Save the Girl Child

The sequel to Freakonomics, 'Superfreakonomics' has an interesting analysis on female population in India. The analysis reminded me of one of my analyses on the major cause of alarming growth of population in India. It will also feature in my novel. Here it goes,

There is only one cause of alarming growth of population in India - the expectation of a boy child. Let me explain by way of a simple example. My colony in Golaghat has 30 families with 95 children out of which 60 are girls. Ideally, no one would want to have more than 2 children. The ideal children population of the colony should have been 60, i.e. two children per family. The extra children were the outcome of the Parents’ desire to have a baby Boy. It would be right to say that our colony contributed 35 extra children to the population of this country. Thus, one third of the population of this country is not ‘real population’ but is an outcome of Parents’ desire to have a ‘baby boy’.

Grow up India!!

Karva Chauth.... or Karwa Truth...

Karva Chauth… I have always failed to understand this ritual followed by Women in North India. I asked this question to many friends/relatives/neighbors, etc. and I got the same answer in most of the cases – this for the well-being and long life of my husband. One doesn’t have to prove it in front of the world… by keeping a fast just because others do. Majority of the women fast because if they don’t they will be seen as someone who don’t care for their husband as much as they should.

They show it in the movies and TV dramas because audiences love these rituals being aired on TV and movies. The only beneficiaries are the moms-in-law and elderly women whose false believes are rubber stamped by these rituals being aired on TVs. The problem is that we love to follow something blindly without questioning the head and tail and the reason behind the same and thus it gets passed on to generation after generation.

Why are most of these difficult and painful rituals always for Women?

The answer is simple… these started way back in 8th or 9th or similar single digit century when this was a male dominated society and anything that translated into a ‘torture’ was meant for Women only. Dowry, Sati… and the list is endless.

Karva Chauth is as bad as and similar to Sati. In both the rituals women suffers. The later leads to death and in the former you die many times during the day.

According to some, the ritual signifies extreme love and devotion to the husband, as evidenced by the wife's willingness to suffer for his well being’… wow… a big round of applause from my side…. There are other ways to show love and affection to your husband… Give me a break!

I also want to write about another ritual that I hate the most …… Dowry… watch out for my next post.

What will you do if you secure 92% marks in Class XII………… Commit Suicide?????

What will you do if you secure 92% marks in Class XII?

Well…. if I was the one securing this mark, I would have died out of disbelief. ‘Cos you will need to add the percentage of one more student to my percentage to make it 92%.

In a very unfortunate incident, Kritika Khanna, a resident of Gurgaon hanged herself to death ‘cos 92% was not enough to get her admission into the so-called “Best Colleges” such as SRCC. The News sounds boring… right… ‘cos we are used to such news now, at least in Delhi, Mumbai and other Metros, where the only way to secure admission in Best Colleges is Grades.

If only, schoolteachers, friends or parents had told Kritika that Grades or best college are not everything. They can guarantee only one thing “snob value”. They cannot guarantee you street smartness, a good future or a good life.

How can one commit suicide? It takes a lot of courage to do that… or may be some peer pressure…. or society pressure…. as happened in the instant case.

The best way to run a college is the way Colleges in Golaghat (or any small town for that matter) are run. You go there on the date of the admission with roughly Rs. 400 ($10) and your original 10th pass certificate. That’s it. The admission clerk will ask if you would like to opt for Science, Commerce or Arts. If by God’s grace you secured Ist division (i.e. > 60%), the clerk knows the answer upfront, you would opt for Science, else, you would opt for Arts. There are negligible few only who secure first division. Being A Grades or studious is not considered a cool or in thing, at least in Golaghat. In case the number of seats for Science or Arts in the particular college is full, then only you would choose Commerce. So… this is how admissions take place. What happens as a result is that you do not worry about Grades in schools, until and unless you want to go and do your XIth from a school in one of the metros.

Who is to blame? Well.. the most common answer is “The System”. So I wont delve into it. What I want to highlight is the way the society judge kids. Go to any social gathering…. the first question thrown at a kid is “beta… which standard are you in?” “what was your % in 10th board and so on. What happens as a result? Those who do not secure good marks normally shy away from being social (let’s call them Category B kids). Thus the former category of kids starts getting everything easy in life (till they study) including attention (let’s call them Category A kids). Most of their time goes in notebooks, tuitions, rote learning few schoolbooks. They see life only through these books and rote learning. However, rote learning has one big advantage…. if the person setting the exam question is not smart (99 out of 100 are not), one can secure 100% marks simply by good memorization techniques, even though he or she may not have understood the subject at all. And, this is what happens in every schools in India (atleast).

The Bs has to struggle to get the same attention. As a result what happens is that Bs become stronger than the A’s mentally. As they are exposed to things other than books. They don’t learn much in Classroom; they learn everything the hard way, by navigating their way through real life challenges. No wonder, those who are used to getting everything easy in life (thanks to Grades), struggles the most when faced with reality.

The good news is that Street smartness is the only trait that can make you successful in life. You may choose to define success the way you want (Name, fame, money, well-balanced life, etc. etc.). Unfortunately Grades does not guarantee you that.

It’s high time that our schools focus on active learning and deep critical thinking rather than rote learning and high time for our society to stop asking that stupid question on Grades and School.

I would only like to give one gyan to the students… You might have one big reason for committing suicide… however, there are thousand reasons why you should not.

In case the one reading this happens to be A's, please don’t mind… I can only say that there are exceptions everywhere.