Obsessions of Indians

 Americans are obsessed with 'football'- not as we know it. The foot is hardly used. Anyway, it's a national obsession. In India, we fret about cricket in the same way. Every run, each ball in every match big or small, is analysed by armchair pundits. Opinions about batsmen or bowlers see-saw faster than the stock market, or the dollar exchange rate.

But there is another obsession we have (not the fat wedding), which is not talked about as much. Education. From pre-primary play schools, to Kindergarten, and onwards, we obsess about schools, and grades-only we call them marks. It may sound crazy (it is? Ok), but every parent is obsessed about what his kid will study- at least in the middle class, which is infinitely larger than we assume based on statistics (which are dodgy at best). Whether it is the Board exams given by Super-bored students, or entrance exams that are cracked by the super-prepared ones, one thing stands out. The obsession about education, IITs, or IIMs, or the National Law Schools, that recently entered 'the league'. 

Coaching classes seem to be the largest industry in India, though fragmented into hundreds of brands in each town. Kota is a town known only for coaching classes, the way Hyderabad once was -or the whole of Andhra Pradesh. 

If we only cared as much about the outcomes of that education on society and its well-being..

Anopheles Comes Back- Episode 6

This is my friend, the female mosquito who bites. She staged a comeback, buzzing into my room the other night after a long time. She asked me what I was up to.

"We are going to have our Convocation soon," I said.
"What's a Convocation?" she wanted to know more.

" It's neither a con, nor a vocation, but a special event where our graduating students are given their diplomas and medals, and there are a few speeches."
"Who gives these speeches?" Anopheles asked.
"Well, the invited Chief Guest, and our Chairman", and sheepishly added, " I do too."

"Why is humankind into speeches so much?" she asked.
"Why, don't you have speeches?" I was curious.
"I haven't heard many, except from this fellow FULL MARX that I told you about. The revolutionary whose ideas died a quick death. But that was a long time ago."

" Speeches can transform people," I argued. "Look at what Martin Luther King did with his ' I have a dream' speech. And Lincoln before him, I guess."
" How many have you had since that one with the same impact?" she wanted to know.
"Not many," I grudgingly admitted.

" People must first want to listen, and absorb what the speaker is trying to tell them." she continued. "Or else, it is a lot of hot air."
"Hell, that sounds like a lot of classes of mine going to waste," I thought to myself. Outwardly, I put up a brave front. "Yes, but that's what the audience is doing-listening."
She gave me one of her trademark 'looks'. "Is that what you think? Why don't you ask anyone at the end of your speech as to what they heard?"
I promised to do that, and hastily changed the topic to something more comforting- or that's what I thought.

"We are again turning champs in cricket, you know. We beat Australia," I informed her proudly.
"This game of cricket. How many countries play it?"
"Six, no...seven, I think.
"Why don't you guys win some football games?"
"Umm," ..I muttered something incomprehensible, realizing I had blundered into the wrong territory again.

I resolved to be better prepared for a debate next time, and said my goodbyes to her.