The Plucking of the Daffodil

There was once a little daffodil,

Leaving beneath the great oak tree,

Who was also her dear uncle Bill,

Under his shade she dreamt a life free

Of chasing her dreams, ever so many.

Under the million stars, her dreams she kindled,

Of the faraway lands and knights in shining armor,

There she lay awake, night after night so splendid.

She had a smile to stop a king and humour,

A pretty face too to match.

Every night she dreamt of many a great things,

Of singing to the birds in early mountain dawn,

Of kissing the queen and of donning her mighty crown,

Of touching a prince and forever be in him gone,

But alas that was not so to be.

One fateful day came the great merchant doom,

He asked Uncle Bill so artfully for his dear little niece,

Many a great things awaits he said, not a drop of gloom,

For this beautiful daffodil would make a garland for ladies fair and nice,

Promised him of a place so fair, and all that’s good for his little niece.

The lovely little daffodil wept and wept and wept all right,

“I am so young, yet so tender for my dreams be forever crushed,

It is too early for me, to lose all of life from sight”

She pleaded and begged, but yet her opinion away was brushed,

Oh dear, Oh our poor little daffodil.

Her dear Uncle Bill did seldom put up a face so stern,

Pointed at his niece and said in a voice ever so hoarse.

“I wish only well, my dear little child, all I wish is you not burn

For you are to me precious as the short king’s mighty horse”

I wish only good and all the glittering glory to you.

I know of your dreams, so high and mighty,

Of wandering the worlds and of the royal garden,

But you are only a daffodil and take that not so lightly,

I am old and weak and with you future laden,

This is for you good my dear little one.”

On the day of the great plucking, came the merchant doom,

She was plucked ceremoniously, our little miss daffodil,

No more a miss but ever so young and yet to bloom,

She cried so hard that night and lost was her dreams and will,

Only to wither away in the dark shadows of an alley way back.

The Crap They Sell Us at Schools

What is India heading to? It must be total anarchy or may be something worse. When confronted with the question of what I would like to change in the society if I could, I went over an awful lot of possibilities. I considered personal stuffs like changing my hairstyle to my stop biting my nails and universal stuffs like a world without boundaries (we ought to talk about that some time sooner). But then it struck me very of handedly that the one thing that must be changed in India is its Victorian ‘tailor made for slaves’ education system by our huge hearted well-wisher Lord Macaulay. But with all the crap that we are being fed in our schools now one has to ask themselves is it still called ‘education’ anymore.

I must be unfair in placing the blame on Lord Macaulay; in fact I am wrong in doing so. His intension was not to create the entrepreneurs scientists and thinkers who would one day propel the nation to unprecedented heights but his was an even harder job. His job was to create an educational system that would create enough donkeys who would work on the largely underpaid and ‘sub-standard‘ jobs that they could just not watch an English man do. And he was fair in churning out our matriculation system that we still proudly uphold today. One cannot call them schools they must be called cattle farms. He was a complete success in what he did, but we were the real idiots who bought their sinister plot with not a thought going into it.  

But, now our educational system which, I was once a part of a few years back was indeed not all that bad. There were some good things in it too like raisins in a cake. But now it’s just like a nightmare gone horribly wrong. Each person adding his whims and fancies into it doesn’t really give us a comprehensive and informed educational system. When todays educationalist go on to the extent of defining a forest vaguely as ‘a group of tree’ , the doubt starts arising in one’s mind whether they really are educated enough to be called educationalist. I think they get some kind of sadistic pleasure by ruining the life and dreams of today’s bright ones.

We need to revolutionize and revitalize our educational system or at the very least make our ‘antique’ system catch up with the today. What the nation now needs are brilliant entrepreneurs, stratergicians and researchers who would become the corner stone of its continued success. When a nation such as ours finds itself in the middle of a fast evolving world it need to put up its best face to be part of that world and to continue being there we need educated and capable people’.

Simply copying any educational system from the west may not be a very good alternative. Though highly successful in generating quality research and enriching potential, the cultural aspect and the mindset of the prevalent society play a significant role in its success too. What we need is not a ditto copy, but of possible inclusion of its best practices to our educational system and make the exaggerant focus on marks must go dim. It’s true we need more quality people but that doesn’t mean more people with maximum marks but we need more people who understand what they do.

If one thing must change about the mindset of the people then it must be this, the parents should stop pursuing the career of their children. They should realize that they can’t live their child’s life too. They should give their children a chance to live out their dream. Children may not be best judges of things but they know their hearts and their odds, if they believe they can succeed, shouldn’t they be given a chance to try. If this one factor about our society does change, there will be a reciprocating change in our educational system and a transformation in it for the best. The only thing that drives entrepreneurship and research is passion and its severe shortage is what the nation is suffering from, and why is that? The simple answer is the overwhelming focus on a ‘safe career’ forced upon today’s children.

Indeed our educational setup is plagued by a hoard of problems; the only reason for it can be the lack of timely changes that never happened. Now we are faced with a problem, whether to radically alter our system or slowly change it such that it can play catch up at the cost of valuable time. I incline towards a radical transformation, I believe a couple of unrest in the department will be all the resultant problems from such an action but it will produce the desired results in time. But I need not be the final say in that matter. It is a complicated and sensitive issue and requires an equally though-about and subtle solution. But one thing is sure, we have already reached the precipice now all we have is total oblivion or a resurrection and the choice is ours to act about.