Where did we go wrong? (And how to right it)

I will not spend time explaining why this post came to be. The horror of India's daughter's murder is too painful to recount. I have been wondering how we came to be a society where people of my gender think it is ok to rape and mutilate a woman. Is it about power? Is it depravity? Is it sexual urges finding release? Is it pent up frustrations finding an outlet? Is it anarchy where people just think they can get away with anything? Is it lack of education? Bad upbringing? Absence of role models?

There have been so many questions and so few answers. I have tried to stay away from rants of instant justice - castration, hanging, stoning, mutilating. I don't want to become one of them. I want justice to be done and I want to it to be done with due process. I just want the process to be fast. I don't want to see the accused going out on bail, the witness turning hostile, the judge falling ill or the police officer getting transferred. One thing going for the case (if anything could!) is that the accused are not high profile, politically influential, rich people. They are easy targets for hostility - illiterate, uncouth bus drivers and their friends. They are people we can imagine to be indulging in such heinous crime. God forbid, if it were some politician's nephew or some industrialist's son. Facts would have been distorted, PR machineries would be activated and the victim would have been turned into a vamp.

None of that thankfully happened in this case and hence, the battle lines are clearly drawn. This polarization gives us the opportunity to see the problem clearly and without any smokescreens. This gives us the opportunity to do something about it. And after all the rage, it is time to reflect on what led to this and resolve to act against it.

Shireesh, my ex-boss and friend rightly pointed out that it has come to be about 'what is it that we can get away with'? In a civil society, we are supposed to live by some rules. Power has checks and balances. Sex is consensual. Money is legally earned and taxes paid on it. Ownership to property and wealth is protected by law. If someone steps out of the legal framework, he is given punishment commensurate with the crime.

These rules hold if everyone plays by them. Or those who do not play by them, at least publicly accord themselves specials rights to not play by them - some use religion, some use force and others invoke royal lineage. The problem occurs when we say we are all equal but behave unequally. Democracy in theory means everyone is equal and government is by the people, of the people and for the people. Democracy in action though is very different. It is feudalism in disguise. True, you choose your government but in effect you choose who you'll be ruled by.

When some people start to regard themselves above the law, it frays the fabric of civil society. More and more people start to test how much they can get away with. The problem is exacerbated when minor crimes are left unpunished. This emboldens petty criminals to try for bigger and bolder adventures. And slowly anarchy sets in. Then everything goes.

Anger, Lust, Envy and Greed are base human tendencies present in everyone. They stay in check because our education and upbringing creates a strong context against them, that they are BAD. Civil society creates more barriers by creating a punitive framework where acts emerging out of these basal instincts are met with severe punishment thereby creating deterrents.

In India today, neither of these exist. Our law and order system has gone for a toss. People see politicians and the rich get away with crimes of murder, bribery, extortion and adultery. Nothing happens to them. Whether it is ND Tiwari, A Raja, Lalu Yadav, Jagan Reddy, Sharad Pawar, Vijay Mallya, Navin Jindal....the list is endless. They think anything goes - why not have a go. After all, our basal instincts are at play all the time!

Our education system and our value system is terribly frayed. Moral science is just a subject - often inconsequential since it is without marks. Teachers are very rarely role models - they are typically bottom of class and choose this as a vocation of last resort. Families perpetuate existing prejudices. When boys see themselves treated better than their sisters or nieces, they think this how it is supposed to be. Mothers often ask their daughters to help them in cooking, cleaning and sweeping while their sons can eat, drink and be merry.

Unless, this triad of education, family and deterrent works, this anarchy will continue.

People need to understand what is right and what is wrong. And they need to see that when someone does wrong, he meets with the consequence commensurate with his wrongdoing.

For this to happen, we need to hire more judges. We need to hire more policewomen and free up policemen from VIP security to common man. We need to train them better and we need to pay them better. We need to free the police and judges free from political influence. We need to pass stronger laws for the safety of women.

We need to create a national movement that questions are existing biases and prejudices. Bollywood, TV channels, NCERT, UGC and NCTE - all have a role to play in education because formally and informally, they both create and mirror societal values.

But the most important one is the need to decriminalize our politics. The whole economics of elections where a person needs to 'invest' crores of rupees, forces a person to 'recover' that investment with a decent return over his term of 5 years. And since legal and above-board ways of recovering those crores don't exist, we are creating a system that necessitates corruption, cronyism and favoritism. The profile of our Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha is a testimony to the cliche - politics is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Electoral reform is the biggest lever we have to improve our society. Election funding has to be made more transparent. Criminals have to be barred from contesting elections. Unfortunately, the very leaders who are supposed to create these laws are products of the same system - so there is a conflict of interest.

It is us, civil society, who will have to demand this and make it happen. And more of us have to join politics. These ideas are not for instant gratification. While the hanging of the 6 accused will assuage our anger (and mine too), we need to go deeper and longer to see real change!

My father's son

3 years ago, this day, my father became a star in the sky. Well, when Zoya asked me where is Dadupa, that's what I told her - Dadupa has become a star in the sky. She was fascinated by the thought that suddenly, the person who used to tell her stories in his lap was now showering a dull, calming light in the night sky. Since then, we refer to his death as him becoming a star in the sky.

I feel that death indicates a stop. A shuddering halt to a journey in motion. A full stop. A curtain call. Star in the sky indicates a transition. A journey from 'here' to 'there'. There's a continuity to it, a fluidity to it that is reminiscent of life itself. It is as if in death, a new life is achieved.

Today, on the occasion of his becoming a star in the sky, I am assaulted by a lot of thoughts - a lot of them conflicting, colliding but then coalescing into the same dull, calming light inside that he emanates outside.

These thoughts are like passing slides of a motion picture. Actually no, they flit across the firmament of my mind like the dust particles that suddenly appear out of nothing when a ray of sunlight peeks into my room.

The first thought I was hit by was that time is indeed a big healer. Today, in the morning havan for my star's shanti, my whole life with him flashed past me as a series of images. And amazingly, all images were from the happy times we had spent together - him visiting us in Singapore, in Mumbai, our holidays in Thailand and our visits to Pathankot. Him playing with Zoya on her 1st birthday, him teaching us in Govt College Talwara. The last month before he left us did not come up! At all! When people, in the immediate aftermath of his passing away, told me 'samay ke saath sab theek ho jayega', I would scream inside, 'you don't know what I'm going through! So don't tell me it'll be ok' and manage a silent nod outside. But now, it appears to be true. When I spread out our lives together on a timeline, the last month of pain diminishes in import compared to the 34 years of joy! Time is indeed a big healer and the more we let it do its job, the better it does its job!

The second that hit me was our preoccupation with the past. We commemorate, we relive, we analyze our past at the expense of our present. We mourn our dead at the expense of the living. There are people in my life who are the flesh of his flesh and the blood of his blood - they are the celebration of what he created. My brother and my sister - who hurt everyday from losing his presence around them. My mother - who has emerged a giant from the time her world collapsed around her. Maybe the best way to keep him alive is to keep my love for them alive.

Hurt is a funny thing. When you are hurting, you think hurting others will make your hurt go away. It doesn't work that way. Hurt is a vicious cycle - the more we are hurt, the more we hurt and then the more we are hurt. I don't know how to break the cycle. Different things work for different people. Some people get tired of carrying so much bile in them that they give in to their greater self. Some people get shaken out of their stupor of the hurt cycle by someone - who is objective and is trusted. Some people undergo moments where their hurt suddenly appears insignificant in front of life. But one thing is for sure - hurt erodes the wholeness of life. It nibbles at you every time you act out of hurt. And the more you indulge in minor quibbles to hurt others, the less you are left of yourself. I only wish everyone can find within or around him, the impulse that will pull him out of the cycle of hurt and put him on the path of love.

Another thing that lives beyond my dad are the values that he lived by. Everyday that I stand up for what I believe in, I live him. Everyday, that I do my duty without worrying about results, I live him. Everyday, that I disallow people from hurting me by having no expectations from them, I live him. These are not recipes for happy living - no way am I saying these are great ideas or that he was a saint. This is the way he lived life and I become him when I live my life this way. Isn't this a wonderful way of keeping someone alive by moving forward via his values? Instead, we mop and mourn and yearn for what could have been!

So today, when I got up from the havan, I had a sense of peace about me. I knew that I was my father's son. And in living his values and loving his creations, I was him.

10 days of hell for a lifetime of heaven - Part 1

As I sit down to write about the 10 days I spent at the Global Vipassana Center, Esselworld Mumbai, I'm struck by my inability to parse each day as a discrete step in the journey. It seems like a mangled mass with a before and an after. This is all the more remarkable because I remember promising myself during those 10 days that I would capture them in as much detail as possible. And I remember making mental notes of details such as the menu each day and the content of the discourse each day. Now it is just a haze. This just confirms what Werner Erhard had said during the 8 day course on 'Being a Leader & the Effective Exercise of Leadership' that I was privileged to attend at Panchgani in 2010 - that the mind is a very unreliable place to keep things.

Caveat: My experience is mine alone. It is neither representative nor model. It is neither good nor bad. It is neither desirable nor repelling. It is just my experience. Your participation in Vipassana will give you what it will give you - it'll neither be what I got nor better or worse; it'll just be uniquely yours.

29th August
Forms, formats and a glimpse of what lay ahead
As I dragged my trolley bag up the steps towards Global Vipassana Center, I was playing up in my mind what lay in store for the next 10 days. I had no real notion of what happens in the course. I just had an idea of the impact it makes on people who had done the course. As I walked in, I saw a board that read WOMEN (महिलाएं ), another that read DONATION (दान ) and a third that read MEN (पुरुष ). A long verandah and two old people behind govt-office-looking desks. A teenager was with a middle aged woman who seemed to be his mother. There was some construction work going on beyond the desks. My first impressions were 'basic', 'vernacular' and 'geriatric' and my overriding thought was, 'is it going to be worth the 10 days away from family and work?'

The guy behind the desk said something in Gujarati that sounded like, 'take this pen, fill this form, read the instructions and go inside.' The form laid out the strict rules for the course -
1. Can't leave once we begin the course
2. Can't murder anyone - yeah that was never the intent
3. Can't steal - hmmm.....can do that
4. Can't indulge in sexual misconduct - yeah can tick that one too
5. Can't tell lies - well, we are supposed to be silent, right?
6. Can't have intoxicants - yeah, didn't carry my hip flask!
7. Can't take notes, can't keep any eatables with me - I was carrying a box of dry fruits and had no intention of turning it in, esp since my mother spoke about no food after 6pm!

Having resolved in my head that 6 out of 7 wasn't bad, I said yes to all the rules, submitted the form, and dinner being 5 hours away, I dragged my trolley bag to my 1st floor room. Room No 137 was neat, spartan and there was air conditioning! 'Not bad' I thought, 'for a course in meditation to provide participants air conditioning.'

At around 3pm, I woke up to a lot more buzz outside. As I went downstairs, my eyes went to the notice board that read, '7.30pm introduction of anna panna'. Sounded curiously similar to aampanna - the sweet sour drink that I love at Kailash Parbat or Mahesh Lunch Home - my spirits soared before sanity prevailed and I concluded that it is some stuff that don't understand........yet.

5pm and I was asked to hand over my mobile phone and wallet. 6.30pm, the bell rang and we trooped into the dinner hall. 7.30pm and we were walking to our designated seat in the 2nd floor meditation hall. As I walked in, I noticed that I had got a raw deal. While bald, old men sat smugly on cushioned chairs, those of us who had left the 'health issues' column blank were being rewarded with cushions on the floor without any back support! Oh, How would my body, that's always propped on at least 2 pillows or half a dozen cushions, bear this torture? How would I survive? Would there be rotation - people sitting on chairs today, moving to the floor tomorrow?

'Not a good beginning,' I thought to myself as I located my cushion number and reluctantly sat in the lotus position. After a while, Guruji's sonorous voice rang through the hall and he taught us the practice of observing our breath - the practice of anna panna.

I found it hard going because every time I observed my breath, I realized that I was observing the pain in my ankled touching the floor or the weight of my one leg over the other, or the pain in my back that was aching for support. Oh there I was thinking about Zoya and Anay going to bed at this time. And then I was thinking about Zee and all the people I had worked with. My mind was incontrollable - racing from one location to another, one thought to another, without any warning. However hard I tried to observe my breath, I ended up observing something else. Since my eyes were closed, I had no way of finding how others were doing although it did occur to me to open one eye just enough to check

Thankfully, Guruji's voice rang through again and ended with 'भवतु सर्व मंगलं' (although I have to admit, I was only able to recognize what he said by the 5 day when I read it on the slide!). This signaled the end of the session and we were told that we had to do anna panna for the whole of next day.

Suddenly, the next day didn't seem that desirable. And I went to bed at 9.30pm wondering what I had landed myself into.


Next post, Part 2 covers - 
30th August - Day 1
Oh my god, what did I do!

31st August - Day 2
How many days left?

1st September - Day 3
I think I'll be able to do it

10 days of hell for a lifetime of heaven - Prequel

Sometime in 2006
A close relative visiting us in Singapore made quite an impression because of her calm demeanor and the fact that at 50, she was traveling by herself on a vacation. Over dinner one day, the conversation meandered to what caused her unflappable countenance. She mentioned a course that we had never heard of and which, in our agnostic, hedonistic, DINK status, had no meaning for us. When I asked what it was all about, she offered what seemed to be a lame excuse at that time - "Jaanane aur maanane mein bahut faraq hota hai. I can tell you but you won't understand till you experience it", she said. Vipassana - the course she mentioned sounded like some religious or spiritual cult and we were hardly in the mood for anything so serious or deep!

June 2007
I quit Procter driven by what my dad used to call 'divine discontentment' (He used to say this with an equal measure of exasperation and indulgence). He would say that I'm never satisfied by what I have and am constantly seeking a higher purpose for my life. I remember one of his letter (yes, he belonged to an era where fathers wrote letters to their children and captured all their love and longings in those envelops) where he advised me to rest my oars and think of settling down with babies. Like most things in my life, I did not agree with him on this too and chose to go ahead with my decision to quit P&G. I was clear that my heart was not in selling 'hope in a jar'. I was clear that I wanted to be in education - helping children realize their true potential. In those months post quitting, I read widely about learning, child development, child psychology and almost anything that smelled of education. Providence led me to meet Subhash Chandra and I found myself joining Zee Learn and thereby moving back to India.

October 2007
I started my tenure at Zee Learn and the more time I spent learning about how children learnt and how children develop, the more I was sure that I had found my calling. One day, I learnt that Zee group has a policy that anyone who wanted to go for Vipassana can go on paid leave. The name rang a bell - it was the same course that the relative had mentioned almost a year ago. Out of academic interest I figured that it was quite widespread, it was a residential course and needed 10 days of time. This was reason enough for it to be crossed as a 'not for me' course.

Sometime in Aug-Sep 2009
I was in Delhi when I got a call from Sanjay Jain, Group CFO, Essel Group saying that his brother in law was doing something in parenting and wanted to meet me. I agreed and found myself meeting an eager Sushant Kalra. He had an interesting story. He had quit his job with Max New York Life to conduct parenting sessions in schools. This was based on his learnings from his experience of bringing up his own 2 kids. When I asked what led him to go out on a limb with this idea, he said he had done this course called Landmark and that made him understand his calling. 'Well, I know my calling', I said to myself and neatly tucked this information into a mental folder called 'Good for Smita, not for me'. 

December 2009
I lost my father. Nothing can even begin to describe the sense of loss I experienced - in fact for the first few months, I was numb. As I begin to come out of my trance and pick up the threads of life, I realized a lot was broken, a lot was in tatters. I had to sew it back to some semblance of normalcy so that I could at least function. Some days, it was even tough to get out of bed. 

August 2010
As Smita and I started to put the pieces of our life back, we discussed getting some outside help to deal with the loss. Landmark came up in our discussion and she went for it. Then I went for it. It changed my life. Then my brother, my mother, her father, her mother - slowly members of our extended family started going for it. It was my first brush with introspection and self discovery. And I had tasted blood. The more I delved deeper, the more I discovered how little I knew about myself. I started to see things that I was blind to. I started to empathize with others at a level that was not available to me earlier. I became a better son, a better brother, husband and father. And I knew that I was just beginning on this journey which led through humility in our accomplishment and certainty of our ignorance. I was keen to do and know more.

Late 2011
Anand, a friend from Hong Kong was visiting and in one of our late night conversations, Smita mentioned that he had transformed since his college days. He mentioned Vipassana among other things as an experience that had a profound impact on him. This was the third hit and this time I was ready. One of the insights I have now gained is that self-discovery cannot be foisted upon from the outside - you do it when you are ready. No one else can decide it for you. So when Anand said what he said, I said to myself, 'I'm going to do Vipassana some day'. I could not begin to imagine when I'll get to take 10 days from my life that was caught between Zee, Zoya and Anay but I placed it somewhere in my future.

May 2012
Smita's mother went for Vipassana. She came back and her neck pain was gone. We didn't talk much about what she got from Vipassana but I could sense that something fundamental had shifted for her. Then my mother went. And I think Vipassana finally gave her the power to deal with the loss of my father. She said that everyone she loves should do Vipassana sometime in their life because it really makes a difference. These instances further firmed my desire to go for it but it was still going to be one day, some day.

July 25 2012
I quit Zee Learn. I decided that before I start my next journey, I want to be sure what was worthy of me - what was the issue that I wanted to commit myself to? What was the problem that was worth solving? And is there something that I need to do or someone I need to be, in order to lead the next phase of my life powerfully? These questions were important for me and I decided to go for Vipassana to find some answers. Suddenly, something that was so far out there 6 years back was now in my immediate future! I got myself enrolled in the Vipassana meditation course from Aug 29 to Sep 9, 2012 at Global Vipassana Centre, Esselworld, Mumbai.

August 29 2012
I woke up with some butterflies in my stomach. This was going to be the first time, I would be away from the kids for that long. Then there was the whole thing about observing total silence throughout the course duration. Imagining myself being silent for 10 days was killing me. I was also anxious about what will come up and what will I have to deal with. What kept up the excitement was the belief that I would come back clearer about my future than I was going in with. With these thoughts, I went to Esselworld in a boat from Borivili jetty to start the 10 day Vipassana course.

September 9 2012
I stepped off the boat at Borivili jetty and felt that I was stepping back into a different world. This was again typical of us human beings who think they are the only constant in the ever changing world around them. In fact, it was I who had transformed or in the words of Anil Mehta, our teacher, I had set into yoghurt and nothing could now get me back to being milk. As we started driving back home, I noticed that I was very calm in the Mumbai traffic. I was overcome by this deep sense of goodwill and compassion towards everyone. I wanted to do good. However, I wanted to check if this would persist or I would relapse into being me after a few days of this 'high'.

September 26 2012
Exactly 4 weeks since I went for Vipassana, I can safely say that the effect is lasting. I don't know what the future holds but for now, I'm happy I went and I'm grateful for what I learnt. I don't get affected as much if people do something that I think is wrong or unfair. I don't get angry as much and when I do, I'm able to bounce back much faster. I don't wonder about why someone did something and what was his intention and why he should have not done it. I am able to focus on what I have to do. I have less self-doubt, more gumption to have a go. People around me - my wife and my brother - have mentioned how I spread calm around me. I have also become less preachy and more empathetic. 

So what happens in those 10 days to cause so much transformation? Is it brain washing? Is it some complicated meditation technique? Is it some religious cult that leads you to the path of renunciation?

In my next post, let me take you through my 10 days in hell that seem to promise me a lifetime of heaven.

Identity

The recent incidents in Assam and its consequent sparks in the rest of the country has set me thinking. Why is it that we are riddled with such divisive elements? What drives human behavior at such times? How do people find within themselves the fire to extinguish another life - that too of the same species?

While there are a lot of drivers quoted in popular media such as 'foreign hand', communal forces, illiteracy, poverty, immigration etc., I think these are shallow reasons given by lazy thinking. A deeper analysis will reveal that we are driven by our context for life. And this context is shaped by our identity.

Identity is a funny thing. Most people don't see their identity as being different from them. It is like water to a fish - it doesn't know of a world beyond! This happens because in life, the unexplored, un-investigated and unstated, typically runs us.

Let us go back to the time when we were born. Who were we? A human baby. The only thing that we were born with was the tag of our species - human beings. And the other thing was our gender - that too because it is so physically evident!

Slowly, we came to realize that we were Hindu or Muslim, Rich or Poor, Indian or Pakistani, Brahman or Dalit, North Indian or South Indian, Tamil or Telugu - these are identities that come with the parents we are born too. They don't appear as choices because we never explore them - in fact they come as inheritances. But if we think deeper, they don't have to be. So religion, economic status, nationality, caste, region and language are not embedded within us - they are clothes we wear AFTER taking birth. And the more we insist on our right to choose these vs. accepting what is inherited, the more we will be free of it.

As we grow, we assume other identities - Engineer vs. doctor, executive vs entrepreneur, private vs public, graduate vs post graduate vs doctorate, maid vs master. As our family grows, we become friend, beloved, husband, wife, father, mother, uncle, aunt, grandfather, grandmother and host of other relationships.

And slowly from an infinite possibility at birth, we become a defined identity that is wrapped in its definitions and limits. Each identity that we take on, limits us as it defines us. While it makes us more of something, it also makes us less of something else. And this constant reduction in our span of possibility makes me what I finally call myself - An upper caste North Indian Punjabi post graduate Hindu Indian CEO who is father of 2 children.

And to think that I was born a human male - just that!

If we get in touch with who we truly are - human beings - don't you think the conflict that's dividing us everyday can disappear?

Learning for exams vs. learning for understanding

Last weekend I was at my sister's place and was indulging in idle banter with my 6 year old niece. After various games of high fives and showing me all the artwork and craftwork that she had made over the last 6 months, she announced, 'I also know how to write an application'. Now I was reasonably proud and delighted at all the knowledge and skills that my niece had come to acquire in the 6 months since we last met. So in my enthusiasm I said, 'ok, tell me an application for building a house.' 'I don't know that one. We have just been told the application for issuing a new diary.' she said, slightly offended that I wasn't sticking to the script. Normally, in this situation, she would expect the adult to say indulgently, 'hanh, beta sunao (yes, please tell me) and she would go on to recite her carefully memorized application but this request from me, threw her off gear.

Of course my intention was not to throw her off gear. I was just assuming that if a child has been taught to write an application, she would be able to write an application, not just THE application for issuing a new diary. So I asked,
Me: How come you know this application?
She: Because I have learnt it, her tone clearly said that this was a silly question. You know because you learn, not because you know!
Me (persisting): But why did you learn it?
She (rolling her eyes): Because there is a test tomorrow! Of course the unsaid part was: why else would I learn if not for the test. Don't you get it my moron Mamu
Me: Did you write it yourself?
She (laughing at the absurdity of the question now): Arey no! The teacher wrote it on the blackboard and we noted it down.

My reactions were a mix of fond indulgence at her innocence and frowned exasperation at the jaundiced experience of learning that we were subjecting her to. Unable to give up, I went forward...
Me: Beta, why do we write an application?
She (almost instantaneously): Because there is a test tomorrow!
Me: No, no! Not that. In life, when do we need to write an application?
She (innocently): Humein yeh nahi parhaya

And with that declaration, she decided she had enough and walked away slightly disappointed that she had not been afforded the opportunity to recite the application that she had so diligently memorized.

I was left wondering, at the kind of education she was getting. Was she really learning anything? What purpose would memorizing an application serve if she didn't know why needed it. Or being able to gain an understanding so she can apply it in any circumstance. What was her motivation to learn? Was it to really imagine all possible scenarios where she would need permission or approval and hence need an application. Or was it to pass the test next day?

Are we creating an education system or an exam system?

Later that day, I went upto her.
Me: Ria, when Papa was building this house, who's permission did he need?
She (thought for a while and then said): carpenter's?
Me: Yeah, the carpenter made all the furniture and there were lots of times when Papa discussed things with him. But Papa didn't need his permission to build the house. Whose permission do you think Papa needed?
She (innocently): Mama's?
Me (suppressing a smile at what she had revealed unwittingly): Who is responsible for buildings in Pathankot?
She (getting interested now): Municipal Corporation?
Me (enthusiastically): Very good thinking! And who runs the municipal corporation?
She (tentatively): municipal head
Me: Yeah, that's what he is. Municipal Head. He is called Municipal Commissioner. Now what do you want him to do?
She (excited now):  Build a house!
Me (prodding): Will he build the house or give permission to build the house?
She (nodding in agreement): Give permission
Me: And why should he give permission?
She: Because I want a house
Me: And why do you want a house?
She: Because I want a place to play, study, eat food and sleep
Me: Ok, so if you tell him that you need a place to play, study, eat and sleep and you tell him that this land belongs to you, he should be give you permission?
She: Yes
Me: So let's say this as if you are writing an application to the Municipal Commissioner. You want to try?
She (halting, searching, guessing, faltering but trying): To The Municipal Commissioner, Pathankot. Respected Sir, I want a place to play, study and sleep. I want to build a house. This land belongs to me. Kindly allow me to build a house here. Thanking you, Yours truly, Anika Sarpal

BRAVO! Well tried. I shrieked! 'See, if you think deep, you can write an application. Good job Ria'

'Let's do another one!' she cried enthusiastically. There it began. Ria's love for applications. We ended up making several applications. From widening the street to allowing her school bus to reach her home to changing the menu in her school to keeping the playground near her home clean - Ria was unstoppable! Then I slipped in the obvious one. 'hey, what if you lose a diary?' She went, 'I know this one! I'll ask the class teacher to issue me a new one.' 'And, why should she issue you a new one?' 'Else, where will I take notes and write homework?' 'Hmm mm...makes sense. Chalo, let's play something else!'

Learning can be fun. When children are taken from the known to the unknown, they are willing to try. When they see the relevance of what they are learning, they are enthusiastic to learn more. But if it is all about passing an exam, they'll do what it takes to pass the exam - in most cases, this means mugging up before and forgetting promptly after.

Let's create an education system built around learning for real understanding NOT learning for passing exams.

Why India won't produce a Steve Jobs

Last Sunday, we went with our daughter for her to participate in a drawing event at a Landmark bookstore. She was beaming with excitement, prancing in front of us, carrying her drawing board and set of crayons and color pencils under her arm. As we entered the bookstore, we quickly realized that we weren't the only parent escorting my child to the bookstore on a hot Sunday afternoon. There were 50 other committed moms and 2 isolated dads with their children aged 3 to 7 year old.

The bookstore staff was clearly unprepared for this big outpouring of parental indulgence and children's enthusiasm. While they went about gathering drawing sheets and colors for the children on hand, I noticed something subtle but definitely present. This did not seem to be an idle Sunday activity to keep the children busy. This was clearly a COMPETITION!

As I was trying to re-calibrate my bearings to deal with 50 competitive moms and 2 dads, the Landmark staff started distributing blank sheets to the children. After about 5 minutes, I noticed something stranger. No child was doing anything. They were just staring around with blank sheets and crayons in their hands. Now in my world, I expect children to be excited to scribble, draw, paint - do whatever they want to do when given a blank sheet of paper  and colors! But no, not these children. With my curiosity getting the better of me, I nudged close to a child and said, 'Beta, why are you not drawing anything?'. He looks up to me as if I'm from Mars and says, 'we are waiting for them to tell us what to do.' Now this stuck me as odd because children intuitively know what to do - scribble, draw explore.  They are innately curious and would have a go at things trying out things, taking a chance unless told not to! But these children, 50 of them were just sitting, waiting for someone to tell them what to do! I went ahead and said, 'Beta, why don't you just have fun and draw what you like?' He turned to look at his friend sitting next to him, exchanged a glance which was a cross between 'has this man lost his mind?' and 'why do I have to talk to him?' and then said, 'but won't they tell us the topic?' I felt as if someone had hit me in my guts and my intellectual and professional being had crumpled under the sudden realization that here, right in front of my eyes, the future of the country was going to the dogs!

I turned around and hoping to find an ally in a mom standing nearby, asked her, 'why don't they just have fun and draw what they want. It's drawing after all!' What she said jolted me into realization that far from being my ally, she and most of us parents are the culprits. She went, 'what if they have fun and draw something and then the Landmark people come and announce a topic and they get disqualified? Who would handle that? They need to understand that fun is alright till 3 but then they have to follow rules!' Was she for real? I couldn't believe my ears!

As I looked around, I realized that she was not alone. One mom was fighting with the Landmark staff that they should not have given blank sheets for 3 to 6 year olds. They need outlines to color. How presumptuous of us to estimate what the child is capable of! When the staff brought out an outline book and tore pages to distribute to the younger children, another mom mumbled, 'How are we supposed to teach them not to tear pages from books if these guys tear pages and give it to them here!' Another one was shouting, 'What's the topic? Should they start? How much time do they have?' And I was wondering how easily they had made a fun activity for the kid into an exam with lots at stake.

Once the drawing started, performance anxiety took over the moms and made them into monsters. One mom was shouting across to her 3 year pretty little daughter, 'Color within the lines, look at how didi is doing!' The poor girl who seemed to be having fun till that point, filling in different colors in the butterfly outline, started panicking. Her lines went haywire and tears started streaming down her eyes. Another mom stopped a child from talking, insisting that she was disturbing her daughter! There was a mom who was insisting that her boy draw a straight line under his name. There was still another who threatened, ' Don't copy'. And this was a drawing activity, not a Board exam!

How did we come to this? I know for sure that all of us love our children and want the best for them. But then why do we go ahead and do things that kill their curiosity, snub their risk taking ability and take the fun out of learning? Why do we insist that all lines should be straight? Why do we want them to color within the lines? Why do we want them to wait for instructions? What will happen if children are left to be children?

Is it any surprise that we don't produce an Einstein? Do you see why India won't produce a Steve Jobs?

Distortions due to RTE

In my last column, I had mentioned that RTE Act in its current form will introduce distortions in the profile of schools. The latest news from Karnataka confirms my doubts. More than 50% of Private unaided schools in Karnataka have claimed to be minority institutions whether on linguistic, religious or community grounds! Instead of affirmative action, this will make school education more and more exclusive for specific communities.

The 25% reservation should not have happened in the first place. It seems to be driven by the misplaced desire of socialists to teach 'elitist' schools and 'elitist' parents a lesson, get rich people to share the spoils with the 'have nots'. It forgets that philanthropy can be inspired, not forced. There are enough philanthropic institutions that have seats reserved for the poor, which offer freeships and scholarships for the disadvantaged. Why take that intrinsic motivation away by forcing an external diktat down their throat? 

Now that it has happened, the 25% reservations should have been applied as a blanket to all private unaided schools. Forcing it down for some and not on others, creates distortion. People start to consider that opening a minority school or a residential school might be better because then 25% reservation doesn't apply even though the area might not need a minority or a residential school! Schooling starts to become more about avoiding the 25% reservation instead of educating children!

The larger point however is that 25% reservation does not create new capacity for the whole system! As per article 6 of the RTE Act, Government is responsible to ensure that there is a primary school within 1km and secondary school within 3km of every child within 3 years of the act coming into being. That milestone is on 26th August, 2012. Is there any progress towards that end? Public opinion and media focus has to shift from whether 'rich, elite schools are willing to implement 25% reservation?' to whether Government is taking concrete steps to enhance supply of schools and meet the requirement under article 6 of the act.

Else, we'll miss the substantive for the populist.

Right to education and the RTE Act

Let me state one thing at the outset. I believe that every child has the right to education and health. I also believe that education (& health) is different from other products and services in that it cannot be governed by market dynamics. While quality can dictate price in other categories, leading to rich people getting access to high quality products and services - this is simply not tenable for education and health because these are not consumption items; they are human capital building items. So if poor people get poor education and poor health, they'll remain poor. And if rich people get good education and good health, they'll become richer and the gap will continue to widen. Therefore Universal access to good quality education is a noble and I would argue, necessary goal for our nation.

Now, what determines good quality education? And what comes in the way of universal access to it? Numerous surveys have indicated that good teachers in safe, enabling environments lead to good education. And access to it is a function of abundant supply of the above.

Why is it that in India, all children do not have access to good quality education?

First, there are not enough schools. As I mentioned in my previous post (about 2 years back), India needs about 25 crore school seats and my estimate shows that at present there are about 19 crore seats. Who will bridge this gap?

Second, out of the schools available, only a handful are of good quality. This has been brought out by numerous surveys and reports (ASER, PISA scores etc). Government schools top the charts in terms of rank bad quality. Some private schools are not a whole lot better, relying on rote learning and batch testing. Learning for understanding and application of knowledge takes place in only isolated islands of excellence. Teacher quality and motivation is the main culprit here. Our BEd program is outdated, teacher accountability in government schools is absent and teacher capability is pathetic.

In the face of this, how do we service every child's right to (quality) education?

First, of course is to increase the supply of good quality schools. But what does the RTE act do? Ask private schools to reserve 25% of seats for the poor and disadvantaged sections of society. How will this increase overall supply? It is not like private schools are sitting with idle capacity which they can offer to children of poor and disadvantaged sections. So the 25% children of 'strong and advantaged' section who would otherwise have gotten admission in private schools will now have to either go to government schools (thereby depriving them of their right to quality education!) or hope for new private schools to come up. And why would new private schools come up if 25% reservation makes it unviable for them?

Aren't we killing the goose that lays the golden egg? Aren't we stifling the urge to innovate in private schools because the returns would not be there anymore? Aren't we reducing the attractiveness for a private player to open a school? Instead, should the government not be opening more schools? Better still, instead of opening schools that are run by teachers who earn fat salaries but seldom come to class, isn't it better to pay vouchers to poor parents to help them pay for quality education? This way, the poor parent becomes equal to his rich counterpart in ability to pay. Government money would go towards funding education rather than funding non performing teachers. Private player can focus on running good quality school because both rich and poor parent can now pay for the education he provides. And with Nandan Nilekani's Aadhar project, this should be possible very soon!

Second, we need to overhaul our teacher education, curriculum and assessment system. What does the RTE act do in this regard? Nothing. Zero. Zilch!

The Act has so many flaws and loopholes that practitioners of the art have already found multiple ways of avoiding implementation. You will see an increase in private minority institutes and residential schools. You'll have another group of rent seekers for NOC to schools under RTE. You'll have fake registrations of poor students in private schools without an actual child studying. The list goes on. I have met a number of school trustees who have a ready armory to defeat the contentious and misguided 25% reservation guideline. Rather than investing time, effort and resources in policing an unfair rule, the government would be well advised to focus on constructive ways of guaranteeing the right to education of every child by building more schools and making teachers more accountable.

If we are truly serious about ensuring every child has access to quality education, then RTE is high on intent but low on action. The tough actions needed in allocating the right budget to education, implementing a voucher system, overhauling teacher education and rationalizing the ponderous volume of syllabus have neither been taken nor been indicated as future actions. All that has been done is an Act. The Right to (Quality) Education is still a pipe dream.