Much of upper middle class urban India has forgotten its agrarian roots
=====================
As a little kid, growing up among elderly who have seen only food shortages, the need to save every morsel was an instinctive reaction. I was conditioned to wipe clean every bit of

rice on the plate before depositing it in the sink. That training continues even today. Even in a Star hotel buffet, where we pay exorbitantly, I don't leave an empty plate. I make it a point to force everyone to eat what's ordered or pack the leftovers.
But I realise, our kids don't learn this frugality as well as my generation did. For them, food is like money that can be on tap in an ATM. You pay to buy a burger and French fries at McDonalds. And YouTube is full of automated farms. And so they have little sense of hardship
an Indian farmer faces. At least my generation grew up with visuals of Krishi Darshan compulsorily forced down our throat. We didn't have 800 channels to choose from. Even the TV came alive only for 6 hours in evening 😀
As a kid, with an extended family with roots into
hinterlands, I have waded in knee deep rice fields and I have walked through sugarcane fields on bare foot. Innumerable times, I have gotten hurt by the thorny shrubbery. Since our knickers invariably were precariously held together by safety pins (for the frequency with
which buttons flew off), they came in handy to remove the thorn that would get embedded into our heels. The nonchalant grit you showed while the deeply embedded thorn was removed, was a sign of masculinity (at least among the young boys). In our garden, I would sweat it out
digging up mud, using crowbars and shovels, to prepare the beds for our kitchen garden. I still remember my childhood pride when I managed to harvest a 6 foot long snake gourd. The distance between the middle class and the farming class has grown once neo-liberalism sprung
swanky malls in cities. Both the metro urbanites and the folks who came from tier I and II are jostling to get ahead in the bustling cities. The film 3 idiots hasn't taught them to chase capabilities. All that matters now is success. We count our blessings by the amount of
bank balance we have. We now hate Amir Khan in real life remembering his PK character while conveniently forgetting his "Phunsook Wangdoo" character. We have all become Chatur...chasing a beautiful wife, $2.5 million dollar bungalow, Lamborghini and VP of Rockledge
Corporation in USA, insecure and fearful that someone will get ahead of us. We now hate the farmers for being rowdy and look for the rich Lamborghini examples among them "Look at them... so rich looking and riding their swanky bright red tractors!"
"Rich spoilt farmers...subsidy, free electricity, polluting air, not paying taxes and demanding MSP!" Khalistani anti nationals!" "We are all bright MBAs working hard to make Indian a super power...you unpad and uncouth farmers...get out of our way!" Once in a while we post
wonderful images of nature, reaffirming our commitment to ecology and even sharing details of times when we shoud switch off for the earth hour. In trying to impress their girl friends, a few years ago, some posted images of Greta Thunberg "Way to go girl! Let's all use LED bulbs
and save earth." The minute she supported the farmers against Modi ji...the patriarchy slipped out... "Who is she to talk about out internal matters? She is working for breaking India forces sharing "TOOLKIT" She should go back to school. May be then she will understand the
complexity of farm sector. Modi ji is trying to reform and help farmers who are misguided by shrewd politicians."
Our collective greed has killed our soul and taken us far away from mother nature. We may love our thali but we are ready to beat it in our collective greed to
be led by the pied piper apparently to our El Dorado where each one of us can show off our unique Lamborghini, our beautiful wives and multi million dollar homes. And of course add to our collective insecurities.
Shame on us all for believing politicians over our farmers.
We have fully cut off our umbilical cord with mother earth waiting for Elon Musk to take us to Mars. Bon voyage!

@OManojKumar @KaunAurat @yourdrunkpoet

More from Education

You asked. So here are my thoughts on how osteopathic medical students should respond to the NBOME.

(thread)


Look, even before the Step 2 CS cancellation, my DMs and email were flooded with messages from osteopathic medical students who are fed up with the NBOME.

There is *real* anger toward this organization. Honestly, more than I even heard about from MD students and the NBME.

The question is, will that sentiment translate into action?

Amorphous anger on social media is easy to ignore. But if that anger gets channeled into organized efforts to facilitate change, then improvements are possible.

This much should be clear: begging the NBOME to reconsider their Level 2-PE exam is a waste of your time.

Best case scenario, you’ll get another “town hall” meeting, a handful of platitudes, and some thoughtful beard stroking before being told that they’re keeping the exam.

Instead of complaining to the NBOME, here are a few things that are more likely to bring about real change.
** Schools have been getting ready for this: a thread **

In many ways, I don't blame folks who tweet things like this. The media coverage of the schools situation in Covid-19 rarely talks about the quiet, day-in-day-out work that schools have been doing these past 9 months. 1/


Instead, the coverage focused on the dramatic, last minute policy announcements by the government, or of dramatic stories of school closures, often accompanied by photos of socially distanced classrooms that those of us in schools this past term know are from a fantasy land. 2/


If that's all you see & hear, it's no wonder that you may not know what has actually been happening in schools to meet the challenges. So, if you'd like a glimpse behind the curtain, then read on. For this is something of what teachers & schools leaders have been up to. 3/

It started last March with trying to meet the challenges of lockdown, being thrown into the deep end, with only a few days' notice, to try to learn to teach remotely during the first lockdown. 4/

https://t.co/S39EWuap3b


I wrote a policy document for our staff the weekend before our training as we anticipated what was to come, a document I shared freely & widely as the education community across the land started to reach out to one another for ideas and support. 5/
https://t.co/m1QsxlPaV4

You May Also Like

राम-रावण युद्ध समाप्त हो चुका था। जगत को त्रास देने वाला रावण अपने कुटुम्ब सहित नष्ट हो चुका था।श्रीराम का राज्याभिषेक हुआ और अयोध्या नरेश श्री राम के नेतृत्व में चारों दिशाओं में शन्ति थी।
अंगद को विदा करते समय राम रो पड़े थे ।हनुमान को विदा करने की शक्ति तो राम में थी ही नहीं ।


माता सीता भी हनुमान को पुत्रवत मानती थी। अत: हनुमान अयोध्या में ही रह गए ।राम दिनभर दरबार में, शासन व्यवस्था में व्यस्त रहते थे। संध्या को जब शासकीय कार्यों में छूट मिलती तो गुरु और माताओं का कुशल-मंगल पूछ अपने कक्ष में जाते थे। परंतु हनुमान जी हमेशा उनके पीछे-पीछे ही रहते थे ।


उनकी उपस्थिति में ही सारा परिवार बहुत देर तक जी भर बातें करता ।फिर भरत को ध्यान आया कि भैया-भाभी को भी एकांत मिलना चाहिए ।उर्मिला को देख भी उनके मन में हूक उठती थी कि इस पतिव्रता को भी अपने पति का सानिध्य चाहिए ।

एक दिन भरत ने हनुमान जी से कहा,"हे पवनपुत्र! सीता भाभी को राम भैया के साथ एकांत में रहने का भी अधिकार प्राप्त है ।क्या आपको उनके माथे पर सिन्दूर नहीं दिखता?इसलिए संध्या पश्चात आप राम भैया को कृप्या अकेला छोड़ दिया करें "।
ये सुनकर हनुमान आश्चर्यचकित रह गए और सीता माता के पास गए ।


माता से हनुमान ने पूछा,"माता आप अपने माथे पर सिन्दूर क्यों लगाती हैं।" यह सुनकर सीता माता बोलीं,"स्त्री अपने माथे पर सिन्दूर लगाती है तो उसके पति की आयु में वृद्धि होती है और वह स्वस्थ रहते हैं "। फिर हनुमान जी प्रभु राम के पास गए ।
I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x