Yesterday I was at Yelagiri hills with my colleagues/friends from Indian Institute of Science. Yelagiri is a hill station in the Vellore district of Tamil Nadu, India. Punganoor artificial lake-cum-park at Yelagiri was of special interest to the group and so was our first destination.
The lake had boating (peddling and rowing) facility. It was 50 per person and we bought 19 tickets. While most among us chose peddling, me and two others opted rowing. We wore our life jackets and stepped into the boat. Each rowing boat had a guy who would take us one round through the lake. It was only when we started; I noticed that the person rowing the boat was a young boy. He was sitting in the center facing me.
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| Ramachandran (boy in the center). Why is he not wearing a life jacket? |
Somehow I felt like speaking to him and so struck up a conversation in Tamil (Tamizh). It went on like this –
Me: So, what’s your name?
Boy: Ramachandran, Sir.
Me: Age?
Boy: Seventeen
Me: So, you don’t go to school?
Boy: Yes, I do.
Me: Are you saying you work here only on Sundays?
Boy: Yes Sir.
Me: Hmm.. so which class?
Boy: 11th Sir.
Me: how much did you score in 10th?
Boy: No reply...
Me: Did you pass in all the subjects?! (Looking into his eyes)
Boy: Yes, in three attempts :-(
Me: humph! What do your parents do?
Boy: They work as Coolies.
Me: Brothers and Sisters, how many, what do they do?
Boy: They also work.
(By then I understood that he was not ready to open up too much, which was sort of expected as I was a stranger. But I dint want to stop. He was still rowing and we were half way through.)
Me: Hmmm, so how much do they pay you?
Boy: 150 Rs per day.
Me: Who owns the boat? Private or Government?
Boy: Private only Sir. Government puts out to tender.
Me: How many rounds do you make a day?
Boy: 25 to 26.. I work from 10 in the morning to 6 in the evening.
(I did some mental calculation- 25 rounds each with say 4 people and 50 per person would make an income of Rs 5000 for the owner. No fuel cost, nothing. And they are paying him only 150 :( )
Me: So don’t you get tired? Isn’t it difficult?
Boy: Yes, I sleep once I go home.
Me: Hmm... So you should study paa, else it will be difficult, score good marks in future, how long will you work like this?
Boy: No reply :(
(I understood it is time to stop asking such questions and giving him suggestions and changed the topic.)
Me: My name is Varun, from Pallakad which is near Coimbatore.
(I always assume that all tamilians know where Coimbatore is!)
Me: Hey, you watch movies, which one did you see last? Did you see Ezham Arivu?
(Surya is the hero, so I expected him to have watched it!)
Boy: Yes, I did.. Theatre is far, I went to Tirupattur..
Me: So, liked the movie, heroine?
Boy: :D
(We almost reached the bank from where we started. So I stopped. I guess we were on boat for about 12-15 minutes.)
As soon as I stepped out of the boat I took some money from pocket: three notes of Rs 20 each. Gave it to him with a smiling face and said “Thank You”. He took it happily and said “Thank You, Sir”. The next group of tourists were already getting into the boat and he was all set to take them.
We spent some more time in Yelagiri and left there by 6 PM in the Swaraj Mazda (a mini bus) which we had hired from Bangalore. I was sitting in the last row with a guy on my left and about 5 or 6 bags on my right. I was still contemplating about him, Ramachandran. I started thinking how I spent Sundays when I was 17 or 18 years old- “I used to get up late, had idly-vada-chutney-sambar for breakfast, kept aside two vadas from my share for lunch because I loved eating them once they were not crispy. Then left for tuitions (on my Activa Honda) in the afternoon which went on till 9:45 in the night with a break in between during which I used to have coffee with my friend, Arjun. After tuitions I would come home, have dinner and sleep. I never thought about a part-time job or earning money.”
All the while, my friends were laughing, shouting and screaming their heads off in the bus :-). I could hear these words - “Awesome Akhila, Multi-talented Manasa, Beautiful Brinda, ..”..... hmmm... I fell asleep.
If you do not have food to eat, you would never think of "bigger" aims like education. But there is a possibility that a child, if made to understand that education is the easiest and safest way of getting out of his vicious circle, might be motivated enough to spend sometime to study. The following quote (although in different context) of Einstein applies to me and everyone who get their hands off by just reading and writing about them, "Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking".
ReplyDeleteI agree to what viru has said to a certain extent. "if made to understand that education...". But given the child's circumstances, it might be easier for him to understand that working for a day will fetch him enough money to be of little help to his family. "What if i can do this everyday?? I can only earn more money." This is the natural thought that might occur in his mind. He will need support from educated people or like wise to convince the long term benefits that education will provide and not fall for the short term ones.
ReplyDeleteIf we probably promise to give this kid Rs 150 every Sunday provided he didn't skip school and got good grades then he would hopefully be fooled into reaping the benefits of an education in the long run. There are so many other Ramachandra's out there, if each one of us from the educated class of society took it upon ourselves to make a difference to atleast one such person I think we will be able to see the difference very soon.
ReplyDeleteTo be very frank with you, after coming to the United States I've come to realize that the quality of education at the Undergrad and Masters level is head and shoulders above the same in India. But, our(Indian) schooling upto the Higher Secondary level is on par or maybe even better than in the US. The question we need to ask here is that what can we do bring that same quality of education into the higher levels of education in India ? I really don't have an immediate answer to this question, but it's definitely something I would want to work on.
nice quote.. viru..
ReplyDelete"Read less and think more!"
We need to look at, why quality of education at the Undergrad and Masters level in most of universities in India is poor?
Most of colleges in India are private
and they look for their profit. To make their profit they hire teacher who are not qualified enough or not have good teaching experience. All this they do save their money and get more profit by paying less to teachers. These private colleges don't care about what future of student will be after passing out from there.
Infrastructure of these college is also not up to the mark.
Private colleges are money making organization.
Our government has failed to regulate and control over these colleges.
There is no competition among private colleges on quality of education.
In my opinion, these private colleges making at cost of student's future.
Whereas in govt colleges qualified teachers are there but govt. attitude of teachers is problem.
I think solution of problem in ways
1. Need to bring change attitude of student , parent and teachers towards, how quality of education important?
2. Bring the competition among colleges based on quality of education
3.Are these private colleges going to make profit on long run?
4. Private colleges need to look not for profit but quality and should look for long run profit than short term profit
Most of indian business attitude is try to get high profit in short run rather than look for long run how will work?
Will it run or loose out?