The Capital of Sikkim is America!

Funny or not, I’m still unable to figure out. Or maybe as someone once said, it’s funny, but in a not so nice way. As a part of our educational campaign, “Kalvi”, we had to visit various corporation schools across Chennai city, to spread awareness about the government policies for school going children. And this was in turn supposed to encourage the children to continue their education and reduce the number of school drop-outs.

Mrinalini and Gayatri did a great job at explaining why education is important to each one of the students and how they could avail the government benefits for school-goers. The bribe to make them listen was a promise that there is a prize awaiting them at the end of the day. Mid-day meals, scholarships, cycles and innovative activity based learning programmes were some of the schemes that the government offers and surprisingly many of them drew a blank when we spoke about it.

After a lot of commotion, the four finalists were chosen. Being the quizmaster (!!!:P), I was quite apprehensive about the choice of questions. Our target group was class 8 – class 12 and I didn’t want to deviate from what would be appropriate. Given the fact that the class 4 & 5 students of a private school were a lot smarter and proactive than expected (I am referring to our previous campaign on global warming), I decided to prepare questions that fall somewhere between easy and moderate. Sitting with my mom, brother and cousin and taking in a lot of suggestions, I decided upon twenty questions.

So yeah, coming back to the classroom picture… I went on to ask the first finalist, Shanmugam… “What is the capital of Sikkim?”. “Uh…Sikkimaa?”, he blinked. I managed to explain where and what exactly Sikkim is all about. After some deep thinking, “America!” came his reply loud and hopeful. I was baffled. Shocked. Dumbfound. By this time there were other hopefuls in the class, jumping out of their seats with their hands well above their heads, emulating a pendulum, screaming “Meees, meees (Miss)”. Okay, so maybe Shanmugam was not the right choice for the finals, I assumed and went on to give the other aspirants a chance. “Bhuuuutan, Ootttttyyyyy, New Yoooork”. Embarrassed, I moved on to the next finalist. Who is the Indian who won a gold medal at Olympics 2008? “Ummm…ayyo…oru second meees”. He scratched his head and tried to get it out of his mouth. “Edho oru Brinda mees!” (I’m sorry Mr. Bindra, I didn’t mean to cause this sex change!)

What followed in the higher classes was no different. Expand (a+b)2 . Offended looks, we don’t have this meees, a square plus b square and wrong et ceteras…. What is the capital of Madhya Pradhesh? (Well, it is at least closer to TN and I personally thought it would be easier). Again, America, again New York… and something new, “Pudhu Delhi”. The change itself was a relief. We finally gave up and asked them about something that they sing everyday at school. The Tamizh Thaay Vaazhthu. “Name the person who wrote the Tamizh Thaay Vaazhthu. Murmured discussions and then “Thiruvalluvar, Bharathiyar…!”. My goodness! We saw one smarty pants hurriedly opening her Tamil book beneath her desk. Now we had to tell them that though the government policies were good, Honesty was simply the best policy (he he…sorry)!

Exhausted mentally and physically at the end of the day, we returned home quite baffled. The status of the government run schools was sad. Could I take their answers as an excuse to innocence? I tried but couldn’t, because they were 12, 13 14, 15, 16, 17 and I doubt if adolescence still holds innocence as its component. And innocent people don’t catcall, they wouldn’t dream of asking women the time for the kinky pleasure of it. They don’t roam the town with perfectly tweezed eyebrows (I remember myself sporting ragged, bushy eyebrows till I was eighteen…) and don’t sit in class whispering obscenities.

I did get back home and give a funny recount of my day. We had a good laugh… but the funny side apart, there was nothing really funny. The education standards are so poor in these schools that they don’t even know how to distinguish between cities, towns and countries. They follow the English medium, but stutter and splutter over English words (they couldn’t read the words of wisdom on the graffiti table top that they got. They were in fact disappointed that the prize was something so “mundane”. They were not chocolates or sketch pens, you see). They didn’t know math, they didn’t know Tamil… and well yeah, they did know an Indian astronaut, Kalpana Chawla, but not that fact that she’s no more.

Statistics show that Tamil Nadu is listed under the states having the worst literacy rates. And we could see why. Right in front of our eyes. We didn’t know who is to be blamed. The government? The teachers? The students? Or ourselves? Initiatives to improve our condition do exist, thanks to the CSR drive of some organizations and the self-interest of a few activists, like the one whom we met at the school. She voluntarily works with children at the level of pre-schooling itself (it may be irrelevant here, but the pre-kg classroom at the school was done in pinkJ), training them towards a proper mindset to learn and know and to never drop-out.

We are all not Mother Teresas, and we don’t have to be either. We can still spend a bomb on education abroad and fancy courses in schools in India. Still throw tantrums over boring food and still be indifferent to our books till just before our exams. I don’t intend to change too much. But sometimes, when life shows you the darker side of the story, you can’t help but be concerned. I appreciate whosoever is concerned in originating a department like ours. I’m happy for this campaign that happened, however big or small. I appreciate all the people who have volunteered for the Teach India initiative. I’m glad that there are many individuals rising to perceive a change.

Barren lands don’t make a nice picture and I pray for greener pastures to come.