Reservations are good : BUT for booking tickets and getting a place in restaurants !

A few days back I went to get the form of a B-school that cost Rs. 1200 and as I waited I noticed another candidate wearing a branded t shirt , with a hair style that would suit a Hollywood hero who got the same form for rs 600 thanks to special quotas. Is the government helping the economically and socially backward classes? Sure! to get the next branded thing on the shelves of the malls. This may have been an exception but it is a reality. In medical schools , the IIT’s and now the IIM’s even in the faculty of of high ranked institutions like JNU merit is being compromised. There was report of how seats in JNU went vacant for the year for certain courses due to reservations , the existing students had taken admission elsewhere and no one from the (under?)priviledged category had taken admission later. Those vacant seats stand testimony to numerous lost opportunities.

Equal opportunities, the place where it all begins , well shouldn’t then we begin from the beginning ?should not the whole process of creating opportunity start from the basic primary level of education instead of this dismal patch-up work done as a remedy. “The roof may collapse any minute,” exclaimed a teacher at the Government Primary School located in Vijayanagar Colony in Hyderabad as reported in a daily. According to the Selected Educational Statistics (2000-2001), after spending several thousand crores on elementary education, the government has been able to bring down the dropout rate in primary schools by only two per cent in 10 years. Why not raise the standards of the government aided primary schools where quality education can be received ? The government chooses to ignore problems of high dropout rates , low literacy rates and yet considers reservations as the only solution.Why not remove the numerous barriers that some institutions erect based on religion, income etc? Why not pay the teachers their dues? Why create an inefficient lot and then cushion them with quotas etc? Wouldn’t it be a matter of pride if they did not have to “achieve” through quotas but on their own ability ? But no, that would mean a step against corruption, against convention. Declaring an increase in the quotas is what can perhaps be described as the “ostrich syndrome”, we bury our faces oblivious to the real problem, it is a self-imposed blindness. Declaration of an increase in the quotas is so much easier than bringing about a structural reform, after all every thing dies down after a few student agitations, media coverage , all efficiently quelled by the “authorities” . When will we realize what it is doing to our nation? We are compromising heavily on quality. India cannot prosper unless it stops discriminating , and creating professionals who gain benefits for generations, acquire wealth but still keep on benefiting and , to put it simply, inefficient in most cases .

Gifts and Wrappers and Me …

I am writing this as I look at the shelves in front of me , the shelves of my room., where not an inch of space is left. They are crowded by gifts, tiny showpieces of dolphins, dancing girls (looking amused with each other ) ,pen-stands, photo-frames, all waiting patiently to be stripped clean of that gray dusty layer of neglect. Why do we give gifts? To commemorate days ? Special days! , special people – and yet that layer of dust on them , on our minds and on relations dusty and hazy with the passage of time .

Are all the gifts , that fly off the racks in the shops “bought” out of truly felt emotions or are they symbols of conventions? Conventions imposed by society where relations are judged according to monetary worth, where the wallet’s weight decides the “quantity” of affection. The one giving the better (read more expensive) gift is the better friend, lover, relative and sadly, parent. For some I guess its almost equivalent to an “emotional bribe” to be exchanged, or substituted for love.

When I was in school and even now , I am strangely hurt if a friend just tears apart the wrapper of a gift that I have given. Logically it cannot be explained, well perhaps it can be explained by some as a celebration of the self, or a sense of self-importance. I wont bother to analyze it, at the same time I cannot deny that twinge in my heart as the wrapper is torn in two seconds. Sometimes if a really special person is involved even the cello-tape is cut with feelings. Am I too idealistic? May be! But no apologies here!

I am not against this beautiful method of expressing oneself only if that is the sole cause .in fact in this world where we rarely find time to feel, leave alone express what we feel- any method is good enough ! for me, well I haven’t given my mother a glossy expensive gift on every mother’s day but my love remains and is stated in other ways, as simple as placing the bottle of water beside her bed every night. So by all means do get that special thing for that special one but do it for the right reason!

indian authors

I remember getting hold of the first Indian English writing that I read, it was in the calcutta book fair…a copy of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies in a dusty Oxford stall. What followed was a highly enjoyable reading experience , a glimpse into the world of the NRI’s and yet connecting with the emotional universe explored in that limited glimpse. People have many complaints against this wonderful body of work that is Indian authors writing in english,according to some who have religiously fed on the classics its “neither here nor there” (comment made by a friend) then some who feel it is limited in scope etc . Firstly it is true that they are limited but not in scope ,only in the section of society they choose to portray but I feel the author deserves more credit if he or she can unfold a variety of emotional experiences in that limited picture ,for instance Jhumpa Lahiri or if we look back then R.K.Narayan who chose a section of people to write about but presented a beautiful earthy concoction of subtle universal emotions. There are people who have read “The Post Master” by Rabindranath Tagore in Bengali as well as in English and who complain its not the “same” thing ,well being a Bengali I can accept that ,but then if any native from Brazil said that reading Coelho in English was not the “same” thing, would we stop reading the translation or would we start learning the original language in which it was written? Sometimes it’s not about the language but the expressions. When I read Amit Chaudhuri’s work (a new world) for the first time I felt strangely connected with the story ,may be a little though not entirely because every time he mentioned “gariahat” or “golpark” I could conjure up a picture in my mind but I am sure anyone not living in Calcutta would also be able to identify ,if not with the place at least with the emotions in the book. If these authors are in their own way taking India to the world they deserve the credit they get ,I mean how many outside India would actually learn Bengali to read a Satyajit Ray or a Sharat Chandra novel ? They would grab the nearest translation at hand, we as Bengalis may feel they are losing out on something but then that’s exactly how a Russian might feel when we read Dostoyevsky in English !! So lets be a little more rational and logical while we comment about the next book we read that is by an Indian author .

daybreak .....

noises...disgusting chirpy ones...... so "not in tune".........with the silence of course.......

a faint light......arriving wen its unwanted....hastily barred by a swift pull of the curtains...

trying ....trying hard.....

for them its a moment of beginning life ,however..
for me its a moment of beginning slumber...

they usher in the sun
while i "put out the light"

theirs is the enthusiasm of a "start"
mine is the contented sigh before a "rest"

yet....i wonder is it all so different?
or,is it just an ego trying to vent?
to create differences where there are none
attitudes vary yet the moment is one..

daybreak........

everything is so like it
everything is so disgustingly "in-between"

for individuals nothing is the same..
there's always a distinction between
a "me" and a "them"..

yet at moments of extreme clarity...
the only logic that exists is that of
an universal similarity...

of thoughts and actions and feelings that...
words can't contain..
similar??? different ???
can't explain.



noises still......confusion....of a potentially busy day...

eyes shut....unwanted floating images...

images of an "i" scoffing at and having fun
with the same person..
at different moments..

images of an "i"
talking silly and feeling profound ...at the same moment..

recognizing the need to achieve
seeing the goal engulfed
in a mist of indecision,pessimism and lethargy.......

...........all to be overcome......one day...at another daybreak........

as of now.....noises fade....they dont disappear...nothing does.... sigh..

i reach out....to that cherished land of ....sleep.