☯COMPULSORY EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN

The Supreme Court’s verdict upholding the constitutional validity for children to seek education is perhaps one of the most welcome of verdicts in India.

Over the years, Indian children especially those belonging to the economically backward and those belonging below the poverty had suffered hardship, mental and physical torture in the hands of their parents and outsiders alike for simply being born into this world. The plight of the girl child was the worst and many were even pushed to flesh trade during pre-puberty stage. Who were actually to be blamed for this? Undoubtedly, the whole of humanity has to shoulder this blame and each and every person is involved directly and indirectly for we build this society for our benefits, our comforts, our luxuries and our elected representatives behave in good ways and bad ways is because the way we vicariously like to think and act as they do. They, our leaders, are basically a projection of ourselves and satisfy our alter ego whatever be it.

It is not simply the case of money although the money factor is very important, but the mindset of our population who remain indifferent to the atrocities. One person alone has restrictions yet when the whole community is involved then the matter assumes a strength that can be really extraordinary.

The media has highlighted this number of times and so also different social communities who have come to the forefront to eradicate this types of atrocities of children.

Yet one wonders why in spite of all this there is still such malice to be found in our society. The answer is illiteracy or inaccessibility to sound education. For this the government and different social organization have to come forward to bring out a total transformation in the minds of the illiterate adult population and of course the children too.

Why give children a sound education?

This is a question that has different interpretation and different people give various types of answers. But the basic fact is that the children are future assets of the nation and as such they are here to contribute to nation building. But how can they contribute if they have no accessibility to education? So, on its part the society has to contribute initially so that the children can contribute later to the same society in a positive manner.

But why rely on the children to contribute? Strange are the ways of universe and even stranger are the ways of the human mind. In short, what one mind can contribute is quite different from what another mind contributes and hence the possibilities of solving the societal problems can be multi-pronged one. Due to numerous possibilities that exists the well learned human mind has the immense potential to transform the mechanism of thinking into different directions and thus can bring about changes that would make the society a better performing one including socially, economically, politically and spiritually. The goal of the education for children is basically to instill that germinating thought however vague it might be.

THUS, THE HUMAN MIND IS EVERYTHING. IF A COUNTRY HAS MORE SUCH MINDS THEN THE BETTER IT IS IN ITS FUTURE PROGRESS.

But aren’t there enough minds already in such a vast country like India?

Obviously there are several good minds, but many tend to have stereotyped over a period of time and must have the backing of some ORIGINAL EXPRESSION OR THOUGHTS in order to remove the stagnation in thinking. These fortunately or unfortunately comes from the least expected places or areas and therefore children of even the poorest families or discarded lots when educated can bring about a paradigm shift in the thinking pattern most needed by a futuristic world community.

THIS IS THE POWER OF THE MENTALITY WHICH WE CAN NEVER UNDERSTAND AS LONG AS WE LIVE AND PERHAPS EVEN MORE MYSTERIOUS THAN THAT OF THE UNIVERSE.

I had written a poem about the human mind some years back which can perhaps justify a little bit of our potentials.

This poem written by me originally for the ‘MIRROR’ of the Eve’s Weekly Lid, situated at J. K. Somani Building, Mumbai. The poem appeared in the November 1987 Vol. XXVII of the magazine and is as follows.

                                                                 MIND

I am just a moment away

From the rapidly fading universe

Expanding speedily into the four

corners

To reach the line of natural control

The ultimate point

where time is dead.

I am only a dreaming distance

Ebullient in spirit

Trying to grasp the grassroots

Of all the realms of matter,

As if matter has embodied in me

The main essence of it

To discover itself,

To create abstract thoughts,

To think ahead of time as well.

I am the recording device

And also the super conductor

For transmission of images and messages

And to decipher the innumerable codes

Of life and the arts of living.

I am the extraordinary construction

Web-like, intricate and complex

Mixture of build-up,

To churn within my interiors

All the recorded inputs,

To bring out

The most astonishing of all outputs

Called ‘creativity’.

But alas, I am my own risk

For cold wars were my creations

And also the premonitory

Signs of doomsday

That relate to my own destruction.

My hell bent path to weakness

Through pervert thoughts,

Heightened egotism,

And unjustified actions,

Have eroded my very base.

Ah! so unthinkable of me –

“The thinking device”

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