And the Champions Trophy goes to ….....

VMS (Victoria Memorial School for Blind)

It was a great show by all the schools but our kids left everybody behind.

Participating first time in TCS Maitree Inter-school-meet of 8 schools, our students from VMS emerged as the champions. Event started from General Quiz (for which I & Riddhi had mentored the students). We got the initial setback when we’re told that, because of some confusion, organizers had put a Visual round in the quiz. We had no option but to live with that. Despite of this, VMS whiz-kids (Rahul, Hemant, Vishal, Shamsher, Chandrakant) led the way till the Visual round, which was obviously not that scoring for them as the earlier rounds.  But after that they again got into flow and all, especially Hemant, were outstanding. Hemant even surprisingly gave the answer to a question related to 'Refractive Index' which I had explained to him one week ago.

It was followed by several other events such as skit (we were third), Ad-mad show (we got second), ‘Best out of waste’, Elocution (we got first in junior category) and many more. But the real show was ‘Solo Singing’. We were confident of putting a great show. And boys exceeded all the expectations. With the help of kids on the instruments (Ratan, Pawan and others), ‘Ashish’, ‘Amit’, ‘Akash’ and ‘Sumit’ put audience on the roll dancing across the auditorium. And no doubt we finished at the top of the podium. Following this, ‘Group Singing’ was no less great and students repeated the performance.

We were confident that our kids will perform great but finishing at the top was not expected. Our Visually disabled Kids proved that when god makes a mistake and doesn’t give you what you need most, it compensates by giving you those abilities which makes you special in all other aspects. 

Although, I had to leave the venue before the closing ceremony, but getting SMS from Priyanka and Sreenish (fellow volunteers) and than a call from Vishal (VMS kid) made me visualize this : 
"At the end of the event, all of us (Team VMS) had tears in our eyes; we were overwhelmed by the joy and happiness given to us by those kids.  Once again, we are proud of being part of this great initiative."

Are our premier institutes producing good citizens?

Recently I was having a casual discussion with one of my close friends. During the discussion she mentioned a story of one of her female colleagues who had just got married. Generally, I don’t show much interest in family gossips but this was much more than a simple story of a husband and wife. It was an example of the irony this modern India has and that is education from premier institutes doesn’t ensure that the person would have good values and courage to stand against wrong things in our society.

This lady, let’s call her Radhika, has been very fun loving, happy go-lucky lady through-out her life and always believed to live her up to the fullest, currently working with the largest IT Company of Asia.

Like most of the parents in India, parents of Radhika, from a middle class family in a backward state of the India, had dreamt of marrying their daughter to an IIT+IIM (Indian Institute of Technology + Indian Institute of Management) graduate. They left no stone unturned and ultimately found the right family; at least they thought so, for their daughter. Like any other obedient girl, Radhika also agrees to parents wish and soon gets married to the chosen IIT+IIM grad.

Like any other bride, Radhika also had few dreams after marriage. She might have also wished for a loving husband, who would respect her, her feelings and her work. As in India, marriages don’t happen between a groom and a bride but happens between their families, she might have also expected that her new family would accept her with open arms and give her the respect that she deserves.

But here, expectations don’t meet the reality. Today, her husband, lost in his arrogance of being from IIT+IIM, doesn’t even respect that his wife has an individual identity, that she works, and that she might also have some aspirations. No doubt that she earns much lesser than what her husband earns, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t deserve the appropriate respect. Her husband and in-laws, who earlier wanted a well-educated and working girl, don’t want her to work anymore. In fact, they make fun of her work and salary.

As much I could visualize, Radhika has been trying a lot to keep herself happy and get adapted to this new culture but all has been in vain till now. Despite being a well educated, working girl, she hears taunts and what not from her mother-in-law and sister-in-law (an IIM grad herself).

Hearing this story, when I start feeling suffocated, I can’t even imagine how this lady is handling the situation. Indians have been very proud of our premier institutions but are we doing anything to impart right values in the kids that graduate from those schools. At least this story doesn’t talk positive about that. We need to think what kind of education we are providing to next generations not only in IIT, IIM or other schools but also in our families.

Are we producing future leaders, risk takers and people who respect each and every individual regardless of their social status?

Life for me is.......