Education – An Illustrative Report (Autopsy)

Recently, I happened to enter into a casual talk with one of my juniors – a small lean girl and a first year. That seems an improbable start – so here’s how it started. 6 of us, all final years, were gathered at one of our favourite hangouts of the college, better known as the ‘Mexx Point’. Our college comprises of 4 tiers of buildings connected by steps. The Mexx point, in fact, connects the second and the third tiers. Its builder must’ve been an amazing architect, for, in addition to offering shade the whole day, its secluded construction offers much privacy. The time was 5 minutes past 4 and most of the first years were on their way back home. ‘Meeting’ first years too was nothing new for us final years, and this time, it was the small, lean girl who got the call. She was greeted by a bunch of usual questions by all of us, taking turns. One answer led to another question and so on.
“Have you read The Ramayana?”, asked one of us. “I’ve read it as a story, but I’m not familiar with the poem version.”, she replied. “Who’s your favourite character?”, came the counter-question. “Sita”, she demurely answered. All of us were curious and questioned her again about the reasons. “Sita was brave. She did not surrender to Rama’s male chavunism and died instead.”
(Sriram was a male chavunist? WOW ..that was news to me!)
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Yet another day,
Halfway through my lunch in the canteen, I received a call. It was one of my juniors. “Bro, a six year old girl who is a cancer patient, urgently needs blood. Could you please arrange for it? Two persons of any blood group will do. I’m at the Regional Cancer Center, now.” Now, blood donation was not new to our college. Every week, at least one person donates blood to the needy. But this was an urgent call that deserved quick action. I caught a first year and asked him to get two people from his class, after passing on the contact number of the person who needs blood. As expected, he returned after five minutes, answering that no one was willing to donate blood. “They are afraid, period.”
Even he wasn’t willing to donate.
[Blood donation is crime! Now, this is news too!]
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The outcome of the two incidents is omitted out of irrelevance, but, they show how educated our youth really is. As evident, Ignorance, and cowardice better describe education in our context.
Indian mythology is a symbolic representation of various moral values that man ought to keep. A set of stories, truth or fiction, are written to teach man various ethics and morals. Our ancestors must have incorporated these stories so that the youth find it easy to learn values – otherwise raw and boring. The media too has played a significant role in picturizing stories in ways more than one. If picture stories in magazines were the first to show up, cartoons and mythical characters in 3D are the latest crop. The intention of such representation is still good. Instead of imbibing the stuff in these representations, our youth go to the extent of chanting “Wheel Bhakti Vandana, Om Namah Shivaya”, instead of the classic three-word-treatise to Lord Shiva. And some even call Rama a “male chavunist”.
Leaving the story intact, the ‘moral value part’ has been lost somewhere in between and self-created explanations have replaced them. ‘Criticism’ started playing its role at the wrong place even before ‘understanding’ had its first dialogue. “Male chavunist Rama” is a shocking example in this regard.
MORAL: “Keep your mouths closed. Open your eyes and ears.” Imbibe the stuff first, and then think of blaring out.
The reason that scared the first years in the second illustration was , probably, the wrong message that has got into the minds of these cowards that one has a high chance to procure AIDS and other STD’s while donating blood! Whereas, fact is that it’s spread only through reused syringes and used blood packets that’ve been in contact with an HIV career’s blood.
Surveys boast about Kerala’s 90% literacy-rate. But come to think of it, literacy is a huge farce.
Critics and renowned educationalists vocally debate about the prominence of education over literacy. Education is the real goal, they argue.
But I would like to correct them and say that education is mere ‘parrot talk’, awareness is the key to empowerment. If these ‘educated’ kids with 15 years of excellent schooling refuse to donate blood, I will be forced to say that education is nonsense; awareness is what makes real sense. In today’s world, anyone who can mug things up can call himself ‘educated’ in a matter of a few years. But awareness is something superlative and requires a luxury called “thinking skills”, towards its accomplishment. If awareness was part and parcel of the youth who couldn’t care more about the value of human life in peril using the pretext of “fear of donating blood”, numerous volunteers would have come up, every time an urgent call for blood came in.
MORAL: “Make yourself aware. Don’t waste your time in education.” Don’t just mug up things, think for sometime in between.
Now comes the big question – Who will make the ignorant and the cowards, aware?
Articles like mine can only guide, but self awareness is the real answer