To KV or not to KV...

To KV or not to KV

Its that time of the year again where parents become a bunch of hysterical toads waiting to stick their tongues out at the slightest occurence of any thing that resembles a bug... so what if it happens to be even droppings of a clueless migrating pelican! With parents having sleepless nights over the thought of missing out on sudden announcement of "Admissions open" followed by the afterthought of keeping stuff ready for camping the night out in the queue that would put even the devotees of Siddhivinayak to shame, its the time when every parent who has an offspring going into a milestone year of schooling(typically LKG, Std I or any change of school involved) CANT 'keep calm'! Its the time where Porters five forces come into full force with the schools clearly taking the Bargaining power over the toads waiting to send their tadpoles to a holy abode of enlightenment... The time where 'the nation wants to know' when, where, what time are schools going to open their doors for Admission Forms and most of the newspapers/channels are all waiting in anticipation to cover the action!

Thereby stands the moment of truth... to KV or not to KV

    I remember the first day of class 9 in a new school.. the kind of school where you roll everything up... from your 'R's to your skirts (a la Kendell Jenner), to a 'joint'... The school where the Karan Johars of Bollywood probably derive their inspiration from... the school where more money was probably spent on sending students to school in chauffeur-driven sedans than it wouldve take to educate an entire village... where every student is 'Jaanta hai mera Baap kaun hai!". This was the first and the only change of school I ever had in my entire schooling life.
    Imagine the plight of a 14 year old who was in a super committed relationship with her modest middle class SSC school, ever since she could spell S-C-H-O-O-L and somewhere between sprouting her first pimple to visiting the first ever 'Convinience' store was subjected to this Posh ICSE 'St Xaviers'ish kind of Institution! It felt like a lost 'Monisha' amongst the 'Sarabhais'... like clueless Kanta in a Strip club!
    I have embarassing memories of pronouncing Police as "po-lees"(the way it is done in marathi) and my humble 'kinetic Honda' as a "scooter" instead of 'A Bike', where I had my friends snigger and snarl across the bench. Where 'dildo' for me was like some Cartoon Strip in the newspaper I had missed. Where I was made fun off for literally browsing through the dictionary, trying to make some sense of four letter words scribbled on the pillars in the  morning assembly... which I was blissfully unaware of! But these two years taught me things I wouldnt have ever, had I continued with my 'faithful' ex-vidhyalay in Thane.
  I  learnt to play Basket ball, throwball, tennis and unleashed my love for Sports. It made me a better Team player. I got bullied and I learnt to give it back... on the face! I learnt ways to be polished and 'Khool' like the Girls I admired back then. 
    Two years and I was back to my comfort city... this time college life awaited! It was then that realisation dawned.. that our curricula has more futile subjects than a Bollywood film has songs! What really mattered in the real world was how well you tackled 'Pandus' and how efficiently I navigated an Indian Queue which is anything but a straight line... That knowing 'main kaun hoon' is more zaroori than 'ones baap' and speaking from your epiglottis doesnt make one 'Khool'! That what the crisp, formal uniforms and the 'Cool' polished schooling did was anything, but to prepare me for a real-life dealing with bureaucracy.

This is where my 'loyal' Vidhyalay came to the rescue! The Shakespheren literature in the ICSE school was a great lesson in diction and admittedly nice to hear but left me helpless when I got accosted by a traffic cop. Here "kaay kaka... Mazha Chukla", was the password which came to my rescue and mind you.. the Portias, Antonios and Bassanios were not taketh or breaketh nowhere.
   Once out in the real world, using words with more than three syllables only makes you the punchline of a Shashi Tharoor-themed joke or it may probably help you crack some Product Sales.
    It’s been 19 years since I left school and any wild notions I had about my fancy education giving me an advantage in my adult life, have been eroded into nothingness by the passage of time. That set me thinking of the kind of school, I wanted my daughter to grow up in. After all.. peers are what matter the most in growing up years...

  I wonder if a school, where the class had a healthy mix of students coming from diverse backgrounds and ideologies irrespective of the 'class' or 'status' they came from, made for a better choice as compared to a school where teachers peddle stuff like “global methods” and “an international outlook” and have facilities for 'Horse-riding' and after school activities.. the one which is attended by the children of the 'known and reputed'... the dilemma between the humble "Kendriya Vidhyalaya" or an "International School". One schools you on life and the other schools you on 'the good things in life'. Multi cuisine Buffet or the modest Thali...

How about a Rajdhani Thali!

... A school where students autonomously educate themselves as they pass through the classes, where stress is laid  not only on education but also on sports, a balanced curriculum leaving them free to pick up tips and techniques for survival instead of aceing an exam. A school that teaches students that his/her opinions matter but it is important to know what makes the other student have a different opinion. A school which makes her a Team Player, yet teaches her to value her own identity. A school which teaches her to be grateful for what she has and to respect what others don't. A school which not only makes her a good human being but also street smart.. is that too much to ask for?

   Well.. lets just safely hope for a school which makes our tadpoles grow up into wiser toads who hopefully will not need to stick out their tongues haplessly in future and will learn to co-exist in the same pond confident in their own skin!

Homework

Hate is an extreme word.. now-a-days used as often as tadka in a sabzi. But I really mean every single letter of it when I say that "I hate homework". I always have.... be it...doing my own or ensuring my daughter does hers. I did reasonably well in school, but the day I graduated out of college, was easily one of the happiest days of my life, because.. Yay!No more homework(or so.. i thought).
I then went on to graduate out of the Air Force Academy and become a military Pilot with sorties to log almost every alternate day with breakfast at Bangalore, lunch at Lucknow and dinner at Delhi.. and dare i say..  i was a happy soul!.. and when I was not Getting high(literally), I whiled away my time coordinating base flying and women crying (as a welfare coordinator). So to sum it all up.. life was pretty good without the mandatory 'homework'.

Then kids happened and things got ugly. I received my first wake-up call when my daughter turned four and saw birds sitting on the HT power lines for the first time. She wanted to know why those mortal creatures never got electrocuted (considering her lesser mortal mother once had!). Taken by both, surprise and awe and my chest swelling with pride at the fruit of my ovary, I told her it was becuse they were bad conductors of electricity... but it didnt stop there..

Daughter: Bad what? But why? you mean you were good?

Me: Err… um… like… potential difference is zero or something. Actually, God made it that way. God is great. How about pizza for dinner? Go ask Pappa what he wants!

How could I admit to my child that when my eighth class science teacher was teaching Faradays Laws, I was busy trading WWF cards n tazos on the last bench?
      Unfortunately, kids don’t stay that dumb and innocent forever. They soon figure out when you’re faking and if you want to stay in their good books and earn their respect you have to put in the work.. lot of it!

Becoming a parent is like appearing for a lifetime examination... it tests all your faculties and skills. It all starts with testing you physically and emotionally. Then, it continues with testing your intellect and knowledge. And as the kids hurtle towards adulthood, they will test you on your values and self-belief. In short, having kids will take you through the entire process of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and lead you to self-actualisation. Whoever called it 'the circle' of life!

On a positive note, we should stop cursing our government and the education system, and give them credit for making parents intellectual and smarter. They can rightfully slap us with the 2% jana-baudhik cess. They have designed the education system in  a way that parents who spent most of their school and college years getting wasted with their friends in the canteen eating chinese bhel, suddenly start cracking open those cobweb clad, dust laden oxidised Physics and History textbooks and start studying alongside their school-going children.. and this is not by choice.

So tomorrow when my daughter gets a 20-page book report project from school that researches the life of various tribes in Africa, I bet I can be eligible for a Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award and Xhosa, Yoruba, Zulu and Maasai would all be my 3-am friends for life (they are the different tribes.. incase you are left wondering). The beauty of our education system is that it doesn’t just improve academic performance; it also enhances skills in parents that they never knew they even possessed.

Now you know why schools like parents to be completely involved in their kids’ activities. It’s their sneaky attempt at educating adults and increasing the National Intellectual Quotient, Its their way of curbing female illiteracy(especially  small towns where women are not allowed to study further) without causing a nation wide protests, dharanas and riots.. ek teer.. do nishaane! I know of my house help who has appeared and successfully completed her class 10th at the age of 42, thanks to the pressure from her Son claiming that "What will you do by coming to my PTM... you dont understand English anyways!"

So ultimately, you can either accept the challenge or just sulk incessantly. Sometimes, you have to dig deep inside of you to mine for these dormant skills. Like.. when my daughter was in the LKG and decided to dress up as a Brinjal in a fancy dress competition, it was time to face my demons... I had no skill in tailoring, but by the time my daughter was through with her academic year, I could easily add 'fashion designer' as a legit skill set to my Resume and even create my own line for a reputed fashion week..."The spring-summer vegetable collection -2016"

If this was true in my case...as working mother, my heart goes out to the ones who chose to stay at home. Apart from being professional Home Managers, Stay-at-home moms also end up becoming confident and creative multitaskers who can take on any challenge in this world! <#bringItOn>

Im sure... a deligent attempt to find out about the exponential relationship between the  'knowledge level and capabilities of a typical mom' V/S the 'grade in which her child is' , could prove to be a research worthy topic! By the time a kid reaches the 12th grade, the Mother should be legally allowed to add Fashion Designing, Choreography, Creative Writing, Tutoring, Sports Coaching, Music, etc to her set of skills acquired.

Its amazing, the kind of benefits homework offers... it can be attributed as a primary contributor to the Overall Development of the Nation. It is socially empowering, intellectually enriching and lots of other good things...

... but the fact remains... "I hate Homework"!