Hear nothing, see nothing,speak nothing

We are serious, we are opinionated, we want only one idea and one perspective and yes, we don’t like to laugh at ourselves. We are India.

The National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) recently deleted cartoons from its textbooks which it felt were politically insensitive. Did the biggest educational body of our country not realise that before the books got published four years ago? Oh, wait – it’s not that the NCERT suddenly came to its ‘senses’. The action was a result of protests from certain powerful sections of the society who  lacked the sprit to laugh at themselves.

Let’s travel back in time. The year is 1988. Rajiv Gandhi, the then prime minister of India, was under severe criticism for his involvement in the Bofors Scandal. Feeling the heat of the media revelations, Mr. Gandhi sought to get the Anti-Defamation Bill passed in the parliament. This bill sought to create ‘new’ offences, and the media would have to be very careful of what they said because now every statement could be interpreted in a way that could be held against them. Nationwide protests against the bill ensured that it was not passed, but the media was still under the attack of the politician. Foreign journalists who were investigating the Bofors scandal were not given visas to enter the country.

India’s intolerance extends to art and artists too, with a number ofbooks and authors being banned in India. Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’ to Joseph Lelyveld’s ‘ The Great Soul’, a book that claims to expose Gandhiji’s sexual life and his racist views, are banned either nationwide or in certain states. ‘Nine Hours to Rama’ by Stanley Wolpert is banned as it exposes the lack of security given to Gandhiji the day he was assassinated. Salman Rushdie was not granted a visa to attend the Jaipur Literature Festival. M.F.Hussain died outside of India as the Indians wouldn’t tolerate his art and didn’t want him here.

The electronic media too has not escaped the censor’s scissors.Time and again directors are asked to make changes in their movies. Movies like ‘Fire’ and ‘Water’ by Deepa Mehta are banned due to their controversial topics. The National Award-winning movie ‘The Dirty Picture’ cannot be shown on television because it has what the government believes is ‘adult content’. Internet giant, Google, has revealed in its transparency report released in June 2012 that it received 101 requests from Indian authorities to delete 255 items from its content. This marks a sharp rise of 49% fromthe second half of last year. Authorities feel that some of the sensitive content posted online puts national security at risk and needs to be removed.

Innumerable instances such as these force us to think: where are we heading? Or, at times: where are we coming from?

Why is there so much censorship in India? Why doesn’t the government want our kids to think, discuss and argue about the political situations that arose in history? Why do we believe that something doesn’t exist if we can’t see it?

I believe this attitude comes from our history. The Aryans who settled in India brought in the Varna system. This system divided the society into four castes. These castes couldn’t intermingle with each other. They had a pecking order just like the animal world did. The vedas were the prerogative of the Brahmans. The military skills had only to be with theKshatriyas.We all know what happened to Ekalavya and Karna. Withholding information from other people meant power, control and supreme authority. Power play isn’t original to the T20 matches; our gods had begun it a very long time back. Devdutt Pattanaik has analysed the story of Bahubali, brother of celebrated king Bharata, and elaborated very clearly how the instinct to dominate is so strong that even people who renounce the world take pride in the fact that the rest of the world bows to them. Power play and censorship exist even at very individual levels.  Parents of adult children decide careers and life partners for them. In many families finances are not personal but part of a bigger kitty. Adults do not have the right to take decisions. The Khaps in Haryana will not let young people decide whom to marry. They have gone to the extent of banning mobile phones for people below the age of 40!

And it is from this power play that the urge to censor stems. As the major educational body of the country, instead of standing up and questioning why the cartoons that never rankled in the ages of their publication should be deleted, the NCERT succumbed to the power of the ‘other’ forces and removed them. When loopholes in our systems are pointed out in the media, as a nation do we have the guts to say that we erred? Oh no! We try to dumb down the voices. We ban a ‘Nine Hours to Rama’ because the author dared to show this country that we lost the Father of our Nation due to our own lack of security systems. But we don’t want to listen to these voices. The governments think that the matter is sorted out by banning the book. Generations grow up seeing and learning only what is portrayed to them.  It is said that history is always the story of the winner; history, I believe, is always the story of the censor. What students are taught to believe is our history, what they grow to feel proud of, what is taught time and again in our classrooms, is sadly the perspective of the government and people in power.  Politicians, past or present, have always tried to stifle voices. Aditya Thackeray, the rising star leader of the Shiv Sena in Mumbai demanded that the University of Mumbai ban Rohinton Mistry’s 1990 Booker-nominated novel ‘Such a Long Journey.’ The demand came after certain sections of the party brought it to his notice that the novel made some anti-Shiv Sena references. What shocked most was that the University obliged the very next day! When institutes of higher education pander to the demands of political fledglings, it is time for us to fear. We need to fear the future we are handing over to our children. As a teacher I have constantly motivated my students to think for themselves. But when they go out in the world, out of the cocoons of a classroom, does anybody care for their voice of dissent? When we don’t teach our kids to think and act but want them to solely follow what we are trying to indoctrinate, isn’t there something seriously wrong? The resignations of Prof.Suhas Palshikar and Prof.Yogendra Yadav from their positions as advisors to NCERT after this incident indicate a loud and clear YES to that question.

Our constitution states that we are a democratic country and one of the fundamental rights of a citizen is the right to free speech. Oh yes! We truly are a democratic country. We are full of honourable people! We truly believe that if the younger generation sees, hears and speaks what we want them to, then we will surely create a shining India in the future.

How long will we hear nothing, see nothing and speak nothing?

This article was originally published in www.sparkthemagazine.com in August 2012 

Role Reversal

Long after the tenets of the English grammar are forgotten, long after Shakespeare has been analysed and the précis been written and the dust has settled on the report cards, when the phone rings and a voice shrieks over, “Ma’am, I am in Mumbai, can I meet you? Do you remember me…?” and an animated voice continues without waiting for a reply, you know here is a student whose life you have touched. And yes, here is a student who has touched your life.

Having been an educator for over 16 years, I have time and again realised that the student-teacher relationship is a rather interesting one. While the most obvious reality is that the teacher is the one who imparts knowledge to the students, how often have teachers themselves looked carefully at some of the little but life’s crucial lessons that a student teaches the world?

If I taught them to listen, speak, read and write, they taught me to perceive, communicate, interpret and inscribe. If I taught them skills to value life, they taught me the values to manoeuvre life. If I taught them the ABC of the English language, they taught me the ABC of the language of life. Here are the 10 most important lessons that I have learnt from observing children, including my students over the years.

1. Allow the voice of your heart into your mind:  17-year-old Ronald was a talented dancer.  He wanted to be a professional dancer and choreographer. Earlier, Ronald had very fervently shared his dreams with his teachers and lamented his inability to convince his mother. His mother wanted him to become a banker. Lending voice to his dreams, his teachers helped him convince his mother to follow his dreams. Today he travels the world and is an established choreographer only because the voice of his heart led his mind. Learn to listen not just to the voice of your mind but also the voice of your heart.
2. Agree to disagree:  Peer groups in class present multiple solutions to a situation only because they agree to disagree.   Teenagers Rohan and Nishi have diametrically opposite views on almost everything. But since they usually agree to disagree, they create superior work. They know that once they do not step on each other’s toes, they are able to think and perform better.  Ego finds room in many an adult heart and makes it difficult for an adult mind to disagree without rancour.
3. Be passionate and recognise others’ passions:  12-year-old Krishna was never a go-getter in the classroom but every team wanted him in theirs. They knew he was the best footballer the school could have. He was passionate about football and his classmates cheered him for that. Kids are instinctively passionate. They know what drives them to aim for excellence. An adult in his quest for his own passion may many a time find it, but misses on seeing what accelerates others in life.
4. Chase to the finish:  Teachers usually wait outside a classroom, for the previous class to be completed. Entry into a classroom doesn’t mean the beginning of the class. More often than not, this is because students are engrossed in completing a painting or cracking a tough math problem or just winding up a diagram from the previous class. Kids chase to finish. They do not like to leave things half done. As adults we often move on to the next task in our task list even when we have not completed one because we are so time-bound.
5. Disorder is not always discordant: Adults like to be neat, organised and in charge of everything. Kids can be unruly, disorganised and chaotic. But look hard and you will find a method in the madness, calm in the chaos, a creation in the confusion. An untidy classroom becomes an obstacle course, a torn notebook becomes material for craft and the crowds in a compartment begin to look like atoms in a solid. Disorder is not always discordant. It lies within us to create a new order.
6. Let your imagination run riot : Imagination sparks creativity, but as we grow older, we somehow tend to stop using our imagination for the fear of being ridiculed. Kids do not crave to fit into moulds or please anyone with their ideas. They are true to their heart and their imagination always finds a freeway. They can be in space one moment or in the centre of the earth the next. That is only because they let their imagination run riot.
7. Live the moment: A student who focuses on the moment is more the rule than an exception in a pre-primary or primary classroom. Undivided attention to the task at hand and the sheer joy of working on a project is visible in the tired smile of a student who makes his submissions. Kids never worry about what’s going to happen tomorrow. That’s why an undone assignment or homework doesn’t bother them much. The focus on one task hardly leaves them with time to even think about the other. But the satisfaction of completing the one at hand is more important than worrying about the undone ones. ‘Next is what’, seems to be the motto of most grownups. ‘Now is life’ is what life seems to be telling us through these kids.
8. Recognise the good in others: Kids don’t look at others in his/her group thinking, ‘Is he going to cheat me? Will he take me for a ride?’ They just believe that everyone is intrinsically good. An adult, on the other hand, begins with distrust. They believe the world is out to cheat them. Why do we need the fine print in almost every transaction? This is because we work on the premise that each one of us is out to cheat the other.
9. Dream big: Almost every three-year-old wants to grow up into an engine driver. What image could be more powerful than wanting to control an engine that runs an entire train? But as we grow, we let go of our dreams. Our dreams become smaller and smaller in the daily grind of things and one day we stand back and question ourselves: Where did I begin from and where have I ended? Hold on to your dreams, fasten them tightly to your heart and one day they will be so big that you cannot ignore them.
10. What is inside matters more: Give any curious child (little or otherwise) a toy car and the possibility that he wants to know what’s inside is more than actually  wanting to play with it, reminds you that what is inside matters more than what is on the outside. And that’s perhaps such a valuable lesson – do not get carried away by outward appearances. Remember to look within.

This article was originally published in www.sparkthe magazine.com  in September 2011 

The traveler's gift

With his remaining conscious thought, David removed his hands from the steering wheel and raised them as fists to the sky. “Please, God!” he cried. “Why me?”………

“Why….not….you?” Looking directly into David’s eyes, Truman enunciated the words carefully, separating them as if he were speaking to a child. “I believe that is the answer to the last question you asked before you arrived.”

The question we need to ask ourselves is Why not me?

Modern life is definitely not a bed of roses. The thorns of failure, time and again, shake us out of our complacency and make us realise that all is not well in the world we have created for ourselves.  Man today is arrogant, ungrateful and lacks faith. The hollowness of his life echoes in his personal and professional life. Civilisation is hurtling itself towards its peril.

Here’s a book that tries to answer the pertinent question ‘why not me’ and motivates readers to find their bearings in this fast-paced life that seems to be taking us nowhere. The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews is a book that unravels how man agonises over everything, looking for a solution outside him, when ironically the solution lies within – it’s the story of David Ponder, the protagonist, whose life has been anything but simple. Ponder finds himself thrown out of a job that he thought he would never lose, forcing him to work on very low wages in the new one. Unable to fund his daughter’s treatment, Ponder is suicidal. When his car skids down the icy cliff during his suicide attempt, Andy Andrews takes David Ponder and the reader on a magical journey through time, one that is a powerful combination of fact, fiction, history and motivation.

The accident projects him into a trajectory of time travel wherein he encounters  people as diverse as Harry Truman and King Solomon.  His final encounter is with Gabriel, an archangel who shows him all that he didn’t achieve in life since he gave up on those ideas and lacked the zeal to see through them. His encounters with each one of the characters teach him a new lesson and help him take seven decisions that will alter the course of his life.   Following this, Ponder reaches his own future and sees himself a successful man inspiring the world with what happened to him and how the seven decisions that he made determined his personal and professional success.

History teaches lessons that man chooses to ignore. Lessons from the past should motivate us to chart out way ahead. But so caught up are we in trying to run the daily grind that we do not take the time out to pause and think. The Traveler’s Gift makes you introspect: Where am I going? What is my role in this huge time machine that I am travelling in? Do I have faith in the decisions that I take? The novel succeeds in telling you that every small decision taken with faith and conviction can change the course of not just one’s life but of a generation.

Quit quitting: the message comes out loud and clear without being condescending. The plot is captivating and the language is simple and engaging. One is as curious as Ponder to find who he will encounter next and what lesson he will learn. The solutions are practical and attainable.  The seven decisions that Ponder makes may seem simple but are no doubt so powerful that one is motivated to put them into practice.

The book is indeed a gift for the traveller undertaking the journey called life. A free reading guide is available atwww.thomasnelson.com/travelersgift. Andy Andrews is a comedian, author, speaker, corporate entertainer, television celebrity and a serious fisherman.  Find Andy Andrews at  http://www.andyandrews.com/

The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews;published in India by Magna publishing; pages 206, price Rs 175

This article was originally published in www.sparkthemagazine.com in December 2011