Embarking on a journey to school at the outset of every academic year is period of anxiety for every child, and it takes a while to calm the butterflies in the stomach. This is true for every child, including the successful and so-called carefree children.

Realising that every child is prone to it will help the parent address the problem rather than avoid the situation if the anxiety deepens into a behavioural problem and starts affecting the child's grades.

Slay the dragons

When school reopens, there is stress and confusion in the child's mind when they either miss their old classmates or even their old teacher, and they are confounded with new portions and how difficult it would be as compared to the previous year. This puts that much more stress on the parent's shoulders to slay the dragons in the little child's mind, by having a patient ear, sympathetic words and a reassuring hug. All the same, there are some other ways to bring the primary school child around with good humour.

They can be told that they are going to meet some of their good friends after a gap of two months . Also, they can make new friends and should be prodded to make the first move to meet their new classmates. Children should also be helped to stock up on stationerybooks and other backpack basics. Doing this shopping a few days before the opening makes them get back into the groove.

Children should also be encouraged to have a good sleep the previous night and a hearty breakfast.

Visiting the school once before the session starts and, if possible, getting in touch with the new class teacher would calm some nerves.

Encouraging the child to talk about daily activities at school will help them open up with their feelings. They should talk about the three best things of the day or the anxiety-provoking events which will help them open up with their fears.

Parents can help with proper coping techniques in case of bullying classmates, etc. It may not be possible to have a solution for a child's problem all the time. but the fact that their fears are expressed and heard will give them the necessary confidence.

For that matter a child crying can be waited for the tears to dry and then cajoled because in itself crying is a stress buster.

In case anxiety persists, homoeopathic medicines always help. Children complaining of abdominal pain at such times is common and can be relieved with Nux vomwhile nausea and vomiting can be helped by Cocculus. Anxiety can be soothed by Arg nit while Gelsemium is a remedy for the under confident child. A depressed child can be helped by.

In big foreign universities during admission, you are asked to fill a form listing all your social interests, traits and practices. These are later compared with all the other selected students to arrange the most mutually suitable roommates for the students. However, in India, we are still a developing country that needs to manufacture educated individuals to run the country and upgrade it to a new level. Thus, we do not have time for these formalities. That is when the roomate steps in.

So, your rommate snores? Or is he/she a party animal who likes to invite hoardes of guests every evening? Or maybe the rommie is a racist? A pervert? An addict? A case-study in various medical conditions? Or perhaps a withdrawn loner? He could be some cleanliness-freak or perhaps she is a dirt-fly..... ther is no end to the list.

Like trouble, roommates come in various packages. They are of different kinds with different tastes and habits. And most of us are not the blessed selected few who get exactly compatible roomies and so we have to gel in! Preferrable or otherwise. God hardly cares.

When it comes to dealing with roommates, communication is one of the two keys. Understanig being the other one. When you can freely communicate your views, opinions and preferences to the guy/gal you dwell with, things become much easier. Else, you keep adjusting and fitting in till one day you have the big brawl or the loud cat-fight. And of course, you always have to have a certain sense of understanding to know that you have to make things work in order to have an equillibruim. You cannot always have the upper hand. Nor can you allow the other person to do so.

As far as my experiences are concerned, things opened out in such a way that I never spent any two semesters in the same place with the same roomie. I have lived with my seniors, my juniors, batch mates and even with complete strangers. I have shared my living space with one and at times with as many as five roomies. And like every other student rubbed with a roommate on him/her, I have had my wierd ones too.

Some of my roommates were high pitched Himesh fans who liked to delare their loyalty with loud music on the laptop.... even when they slept. Some were chain smokers. A few of them were heavy drinkers who loved to declare their love for all their fellow females aloud to the world in the dark after midnight. Some doped. Some danced (or thought they did!). And some gave out large packets of air from certain body parts, to put it in a their words. And one guy was a terrible cook who forced us to eat his so called 'food'! Trust me, the taste still sends shivers down my spine!

But one of the most challenging guys was this particular one who would cry each night in memory of his ex-flame who had most royally dumped him after splashing his cash and toying his credit card for one full year. What I still don't realise is what fulled his howls more – the girl who went away or the money that he will never see again.

While one guy I lived with was a devoted believer of his sacred 'Baba' and his scarier-than-voodoo superstitions; there was this another guy who liked to burn things.... more specifically clothes. And he loved it even more when they were on you! A senior I lived with loved to make us wait with heavy bellies outside the tiolet. Another, revelled in disappearing for days leaving us to attend phonecalls from his parents. And God knows how much he enjoyed doing it.

And trust me, this is not fiction! In fact there are worse cases. You could end up having to live with someone like Chatur who would suffocate the dear life out of your nostrils!

But most importantly, I realise that I have my shortcomings too and that all the people I have lived with, had to tolerate me at times too!

And then all is not evil. If life is not all fair, life isn't all unfair either. I still look back at times when I got some of the most memorable moments with my roommates. At times we would erupt in a dance together and then there was dinner when all of us, seated around the served food, would still wait for that one lazy guy to arrive so that we could all have dinner together. Matching wits on the chessboard and playing cards for endless hours was so much fun.

Turns out, roomates are not that bad. In fact at times you realise they are all you have! At times when you fall sick, they are your doctors and when you go through your rough patch, the same lunatics become your serious psychiatrists. Whether it be an empty wallet with an autorickshaw waiting to be paid at the door; or an out of balance cellphone at midnight when you have to make that 'bahut zaroori' call; its the roomie that becomes your God.

The trick, I reckon, is not in accepting rather than reacting. Soon your roomie learns to do the same. And that is when you learn to sleep despite the penetrating snores and learn to wake up a little late when the "delayer" is assuredly out of the toilet.

You need not be the person's best friends. But you can be friendly nevertheless.

And you will sooner or later figure out that..... "Oh! Shut up Rahul! Enough of your Himesh hitlist! Can't you see I am working here....................."

Sorry, guys. I will have to end it here and go kill my roommate first!

All the best with yours'.

Shah Faesal, the first Kashmiri to top the Civil Service Examination, has attributed his success to the provision of equality for all enshrined in the Indian Constitution.

“Indian Constitution provides for giving equal rights to everyone irrespective of caste, religion, region and my success in the UPSC exam is a result of that,” he said at a felicitation function here on Tuesday night.

Faesal said people create controversies over petty things like caste, religion, region and language.

“There is no reason to get upset if someone doubts your Indianness because you are a Muslim. There is no need for a certificate from anybody that you are an Indian. Practise any religion in your home or society but outside, do not ever forget that you are an Indian and learn to respect people from other religions,” he said.

“In pursuit of your goal, you will find people who will trouble you because you belong to a particular religion, caste, region but if you have the capability, then nobody can stop you from overcoming these hurdles and reach your goal, Faesal added.

New Delhi: Branded pre-schools across the country increased their fees 120 percent between 2005 and 2010, a survey has found.

The average fees for the kindergarten segment have gone up from Rs.1,500 to over 3,500 per month, the survey by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) showed. 

The survey also found an increase of 150 percent in security deposit which is paid at the time of admission which it says has gone up from Rs.10,000 in 2005 to over Rs.25,000 at the beginning of academic session in 2010. 

According to the study, close to 70 percent from over 6,000 parents who were surveyed, demanded a regulation from district education departments to stop the soaring fee structure. 

The survey also showed that branded pre-schools were concentrated in the metro cities and that parents with high disposable incomes, nuclear families and population growth were the reasons for this phenomenon. 

It said that the pre-school industry in India is worth over Rs.4,000 crore and is expected to grow up to Rs.8,000 crore by 2013. The industry is dominated by the unorganized sector, including small neighborhood schools which accounts for over 75 percent of the market.