We had been having power cuts for the last three weeks or so. Headaches they were to the campus inmates who prefer to be up until the early hours of the day. That day, a set of distinguished fourth years downed hastily a few more shots of vodka in the anticipation of a dry day barely 300 metres away from the Janmashtami festivities. We, five CELites sat in the ANC, stuffing ourselves with layers of cheese and chicken to kill time.
a: "Dude! did you hear that?It was on the TV that we would be having 9 hours of power cut everyday
b:Really! shit man
c: yeah, 7 to 12 in the morning, 4-6 in the evening, and 10-11 in the night
b:m******s! why don't they do anything be. This is bad, this is worse than a village. what are they doing man?
a; as kaul said, we are going back to the sixties be. the infrastructure is fallin bey!
c: till when is this supposed to continue
d: they have had bad rains , probably till next monsoons
a,b&c: what!! don't tell me that?
c:what happened re?
d:apparently lokis protested against the uninterrupted power supply that we get here whereas they have power cuts and they have had no rains so they need to run borewells
It went pretty high up in the Rajasthan government.
e: You know what, they might even cancel Oasis, because of Swine flu and stuff
b:Crap be! you can't stay at this place somebody take me out
a:f*** government , f*** lokis, they don't understand that they depend on us.Pull out this college and they would be dying on the streets.
c:Dude,they too don't get power
b: So what, we pay industrial rates bey!
c; and these bastards live on subsidies
cheap politics. but then they are serving their constituency. We don't choose Rajasthan government.
a: can't insti do anything? Dude i am so convinced why the rich hate the cribbing poor.They deserve it!
c: do something man. I wish i could set a virus on them and see each one of them die. not know what hit them.Die till they repent. Man , Indians are pussies.They can't sustain a revolution. They never have in history.
a: I feel like raping their women , selling their children to slavery.The ruling class in the olden days was soo right.
c: Come on man, we need to sleep. It's already 3.
That night C slept at 3, woke up at 11. The fan has been whirring unbroken over his head. He was wished Happy Indpendence day by a web philosopher who like him had been a member of CEL and believed in Standing Tall. C , 10 years ago had lived through a blackout that lasted 45 days, he still emphasized this emphatically to his peers when he wanted to highlight his humble origins and his consequent rise against all odds.But then , all adversities are meant to be surmounted and victory over them celebrated , not eliminated for benefit of the society.C and his many friends like A,B,D.... believe in the power of ideas, of informal discussions throwing up solutions.It is just that the rumours of a impending nine hour power cut tear off that veneer and disturb the leisurely equilibrium of ideation.
Replace A.B.C.D with Americans , Japanese , Germans and British and lokis with Indians and you would balk at the double standards of our chatter class. You would even think that privileged class of the wider world is fairer without Indians in its ranks.
If we have the right to better power than lokis just because we pay more, why do we complain of food crisis when there are people in the world who can buy things at much higher prices?Why do we even talk of iniquity?
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
In Examinations we trust.
Less than two months from now, a cousin of mine will sit for his first public examination with many other 16 year olds like himself .He hates it,and obviously I would be so regressive to agree with his parents to force down his throat a career perspective that seems so much of a 90s thing if you believe the new wave generalists and non-conformists that I have a chance of meeting everyday in this god-forsaken place.
We love quantify things when we cannot vouch for their credibility . We love clarity. These three hour tests will give you a number , an inalienable identity that lives with you on your certificates. Is this fair? No.
I know you hate the Haber's process for making ammonia that they teach you in your secondary school and if you still don't do it you will begin to hate the equations of tangent to a parabola that they teach you in class 12th and if you manage to bear them all, you will begin to despise the functions and pointers they will begin to teach you when once you end up in some faceless engineering college. The point is you will continue to hate examinations if you stick to the idea that they were meant to be instruments to quantify the amount of education drilled into you. Well, examinations in India are not about the business of education, they are about the business of democracy.
Long long time ago, there used to be a British guy called Charles John Canning. Perhaps you know him as the evil governor who suppressed the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. What few people know that he unwittingly created a system through the Indian Councils act of 1861 that has outlived even the Raj.He started the first clerical examinations for Indians in the British Civil Services. In the last 149 years we have diversified and introduced Viceroy Canning's legacy to every sphere of professional qualification . The first Indian nationalists were civil servants- the product of this system and early indicators of the powerful tool for democratization public examinations would become.
The dilemma for an examination's necessity was put forward so lucidly by a friend Nikhil here : "An examination is so structured , a very fair game if you are in the mode. Like say, I want to get into design. Then there isn't a career path as organized for me as it would , say if I were interested in Management. In that case, I would have just joined a coaching center and cracked CAT- a method to evaluate you fair and square."
Haven't you noticed that the Hindi movies that talk about following your heart and living by your convictions are themselves starred in by children of celebrity parents ? All our young politicians that somehow seem so promising today are not the products of a social revolution but gradual dynastic entrenchment and evolution.
Examinations , my dear, are meant not for people who want to imitate their parents or step into their shoes but for those who want to surpass them. One of these days, when you receive your admit card for your 10th board examinations, remember that what you have in your hands is something more powerful today in India than the voter ID card that they will issue to you on turning eighteen. Behind the anonymity of a roll number as you write you exams, your pen will have as much power as that of the most privileged children who appear beside you.
Equality of opportunity is not a frivolous goal - the makers of our Constitution could not guarantee it despite penning down 395 articles in terse text. Examinations may probably accomplish it. In examinations we trust.
We love quantify things when we cannot vouch for their credibility . We love clarity. These three hour tests will give you a number , an inalienable identity that lives with you on your certificates. Is this fair? No.
I know you hate the Haber's process for making ammonia that they teach you in your secondary school and if you still don't do it you will begin to hate the equations of tangent to a parabola that they teach you in class 12th and if you manage to bear them all, you will begin to despise the functions and pointers they will begin to teach you when once you end up in some faceless engineering college. The point is you will continue to hate examinations if you stick to the idea that they were meant to be instruments to quantify the amount of education drilled into you. Well, examinations in India are not about the business of education, they are about the business of democracy.
Long long time ago, there used to be a British guy called Charles John Canning. Perhaps you know him as the evil governor who suppressed the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. What few people know that he unwittingly created a system through the Indian Councils act of 1861 that has outlived even the Raj.He started the first clerical examinations for Indians in the British Civil Services. In the last 149 years we have diversified and introduced Viceroy Canning's legacy to every sphere of professional qualification . The first Indian nationalists were civil servants- the product of this system and early indicators of the powerful tool for democratization public examinations would become.
The dilemma for an examination's necessity was put forward so lucidly by a friend Nikhil here : "An examination is so structured , a very fair game if you are in the mode. Like say, I want to get into design. Then there isn't a career path as organized for me as it would , say if I were interested in Management. In that case, I would have just joined a coaching center and cracked CAT- a method to evaluate you fair and square."
Haven't you noticed that the Hindi movies that talk about following your heart and living by your convictions are themselves starred in by children of celebrity parents ? All our young politicians that somehow seem so promising today are not the products of a social revolution but gradual dynastic entrenchment and evolution.
Examinations , my dear, are meant not for people who want to imitate their parents or step into their shoes but for those who want to surpass them. One of these days, when you receive your admit card for your 10th board examinations, remember that what you have in your hands is something more powerful today in India than the voter ID card that they will issue to you on turning eighteen. Behind the anonymity of a roll number as you write you exams, your pen will have as much power as that of the most privileged children who appear beside you.
Equality of opportunity is not a frivolous goal - the makers of our Constitution could not guarantee it despite penning down 395 articles in terse text. Examinations may probably accomplish it. In examinations we trust.
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