Jun 26
I had to go to work today and i decided to carry along my camera. SAP Labs is one of the most beautiful campuses in town and is always teeming with wonderful wildlife. Lizards are gorgeous (as are agamas). Exquisite skin color and texture, inquisitive beady eyes and patient posing make them ideal for portraiture. The complex patterns on their skins complement the intricate social interaction they share; I spent about 20 minutes engrossed in a standoff between two males over territory.
Jun 19
Every house has a front porch with a well-tended lawn, a dog or two and people fiercely protecting their freedom from large apartment construction companies. The old man sits on his wooden easy-chair, the left arm of which has broken, and listens to carnatic classical music on his radio. The light streams through the little ventilation window at the top of the wall, either side of which are pictures of gods. Pictures that were once in full technicolor, but are now struggling to stay on the wall. The double-plaited school girl strolls past in her hand-me-down cycle even as the lady haggles with the auto-driver for the right price to Mount Road. Men in dhotis don't really care about the heat too much and the 'Frish Sweat Lime Soda' vendor loves it. There is a rangoli in front of every house, a vibuthi on every forehead, a lunch box on every scooter and a love for their language. There is a masala dosa shop full of people right opposite from a barren sandwich shop. There are morphed posters of Rahul Gandhi sitting beside the Mahatma all over the city.
Chennai seems to be a city in love with its old self and is fighting to clutch on to it. A city that seems to live in its own nostalgia. A city so enthralled with its own culture and pride that perhaps, might just lead to its relegation.
***
She's probably about 25 years old. He, about 30 and their child is barely a month old. She's wearing jeans, a well-fitted t-shirt and her hair short. She seems to love the chicken burger that she's devouring, and she's got fries with that. She whispers something into his ear and laughs out loud once she's done. She holds his hand and doesn't let go. Joy sweeps across her face until she realizes it's time to leave. She gets up and walks to the restroom, he picks up the baby and walks out of the door. After a little while, she walks out. Wearing a burkha. She hardly meets his eye, sits sideways on his scooter and they ride away.
Chennai is full of such dichotomies. Walking into McDonald's is escaping into another country, even a different time. Maybe a metamorphosis into a different person and when you walk out, you transform back.
***
There is an alarming lack of birdlife in the city. I walked around for a couple of hours in a quiet residential area and saw nothing but a few crows and a couple of pigeons. I heard a myna once. I hope it's only because I wasn't paying enough attention.
***
'Fear of God is the first step to gain the power of knowledge', screams a sign on a street wall. No, it isn't.
Jun 10
After two wordy posts, decided to go quiet in this one.
Shots from Kabini.
Jun 3
The
Right To Education Act (full text) was passed recently and has been widely lauded. There are 3 ways of looking at this, in increasing order of optimism:
1. Chaos ensues
Redefining illiteracy
If all goes according to plan, in about 20 years, we would have produced nearly 350 million graduates which is almost doubling the current work force of the country. Since the number of opportunities would not have doubled in 20 years, this would mean that we raise the bar for getting a job. Literacy would no longer be the ability to read and write but would be the ability to procure as many degrees as possible. An undergraduate would be looked down upon and the race for better grades, higher education, admissions into reputed institutes would worsen significantly.
Chasing unrest
Take a dollop of insufficient jobs, add a pinch of reverse brain drain and mix well with a false sense of entitlement. As it comes to a boil, sprinkle a generous dose of discrimination based on educational institute and add economic uncertainty according to taste. Finally, garnish with a little mob mentality and you have the perfect recipe for widespread riots and internal conflict.
Learning from the past
Our education system is based on what was the need of the industrial age: a focus on math and science. We live in a completely different world today and what's worse, it's a rapidly changing one. Hundreds of millions of people educated in an archiac system are going to be woefully out of place in the new world.
And I haven't even spoken about the quality of education, the lack of teachers, the abysmal infrastructure or the lack of accountability.
2. Nothing really changes
To be fair, the act is quite well intentioned and noble and it will be a good deterrent to child labor and child marriages. It is great to have the law on your side when you are growing up and it is great to not be forced into doing something you don't want to. The promise of building more schools and training millions of teachers will probably not come through fully, not all children will actually go to school and nothing of any real note will actually change. Things will remain more or less the same or probably a shade better.
3. A dent in formed in the universe
This is a fantastic chance to revolutionize education in a simple 2-step program - First, change what is being taught and how it is being taught. And second, make it accessible to every single child in the country. This is probably one of the few times in history that lets us start with a complete clean slate, re-imagine all our preconceived thoughts about education and design a framework for the future. This is one of those times when we can dream big and be assured that the tools to realize the dream exist.
Personally, the worst case scenario would be the 2nd option, though i fear that the 1st is most likely. Having said that, our generation has the gift of being in the right place at the right time and wouldn't it be wonderful to leave behind a legacy.
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