IIMs, Reservation, the Judiciary and other odds & ends…

I was reading with interest the happenings since Mr Arjun Singh decided to uncork his 27 % formula for the IITs & IIMs. I couldn’t help comparing with the days when another gent named Mr VP Singh uncorked his Mandal formula. Those were the days when I was nearing the end of my graduation, looking forward to post graduation and a job.

Mandal… Rajeev Goswami and self immolations…. Desperate street battles and fury…..Classmates split right down the middle…..a young generation which had lifted VP Singh from obscurity, and brought down Rajiv Gandhi, saw its messiah turn a rank opportunist….. I was one of that generation. I was an idealist. VP Singh turned me into a hard boiled cynic. I will never be an idealist again. The street battles were nothing but a catharsis for other idealists – there was no real hope of reforming the system.

Now.. the students in AIIMS protesting against the new Singh, I sense the difference. The protests are clinical, neat. There are no immolations. Only in Delhi and nowhere of the Mandal scale. Why? Is it that this generation lacks the will to fight? I don’t think so. I think there are good reasons. This generation is more cynical. They have no heroes, least of all among the political class. Dr Manmohan singh is silent. Worse, he tells the judiciary to mind it’s own business. Dr Abdul Kalam is busy on his vision 2020 thing and interacting with children. He has no time for all this. Other things have changed too.

Privatisation. In the days of Mandal, the Govt job was everything. That was why the desperation on the streets. Now, thanks to Mr Narasimha Rao, one of the greatest of our Prime Ministers, the Govt is just an option, a last option. This generation knows that. But higher education… that’s firmly in the hands of the Govt. There is no other option.

Or isn’t there?

I see the newspapers & and the hoardings. The Economic times news items. The Aussies, the Kiwis, the Brits and the Scots, the Irish and Uncle Sam are all here. The promise of an education abroad – for a price. The chance to bypass the Singhs and the Quotas. When God closes the door, he opens the window!!!

As a parent, I wonder. My child is growing up. In 11 years time she will pick up her rifle and storm Tiger Hill. She will do so against inhuman odds. She will watch as other kids take the bunkers, by virtue of the artillery and air support the Singhs provide. She will become bitter and cynical. She will fail. Not because she didn’t try, not because she wasn’t good enough, but because she didn’t have the air cover.

As a parent, I know it will happen, since I have seen Mandal and Mr Arjun Singh. There is only one thing I can do. When the time comes, I have to give her the air cover, the artillery support. I have to level the playing field. If I don’t, I have failed. There is only one way to do that, there is only one howitzer which cannot be subverted by the legislature or by the Judiciary. Hard cash.

Money is important. Not for swimming pools or Armani suits. As air cover. For a house. For my childs education. For her wedding. For my retirement days. For my medical bills when its time to leave. For my wife after I have gone.

I cannot depend on the Government. It has ruined the public sector hospitals. It has ruined the primary and secondary education sectors. It will ruin higher education. It has washed its hands off old age care. It has privatized pension funds. For it, people are expendable.

I can see IIT professors thinking the same thoughts. Maybe the Private sector & the Foreign Universities will open IITs. Maybe those professors will resign and leave for greener pastures – to make the hard cash for their own personal howitzers. Maybe they will go abroad so that their kids have a chance too. Or maybe they will not. Maybe they will stay. Maybe this country will become an Utopia where caste or class or religion will not matter. Maybe the IITs and the IIMs will not rot.

Maybe…..

India is shining. But only the paranoid will survive…………….

me bored !!!

Summer vacations !! We reached Trivandrum, to rendezvous with my brother, sis in law and their 7 year old, R - from UK. Me bored !! says R in propah british accent. R wails. Brother panics. Guitar lessons are arranged. My daughter is game too. Guitar saar has language problem - interpreter (me) is arranged. Lessons begin. Twang, Twang.....twaaaaang. After guitar....me bored!!
Next day, our cousins visit. With their mallu medium kids, S and D aged 7 and 8. I expect trouble. Brit kids cant talk Mallu, and vice versa. The kids are silent, eyeing each other. We throw a ball at them. Ice is broken. The game begins. R knows all the rules.. he knows all about AC Milan, Arsenel and Wayne Rooney. About the D, and offside. But there is a problem. The others don't. All hell breaks loose - S and D are scoring with thier hands, feet, butts and much else. R protests - who is listening? R wails - who is listening? R shuts up and tries desperately to staunch the haemmorhage of goals!!
Later...
we start a chess game. R knows that too ..propah!! the others are less well equipped. S's father has given him a board and left him to his own devices. R wins against S, once, twice. The game is close fought. S relies on instinct. R is better trained, has better tactics. S loses. I am watching S. He doesnt wail. He suggests another game, loses again. But he is picking up.. what is castling? what is this en passant? what is this, that? R is at ease. One more game. S loses again. No tears. He looks at the computerised board. Is this a computer? yes. My papa got me a marble one - he says proudly.
I look at the gulf between the two. R has every chance in life - but he doesnt know how to lose. S has lost, but has casually picked himself up, dusted his backside and played again, and again, and again - losing all the time, but learning all the time.
I look at S. There are thousands like him out there. Talented, gritty - like diamonds in the dust. The day we give them a chance, they will grab it. But in our country every other factor matters but talent - thats life.