He ain't heavy, he's my brother

Two brothers aim to achieve their dreams, through personal sacrifice and unshakeable determination

as over 400 concerL~ in India, Ausa:alia, New Zealand and the USA.

I1, 'I BY ), : CHITRA- SUDARSHAN

ings of S ilmce (S ilverfish, Bangalore, 2012) is a debut novel by Shriram Iyer, a Melbournebased management profe ssional. Bangalore born Shriram Iyer is somewhat of a high -achiever; besides his busy career. He bas authored several short stories, theatre scripts and screenplays for short films. Silver medallist under the Shankar's International Award given by the Presidem of India, Shrira.m is also a professional singer who has co his credit an Ind ian pop album, Ts Dh1mdh

Mein, (released in 2007 by singer Shankar l'vlahadevan), as well

11Vings of Silence is about cwo brothers in an Indian-American family and their epic journey en route co ,vinning an Olympic medal for Raj Sethi, who is the elder of the rwo, but born deaf.

Saurav Sethi, the you nger brother, is a tennis prodigy and a Grand Slam champion in the making, but he watches his elder brothe r Raj fight a losing battle in life and p lunge into the depths of depression. All this time, their father Akshay Sethi poms scorn on his elder son's attempts to make something of his life, and heap s attention only on Saurav. U nable to countenance chis injustice, Saurav gives up tennis and his ow n chances and ambitions to resurrect his brother Raj's life U nabl e to make their fad1er understand, they run away from home together and embark on a rollercoaster ride d1ac will pusb d1eir courage and determination to d1e limit. As the stori' unfolds, the brothers bond emotionally, and there are a few twists and turns. Po r tuicousl y, they receive considerable help from Sourav's 'soulmate' Shalini, and their rather rich aunt who had been banished from their family circles so me yea rs earlier, for an indiscretion.

As Saurav prepares to give Raj a life he deserves, the reader is drawn into the world of the two brothers, and becomes engrossed in their travails anJ their setbacks, d1e stre ngd1 they draw from d1e enormous trust placed in them b y peop le within their close circle place , and ultimately, their jo y and tcitm1ph s The protagonists' heartaches and their elation at realising the impos sible dream of running che marathon in the 1980 O lympic s engage the reader, and cornpels a feeling of antici pation. Will chis completely tear the famiJir apart, or bring them together

Wings Of Silence

again? The saga is sec against the cold war tensions of the time, and I ye r brings the political landscape of that period into clear relief. The training regimen of a marathon runner is meticu!ousl )' woven inco the narrative - Iye r seems to have had help from the Australian marathon legend Robert D Costella - and this brings a g reat deal of authenticity to the storytelling

Children can test their creative skills through websites that help them to develop simple games and interactive stories

As parents an d teachers, we have not adequately realised the need for programming ski lls as part of children's education. In fact, some say that it is as important as their literacy and numeracy skills.

Progrnmmi ng he lps kids express t he ir creativity, learn logic, build objects that are not just 'be' but also 'do' in nature, test and improvise. By learning to programme, children learn co so lve problems, get over o b stacles and collabo rate with others These are essential life skills needed co excel in any profess ion As :i'vUT Professor :i'v1itchell Resnick wrote, when kids 1earn to code,' they also ' code to learn'.

Many o f us are intimidated by programming, viewing it as endless lines of computer code. However, I look at programming as creative expression that blends logic, technique and art. The detail s of syntax and programming lan guages are just incidental, not the core of programming. lt should be rnught at an early stage when children's minds are not con sumed b y spec ific streams of knowledge.

These are the skills of the 21st century. I n a few years, everyone will be programming, not just prograrnn1ers. Let's make sure our kids l earn these essential skills w h i.l e they are still in primary sc hoo l.

So how do we teach programming to kid s (and adul ts)?

One of your first destinations i s Scratch Q1tgJ://scratch.rnit.edu/).

Des igned for kids aged 8 to 16, it helps kids deve lop animations, interactive stories and games by dragging-and-dropping b locks.

T h ey can select or draw their own characters called Sprites, code in behaviour by selecting blocks of script that can he lp them move, make sound and doing activities.

Thei r creations are saved, can be described and shared with others.

Scratch is my e ight year o ld 's favoucite tool and o n a recent Sunday morning, he built a game in which 'evil alien astronauts' who try to enter tbe solar syste m (comp lete with a Saturn with its rings in the background) are fired upon by the player who scores points for direct hies, loses po ints for missed bits and the game is timed to be comp leted in a minute. He was thrilled to receive a dozen views a few mi nutes after he shared the game with t he Scratch community.

Similar to Scratch is Hopscotch, except chat it i s an iPad app. The app prov ides just the right number of controls for kids starting out, which means they can find om and learn how each method works without the invo lvement of adults lf you are reall)' interested in only games, ace older or an adult, and want co design once bm p lay everyw here, cross- pbtform in otbe-r wo rds, then Scencyl (http:/ /www.s cenc yl. com) is rour choice. Bring your ideas to life with this extensive development p latform and then publish your games on Windows, l\fac, iOS (iPhone and iPad) , Android (Samsung, HTC and other smartphones) and other p latforms, so almost an yone can access and play your games It is a paid software app, but if you become an expert, yo u also have the opportunity to monetise your creations by selling your work. For the really yo ung, even p r e- kindergart en, there are a few interesting iPad applications. iPad is great for this purpose as its touch interface is intuitive to kids. D ais y the Dinosaur lets the players manipulate the character and so lve challenges chat involve loops, events an d other basic prog rarnm ing. Move the Turtle is a similar app for very youn g kid s. Making animated greeting cards and basic games can be a great introduction to programming. But he re is a review of resources that teach kid s how to programme: • Free courses on bow to programme and specifically on Sc ratch and App Inventor (anod1er game creation software) are available at Pl ura!Sight (h cgJ: // p lu ralsight.com/craining/ Kids)

• For o lder kids, say 14 years and o lder, Codecademy (http:// ww,,r.codecademy.com) is a great resource to learn programming interacti vely.

• Khan Academy Q1ttp:/ /W\V\\, k.hanacademy.org), the celebrated provide r of free Mad1s education on tbe web has a module on computer progranrnu n g that Salman Khan teacl1es as intuitively as he teaches Mad1s.

So, it's cime for children to not just play games, but a lso learn how to design and build tbem. It's a skill that they wou ld find to be as essential as reading, writing and cotmting as they grow up and build the ir careers i n the information age, i n which software is 'eating d1e world'.

I will talk about why this learning is so important to adults in the nexc part of this series.