Doubts

Doubts, yeah doubts. I have too many of them.

Is today's 'Education' really the panacea we are looking for? Or is there more?

Many things we need can wait, but the child can’t. To him, we can’t say ‘tomorrow’. Because his name is ‘today’. 

Lately, I realized, contemplating comes involuntarily most of the times. A wide smile that lights up a room doesn't always mean complete, absolute happiness. Change can be as minuscule as maximal it can be. But whatever it is, it is good. Because, yeah... I came to make peace with the notion that utopia is utter boredom,there always has to be some place for change. May be it is but an exaggeration, but I am here to throw light on what I came across recently, and I just got caught up there. May be I should get it out of my system to move on,so I write.

As always, I boil down every human problem to the only panacea I realized since childhood, and that was, is and I guess which always will be ‘Education’. I thought education can change everything, as much as I realize I was right I also realized I couldn't have been more wrong. I miss those days where we can run along the corridor, catch up with a teacher who is taller than you, just to ask a doubt.. So that she can bend down to listen and clarify what is bugging a tiny brain. I miss those days where you raise your hand to get the teacher’s attention just to ask a question so loud to be audible enough to get the doubt clarified. Yeah, back then, I had math doubts.. May be languages and sciences.. But now, I cannot even place some doubts into any genre and my mind doesn't stop blabbering. Well, 20 days at home a bunch of movies and awesome food, may be everyone gets many doubts.

• Change doesn't come to us running if we sit idle. It has got some ego, we need to go there and persuade it to come along and join us, and so is success. While we criticize ego, we try to hold on to it, as that is what gives us the identity we crave for,right?

• Whatever the change the visionaries have anticipated, and strove for, I speak now, actually, we speak now, with the benefit of hind sight that it is inadequate, but we take time to realize that it was relevant and that was what has helped us pave the way to reach this day. Why is it that change has never been overhauling? Why is it always in small doses? Is it like a medicine that the societal system can only take as much as it can agree?

• Just because you know it is panacea, it doesn't mean that it will be the right thing to follow blindly. Doing the right thing is not what matters. Doing the right thing right is what beckons change right into the lap. Every idea that is in shape has to be efficient.It is the idea that is the world around us. So we say, Action has to always accompany idea, so there is no such thing as a handicap right?

• Aspirations can never fall short. But they have to spend more time with action. What appears as the toughest time, as Aun San Suu Kyi said the other day is the time when you think success is round the corner, but sometimes, turning round seems like eternity. There are no short-cuts to truth are they?  Why is it that there is no end to where inspiration can take us?

• Does beauty really lie in the eyes that behold? Don’t you think, all our eyes are tied with the handcuffs of stereotyped socialization? Let me tell this small thing.. fair is beauty, dark is ugly or tall is appealing short is not. At least that is what is endorsed in the million dollar ads that are all around us. If it is so, then where does the eye have space,to make a choice of stamping something as beauty, without going into various apprehensions?

• Initially the bell had no religious symbolism. It was used to grab the attention of the masses. Mind is where things are born. Mind is wonderfully weird while being cautiously vibrant. How is it possible that it is always capable of rhetorically giving life to antonyms, while placing side by side, making conflict inevitable?
• Why is fear so timid? It ultimately takes the form of the brave,it succumbs, with no choice,none at all.

Yeah, I got all these ramblings shouting at me from inside my brain after I watched a bunch of movies. Hmm.. Of what, like, say 5 languages. I know, mind is one thing that never shuts up I guess. Well, here is the realization part, these days I answer everything with this: The Sword and Shield analogy.

Let me take 'Education', as I mentioned earlier. I am not here to endorse or criticize any government program. Because I always think that change that is eternal always comes from within and not from the external push. Education, as a shield, can only protect you from what you don’t want to be. It is rout.It can’t change anything, like we know.. It is memorizing and blurting out. A shield is incapable of inducing change. However, Education like a sword,creative, agile and intelligently adaptable, will protect you, while you shape your surroundings according to what you aspire. A sword, it is creative, dynamic and at the same time protectively hindering. It is not a dagger that kills. A sword moulds what is at your disposal to whatever is the best thing that could be at use right then, right there.

I could not help myself from applying that to 'Talking'. Talking, when used as a shield, is just a protection. It will not give you the dauntless valour to defend against the wrong. Most of the time, it makes you end up ignoring or overlooking it, just to appease to the surroundings. But, talking, as a sword it is one thing that empowers you, that is when you actually talk of the ideas, the vibrancy of the human mind is articulated. Furthermore, I could immerse myself in reasoning this analogy for Listening, smiling, relations and everything, and just when I was thinking, everything has two extreme ends of application,I realized,there is always a third option. Not the both, or may be the both. The sword and the shield. After all, the best wars were won where they all had utilized the both. Well, it is time to for us to get out of the stereo type education systems, and socialization. Well beyond the sword and the shield,there is always more to explore, that is where our vision should lead the light to. That is where we can say, aim of life, not of the dreams. Dreams always have the chance of ‘if’, if we really are here to aspire, I don’t think we can leave that little space. I hope, I made some sense, as this is going a little over my head right now. Or may be I have more doubts. 

Yeah true, now I realize it is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.

I think it is time to say Night night now. Adios!

PS:: A really long hiatus beckons.Living sans technology is finally appealing to be fun. <Hibernation mode>

5 years of time! To be or Not to be..

4th September 2010,

2:00am : Watched that one movie. Lost gale in the sequences I always loved, once upon a time!
2:15am: Switched off the laptop.. Checked my cell phone. No missed
calls.. No messages. Hmmph! That, I knew!
2:16am : "Hey, Pls let me know of the tym and place, about the
workshop thing tomoro! :) Gudnyt.."
Send message to: Mr.A..

2:17am: A water bottle.. Dark room.. Earphones on.. Some random song..
2:19am: Fireflies! :)
2:20am: Fireflies.. And my favourite song on the shuffled list! " Ahh..Feels Great!!" :)
2:22am: One more arrest to the deterrent late nights in the mobile light.. Shimmering!
2:25am: Tuckered at the assured Midnight blues... And.. ZzzzZZzzzzz!! O-)
7:00am: Sleepy eyes, Half open.. Checked the inbox to find a Text..
"Kalasiguda Boys Highschool,Secunderabad Patny Centre.. Be there by
1:30pm! :) Gudmorning.."
7:10am: Back to sleep.. :)
:D :D :D For the next few hours.. Some completely random stuff I wouldn't dicker for an extravagent sizzling hot chocolate brownie! :D:D :D
1:34 pm: Waiting at the spot, cognizant of the text I got earlier that
day! Though just four minutes late, I was tensed of being missed out
upon this! I did not want to miss..
1:58pm: After a few random calls, They come and pick me up and take me to the school.. Hence making me realize, yet again, I am bad.. No.. not just bad, I am BADDD at finding places..!
What happened there in lieu of a sober weekend afternoon is what is making me write this post!

As we entered the school.. The principal came out..
"Great to have you guys here! It is a really good thing that you are
conducting a career guidance workshop to the 9th and tenth classes ,It
is going to be really helpful for them. Please try and do it every
year, so that all the batches are benefitted."
It was one single building, close to ruins, I have seen worse.. But the terrace did not have a pent wall.. Dangerous! The children were all over the place.. None clad with uniforms.. Too much noise...
As this was what was happening infront of me... Something occurred to me, Something long forgotten.. Something that was enshrouded by many other playful memories I held on to..




"That was a sunny February afternoon, 5 years ago.. I was 
sitting the 9th class (D section room),When my class teacher 
walked in, many flyers and a few pamphlets crouched in her 
hands.. As she came in..
distributed those, everyone in the class was excited while 
they read.. I still remember the first question it put to us.. 


'What is your goal?/ What is the career option you would opt 
for?'"
As these memories rushed.. Someone, from behind.. 'Hey, 
which one do you think?'
I said "Yeah yeah, U were asking me to chose right? This 
poster is good, We ll use this one today!"
The principal was back, He went in to subdue the children, 
with all the possible concern one can have.. "Please speak to 
them as if you are one among them, they would not 
understand or reach out to you if you
spoke eccentric."

Consenting to what he said, 
We entered the hallway.. 
Where all the 8th,9th and 
10th class students were eager to know what is with 
us, till we distributed some 
sheets, Where the first question said "What is your goal?" 
The group of 8th class kids I was allocated to give a career 
guidance workshop on.. Out of the 11 in that group.. 7 
wanted to be Doctors and their answer to Why? Was not 'I 
don’t know' They all answered  that they wanted to serve 
the society. I was amazed! 3 Police officers and a 
Mechanical Engineer also held me amazed at their social 
responsibility.


"I never had a problem writing in English in my 8th or 
9th,or for that matter I never had a problem speaking in 
English too! As a kid always wanted to be a doctor! And 
as the second question asked, Why? I did not know why, I 
always wanted to be.. May be because they can help 
everyone. That was the first time in the 9th I  filled in that answer.. And I was asked to go to a room where our 
career counsellers were supposed to be sitting.. As I 
walked through the corridors.. Gay with
the sunlight.. I always felt, that someday I would be a 
doctor and there will be people waiting for me in the lounge.. waiting for my help.. For a hand to save, inspired by life! That day all I remember was most of my other classmates filled in 'Software 
Engineers' 'Mechanical Engineers' and ofcourse 
'Sportsman', Many had different reasons, and some of 
them filled in 'To serve the people'"


As they filled in the forms, One thing I observed.. They all 
had trouble with English, spellings and words, But they did 
not want to write in Telugu. They wanted to fill it up in 
English. They were determined to do that and they made me 
spell each and every word of the four questions that form 
had! I explained them of what all career options they had 
other than what they opted for and also how to reach there! 


They were mischievous, but were keen on knowing, intent 
on heeding! All the scholarship programs available, And also 
a toll free number launched for the guidance program. At 
the end of the workshop, as we bid farewell to them, I don’t 
know if I ll met these kids again, a kid (who wants to be a doctor)came to me, and 
asked me.. 'Di, Who are
you? A doctor? Did you also fill these forms in your 8th 
class?'
I smiled. I did not answer! I did not want to! May be of the 
guilt that I cheated on my own dreams!


Or may be.. I did not want the kid to know that a failure 
guided him on his career plans! Whatever that has happened 
to me.. I am a happy person now. I have been that person for long.. But that question, I could not just answer, 
fondling the kids hair.. I just said 'Study well.. One day you 
should be a doctor.. I ll come
to you for the treatment!' He smiled, wide 'Yes Di.. One day 
after I become a doctor.. I ll call this toll free number and I 
ll ask them to inform you that I achieved
it!' Given to merry frolicking of his fellow mates.. He left 
home..!

When we all sat jotting down the logistics of the day and observation on the statistics..
'More than 90% of them wanted to be police! And serve the society'
'More than 30% of them wanted to be Doctos, also to serve people'
5 years back.. I don’t know how many answered 'To serve the society..' But I bet its fewer.. much much less than 90% way less than that. I forgot to mention.. I went to one of the finest schools in town.. 'It
was private' I know why I did not want to be a doctor. Fear. Selfish, I put myself before the society. There may be many reasons why I am not a doctor now. The point is,I couldnot catch up with what I dreamt as a kid! I might be a happy person today. But I am not the person what I always wanted to be!
I never had to walk,bare foot, 2 miles to get to school.
I never faced problems buying books.
I never sat in a class room that did not have a fan.
I never had problem writing or speaking in English.
I never worked for others after the school hours.
I never wore ragged clothes.
I never slept hungry.
My life was set.. to a certain standard of living. I was a happy child. I did not know that the other side of the coin even existed! None of my classmates ever had those efforts to be made. We were born and brought up happy.. May be that is the reason.. We could not see beyond a Happy ending.. A happy person with lots of money. May be that is why We could not fill the 'Why' column. May be that is why I am not a person whom I dreamt of being! I am this now! And I cant go back to chose the other road! Yet again, My life was set.
7:30 pm: Back to my room.
9:30 pm: Started drafting a blog post.
And now I type this:
"I don’t like saying ‘the poor' or the 'needy' there aren't any. They are not poor. They are the dream catchers. Lancer! Its time we stopped feeling happy about our set lives.. What I could not do, I want the others to achieve. Who are more willed upon achieving it! You are already the person whom you dreamt of being? Then why don’t you be the first stepping stone to the others who are striving hard to catch up!?"
It was the same, I was still the same person.. But that day.. When I went to bed.. I was happier..
Happier than I have ever been..
5th September 2010,
2:17am : A water bottle.. Dark room.. Earphones on.. Some random song..
2:19am: Fireflies! :)
It is just that they looked more beautiful to me! :)

I was a happy person.. Now I am happier! :)

Now, that I shared my dreams.. :) Just because I realized, Its never too late.. And nothing is set! I thanked all my teachers before sleep hunkered down.. Atleast,I am a happy person. And I could make atleast one kid 'Dream big!'