Talibanism in India

Recent media reports about self-styled Taliban commanders in Pakistan's SWAT valley threatening schools educating girls has made me do a sober introspection. I fail to understand why they cannot see a smile on other's faces, why they cannot share their joy,why they cannot feel for them. To be honest, I am very disturbed.

Unfortunately, the scenario is India is not very different. There exists Taliban like instincts in rural India, which transcends all religion & caste barriers. This is the other India that I am discovering every day. It hurts to know that most women continue to be treated like cooking commodities, restricting them to their kitchens. Even young girls are not spared. They have a relatively joyful childhood. But once they attain puberty, that seems to be the end of their human life. They are not asked what they want. Young 14 year old girls continue to be forced into, marriage?, no, that doesn't seem to be the right word. I have seen this happening all around Mysore. And Mysore is relatively an advanced society. Cant imagine how bad it might be in say, Rajasthan, how about Bihar ?

I cannot imagine myself being born in one of those families. So much of responsibility at such a young age, at a time when she should be playing in the schools, she has to feed her young ones.
I had read this in text books, but never had I seen it for myself.

Wonder whether this will ever change. As I write this, something in me tells that it WILL.
I continue to be a die-hard optimist. I believe that our generation will not remain meek spectators like the previous one. We have the energy, don't we?

Mumbai & I

I deliberately used this title to attract some readership, though I have never been there. Most people have been glued to their TV sets watching news channels doing post-mortem of what went wrong at the Taj massacre. I am angry. Very angry. Not at the terrorists or politicians, but at the citizens. I know it is a very bold statement to make. But I stand by it. Let me explain why. 

Everyone agrees that what happened in Mumbai was not just a intelligence failure but a collapse of the macro security system itselt. Some call it a failure of leadership, others call it administrative incompetence.  But I believe that the problem lies else where. And it is a much bigger problem than it appears to be. 

I have been having lots of discussions with a prof of political science who keeps complaining all the while about mis-governance, corruption, dysfunctional democracy etc. My sis has a very similar view. I gave a very patient hearing to all that my prof had to say. But finally, my reply to him was one of my favourite quotes "people get the government they deserve". This powerful one-liner conveys many things. We as citizens do not deserve a better government because we are not good enough. I am not being cynical here. I am only stating the reality, albeit a little bitter. 

The anger towards the politicians is understandable, but not justified. We want electricity but are not prepared to have a thermal powerplant at our backyard. The big urban shopping malls lavishly consume huge, huge Kilowatts of power everyday. We do not complain. Neither do we protest. We complain about corruption. But when it comes to getting our Driving Liscence done, we shamelessly offer bribe. I have not met anyone so far who has got his passport verification done without the paying the "mamul". We need not protest or revolt violently. We need to be patient to be honest. There are hundreds such faults in you and me. 

My practical question is  why should we expect a suo motto change in netajis' behaviour? Are we expecting Gods to appear in their dreams and reform them overnight? They have been corrupt for all these years. "Power corrupts". They will not change on their own. We need to make that happen! 

The difficult question is how. It is a very profound question and if I were to know the answer, I would be joining Paul Krugman in receiving the nobel prize!  But I am not clueless. The first thing, we need to get over the temptation of blindly voting someone from our caste/religion to power. This will spoil all the social calculations of all parties. I candidly admit that it is a very tough thing to do. But realising what is at stake, I feel it is worth it. 

Secondly and most importantly, there has to be a social change in the attitudes of the people at a micro level. I recently attended an inspiring talk by Dr. Balasubramaniam, a very successful social entrapenuer, on "role of youth in nation building". When asked by a youth on how he can contribute, he made the same point - first change yourself before thinking about trying to change the system. "Be the change that you want to see". 

Stringent draconian laws controlling the external human behavior are not feasable in a longer run. What we need is morality. "Where law ends, morality begins"  Morality regulates the internal human behavior. The main challenge confronting India is not the poverty, terrorism, or the lack of infrastructure. It is lack of values. Everything else is derived from it. And once this root cause is addressed, all other issues will get resolved on their own. For that to happen, we need to take a firm resolve that in every sphere of life, we are going to be honest. That we will not take up shortcuts. That we will have perseverience, and take up responsibility. 

I am confident that it is possible. That will be a befitting tribute that we can pay for these brave soldiers who gave up their life protecting you and me. 

If you have been, thanks for reading!

Raju ban gaya lecturer !

Yes, you heard it right! I am now a lecturer at SJCE. Sounds funny? Well, a lot of my buddies feel so. They cannot imagine me teaching. Nor could I before. 

Spiderman's uncle(am poor at remembering phirangi names)  says "With great power comes great responsibility". An obvious corollary is "Responsibility takes away thy freedom". I cannot sit on the steps of Yampa, the milk parlour where I spent most part of my student life at college. I cannot put on a cool T-shirt. I cannot speak my mind. I cannot wear a bata hawai chapli. I cannot bunk classes. I cannot enter the class late, and if I make that mistake, I will be entering an empty class room . The list of cant's goes on and on. :(

But I have changed. I have a soft corner for all my Gurujis who are my colleagues now. Especially the ones who were liberal in giving mark and during internal assessments as well. During the internals, I can see myself in the last benchers who keep looking at me every now and then, and their wide, tense eyes says it all! I seem to have learnt a bit of the art of telepathy, and I can read them telling me "sir, please don't look at us, show mercy, do not disturb us in this knowledge transfer!". A while later, the last few minutes, and they seem to be cursing me for my persistence. 

This is not all. Every student  wishes me every time I meet him/her. This frequency and the benevolence on their faces increases after every internals, because they hope against hopes that this will influence my evaluation of their blue books and offset the damage that I have already caused before. 

The theme of discussions with colleagues always revolves around one single topic, politics. No, they are not bothered about predicting the Kashmir polls or the problems with coalition politics. It is all about campus politics. About who does what, who is close to who etc.  And I give a patient hearing, nodding my head at all times in all directions to make them happy. 

An interesting phase of my second profession. Enjoying every bit of it. Except for the thin pay slip at the month end!! 

Think, think and think...

I had a wonderful experience the last week which I would love to share. I teach at a local alternate school called "Kaliyuva Mane". The school is based on the principle of freedom. Children have freedom to think and ask questions. It is a free school and most of the kids are dropouts. 

But that seems to be a blessing in disguise. 

The most crucial asset that any human has is his intellect. Unfortunately, most of the schools in Indian educational system believe that education is merely transfer on knowledge from book to mind. 

Sometimes it is not even transfer of "knowledge", but transfer of a few sentences. This is in my view the biggest tragedy of India. This seems to be the root cause of all issues facing India. We have stopped questioning. We have stopped thinking. 

Coming back to my experience at "Kaliyuva Mane", I teach Geography to a bunch of kids who will take up SSLC exams in a year. No, they are not in 9th class! Surprised ?  Well, that is the uniqueness about this school. Children are divided into groups based on their current knowledge and there are no classes as such. Children learn, learn and learn. And take up SSLC exams in one go! So, I was teaching them the "rivers of India". I was telling them that there are two river systems, North Indian & South Indian, and the usual stuff. And that the Northern river system is perennial, Southern is not, etc.  When I mentioned about South Indian rivers getting dried up, pat came a question, Mahesha asked "Anna(Brother), why not connect the two of them?" !! I was dumb stuck. Before I could recover, Narayana interrupted with "Dumbo! don't you know? South India is at a height." !!

This is precisely what all great learned  thinkers, scientists & policy-makers at the highest level are debating about ! They call in "Interlinking of rivers". These kids were having a similar discussion here. This incident removed all doubts that I had on the relevance of Alternate Education that Ananth sir of Divyadeepa  preaches. We need children to think & this is what will make India a knowledge society. Not the 3G iphones or gphones that we dudes and babes might show-off.  This creativity needs to be encouraged & nourished. And only then can we hope to have a prosperous, peaceful & happy society!

Remembering Manju

19th of November should be a very proud moment for Mysoreans. On this very day three years ago, a courageous Manjunath Shanmugam gave up his life for a noble cause. As we all know, Manju, working as a sales manager for IOCL at Lakhimpur,  took the menace of corruption in retail petroleum distribution system head-on, and had to pay the price.Very rarely do we find such a courage, bravery, and valor in the modern youth.

We Mysoreans should be proud of his association with our city. He did his under graduation from SJCE and went on to join IIML. I hear that he opted to join the PSU, IOCL by choice. He believed that he could make a "change". I am proud that I am from the same college that he was. What surprised me the most was that he also happens to be from CS branch. I was  discussing about him with one of my colleagues at SJCE who also happens to be his classmate. I was told that he was like any other "dude" during his college days. He used to waste his time like most of us used to do. He used to prepare "chits" for internals! Typical of any JCite. Looks like something @ IIML changed his way of looking at things. 

His contribution is more relevant in the current context that ever.Transparency International, in its latest nation wide survey, places Karnataka at the top vis-a-vis corruption. What is more worrying is the fact that people seem to accept it as a part of life. Corruption seems to have spread its wings from womb to tomb. It is high time we wake up and make our voice be heard.I only wish we had more shanmugams. Manju, we are proud of you and will not let your sacrifice go in vain!