Whats Wrong?

Let me put this straight. My grandmother was a really educated woman; not that she’s dead or anything, just that that education has sortta boggled her head up a bit. Like you know sometimes it leads you astray, like Morrison and all, don’t get me wrong. She’s not on drugs and all, rather she’s keeping pinker then its possible to be, just the sort of pink we expected the other person to be when we wrote those letters in our English exams back in our days, but there’s something that’s not right. I mean at times she just excretes such I-don’t-know-what-sort of thoughts that I start to wonder if this concept of education is appropriate at all. I know we have had some really great men, and though some countrymen would argue that we have not just had ‘some’ and would include Gandhi and all, but that goes over me, nevertheless let them have their way. But what I am getting at is what sort of an education system do we have, the prominent question being “is it reliable?”

 

I mean I was at this funeral some years ago, and since someone in the family had died, everyone I could think of and didn’t want to was assembled in that whitewashed room. God have mercy on those walls for they did hear a lot during those days. And its all alright keeping a light heart and all, and you know we all have to die someday sort of a philosophy, but don’t atleast start to gossip. That’s all I say. I mean I would rather not go to a funeral, then to go there and gossip, it completely contradicts the purpose of the visit. Anyways there I was pretending to sleep on a sofa, because the ceremony was to go on for a mutilatingly long time as it happens in most Hindu ceremonies. Seriously, those ancients that actually wrote our ceremonies probably thought that we were never going to progress, and probably have all the time in the world forever. Though I don’t really think that most of us have really broken their hearts, but that’s just a joke. Anyways, there I was pestered beyond the parables of pesterdom and awaiting the burial of the day. Just wanted to write that line.

 

All of a sudden the topic changed from something that had to do with two women who were neighbors and were spying on each other without the other knowing (them both being my distant aunts), to something that had to do with education. And my grandmother. Ha! started. I don’t mean like she was shocked or anything, by started I mean a monologue. She started to speak. Many of my fellow Indians would be able to relate to this incident; I refer to those that have survived these soliloquies, for those that haven’t my most humble charkhas on republic day. All Indian grandmothers are prime ministers and presidents in disguise.

 

“I have often thought that someone should do something about the rate of education in this country”, thus she began and proceeded “I don’t know what happened to all those dreams that our fathers told us about from the time of independence.” And now was to come the dreadful moment. “These youngsters are not willing to do anything.” La lalalala. I started to hum in my mind. “They do not take any constructive steps, just whining and mopping about who’s going to become the next prime minister. Stupid economic problems that pop up from no where and settle down into nothingness before anyone ever heard of it. I think this new generation is too guile to be trusted. They concoct things like this economic slowdown, and not enough food to capture the vote bank. Whatever happened to the green revolution?” Here I realized that her knowledge had faltered. I mean she had sure heard of the green revolution, but then she hadn’t heard of what happened. Anyways I parted my sleeping lips and whispered that the green revolution was a success in individuality, but because of the population explosion it had become a failure. And that was that.

 

“That is why I am telling you that education is a basic necessity, in fact ‘education is my birth right and I shall have it’ should be the slogan of the decade. We must take extra steps to educate the uneducated. Look how well this education has proved for me!” All eyes closed half and heads ducked lightly in approval. Smiles from all sides. This is another thing I don’t get. In their hearts they must be cursing her for her education. All those powerful women. But when she spots them on they just listen to her. They sure did want to say a lot but didn’t.

 

Then bravo to her sister. She was married to a very powerful man and didn’t have the slightest care in the world. She merely took these speeches as vanity, and I think that’s a woman. Most politely she asked for some tea as my grandmother went on about the good that education does to a persons mind and all that, herself included. She also did not forget to mention the good it would do to farmers and their children, and that children that do not want to study should be beaten up. While this last topic really took her mind to the extremes, the tea was served. And this is why I say bravo to her sister because just as the she was served her tea, she asked.

 

“Arre Ramu, you have been helping my sister for a very long time, but I don’t think there must be much to do in the house since all the children have moved out?”

 

Ramu venturing to make the mistake, “Not much madam.”

 

“Ohk”, she whispered softly and began to smile.