' The Un educated Literates '

Going home to Kerala has always been sentimentally nostalgic. The gentleman with in the white uniform signalled with the green flag, and the Palghat – Nilambur passenger took off at snail speed. The train started gaining speed as the sun was regaining his empire up in the sky. The dry hot summer was yet to arrive and the early morning dew was dripping off the leaves. The banks of the sacred BHARATH River, green paddy fields, and mighty huge banyan trees all bowed down for me.

I carried with me sore throat, sticky nose block and light temperature that the Chennai city had cursed on me for the past one week. I thought it was more of a physiological impact that as soon as I touch down my home station, I forget the fact that I was not at ease. The one year old kid who was in the next birth of my compartment, the previous night had left me sleepless and that might well be the reason why I dozed of the moment I found my bed.

The India – England world cup match was to begin in some time and my friend dragged me to the sports club nearby. It is always festival when India plays cricket. All the youth at sports club had their own favourite players and prayed for their performance and some even fight for their most supported player. I was sipping my favourite black tea with lemon and extra sugar, and waiting for Pathan to come out to bat.

It was then that someone called for me; it wasn’t a voice that I have heard off late, with a bit of excitement I turned back and looked at the corner of the room to find a guy with curly hair sitting and smiling at me. For once I couldn’t recognize the face and then like those Bollywood movies of the eighties my life’s reel rolled back. It was ‘Natheesh’ my class mate till grade 4 at the lower primary school.

The cricket match went on in full swing and each time the ball crossed the boundary people at the club clapped hands, I was busy talking to my friend, it was indeed ages since I met him. We talked about the things happening around the town, the new movie releases and the same old debate that Mammuka was better than Mohan Lal. I was a bit reluctant to ask him about his studies, but never the less I enquired. He smiled first and then told; he cleared his SSLC in his second attempt and was looking after the farm with his father.

The day passed and India shamelessly tied the match with England, I had lost my sleep to that and was trying to deviate my thoughts and that ended up at the school ground of my lower primary school where we played soccer till the bell rang at 4. It was fun times then, no thoughts about future, where one would be after graduation, no thoughts as to the place where you would want to settle down, no ledgers to scrutinize and no reports on audit to be submitted on date.

Off the forty plus students in my class then only four of us have completed degree and three of us are doing a professional course. The rest of them; the girls got married in between their studies, and some of their kids are already at the kinder garden, and the boys most of them dropped off schooling after their tenth, and few of them flew to the middle east in search of oil fields and the rest sit at the bus stop in the evening to talk about the latest development in the local politics.

Had my parents not been teachers, had I not shifted to Doha, had I been part of this normal government school going children till 10th, I think even I would have been doing the same as my class mates of 4th do now. We boost of a cent percent literate state, but yet our higher education system is one of the weakest in the world. We offer free education till 10th and might be till 12th, but after that we eat up the whole of the savings in our education.

It is high time we need to re analyze our educational system, else more and more of ‘Literate and partially uneducated’ youth would be dumped into our society.

T.R.K