Suffocation

No. This does not refer to the black as a black hole smoke from idling trucks , stuck in a traffic jam on an Indian highway, waiting for the railway intersection to open. Nor does it refer to the dense fumes emanating from Chinese factories which I suspect are the reason behind the many permanently disfigured faces, dotted with acne more dense than ants inside an ant hill.

This comes after I saw a movie. Taarey Zameen Par. It made me cry - well, almost. Infinite thoughts crowded my mind. I remembered all the times when I felt like a machine running to the rules dictated by a cruel world. I remembered all those teachers who were criticized for not being hard working but whose classes were absolutely intriguing. I use this post to remember them, say them a thank you from a point in my heart deeper than Mariana Trench, and hope that they continue to enrich others for a long time to come.

When I was in a convent school, I was punished very often. For not wearing the proper dress on school day. For not wearing the blue socks with two red stripes. For not having the school symbol stitched into my blazer. And umpteen such reasons. I wasn't dyslexic, nor did I have the power of imagination that Ishaan is shown to possess. But I had my bad times. Like when they taught the nuances of the guts of a frog. Or the blood circulation inside insects.

Even to this day, I question the relevance of all that. I had my moments of solitude and absolute disillusionment. I went to a military school which groomed me to face the world. It taught me a lot of hard lessons that have stood by me in difficult times. But it was also where I felt absolutely out of place. I knew I wasn't meant to be a cross country runner. I knew I would never be able to play hockey without fearing the ball (and fearing for the balls!). I am sure each one of us has passed through those moments.

I was lucky that my parents put so much trust in me to let me get out of that school and live on my own for 2 years. While I was very lonely at times - imagine, I got into the habit of talking to stars ! - I read up a lot and performed well.

I look back at those days with mixed emotions. Certainly it was one of the happiest moments of my life when I learnt of my JEE rank. But there was no real reason why I had chosen to take that test. Just because everyone had. Just because it was a way to show that I can do whatever I want. I don't even know why I gave the CAT exam. Here again I performed much better than what I had ever hoped for, but I still don't know why I gave it. May be because it helped me tell people around me that while I have failed them in many respects, at least there are some things they can feel happy about. That it turned out to be a deciding factor in my career was only incidental.

I am another product of this system - the system which churns out doctors, engineer and MBAs. Where children spend their most beautiful years learning the most abstruse trigonometric identities and then forget them. Where they learn about Schrodinger's equations, Bohr's theories, various laboratory techniques and biological details of exotic animal species - never to return to them ever in their lives.

Some of my most beautiful memories of school days revolve around teachers who used to give us a free hand. And that I am sure you will realise is a very rare thing. I am yet to come across ambitious children, though it is not difficult to find children of ambitious parents. Most of the friends I know have become what was expected of them. It is blasphemy to say that parents can do harm to their children but I have seen parents being selfish enough to make their children go through rigorous activities - entirely against their wishes - just to enable the parents to bask in the glory of their children's accomplishments. I have seen a very small kid with thick glasses being dragged away from playground to attend his evening tuition.

I know of a very intelligent guy whose brilliance just got lost in the difficulties of this myriad world. When he was in class 9th, he used to read books more often read by people at the undergraduate level. His correspondences with Nobel laureates, their comments on his thoughts on the topic, his own reflections on myriad topics - from neurobiology to blackholes to quantum dynamics - these were a clear indication that his abilities far exceeded ours. While he may be happily employed somewhere, working among a sea of similar men, I think it is a very unfortunate thing that his dreams got lost somewhere in the course of life. Kamlesh Joshi, if you ever read this, do remember that I think of you as the brightest kid I ever met. As the kid whose genius was the stuff we read about in books. As the guy I was always scared of because he was the one I could almost never beat.

The most poignant moment in the movie comes when Aamir Khan describes how Ishaan must feel battling against everyone, refusing to accept that he cannot learn the letter as easily as others, and living each day to fight a battle against everyone - even his parents. How helpless and frustrated he must have felt. How immense the feeling of betrayal must have been when he was left in a boarding school he didn't want to go to. . .

It is a pity that the most beautiful part of childhood is lost in such rote learning.
It is a greater pity that we will see such a movie and forget it in a week. And then, we will avenge the suffocation of our own childhood by making our children go through the same trauma. The trauma of living on forced desires, of seeing someone else's dream, of not having a voice in deciding the course of their lives.

Something of my own doing :


A Boy of Five.


A boy of five ,
he cried , he cried .
For some mercy for his life
and to everyone he cried .

Tattered clothes, hungry eyes
till he had a hoarse voice.
For his mother long dead ,
for some water for some bread.
Countless corpses by his side ,
at the putrid smell ,he cried .

He tried to look around,
stupefied, he fell to ground .
He couldn't move, he couldn't speak
weeks of hunger made him weak .
In a camp of refugees,
slowly in his pant he pees .
Among the corpses he lay still ,
out of hunger tears spill .
All his hope this world belied,
till he lived ,he cried, he cried .