Skip to main content

Do we need a government?


“Do we need a government at all?” That was my introductory question in a class on Vikram Seth’s poem The Tale of Melon City. I intended to provoke my self-conceited students into some shape of wokeness. The only time their consciousness seems to awake is when they can detect some error in my pronunciation because a few of these students lived in some English-speaking country including America for a brief period and hence think they know English better than anyone in India. Interestingly, every time they question my pronunciation, I google it and prove to them that I am right. My ego! The class becomes a battleground of egos in spite of my age.

I am a middling sexagenarian. So, one day I decided to put an end to the ego battle and apologised to my students for being their teacher. I didn’t deserve to be their teacher, I told them. Forgive me for the grave error of having accepted the offer from the school management to teach you. Just a few more weeks. I cannot dishonour the contract. That’s why. Just put up with me for a few weeks more. And they didn’t care. I mean nothing changed on their faces. No expression. You would think you were in a class of inanimate statues.

And I turn to YouTube for help.

Seth can be deceptively simple, I tell my students to justify my switching over to YouTube. Otherwise they may complain that I’m wasting their time with irrelevant video clips. They want to sleep or live in their own fantasies. Classes are not required. They will learn the lessons from YouTube videos which are very concise.  

But not the kind of YouTube videos I show them.

Seth can be deceptively simple, I tell them hoping to gain their attention. We’re going to watch a video clip from a Hollywood movie. I expect some big gasp from the class. A gasp of expectation, if not excitement. I’m such a fool. Nothing happens. I play the video clip anyway. From Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Here’s the video for you, if you’re interested. It’s worth your time, a few minutes, I assure you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng

My students yawn. A few fall asleep.

I draw their attention to the conversation between King Arthur and the peasant Dennis.

Dennis: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior!

Arthur: Well, I AM King.

Dennis: Oh, king, eh, very nice. An’ how’d you get that, eh? By exploitin’ the workers, by ‘anging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic an’ social differences in our society! …

The scene goes on. It’s mesmerising, as far as I’m concerned. But my students are asleep, nearly. I will go out of this class apologising to myself for sticking on to this profession. I am helpless. There is a contract with the management that I have to fulfil for the sake of my integrity.

Dennis’s wife tells King Arthur to get lost. “I didn’t vote for you,” she says.

Arthur: You don’t vote for kings.

Electronic Voting Machines do all the voting, I tell my students. No reaction. They don’t even have a political view. Once I asked them whether they were aware of the Gujarat riots of 2002. Their answer: “We were not born then.”

Well.

Korean music and Korean drama mean a lot to them, I know.

I return to Vikram Seth.

The kingdom in his poem chooses a melon as their king because that was the choice of an idiot who got the right to make that choice by the custom of the country. Custom, tradition, ritual, religion…

Where are we going with all these? I raise the question to the group of 16-year-olds.

Who cares? Their indifference intimidates me. They will all go to some English-speaking country and find a job there. Whatever job that comes. Whatever!

“The principles of laissez-faire,” Vikram Seth’s poem ends, “Seem to be well-established there.” The citizens are happy because their King is a melon. My students are happy too with that. Do we need a government? Who cares?


x

Comments

  1. Hari Om
    My heart aches for the indifference of youth - how long into the working life they envisiage will it be before they will look back and think, "Arey, but Matheikal-adhyaapakan might have been onto something!"... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, friend, let me share with you a message that came yesterday from a former student.

      "Hi sir, hope you are doing well, my name is...., a student of Sawan Public School, I don't know if you remember me or not. But I remember you! And I wanted to let you know. Everything that you told me makes sense now! Every small thing! Thank you!"

      They will remember me, I'm sure, years later.

      Thanks for reminding me of that.

      Delete
  2. It's sad to see profound questions about authority and freedom met with yawns, but you did make an effort with your perseverance and creative attempts to wake them. The disinterest of students can be absolutely frustrating for a dedicated teacher!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Forget the teacher. I'm wondering what kind of a world these youngsters will forge.

      Delete
  3. Ah, the hubris of youth. Youth is wasted on the young. You're making an impression, whether you realize it or not. They can't show this to you, however. It won't look good to their peers. Are you enjoying the lessons you're teaching? Focus on that. Be glad they're not talking over you. (It drives me nuts when that's the problem.) And know that you're planting seeds that you might not see sprout, but the seeds are there nevertheless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's my hope too. I know one day they'll remember me with some affection and respect too.

      Delete
  4. The melon is rotting. Needs to be disposed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, but too many citizens seem to relish the stench!

      Delete
    2. https://felixanoopthekkekara.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-last-supper-da-vincis-hidden-mystery.html wanna know about the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene follow up

      Delete
  5. Your blog post beautifully captures the struggles and triumphs of teaching. It’s clear you care deeply about engaging us, even when we seem indifferent. Your efforts with Vikram Seth’s poem and creative methods like showing Monty Python clips are appreciated, even if we don’t always show it. Keep inspiring us! and I assure you that I will try my best to be engaging and attentive in the class

    Sir my new blog is published DA VINCI'S LAST SUPPPER
    https://felixanoopthekkekara.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-last-supper-da-vincis-hidden-mystery.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for this reassurance, dear Felix. And I'll definitely have a look at your take on Da Vinci and Jesus.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

War and Meaning of Victory

In the summer of 1999, while the rest of India was soaked in monsoon and Cricket World Cup, the country’s soldiers were clawing up frozen cliffs daring the bullets that came shooting from above. India’s incorrigible neighbour had sent its soldiers and militants to capture the snow-covered peaks of Kargil. It was an act of deception, a capture of India’s land stealthily. The terrain was harsh and hostile, testing the limits of human courage with every jagged step. The Kargil War was not just against a human enemy, but against peaks of stones and snow where the air itself was an adversary. Three months of bitter conflict and subhuman killing ended in India’s victory over the invading Pakistan. Victory! July 26 is celebrated ever after as Kargil Vijay Diwas by India. What is victory, however? Philosophically, I mean. We are supposed to be rational (philosophical) creatures, after all. “ W ar does not determine who is right,” Bertrand Russell said famously, “but who is left.” Every...

Dine in Eden

If you want to have a typical nonvegetarian Malayali lunch or dinner in a serene village in Kerala, here is the Garden of Eden all set for you at Ramapuram [literally ‘Abode of Rama’] in central Kerala. The place has a temple each for Rama and his three brothers: Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughna. It is believed that Rama meditated in this place during his exile and also that his brothers joined him for a while. Right in the heart of the small town is a Catholic church which is an imposing structure that makes an eloquent assertion of religious identity. Quite close to all these religious places is the Garden of Eden, Eden Thoppu in Malayalam, a toddy shop with a difference. Toddy is palm wine, a mild alcoholic drink collected from palm trees. In my childhood, toddy was really natural; i.e., collected from palm trees including coconut trees which are ubiquitous in Kerala. My next-door neighbours, two brothers who lived in the same house, were toddy-tappers. Toddy was a health...

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so...