What a life

The Web of Life

Life is moving so fast there is no time to reflect and chart the future course of our actions. You have to do everything together these days and hope that every piece falls in the right place. I have learnt that whether we like it or not, luck plays a big role in life. Yes, like everything else, this also is unfair. But that’s the way it is.

Also, the value of 22 years of education has to an extent increased and decreased in my eyes. Certainly, unlike what was promised for one-third of my life, education is not everything. It alone can’t help you, as they say ‘make it large’ in life. Education can help you achieve the basics. It can also help you define your starting point in life. However, no matter what you do, education in itself has very little scope of being a differentiator (unless you are a NASA based rocket scientist or something). Differentiators will always be things over and above education. It can be things like people skills, attitude towards clients, ability to sweet talk your boss and many other things. This is where the game changes. At the end of the day, the basics in most of the jobs are fairly simple. It is ‘what else you do’ that differentiates you from others and these are things that are not taught in schools. This game of networking, sweet talking and back stabbing is very important in life. Afterall, a mix of all this, combined with basic work we do, is the only differentiator that we possibly can create in our careers. The reason why many people who we feel are not as good as us are promoted is perhaps the same. Although their bottom lines might be lower than ours, when it comes to the mix, their figures are certainly better than ours.

Dont get me wrong. I am not saying that education is not important. It is certainly important. It opens our eyes to the world around us. It also helps us write intelligent posts (unlike this one). I am just saying that it is not everything. What matters more in life are the experiences that we have had, the different people we have observed and spoken to, the places we have visited, the games we have played, the amount of pressure we can take and many other such variables which do not fit in our school equation. These are the things that will differentiate us from others and make us leaders. So, the question is are we doing enough to create lock-ins in our professional lives so that their decisions are in our favor most of the times? Are we?

A Child’s Spirit

Hey. I have returned to Mysore and already the heat is on. Life has again become a scorecard with mediocre numbers scribbled here and there that nobody including me cares about. But one thing I love about this place is the weather. From the scorching summer heat of Delhi where mercury is constantly hitting 45 degrees, if you are suddenly transported to a place where temperature is always below 30 degree Celsius, all you can say is ‘wow’. However, this post is not about the weather or how beautiful Mysore is. This is about exams.

Don’t worry guys; I am not going to tell you how I faired in my exams or how exams are a territory where recession is always a way of life. We all know that! I will simply talk about what exams do to us. To simply put it, exams are a way of testing a person’s knowledge about certain topics. But is this what exams are only about? Nah, it is just the beginning. A beginning of a journey of continual turmoil and harassment of a child’s spirit. In an examination pattern, some children are going to get more marks while some will eventually end up getting less. Those who get fewer marks are automatically considered ‘weak’ in studies and are treated differently or rather indifferently by both the teachers and parents. Rather than extending a helping hand to those who do not do well, many teachers simply ignore them and stop caring about them. They think they have better work to do. “What can we do if a child is not focusing? It is not our fault. We have to focus on the remaining 40 students in the class who would get into the IIT’s and knock on the doors of IIM’s in the coming days. Why don’t the parents take better care of him?”

But what can parents do? Moms and dads are working 12 hours everyday just to earn some money and give their children all the ‘happiness’ in the world. The child will have a cell phone, latest play station model, a computer and all the gadgetry that he needs to forget his parents. Why are you in such a hurry guys, wait for a few years and he or she would anyways forget you forever. After giving all these gifts and Complan or Boost or Milo or whatever, when a child comes home with a red report card, the parents just do not understand what went wrong. “ We are doing everything we can. We are working 12-hour shifts just to make his future better. We give him all the things he wants, satisfy all his wishes but still he does not gets good marks. What more can we do? Maybe we need to become a little strict.”

Then starts the time when a child’s spirit is flogged everyday. His every action is linked to marks. Everyone gets a reason to say something to the child because he is not getting ‘numbers’. Uncles, aunts, cousins, family friends (the children of who all are in IIT’s or IIM’s or are studying abroad) come and deliver a speech on how to ‘control’ children in a better way.

Then there are classic parent rants,

“Did you hear what aunty said? Why do you make our lives miserable everyday?”

“Vartika lives just two houses ahead. She is also in your class only. Why is it that she comes first while you are nowhere?”

“We will have to open a sabzi shop for you someday because you are good at nothing else.”

As if the parents are not enough, many teachers also deliver the same treatment to the child when he is in school. The spirit of learning that a child has gets a bashing everyday and finally he starts believing that learning whatever is taught at school is not possible for him and he stops trying. This is the day when exams kill a child. OK, I accept that it is not the exams alone but careless attitude on the part of parents and teachers also. But we must accept that competition in our society has created a social stigma against those who are unable to perform well in exams. When would we realize that each child is different? When will we start ‘trying to find out the real reasons’ why a child was unsuccessful in an exam?

You know, we need to start realizing all this pretty soon because we all would also have beautiful kids someday. I hope life and competition do not make us numb. Would we be different in our approach or would we give back to our child what we have seen or faced? Remember, the mission is not to ever let that burning flame of curiosity die in a child.