacheraslearner #beyondgoogle #thrilloflearning #beatingthecovid

Need and Greed

Does Nature gives us enough? Not only for us human beings but for all living beings and plants? Yes, it does. And continues to do so.

Nature addresses the need. 

It ensures enough feed. 

But not human greed! 

As Mahatma Gandhi had said that the “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.”

While walking around our neighbourhood lake during monsoon, we noticed many wild vines and creepers all over. Many leaves in these wild creepers appeared half eaten with holes and perforations. We saw similar wild growth around a golf course close by. Here are some pictures.

It set us thinking. All this is part of the food chain. Food chains are part of Nature's evolution. So the leaves provide nutrition to the plant or the vine. The leaves also are food for insects and caterpillars. Similarly in a forest, Tigers may be on top of the food chain thus: 

Tiger-deer-grass-birds-soil-water-dry-leaves-as-manure and so on. You may read how birds are an important part of Nature's ecological balance.

How birds sustain the Food Cycle in a Tiger Reserve?

Some more food chains could be: 

Vultures-dead-animals-plants-etc. 

Serpent Eagle-snakes-rodents-plants-roots-insects etc.

Owl-snakes-lizards-frogs-insects etc. See the diagram below.

Fruit Bats-fruits-trees etc. In each of these food chains the decomposers like mushrooms are equally important to sustain the cycle.

As human beings, we should be responsible for maintaining and not disrupting Nature's food chain. For example, denudation of forests leads to reduction in number of deer which are food for the Tigers. This leads to increasing man-animal conflict. Deforestation in the hills leads to landslides causing silting of the rivers down stream and resulting floods. Floods also occur due to encroachment of river flood banks and Nallahs or drains in cities. Readers may browse our previous stories highlighting this aspect and listed below:

Chennai Floods Man-made

Flood Fury in Hyderabad - How a 91-year old reacted to flooding of her house!

KBG-62 Contest

The 62nd edition of Kaun Banega Ghumakkad, our online Captions Contest was based on the theme of Nature's Food Chain. The picture below received 30 different captions from more than 300 readers worldwide. 

We thank all the participants. Complete list of captions is given below:

Sl.	Name	Caption for KBG-62 Contest
1	Sunisha	Unknown pain seen!
2	Pradeep Sethi	Harbinger of change!
3	Jaishankar	'Cater' ing for others is the 'pillar' of an evergreen life.
4	PRR Rao	Happiness is letting go of what you think your life
5	Poonam Bhargava	छिद्र हुए तो क्या, किसी को तृप्त किया मैंने।
6	Avinash Tiwari	Bandhani work.
	Poonam Bhargava	परोपकार से बड़ा कोई धर्म नहीं
7	Rohini Tiwari	Nature's Origami....unique and beautiful!!
8	Veeky Baths	Barishon ke mausam ki bheegi hariyali
9	Ajai Bhumri	"  बना बलवान अपने को वरना नुच जाएगा् " "Survival of the fittest "
10	Kishor Thakre	Caterpillars at work!
11	Pradeep Siwach	Lebanon (Refugees ate up the nation)
12	BC Jayaprakash	Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. John 15:13 .....Bible
13	Bharat Ladha	Global management of survival.
14	Rashmi Bhargava	Self sacrifice is a real miracle
15	Sujata Das	Nature's rangoli🙏
16	Amandeep kaur	There is no better designer than nature.
17	Siba K Patnaik	I am ok , I am fighting.
18	Manju Khetan	इक दिन बिक जाएगा माटी के मोल, बुरे बिचार के किटाणू ऐसे ही हमारे मस्तिष्क को क्षति पहुंचाते हैं।
19	Manu Bhatnagar	A very hungry Caterpillar
20	Shereen Sultana	Make a life by giving what you have
21	Ritu Bhargava	Not dead, nor alive, still breathing.
22	Nidhi Bhargava	जीना उनका जीना है जो औरो को जीवन देता है
23	Radhika Sareen	My loss, someone's gain
24	Radhika Sareen	Giving makes me more beautiful
25	GR Sreenivasan	Plant kingdom, lives to nourish other species including humans without expecting anything in return.
26	Saumya Goyal	There is beauty even in being broken.
27	Mamta Bhargava	We will survive no matter what may come.
28	Yogesh Verma	Jab Tak Hai Jaan Jeevandaan
29	Peter de Padua	Nature's nature.
30	Peter de Padua	Green Gold, isn't it yummy?

The Winners of KBG-62

We are delighted to announce and introduce the winners of KBG-62. Their winning captions are also displayed alongside.

Yogesh Verma is a former Colonel from the Army Medical Corps. He is a nature lover and keen photographer. His simple caption जब तक है जान, जीवनदान meaning 'Keep giving till the last breath' conveys the self-sacrifice of the leaves as food for the caterpillars and other insects.

Saumya Goyal, a PhD in psychology is a poet at heart. She believes that Nature is the world's largest canvas on which God paints. Saumya's caption 'There is beauty even in being broken' interpreted the picture creatively.

Peter de Padua has won the KBG Contests previously also. A former Wing Commander of IAF, Peter is a water sport enthusiast. His short and crisp caption 'Nature's Nature' won the Jury's appreciation.

Radhika Sareen is an electronics engineer from BITS Pilani who worked with TCS for three decades. A keen traveller she is a regular participant in KBG Contests. Her caption 'Giving makes me more beautiful' caught the Jury's eye.

Once again our congratulations to all the winners and thanks to both the Jury members Manik Srivastava and Neeta Bhargava for their time.

We end this story with a PQ picturesque quote on maintaining Nature's balance through the food chain. The picture of Tigress Sonam was taken in Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve.

Thanks for browsing. More KBG contests coming up. Stay connected.

    - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/26th Aug 2021

#monsoons #rain #nature #wildvines #leaves #foodchain #predators #consumers #producers #undergrowth #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #KBG #kaunbanegaghumakkad #onlinecontest #lockdownfun #takeabreak #captions #life #craetivecaptions #pqs #picturesquequotations #naturetheteacher #learningthroughpictures #secunderabad #monsoonphotography #selfsacrifice