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

I held back from commenting overnight to chew it over, but I am still saddened by comments during a presentation I attended yesterday by Prof @trishgreenhalgh & @CIHR_IMHA.

The topic was “LongCovid, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis & More”.
I quote from memory.
1/n
#MECFS #LongCovid


The bulk of Prof @Trishgreenhalgh’s presentation was on the importance of recognising LongCovid patient’s symptoms, and pathways for patients which recognised their condition as real. So far so good.

She was asked about “Post Exertional Malaise”... 2/n

PEM has been reported by many patients, and is the hallmark symptom of ME/CFS, leading many to query whether LongCovid and ME/CFS are similar or have overlapping mechanisms.

@Trishgreenhalgh acknowledged the new @NiceComms advice for LongCovid was planned to complement... 3/n

the ME/CFS guidelines, acknowledging some similarities.

Then it all went wrong.
@TrishGreenhalgh noted the changes to the @NiceComms guidance for ME/CFS, removing support for Graded Exercise Therapy / Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. She noted there is a big debate about this. 4/n

That is correct: The BMJ published Prof Lynne Turner Stokes’ column criticising the change (Prof Turner-Stokes is a key proponent of GET/CBT, and I suspect is known to Prof @TrishGreenhalgh).

https://t.co/0enH8TFPoe

However Prof Greenhalgh then went off-piste.

5/n
When the university starts sending out teaching evaluation reminders, I tell all my classes about bias in teaching evals, with links to the evidence. Here's a version of the email I send, in case anyone else wants to poach from it.

1/16


When I say "anyone": needless to say, the people who are benefitting from the bias (like me) are the ones who should helping to correct it. Men in math, this is your job! Of course, it should also be dealt with at the institutional level, not just ad hoc.
OK, on to my email:
2/16

"You may have received automated reminders about course evals this fall. I encourage you to fill the evals out. I'd be particularly grateful for written feedback about what worked for you in the class, what was difficult, & how you ultimately spent your time for this class.

3/16

However, I don't feel comfortable just sending you an email saying: "please take the time to evaluate me". I do think student evaluations of teachers can be valuable: I have made changes to my teaching style as a direct result of comments from student teaching evaluations.
4/16

But teaching evaluations have a weakness: they are not an unbiased estimator of teaching quality. There is strong evidence that teaching evals tend to favour men over women, and that teaching evals tend to favour white instructors over non-white instructors.
5/16

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