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?