Kota Diaries

The hot and dusty kota summers were at its peak and there was too much work to do. My landlord suggested rampura bazar to get the basic daily needs , so we stopped at an auto and asked "Rampura bazar..... kitna longe??". Looking at us he realized that fresh students have already arrived in the city and the annual loot just begun " Sau rupaye" . To which my mom replied that the landlord told the fare is 40 rupees. " Khud to 500 ke kamre ka 5000 leti hai aur humko thoda bhi kamane nahi deti" he burst out. We argued for some time but finally gave in. On the way the auto driver played some rajasthani music.One of my Bombay friends born in Jodhpur used to admire how sweet the folk marwari songs are. I too had a taste of it. A lady , perhaps an opera singer infected with TB, burst out her lungs through those himesh reshamiya infested speakers. And to add to it were the coughs and sneezes as background music ' Uhh AHH uhh Ahh... Ara ra ra Ara ra ra ra..' .I realised my friend's faithfulness towards his birthplace.

Finally we reached Rampura and 100 rupees seemed was towards entertainment and hospitality charges. I was totally infuriated by the way he fooled us and had never thought that one day i too would share the same choleric views about my landlords as he did.

Even the search for room wasn't that easy. After hours of search we finally got one. The room was fine and more than that my parents found miniature mom and dad in the landlords. Their USP was 100% selection..... no no ... it wasn't a coaching institute!! Aunty, who seemed have done a Ph d in filmy dailouges , kept on saying that her tenants were no different than her own son to her. And according to uncle's dairy of statistics .... just a sec ... he needs a special mention here.. Uncle was severe alcohol addict. His life was confined within the four walls of his bedroom which had basic amenities like a TV, an AC, and enough alcohol to feed an entire army cantonment . He had two sets of clothing , which smelled as if it was preserved in a bucket full of alcohol for ages. According to him there has been no one in the past who hasn't made it to the IITs from their hostel. Now i know why people at IIT get into drinking so early. I was so moved that i almost asked my dad to book the room first and then think of which coaching to join.

As days went by the truth in the promises unveiled . The early noon breakfasts at 12 had stuffed paranthas which required an entire ASI team to find out what was it stuffed with. Then came the lunch....... lumps of rice entangled together with streaks of hair, boiled pottatoes and finally something edible ;dal.

Admist all these were the brutallities of Bansal sir. After classes there were tons of homework we were loaded with. Our life was surrounded with DPPs ( daily practice problems) and sheets. Slowly we were used to it and even getting 10% marks was no more a nightmare.

Especially after dinner there were hardly few who could stick their butts to the chairs...... so to relieve the stress and drive away the sleep we used to stand outside in the balcony hoping that someone would start out a topic. Once started we had too much to discuss and too less time to spare. The world leaders used to sit and discuss topics ranginng from bansal girls to aunty's attrocities , landlord's son falling for a girl 8-10 years younger to him, mumbai terror attacks and even the US oil game. We were a global panchayat. The refreshment intended for a few minutes used to take hours when someone accidentally realised to see the watch and cried chaos. But things didn't use to end here. The next day, another hour was wasted blaming each other for the loss.

Then came those birthday parties...... 18 people in ahostel one for almost all. In most parts of the world there's a culture of applying the the cake icing on the b'day guy's face...... but this part had its own rules. The moment the cake was cut, wild hungry monkeys barged upon it. Within moments it was over. Though Sonu cold drinks exploited his monopoly over the cake market in Vigyan nagar, we still praised him for making us realise that we had taste buds which were long made to hibernate by aunty's boiled potatoes. Since no icing was left after, we resorted to phenyl, spoilt milk rotten over a week, harpic, tomato ketchup . I guess only water from the toilet commode was spared .!!

Bansal sir had strong dislike towards cyber cafes in the city and asked us to stay away from them. Initially i thought it was merely an eggaturation as i didn't understand his reasoning of addiction towards computers. But our DOTA king opened my eyes and proved that successful and experienced people hardly give wrong advices. He used to spend hours.... i mean 2 hours daily ... no no.... not at the cafe!!.... in his room to complete his quota of sleep and gain momentum for the hard core 22 hr gruelling session of DOTA at a nearby cyber cafe. His eyes had permanently turned red and resembled very much the drug addict chambal dakos in the movie "Bandit Queen" who used to rape young girls. Once ,he had even symbolically picked up a knife over a small fight on some petty issue. This triggered an emergency meet of the Global Panchayat . The panchayat discussed his actions, behavior, his fate, alleged him to have lost his mental stability, and even had the opinion that he could do anything including murder someone if denied DOTA.... God!! we were too serious with the responsibility we conferred upon us...

Most of our entertainment was the panchayat and my post dosn't complete without specially thanking our ' sarpanch ' Siddhant Khattri 'who took all the responsibilities of organising meetings and bore aunty's bashings for no reason. Poor chap!!!.. a victim of ' easy channeling of human frustation'.

Though there are bitter memories of the rudeness of the locals, but Kota has even given me a few friends for life. And above all it has made me achieve a goal i had only dreamt of. My eyes always fill with respect when the name Kota comes to my mind.

Golden Words Only Sound Great

It was 2009 december and i happened to switch on the tv to get a review of 3 "idiots" .I generally switch the tv off on an annoying channel and as expected it was india tv .And to my surprise the headlines said 'Amir Khan's view on Indian education ' ......... I rubbed my eyes..... No it was true... india tv was talking of education!!! I wonder was rakhi sawant's swamwar over or there were no more failed attempts tof bombing India tv's national heritage rated headquarters at dharavi.

Later I watched the movie...truly enjoyed it .... it was a laugh riot. And as a week passed by the social networking sites were flooded with social messages on education SYSTEM . Even the guy who used to pass exams courtesy grace marks writes " The WHOLE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION IS TO TURN MIRRORS INTO WINDOWS"..... well i guessed his interpretation :developing a technology for reflective window glasses. People did a postmortem of Amir's khan's movie.

Soon the news channels were flooded with debates. Some accused the system of making students view science as Newton viewed and put an end to their own creativity. People said that the Indian education system emphasizes more on rote learning and even alleged that Indian industries don't promote R&D because of such a flaw full system . People from all spheres of life put all their energy in bringing out the ills of the system. They spoke about how the existing system has been unable to produce enough Nobel laureates despite of having such a large population. Some quoted it responsible for the BRAIN DRAIN. And when the nation comes into such a state of severe crisis, which we happen to realize only after the release of three idiots, even my dhobi talks grade system and common exam board .

No doubts on the fact that these problems cost a lot to the society. But are the golden solutions actually practical. Is it possible to integrate NCERT with Harvard.

Better reforms include better utilization of teaching hours at school. More interactive sessions where students are made to learn through observation and visualize for themselves well established concepts at primary and early secondary level of schooling. at the secondary level students should be asked to refer to number of books to get to know many viewpoints and develop one of his/her own. Even better textbook designing committees can help in this regard. In a nutshell it's syllabus redesigning . But to bring about such a change we need a much more trained teaching force. But with the Mayawati government slashing down the B Ed. enrolment requirements to 45% from 50, it seems less probable to change the scene. However I don't blame Mayawati completely for this. The reality is IF YOU PAY PEANUTS YOU GET MONKEYS . Only a few private IB schools and some fees-ed schools in urban areas can afford to pay high salaries to teachers. Where from will we be able to pay such high salaries to a village primary school teacher??

Keeping in mind the present economic condition of India, organizing short term motivational camps in schools across the country. Even private sector can help us by advertising with us like...........' Colgate presents young Einstein' ..... these camps would also educate the students about the various options they have after school. Only when more students take interest in unconventional fields, such fields could be enhanced .

Another aspect of quality education is the freedom of an individual to choose a stream for himself. The biggest hindrance that arises here is pressure from parents. The government should take steps to educate the parents about different streams available through advertisements on tv and street banners. This will ALSO help increasing literacy rates in India ; this is how:-

Many poverty stricken parents don't send their children to school as they feel that school and university education will be of no good to people who eventually end up working in workshops and factories. The central government run ITIs for producing skilled working force to boast the evergrowing manufacturing sector of india. Now many parents are not even aware of such reforms.

The ills of our education system that we are following for the past 60 years have now setteled down in the very hearts of the society and needs to be removed from the grass root level.

Slogans of removing extra academic burden on students do attract public attention. But the reality is that in a globalized economy with so much competition , a developing economy cannot afford to compromise on quality for comfort. Though the cirricullum shouldn't be reduced in volume but should be better structured and made interesting.