Highly Educational (BH:D56)

September 28, 2011

Yesterday while on my way back from the architect, I found the Eloor lending library open and decided to check it out. There is no reading room to hang out, so checking out is strictly for books and that too only if you are a member. Five middle-aged men were standing around a table involved in some discussion. I looked at them. They looked at me. I didn't know who the librarian was, so I addressed the the man who had the most earnest look. The importance of being earnest. Unfortunately, he wasn't the admin. "What is the membership deal?" I had asked.

The response came from the youngest in the group who was seated in a chair. It was a rapid fire response, "1000 rupees security deposit. If you want to cancel membership after 6 months, this money will be refunded. You have to pay 10% of the cost of the book for rental. The period is 14 days. After that a % of the price is added for each delayed day. At a time, you can take as many book as worth Rs 1500." 

It was too much information to process. And I needed time for the elaborate debate with myself whether I can commit to reading a book in 14 days. I had to buy time, so I asked if I could look around. He agreed. I went straigt into the aisle closest. It had some anime books and comics. I wasn't going to engage in a debate with myself in such frivolous presence. The aisle to the left was travel and religion. 

Much better location! 

I leaned against Buddhist books (as well as books on buddhism) and began a furious logical, financial, intellectual debate. 

And I lost! 

There was no way I was going to commit. Commitment to reading will be a horror flashback of school days. Reading has become such a pleasure, such a love only after all forms of commitment had disappeared from the equation. I think this is true about all kinds of love! 

The debate was over quicker than I expected. I pretended to be interested in a few more lines. The books were all neatly covered in plastic and the little yellow price stickers were prominent. After a couple of minutes I walked back to the front desk, "I will go now and come back with the money," I fibbed. I think it is ok to lie in a library stacked with 5 aisles of fiction. 

As I walked out, a petite, pretty aunty dressed in pristine white churidaar, her well-oiled thick black hair neatly combed backwards, an ephemeral line of kumkum adorning her forehead, walked in precariously gripping a plastic covered novel between her thumb and index finger with the extended ring finger sporting a prominent wedding ring. 

Walking down the steps of the library, I traced her perfume trail to the chauffeur-driven Mercedes parked outside. Obviously, this library will be absolutely fine without my patronage. Case closed.

By 7:45 this morning, while I was engaged in the impossible task of beating Col. Gopinath with the Hindu crossword solution, the cellphone rang. The survey guys were ready to reach our old home in half an hour. I called up my cousin and got his wife because he had gone on a temple round up. For a card carrying member of the communist party, he visits a lot of temples! When I met him later in the morning, he told me that he had to pray extra because a central commission was coming to visit his college to decide on its certification. Since the city was still an hour away from the morning rush, I joined the survey team soon after they got started. However, rush hour was already on in full swing at my cousin's house. Breakfast time: dosa with sambar, mango pickle and honey; kids readying for their school bus; the college car already waiting for their father. 

The three young chaps who formed the surveying team went about their duty enthusiastically. One of them was named Arun, so every few minutes I would involuntarily respond to the other team members calling him. A few hundred ants formed a beeline on the kitchen wall. The team was enterprising enough to climb over the wall of the vacant plot next door to finish up the surveying. The first step of the construction process wrapped up in under an hour. Months to go before the traditional milk boils over!

In the evening, met a school friend after 16 years. He was among my earliest public speaking mentors. Now married to one of my closest friend. We went to the Cafe Coffee Day to catch up. Cafe Coffee Day, I read in an article, is today's Indian Coffee House. Decades ago, the current frontrunners in the Malayalam film field, would meet at the Indian Coffee House to discuss stories and scripts. Nowadays this is supposed to be happening at the Coffee Day. I think that explains a great deal why most of the Malayalam films are blatant copies of Hollywood movies with the themes having very little to do with real life in Kerala. 

But it wasn't screenplays we were discussing. For an hour and a half we talked about old friends from school, the alarming state of India's higher education and his plans to do a PhD abroad.

He has been working in one of the most prolific coaching center chains in the nation. In Bangalore, MBA colleges run in buildings that have pubs in the ground floor. 'High'er education indeed. 

The lack of transparency and corruption involved with the government regulations for colleges makes it impossible for anyone to set up an institution without patronage and backing from some politician. It then becomes a pure money making venture with no concern of quality. If the regulatory and approving process becomes transparent and quasi-governmental, then foreign universities can hope for entering the Indian higher education center. Otherwise, no tempurpedic mattress can cushion the nightmares that the depths of Indian corruption will induce in American universities administrators. And college directors like my cousin will continue to invoke all the gods in the temples on the day regulators come for inspection.

Just as how the numerous private finance firms routinely skim poor folks out of their hard earned savings with promises of exponential growth and security, only to vanish into thin air one fine morning, the mushrooming private colleges lure the kids with assurances of great jobs on graduation, squeeze all the possible education loans and savings out of them and leave them as one among the 10-15 million graduates India produces every year. I listened to quite a few hilarious stories about the quality of "managers" these colleges were churning out. 

Yesterday, the architect had argued that removing the examination system from schools was creating confident students. Unfortunately, the higher education seems to provide nothing but a worthless degree to go with that confidence. Work ethics, civic sense, patient reflection, social concern, discipline, respect etc need to be genetic or taught at home.

The payscale offered to qualified PhDs to join as faculty in the top government institutions is less than what coaching centers pay tutors for handling basic sciences. Plus this pay will grow in strict arthmetic progression so there is no doubt about how little you can make till you retire. I argued that this ensures that money is never a motivation for the teaching staff. Only those who genuinely love teaching will keep the faculty position. The lousy situation is a blessing in disguise, right? He said he can see how staying in India has already influenced me to "twist" abject scenarios and milk them for something positive.

Two cappuccinos: Rs 99/-

The new Dell laptop, a gift from my friends I had taken to India, hanged for the first time this evening. I was running a playlist of Telugu hit songs while typing out the note. May be the songs were too hi-tech for the machine.