CAREERS FOR SALE!

                                            Gone are the days when a ‘guru’ used to impart knowledge to the student- free of charge, feeding him in his house for ten years at least. But education then was mere knowledge. Except for the functional application, it was never conceived as an instrument for living. Nor was it  a money spinning instrument as it is now. The society has travelled a long long way from the archaic education at ‘gurukulam’ as it was called then to corporate business enterprise.

We have any number of institutions mushrooming every day.Like fast food counters and take-aways with different recipes for instant consumption- you have all sort of courses for all sorts of careers for sale. You have packages for one year, one month courses for entrance examinations, refresher courses, special rank promotional courses, integrated  one year programme,  condesned course, class room programme, whole package, partial package, limited liability, guaranteed results, money-return schemes, hostel facilities etc.etc. These institutions have proven history of their achievements, testimonials from past students and parents, albums showing glowing faces of front runners, press clippings, video clippings, telephone numbers, addresses of those who are in lucrative posts earning four digit salaries eulogizing their achievements. You have dozens of photos of students appearing in newspapers day in and day out- showing their ranks in prominent digits. Hitherto only state toppers’ photos used to appear in papers. But today you have 1000 institutions and you have 5000 ranks with as many photos crowding the newspapers .The dailies in turn sell their advertisement packages. They will lure the parent- raising his blood pressure, itching him to gate crash into the institution with lots of money borrowed or mortgaging their properties, if need be. They scratch the last rupee from their kitty, going on fast for a noon, if necessary to see their son earn a place in their album- to start with.

                It is typical American salesmanship with all the jargon involved therein. In America-  the capitalists’ haven- they assure the outcome even before you lay hands on the product. You purchase two and take one free. Bring two students and gain a concession for the third. There is a special package- for instance- if you have 10 students from your village. The middle man can sell education as a collective package. There are money -back schemes. If your student is not in the top ten of the ranks as assured, your money will be returned forthwith. The fine print is- by which time you will be paying two times more than the promised refund amount by way of other expenses. It is like a sale of a kitchenware at Walmart. You take an article home, use it for ten days- for free- and return the article if you are not happy- for total pay back. All that  is required is  a very important instrument in your possession to put your ward in these schools. A cheque book. What does it mean? The seller is trying to impress you the authenticity of his product and his honesty to deserve your money.  

                Who could imagine these courses! You have IIT, IIT-JE, IIHT, CA-CPT, AIEEE,BITSAT, AIEEEQ,IITG- what does it mean? These institutions does not want to leave even the average  student also from their fold. They have any number of permutations and combinations. The parent- in spite of the poor standard of the  boy is lured into this mire. Why? The attraction is not your student and his education. It is your cheque book.

                The most lucrative business in today’s parlance is politics. You don’t need educational brilliance to become a politician. And a politician’s best investment is an educational institution. In Andhra Pradesh, practically there is no politician who does not own a college, school, junior college, college of nursing ,e-techno schools(whatever it means!) either directly or through proxy. Even film stars started tasting the smell of money.

                By trying to be prudent in not poking the corruption in Andhra Pradesh, here are a few market rates from a neighbouring state- Tamilnadu. For persons who does not qualify for direct entrance through the National entrance eligibility test, there is a price to enter these professional courses. The capitation fee for the managing quotas for Medical seat is 75 lakhs- not negotiable. For post graduation medical courses, it will be anything between 1.25 to 1.50 crores! For an engineering seat it is 20 lakhs. This is besides the usual term fee, building fee, library fee, laboratory fee, transport charges, building donation, sports fee- you name it.

                In Andhra Pradesh, at least in some castes, a medical graduate can draw grand dowry in marriage. If suppose that dowry is invested as the capitation fee to procure a seat, you have a full career to draw as much money as you want. You have a whole corporate world for any specialization. There is great adage in our culture. It says : ‘’vaidyo narayano Hari’’. In India, we don’t equate a doctor with god. We just call him ‘God’. Let one God in today’s corporate world recollect the names of two of his patients without seeing the case sheet. That is the fate of our gods. The present day doctor is busy reimbursing  his investment and disappear behind the corporate rigmarole. How else can he get back the huge investment he had made in his education? The Gods are for sale in this country.

                There are any number of dreams in the hearts of the hapless parents. They crave to see at least one boy from their family coming through this rut to become a money earner, so that the entire family can be rehabilitated. Their rupee is much more valuable and loaded than anybody’s.  It is an investment on the child. The institutions are delivering the result. Who is the victim? The poor child. We never heard of the words like ‘depression’ ‘suicide’ ‘counselling’ ‘hysteria’ in our days.

                It is time that these poor families- not the students- that require proper counseling to tell them- as we cannot stop these politicians running their corporate warehouses- that education cannot be purchased for a price. Competence cannot be sold across the counters. The hypocracy, deceit, plunder, intellectual tomfoolery is much more dangerous than the recent ‘Himalayan Tsunami’ whose ill effects are still reverberating across India. The incumbent tragedy is going to be much worse because- this is intellectual plunder with high stakes.

నూకల జ్ఞాపకాలు

నూకల చిన సత్యనారాయణగారితో నాకు తేలికగా ఏభై సంవత్సరాల పరిచయం. అందుకు ముఖ్యకారణం ఆలిండియా రేడియో. ఆయన పాండిత్యానికీ, ప్రతిభకీ నాకూ పరోక్షమయిన బంధుత్వం ఉన్నదని తెలిశాక మా దగ్గరతనం మరింత పెరిగింది. ఆయన మా పినమామగారు -శ్రీపాద పినాకపాణిగారి శిష్యులు. నన్ను ఆప్యాయంగా 'అల్లుడు గారూ!' అని పిలిచిన కొద్దిమందిలో ఒకరు. గురువుని మించిన శిష్యుడనిపించుకున్న అదృష్టవంతులు. గురువుగారిలాగే పద్మభూషణులయారు. కాని గురువుగారు నడిచిన దారినే తొందరపడి పదేళ్లు ముందుగా సాగిపోయారు.
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వృద్ధాప్యానికి ఆహ్వానం

చమకం యజుర్వేదంలోని శ్రీరుద్రంలో ఒక భాగం. చమకం అంటే నాకెప్పుడూ చిన్న చూపే. కారణం కన్యాశుల్కం నాటకంలో గిరీశం. గిరీశం వెంకటేశంతో అంటాడు: ''మీ నాన్న ప్రతీ రోజూ దేవుడి ముందు కూర్చుని ఏం చేస్తాడనుకున్నావ్‌? ఓయి దేవుడా! నాకు సుఖమియ్యి. నా కోర్టు కేసు గెలిపించు. అల్లవాడి కొంపముంచు'' అంటూ దేవుడిని దేబిరిస్తాడు. 'చమే'అంటే 'నాకియ్యవయ్యా' అని అర్థం. నువ్వు కూడా నీక్కావలసినవన్నీ అడగొచ్చు. 'గేదె పెరుగూ చమే, చేగోడీ చమే' అని హితోపదేశం చేస్తాడు.
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మూడో కన్ను

పర్యావరణం తల్లిలాంటిది. మనజీవితంలో ప్రతీ విషయానికీ పర్యావరణానికీ అతి దగ్గరి సంబంధం వుంది. హాయి అనిపించే చెట్టుగాలి దగ్గర్నుంచి, ఆహారం, పళ్లు, పుష్పాలు, కలప, ఔషదాలు- ఏదయినా, ఏమయినా మనిషి తన ధర్మానికి కట్టుబడి ప్రవర్తిస్తే ప్రకృతి అతనికి బాసట అవుతుంది, తోడయి నిలుస్తుంది.
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విద్యా వ్యాపారం - 3

ఉద్యోగాలకోసం చదువులుసాగి, డిగ్రీలకు ఉద్యోగాలిచ్చే వ్యాపారం బ్రిటిష్ వారి ధర్మమాఅని ఆ రోజుల్లోనే మన దేశంలో ప్రారంభమయింది.. మనవాళ్లు మేధావులు. ఇప్పుడు చదువుల్నే వ్యాపారం చేసే బజార్లని విరివిగా, విశృంఖలంగా కొనసాగిస్తున్నారు.
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EDUCATION IMBROGLIO-1: AN INTRIGUE AND FRENZY

It all started some 400 years back when a company of merchants from Britain- East India Company as they were later christened-landed in India to do trade in cotton, silk, indigo, dye, salt, saltpeter, tea and opium. In 1610 they built a factory at Machilipatnam and established a fort at Chennapattanam and thus the earliest influence of their language and reign started percolating on the Southern India. And slowly the reins of administration changed hands and an alien rule started prevailing in the country.

            Literature always reflect history perfunctorily and the authentic, logical traces of its influence can be seen in that great masterpiece of Telugu-  Kanyasulkam which was published in 1897. When Girisam, the anti-hero of the play arrives along with venkatesam, his student at Krishnarayapura Agraharam, his native village -Venkamma,  an uneducated housewife of Agnihotravadhanlu becomes fanciful and requests Girisam to talk with her son in English. This is not a mere curiosity or intrigue. Her instinct tells her that the vedic scholarship has already lost or loosing its face value and English education is slowly becoming the order of the day. Her husband groans complaining about the cost involved in making him study in the town, saying that he had learnt his vedic knowledge without spending a single paisa. Education was never a barter then nor was it a source for earning livelihood. The entire village was a macro family- each doing his chores as per the family tradition of each community. Agnihotravadhanlu agrees to host Gireesam, only because  he is conversant in English and he can get all the court papers translated into Telugu which are written English.

            Yet another youngster who was a witness to the awesome performance of Girisam and his ward was Karataka Sastry’s student. He is learning vedic literature from his teacher and presently gets floored by  English language. He abhors the archaic form of education and yearns to learn  English. Already  elsewhere the yearing to start learning as a source of earning started in all earnest. This is a very important breakthrough in a society where the language was always a medium of communication, not of  transaction. Venkamma instinctively sensed- as early as 1897- her son’s scholarship as a veritable means of livelihood while Agnihotravadhanlu was cleverly finding a functional use of the language.  This trend was 116 years old.

            In those days- all the court proceedings were invariably in English and anybody having any knowledge of English had a field day. The entire play was about the lawyers, courts, witnesses and small Brahmin families mortgaging their properties in the mire of court cases. Only two characters- significantly- were in a different focus because of their virtuosity of English language. One: pseudo-intellectual Girisam and the other: real scholar Saujanya raopantulu.

            That was a time when a marked transition was taking place when a foreign language and its need was  becoming imperative  in the day-to-day life. It was the beginning of the end of vernacular, that was losing its sheen and application. In the changed circumstances- Telugu had no place to earn a job and consequently one’s livelihood.  In fact, a ‘job’ and a qualificatioin to earn one was unthinkable until then. There was a rudimentary shift in the administrative set up, hitherto unheard of, wherein an employer-employee relationship, education aimed at careers, delivering work for a monetary return etc. came into vogue- It has all the trappings of a glorified slavery. Somebody will tell you what you should do. That somebody will decide your worth.He will decide your conduct rules. He will regulate your living conditions for a finanacial return and assured  living. Your job is to serve. Sounds more like bourgeois?  It has more acceptable, and respectable label called  ‘service’.  An altogether different and totally foreign culture started prevailing on the society.

             What is happening in these 12 decades? In 2013, a family whose bread earner is qualified to sell his educational abilities for a price in America, established himself with sizable returns, carefully planned to have children  born only in America so that they become natural American citizens by birth and since these children cannot communicate in their native tongue-Telugu-  their grandmother, who is in her early fifties is learning English nowadays to be able to converse with them! And this lady belong to yet another traditional Brahmin Agraharam- Gangalakurru. The metomorphasis is now total and irreversible. And what is more, they don’t regret. And they don’t even know that this is a matter of regret!

            What was an intrigue a century back has become a way of life- fine tuned, perfected and has become a money-earning vehicle. Why? Nobody bothered to develop the technical or professional knowhow and the functional application of regional languages in independent India in all these years. What was a need to adapt themselves to an alien way of life then, became a perfected nomenclature. Small countries like Korea and Palestine could do it successfully with foresight. There are not many Koreans in America as there are Indians.

            The first generation families who nervously groped for their livelihoods and ended in United States have by now developed roots that cannot be uprooted and the second generation is totally lost to American ethos. My own wife’s brother, who had three girls  married black people and settled there. Their lives are irreversible, relationships totally severed. There is a total dislocation of cultural bonds and the parents are helplessly caught in the changed juxtaposition.

            Yesterday- only yesterday- a five year old boy – my younger brother’s grandson -born and brought up in America was asking me as to how I happened to know his mother!

            This is the ‘cultural shock’ of the worst kind, but significantly only one side of the coin.   

                                                                               (to be continued….)

విద్యా వ్యాపారం - 2

వ్యక్తిగతమైన, కేవలం కులం ప్రాతిపదికగా గల వృత్తుల నుంచి ఉద్యోగ వ్యవస్థవేపు క్రమంగా భారతదేశపు సమాజం పరిణామం చెందింది. ఉద్యోగం ద్వారా సంపాదించుకునే ఆదాయం, తద్వారా కుటుంబ నిర్వహ ణ, భవిష్యత్తులో కుటుంబ భద్రత -ఈ దిశగా ప్రయాణం చేసింది.
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