MI 5

Recently heard the story of a guy who had the genie at his disposal on one condition. That, the master has to keep the genie occupied all the time. The guy got tired of giving work and he ran out of ideas. His wife unassumingly would ask the genie to straighten a dog’s tail and the rest is history. J

I thought of drawing parallel on what other work can be given to the genie to keep it busy for ever. Some of that below:

1. Ask genie to make our politicians and bureaucrats uncorrupt and make general public abstain from bribing. I fear the genie would get corrupted in no time talking to them. Like Mu.Metha would write in a tamil song (thottathula paathikkatti…) as kaNNagi ingu vandha kaNNu adikkum koottamunga..madhuraya erichavaLe manasu maarak koodumunga..and budhanum ippo pattanam vandha bodha marathula erikkuvaan…

2. Make film stars earn wages like normal salaried class do. I feel jealous when they go to so many countries at producer’s cost. Genie would be given a role to play and succumb to the temptation

3. Eradicate poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, caste system etc in India. Genie would rather prefer straightening the dog’s tail.

4. Set the world free from natural and man-made disasters. Gujarat earthquake and 2002 carnage are best examples for both respectively. Genie at this point will sob in helplessness.

5. India & Pakistan, KaruNanidhi & Jaya (of course I can also take Buddha & Mamta, Mehbooba Mufti & Omar, Laloo & Nitish), to truce up. This is probably the ultimate assignment. This time the genie for sure would get itself locked in the lamp and deliberately forget the code to open. ;-))

Few and far between !!

Driving to office, I witnessed a big bunch of little kids waiting to cross the road. And there were two teachers containing them. Children were literally obeying every order of the teachers. It was such a pleasant sight that almost prompted me to wait and watch the children cross the road and see the little fun they have while walking. For the fear of cars behind me honking to deff-dom, I moved on. But the thought of TEACHER stuck on my mind for the next few mins. Blessed are those who had good or great teachers who are role-models.

I never had the fortune of having role-model teachers barring one at school. Imagine having a teacher who is just a class-controller delivering the curriculum indifferently and moving from one academic year to another. In contrast, if you have a teacher who teaches you values, tells you things outside the book, guides you to follow things like newspaper, books, politics, economics etc, it’s such a different feeling.

In school, my teachers were paid peanuts (my history teacher would call his salary as half-pension…L…) and their original certificates were in the custody of our autocratic school correspondent. In this misery there was still one teacher in higher secondary who was such a role-model for many of us. She would not beat us (12th standard boys are anyway too dangerous to use a cane on..hehe). Instead she wouldn’t talk to us if we did something inappropriate. This was almost sort of an emotional blackmail. She commanded respect even from some of the otherwise most ill-behaved students. Would love to see every school having such teachers who students can look up to.

At college, I had an incredible economics prof who would crack incredibly intelligent jokes in an unassuming manner without moving a muscle on his face. He was brilliant. In the city where I studied (a tier 2 city if I can use a jargon.:P), he was rarest of the rare. Though I never could move closely with him, he would always be in my memory and one I rate very high.

As my fellow IT/ITES friends would agree, our first salary would perhaps be more than our teacher’s salary ever (and in many of our case, our first salary would be more than our father’s last salary). I am saying this with utmost humility and not one bit proud of this. In fact, I have argued with my friend that we are over-paid. He would never agree and would compare with the salaries the companies would have paid in high-cost countries. This is true even with B school teachers. However, the profession itself is so esteemed to be measured only on money terms. But I strongly believe that such jobs should fetch good remuneration to motivate people. Many would be passionate to take up teaching but would be limited from doing so for financial constraints.

At the stroke of our Independence Day, I feel happy and proud that we have had two presidents who were great teachers