With two students Today [Sep 5] is Teacher’s Day in India. India is a country whose cultural tradition placed the teacher on a par with none less than god. “Acharya devobhava,” said Dattatreya Upanishad. The time has changed. Covid-19 changed it, I must say. Before the pandemic placed the omnipotent smartphone in the hands of students for online classes, the teacher commanded much respect from students. Not anymore. Now the student may know more than the teacher. I may speak about Dostoevsky eloquently but my student will teach me even more eloquently about Korean movies. I belong to an old world whose value systems were entirely different from today’s. Value systems. There lies the point. Is there any value system left anymore? We live in a country whose government seems to have legalised all kinds of violence [e.g., from Gujarat 2002 to Manipur 2023], frauds [e.g., innumerable sublime slogans and the opposite reality – Beti bachao beti padhao , etc], blatant misuse of religion ...
Cerebrate and Celebrate