Learnings from Swades – Education

I just read a small interview of a kid from SIDH. He studied in SIDH’s primary school. Now SIDH’s education is different from conventional education, because SIDH does not give education compartmentalized in different subjects through text books. It focuses education from within the village’s resources. A kid reads about trees, the occupation of people in village, the social structure in village etc.. and learns to express his understanding and learning through poems, essays, drawings and other creative forms.
Now when this kid applied for admission into government middle school, he was to write an exam. The syllabus and structure of the exam was little to alien to kid. In kid’s own words:

Through our project work, we learnt about trees but also about life. We learnt to
write poems and stories. We learnt new words. We learnt to write letters to
friends and the elderly. However, in Hindi (understood as a subject to be learnt
for the Board examination) we had to learn seven poems by heart, we had to
learn about our country and about other countries. We had to read stories and
learn how to answer questions on the story. We had to learn how to summarize
the poems we learnt. We had to make sentences in Hindi and learn what is a
noun, pronoun, verb, subject, etc.

[Taken from UNESCO Report on SIDH]

Now my question is why the kid has to forcefully learn about other countries or other cities/places in his own country? When I was in school, all through primary and middle school and even in class 9, I was made to absorb information about different countries, cities in world, many of which I could not locate on map until recently when I am 24. Do kids in Germany or Canada learn about India, its geography, its climate, its political structure? Many of the grown ups in other countries do not know even the four metro cities of India. Those who know often know them by colonial names of Madras and Bombay.

Is it just the question of developing countries knowing about developed ones? Will that be enough to justify our syllabus’s carrying writings on developed world while not the other way round? In this regard, I would like to quote Late Mr. Pramod Mahajan who I once met during the shoot of the Karan Thapar’s show ‘The Big Question’ on DD1. In response to question of one of the audience on the show, he said, “No, we can never take advantage of US, only they can take advantage of us.” But then we might as well go as far as saying why on earth do we need to learn another language called English? Of course, 99.999% of Indians learn English not out of interest but out of force or necessity. Here’s there’s a difference between force and necessity. When we were kids, we were not wise enough to know the need of a language, thus, we were forced to learn English. But, many people do courses like Rapidex English Speaking Course or some crash course from British council or Inlingua. That’s called necessity. It’s like me learning now at this age, French because I need a job in Paris or in French Embassy here. People might as well argue that because of English or know-how of western countries, we are doing good business and have advantage over many countries in Asia, who are left behind in this wave of outsourcing.

Or is something other than developed vs developing or strong vs weak? Is it that India is one of the few countries who have such education system, while others, irrespective of being developing or developed, eastern or western, rich or poor, have a curricula for school which encourages kids to learn about their place first, live in their place, develop it and then if he has interest, he can himself look for other countries on web, books, newspapers, magazines etc.?

Morning Walk

Although the movie with the name was drab against the high hopes I raised, but the experience I had in the morning during walk was amazing. I was amazed to see how flexible my day is. I got up in the morning at 6 and felt very cold. It was like Tabu felt cold on her first morning in New York. She took a shawl out of trunk and wrapped around. Similarly, first thing I did after getting up in the morning was putting on jacket and a mufflour all around my neck and head and ears. I have been here for over a month now, but these days may be because I am in the spirit of namesake, I felt as new today here as Ashima Ganguly felt on her first day in New York. After guarding myself with woolen I paid visit to toilet. Sitting on shit pad, thoughts started arriving in my head, and I was little pissed off with that. At least in the morning, these thoughts should give me a break. I am yet to be done with morning call, and thoughts are trying to find room in my head. I really should start some form of meditation, I desperately need that. So I tried to flush the thoughts out by closing my eyes. I had brushed my teeth the previous night, so I did not feel as bad, as I would have otherwise felt. Closing my eyes, I felt that I should sleep more, but as I came in the room, I saw at clock and realized that I had slept 8 hours. Had I been in city, I would have rushed to bathroom or to stadium for running, or to gym, trying to waste as little time as possible. But now, here when there’s no hurry to do things, when there’s no deadline to meet, I just lazily got down on bed, eyes half closed, sometimes staring through the bluish surrounding outside of early morning, sometimes covering my head with quilt to avoid the light from the same window. In this pleasant cold, it is so pleasant to just lie down silently in semi-sleep state. At 6:30, I felt I am not getting any sleep anyway; I should get up and take a walk. When I was in Noida, my morning itself will start with confusion and indecisiveness. When my eyes open up in the morning, I would be wondering if I should sleep more or is it enough. Then when I decide I should sleep little more, then after few minutes of that semi-sleep state, I would struggle to confirm to myself if I am getting sleep or wasting time in bed. Now, here in the village, that state is less intense and I come to that point of beginning of struggle quite late. After I woke up completely, I put my earphones and sneakers on, and put camera in pocket and started walking. I was busy with thoughts and music in ears, but some part of me was also silently and pleasantly enjoying every breath of fresh air, of the sight of fluttering of leaves of very few non-pine trees which are lining the road. Soon I saw couple of school girls with big pair of flowers of white ribbons on their heads, which looked funny and cute on them. Sun had risen but it was beginning to bless this side of the hill. At some point, my walk was almost matching pace with that of sun in rising up here. So in few minutes, I was touched by the first rays. As I was walking up, sun started showing up, playing peek-a-boo through pine trees. And now was the rendezvous with sun, we were almost face to face. I was bathing in his warmth. Early morning sun and setting sun offer unique and pleasant warmth, which is not scorching. I was hearing the beautiful lullaby from Omkara, ‘Jag Jaa’, I started singing the same as if praying to Lord Sun. I took plenty of his pictures. He must be feeling shy of this paparazzo. As I walked forward and continued to hum I met this old frail man who I would often see while running. Today I stopped and talked to him. With the lens of my Canon SX110IS, I captured the contours of his face.

Each wrinkle on his face was telling a tale from his enormously long life. He knew little Hindi. Somehow, I find such folks in Garhwal, who do not know Hindi, from a different world. Their ancientness invokes curiosity in me. We had almost no common language, but still we managed to talk and enjoy each other’s company! I used signs, little Hindi, he replied in little Hindi and more Garhwali, I smiled, he smiled,, sometimes must be feeling that I am stupid on simply smiling in response to his cryptic questions in Garhwali! I managed to learn that he had come to attend nature’s call of the morning, somehow, the elderly still feel, “log bahar hone undar kyun jaate hain“. One has to be from north India to appreciate that deadly one!

From the eyes of an ant.

Every day I come to work, but I never observe myself while working. Just imagine an ant sitting in some corner of your cube, and gazing constantly at you every day. Here’s what an ant wrote in her diary about me.

This guy with different hairstyle comes everyday to this place. Then he sits silently and keeps banging some keys for most of his day. Sometimes, raises his head, he looks around, put the mouth of a bottle in his mouth, and then resumes staring at the colorful screen in front of him.

Giving up on love

After so many love failures in the beginning, I am tired of all these chasing after chick games. I think I should quit now. If it has to happen, it will happen anyway. Love is not something you have to make efforts to find it. It’s not like clearing some exam or job interview that you will have to make efforts for. After all, this damn fist shaped thing in the left side of my body does not follow any of the written/ unwritten rules of human beings. It has its own language, grammar, codes – all of which is beyond comprehension of any one. And quitting is good. The efforts I was putting in this ‘seeking love’ process can be better used at work, where I do expect results to come out, as that work is a linear process. You work hard (albeit with some smartness), you get results, you get promotion, and you feel happy. But you go out, you strain your eyes in catching one glimpse of that b’ful gal, or you are driving, you see a gorgeous face in car going next to you, you try to maintain speed with her vehicle, only to discover that while you were having great start of morning in admiring beauty, you ran into another vehicle in your front, or you got challaned for over-speeding! So I have decided now, I will not give second looks to a girl. It all begins with that second look. Your sight happens to fall on some sweet gal, next you give second look, then you follow her, try to find out details, if successful after lot of hard-work, you get her number, and if lucky, you will get coffee date, but all these come with an expiry date of 3rd date, after which it’s a break up, as she announces, “I got engaged!!”. Did I hear from someone now, ‘well it never started in the first place’? Well at least for cupid-hearted-extra-romantic fellows like me, it already started from that second look . Hence proved  no second look => no love lorn hearts.

Irony, as I conclude this brief, mere naina dhoonde mere naina ko. Will this heart ever stop beating for someone else? I know realize how much sense those non-sense movies ‘Dil to Pagal Hai’ and ‘Dil hai ki manta nahi’ make.

Uncle Uncle Uncle

Uncle Uncle Uncle

Of late when I meet some married acquaintance of mine, I am getting a new tag – ‘Uncle’. When ever I visit his/her family, the kids address me as uncle. Or that friend will ask the kid to ‘say hello to uncle’. I remember when Papa’s friend Sanjay ‘uncle’ used to visit us, we would call him uncle only, and he used to be of same age as I am today, and he too was unmarried. In fact, there were lots of Papa’s friends who were uncles for us. So for my married friends, it’s perfectly fine for them to find an uncle in me for their kids. But I fail to find a fixed point in time line when I made this transition from ‘Bhaiyya’ to ‘Uncle’. Or was it rather a gradual transition? Whatever it may be, it hurts to feel I have aged. A ‘Chaachu’ might have felt pleasant and less age defining! But then it would have become a formal relationship in Indian set up, whereas ‘Uncle’ is a freeway relationship, you get in and get out as and when convenient!

But the uncle episode gives me one more reason to run away to US of A, where everyone other than father is uncle/sir. And when you are not addressing someone by uncle, you address him by his name, even if he is your step dad of twice your age, “Hey Bob, didn’t Mom come with you today?” 

How much is too much?

How much is too much?

We often start liking someone or something too much. But sometimes we go so far in liking that we start getting bored of it. It’s like too much of sugar in pudding is also distasteful. I used to like Rajbhog a lot. Every time I go out for eating, I would invariably have Rajbhog as sweet dish or in dessert. But now I feel sick of it. Mere sight of it pushes me towards throwing up. Similar experiences with couple of other things and people make me wonder, in the process of cuddling something, when do we realize the point beyond which our affection for that thing takes a downward curve?

I have been listening to Raag Tilak Kamod a lot. I listend to all its versions I could find online – instrumental – shehnai, sarod, sitar; vocals – by many different artisits; and even film songs which were purely in this raag. When I get up after a nap, often the first words are the lyrics of this lovely song, ‘neer bharan kaise jaaon’ in raag tilak kamod. Now I have started having fear if I should stop liking it so much lest I should grow dislike for this beautiful music too? Does that love hate relationship hold true for music too? Can we possibly stop liking something ourselves voluntarily? Is there an on/off button for it? And if not, what about the pain when the other party in the liking process becomes unavailable or start disliking me? What if I love chicken and there’s a bird flu? What if I am madly in love with someone, but she magically finds out that button to stop liking me?

PEACE

PS: kehet Ravi Jain suno bhai saadhu.. at least in a relationship (including friendship), if we manage to come out of that downward curve once.. then begins a never ending upward curve of eternally blissful relationship.

BhaiSaahib

It was Saturday morning, I was goin back to home after a tennis game, when I saw Sandeep Laxmi Sri Pada, my colleague, getting down from a rickshaw. He addressed rickshaw puller as “bhai saab”. That was a first to me. I never heard any rickshaw puller being called ‘bhai saab’. I don’t know whether it was out of respect, or Sandeep would use this for any stranger. Nor do I want to generalize that all people of Andhra of south India are polite with others. All I am saying is that it was a pleasant sight. That rickshaw puller must have felt happy. In fact we should call every one – plumber, mechanic, waiter, maid – as bhai saab, and do away the north-indian, “Bhaiyya”, that way, Marathi’s in general and Raj Thakeray in particular would also not be offended  as they keep complaining that bhaiyya’s from UP and Bihar intrude Maharashtra.

Eastern Purity

It all triggered with the morning visit to Mother Dairy today. I saw a gentle man putting a white hanky on his head as he approached a small gurudwara. A very small gurudwara which might as well resemble a house. He closed his eyes and stood there at the gate for few moments. The faith that I saw he had in god, and the faith in that minute he spent there was overwhelming. I have waited many times outside temples for my friends offering prayer inside, or waiting in queue [temples around Jama Masjid attract huge crowd] for their turn to offer prayer. Generally this happens on Tuesdays. I don’t have any issue getting inside an have a word with almighty, but I enjoy more waiting outside, I get the delight to watch! Last Tuesday, I saw Prateek standing quietly with closed eyes and folded hands, as I waited outside. The innocence on his face and the faith that the situation exhibited was enough for me get that rare standard emotion, “I wanna die here.” That’s how I felt when I saw Darjeeling for the first time or when I saw river Ganga in Rishikesh. These feelings are inexplicable by a word but I would like to coin a phrase, “eastern purity”. This is what I find most appealing about Asia and more so about India. The mandir, the masjid, the ganga, the flute, the Hindustani classical music, the morning, the sitar, the feminism – all these go into formation of ‘eastern purity’. Everyday, I see some lacunae around me to crib about India. But whenever this sense of ‘eastern purity’ prevails over my head, all cribbing fade away.

My (mis)adventure with sports

I have written enough lecture about road discipline, humanity, cleanliness etc., etc., so let me not bore you with the preaching. I will write now of sports, particularly my misadventure with sports.

Cricket. – FORTE FOR MOST OF YOU

First a confession: I have no interest in cricket what so ever. I can’t even list the 11 players of Indian team and this has always been a constant source of embarrassment, more so when girls discuss about certain match and I am dumb. Hence, I have been accused at time of not being a true Indian.

When I was in class 3 or 4, my parents bought me new bat from. Next morning I went to some park with kids from our neighborhood to play cricket. Not just I was denied any chance of batting, I forgot to collect my bat while coming back only to come home to hear, “you are not going to play with those kids again”

As I grew up, I would try to go to park with another set of kids, as our home was shifted. While fielding I always used to pray that ball should not come to me, because when I would try catch ball, I would get to hear this from you, “you think ball is gonna lovingly come to your arms, why don’t you move.” I think I was little like Rohan Awasthi of Taare Zamin pe! By the time I was in class 8, I was too conscious of that disapprobation administered to me! So I stopped playing cricket. Forever. But later when I was in college, I had really awesome friends (read ramjane , kumar!) who would invite me to play and give me batting. I would be invariably bowled out in a maximum of 3-4 balls.

I had much fervor for batting until recently; I would trade with kids near my home the kites that land on my roof, for chance of batting.

Oh my god! I just revealed to you guys that I don’t know flying kites either..

Okhay enough of dhoni and ganguly..

Basket Ball

In school, I attended coaching for sometime, and most of the times, coach would exhaust me in the warm up itself. But things changed dramatically when I went into college, I thought that now I m in the best college in the country, what more do I want. Now I will do everything and anything I like, one of them being basket ball. So I was there on court on 3rd day in college, without fear of ragging! I was sincere at practice, would come to court at correct time. One day we were playing zone defence. I was playing centre, when suddenly the coach came on me and said, “what the hell are you doing, you don’t have brains ? You think by jumping like monkey, you can bloc the offence” and little more he said. You guys might be thinking I was this close to tears, but I actually was very close to bursting into pearls of laughter, but that wasn’t visible on my face which was inexplicably grim at that time. So seniors told after the coach left, ‘kid is finally ragged’.
Of all the sports I liked basket ball most, but somehow couldn’t be regular , may be because wasn’t doing good at it. Once in several matches I would get to shoot, mostly I would pass the ball, but sometimes I would become selfish and attempt, and very rarely those will convert into basket, and those ephemeral moments would drive me for the next few days. In my 7th semester, I made it to waiting list of team! I was very happy as that mail containing the list for Inter IIT basket ball team players was sent to all. But the wait turned out to be eternal as none of the permanent players fall ill before tournament.

Athletics and others.

I took up athletics in college only. In fact I was never more serious about sports than in college. I worked for long jump, and 100 metres, again for the annual Inter IIT sports Meet. As far as physical efforts were considered, the task was quite demanding, and I was putting my best foot in. finally I the day of selections came, I borrowed my friend’s boots. I missed tutorial class to attend the selections. But could not measure up to the coach’s expectations, so was told, “try next time… goodluck” and walked back from that vast athletic field.

Before attainting myself anymore, I will conclude, I have had been an outstanding sports man, I mostly stand outside the team .

Hypocrisy at its best

TOI reported today that ‘Speaker’ Somnath Chatterjee and his colleagues had to spend extra time circling because a southern China flight took more time to clear the runway. After Mumbai attacks, the same damn TOI complaint of high VIP security for MP’s and MLA’s. Now the same TOI is reporting about little extra that a VIP had to waste because of some technical snag. Common men including me face similar situation so many times, those are not reported. It is by reporting such incidents that media enhances the VIP image of a person.