CLOSE
Authors Posts by Tanya Bahl

Tanya Bahl

Tanya Bahl
4 POSTS 0 COMMENTS

Teaching profession India
“I am so glad Rajat sir that you want to choose teaching as your profession and even happier to hear about your passion for teaching. Your students would be very lucky to have such an intelligent and passionate teacher like you.”

“Ha! Thanks junior. But I tell you something. Whenever I tell somebody that I want to pursue in this field as teacher, they raise their brows at me. ‘Aren’t you getting good job offers?’ is their first question. I mean how is it that a CSIR-NET qualified pursuing PhD from reputed institute in India and having offers for the same from abroad across the globe not getting good offers? This saddens me a lot.”

His reply dumbfounded me. From a nation of ‘Gurur Bhrama’ to ‘aur kuch nhi to teacher sahi’ the transformation in mind-sets is terrific.

So, how did we as a country, end up at such a stage where teaching as a profession lost all its respect? Why is that for most of the people taking teaching as profession is just out of their inability and helplessness in finding any other so called ‘high-standard’ and ‘prestigious’ job? How is that we the youth have reached a stage, wherein most of us have this profession at the bottom of our priority lists? Why do we not find us longing to be teachers like we yearn to be engineers or doctors? Why it is that teaching has lost all its aura it once garnered?

NDTV on April, 03 2015 reported that nearly 3000 primary school teachers on contract failed to clear competency test TWICE in Bihar. And the moving fact is that the teachers were tested for knowledge of English, Mathematics, Hindi and General Knowledge up to class five ONLY! Moreover those who failed the test for the first time were given a second chance and still 3000 teachers failed!

Similar case was reported 2 years back in 2013. In an alarming indictment of the quality of training given to prospective teachers, over 99% aspirants failed to clear the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) 2012. Out of 79.6 Lakh aspirants who took the examination, only 55,422 managed to clear it.

Shocking isn’t it? I too had the same expressions.

Teaching is an exposed profession. Other careers have relatively less influence on people’s perception as teaching due its direct interactions. Almost no other career choice is all well-known and well understood as teaching is. Everyone has been through school and college so we believe we have an intimate knowledge of what teachers do. So the pros and cons of teaching as a profession are more readily at hand to anyone considering it as a profession.

It is a surprising fact that in the profession that builds up all other professions, the majority of students who teach enroll as faculties in educational institutions across the country are those in the bottom third or quarter of the cohorts admitted each year.

Few days back a friend of mine visited my place and asked my mum who is a teacher educator in a B.Ed. college,” Aunty, it must really be very interesting to teach would be teachers of the country.”

Her reply galvanised us both. She answered,” The condition these days of students being admitted into B.Ed. colleges is pathetic. They get enrolled merely to get a degree. Learning is nowhere in scene. They show up their faces in class hardly once or twice a week, some don’t even bother this much and turn up only for the exams, that too just as a formality to complete attendance. The word ‘passion’ is not even in their dictionaries. It isn’t that these pupil teachers don’t have caliber. It is just that they take the responsibilities of a teacher way too lightly. The thought that these students who pass and manage to get degrees only at mercy of their professors, would be teaching children in future, scares me badly!”

“Teaching is an easy profession. What’s so difficult in teaching something to somebody? Read from the book and translate to students. How difficult can this possibly be? What’s so big deal?” an engineer friend of mine working in an MNC narrated to me the other day. I don’t think he realised how shallow his words were. This is also a major reason why major chunk of students are swooned by high-intensity jobs and they look down with disgust towards teaching as profession.

So again the discussion brings us down to one main issue. Why isn’t teaching attracting intelligent and passionate minds?

I think we the youngsters while choosing our careers are driven by lust for status. Status in turn is influenced by power, money and fame. All other secondary factors like interest in teaching or having got skills for teaching, do not deliver status unless they result in high level of power, money or fame.

Talking about money, we all are well aware about the salaries that are paid to teachers. We here don’t include the ‘high profile’ coaching institutes that pay their faculty hell lot money (who are mostly alumnus of varies prestigious institutes who would not mind taking up a batch of an hour or so at being baited with lakhs of money, as part time job) just to attract students in their name, and hence only turn wheels in their own favours by charging the students manifolds.

Coming to power and fame, yes teachers have the power to influence their student’s lives by their skills. But in a country like India where the major concern of teacher is expected to be completing the course in time and having got all their students passed, certainly innovative mind thus don’t show much interest to take up teaching as their profession. Similar is the case with fame. Having lost to be able to generate money and power, this profession is hence under rated. So tell an aunt you want to become a teacher and be ready to be confronted with questions like, ‘kyun beta padhne mein weak ho kya, ki doctor ya engineer ki padhai nhi hoti?’

Of course we can’t change the mind sets of people about this profession so easily. But what we can do is come forward and take up teaching as a profession with equal zest and zeal as any other profession.

I won’t be ending my post lecturing anything telling how beautiful and responsible this profession is or other worthless stuff nor would I ask you to shun all your other aspirations and take up teaching straight away but I guess we the youth know our responsibilities already and know very well the directions in which change needs to occur! So let’s just take over and be the change!

Kyunki Akhir Hum Badlenge Tabhi To Badlega India!

valuesMy cousin had come to our place after a long while with his four year old son. While the whole family was busy having hearty laughs and talks, I noticed my nephew sitting in a corner busy playing temple run on my cousin’s phone and at the same time chirping “chinki chameli pahua chada ke aayi!” Right from the time he had entered the house, excluding the forceful namastey to all, he had isolated him and his cell phone.

Hearing to the song, I initiated talk with him.

“Hey Reyaansh! Ye kaun sa gaana gaa rhe ho aap?”

“Massi Katrina vala!”

“Aapko pata h Katrina kaun h?”

“Haan na massi, Rahul (his classmate) kehta hai, she is very hot and sexy!”

Four year old child singing chikni chameli, using profane language, expletive words could have left any one aghast.

This small incident made me to ponder over the effect the ‘so called’ modernization and advancement has caused to us. It has cost to us the innocence of such small kids!

We were also kids once. Of course all toddlers interrupt, whine and throw tantrums, we also have done this in our childhood. Those behaviors are quite normal ways for little kids to exert their independence, but the difference is made by the adult’s reaction. Spoiling occurs when kids pre-dominantly take charge in the family. In other words, kids aren’t spoiled because they whine, but because their whining consistently gets them what they desire.


We as adults, rather than explaining to them about their in apt argument prefer to “LOL!” over a forwarded whatsapp joke.

Gone are the days when the kids used to wake up hearing the chanting of prayers by their mums or grand mums. Contrarily, the alarms of our cell phone are set to the tunes of “Aaj blue h paani paani!” The songs like ‘Vande Mataram’, ‘Aye mere vatan ke logon’ in this “dude’s” world are meant to be played only on 26 January and 15 August (of course if elections aren’t on, coz during those days you can hear the maximum of these kinda songs in auto-rickshaws with a screaming voice asking to vote for the biggest ‘DESH BHAKAT’ ever), otherwise Honey Singh is the maestro. I mean common, who would like to hear about “khoob ladi mardani”, if we get a choice to listen to “choti dress mein bomb lagdi mainu”. Why to bore kids? Let them enjoy isn’t it?

Talking about us 90’s children, we were taught to recite mantras like Gayatri mantra, Saraswati mantra or simply fold our hands and close our eyes and pray to Almighty whenever we felt anxiety or nervousness. Vis-à-vis earphones plugged into rock music is the solution for today’s kids. Be it the mathematics test the next day or some boring lecture by an adult that “screwed” them in their terms.

Even the cartoons served to the little sweet hearts these days communicate to them words like ‘abey’ and ‘saale’. They have their ideal Shinchan on one hand, crushing on his own teacher, making plans to woo her and the protagonist of the other using Doremon’s gadget to find any easy way out to get high grades for the next day’s lecture.

To them everything that is served looks ideal. Something they have to have. It all sounds to them so appealing often so much than it really is.

Every weekend, religiously, I have a whatsapp message from a distant aunt of mine asking me to help her in making her son’s project which she feels he (12 years old) is too young to do by himself.

While his mother and I do all ‘his’ work, he is allowed to play games or surf the net (of course facebook, twitter, Instagram what else) on computer or watch his favourite show on television, so that he doesn’t disturb ‘his’ work.

A very petty thing to mention about some school project but still having major repercussions.

With their Baby gap wardrobe, Gymboree classes and Disney videos, it is no surprise that the kids of the 21st century have been clearly shielded from the hardships of life by their over protective parents. We are plunking our kids into what Sally Koslow has termed “Adultesence”

“Please make a difference between modernization and westernization”- Dr. Subramaniyan Swamy. By this I don’t mean that we must not teach our children to be at par with the advancing or rather “westernizing” India. But what is meant is that we must not leave the roots that bind us to our morals. And this is the duty of adults to teach these values to the little darlings. After all who wants their priceless innocence to get lost in this cacophonous world!


So let us begin this change in us and with the people around us. After all:

“Akhir hum badlenge tabhi to badlega India!”

 

 

 

beggars- Today in the Roadways bus, on my way to the university, as usual I was busy on my phone, just about to clear the last level of the crossword puzzle, my favourite song jingling in my earphones when I got a slight push from the back by a lady making her way to the door in the jam-packed bus. It was then that I returned to reality from my solitary fancy world and I glanced outside the window. There outside Sec-32 hospital I saw a man in tattered clothes struggling hard to lift a box of kashmiri apple to put on his cart. He might not have fetched my attention but there was something unusual about him. He had both elbows amputated and thus his task of lifting an ordinary box had become a challenging one. It was a deja-vu for me. All the people like the disability of his’ I had seen before were in one common profession-”Begging”.
Yes! It may sound funny but begging is a lucrative profession in India. Hilarious it is but begging in India is a Rs.200 crore industry. On an average a panhandler earns Rs.24,000 a month (with all taxes exempted!) which is equal to a white collar job salary. Quite a remunerative job, isn’t it?
One may not surprise that there are even gangs and syndicates whose leader takes a bigger share in all that is earned through begging and distributes the rest among members . As business models go, these syndicates are run by a ‘faceless boss’ or a ‘master’. Under his leadership beggars need not work round the clock but work in shifts and still get daily fixed wages. All you need to learn is-’The art of Begging’.
Yes you read it right- The art of Begging. “It’s not just about standing and asking for money, but one must know how to play with the emotions of the donor and also the apt place to go and beg.”, I heard these lines once from one of the two mendicants I was standing behind , while they were busy dividing their ‘hard begged money’ amongst themselves, of course unaware of my presence.

CHILD_BEGGER[1]

The beggars of this century have mastered the art of begging and dressing up accordingly. They realize that it is very difficult to refuse to a seemingly hungry man begging just outside the restaurant you came out after having your favourite meal to your heart’s content. Sometimes a woman begs in the name of her husband on death bed in hospital and his husband doing the same at the adjacent street in her wife’s name. (Not forgetting to mention here about the famous elderly lady who is seen quite a number of times in my university and asks for money for the same reason each time- The cremation of her son. Quite disgusting and painful it is!)
Some even beg in the name of their ‘family tradition’ and what tale they have, to quote-”Even lord Shiva ran his household once by income collected by begging among rishis and sadhus.”Really Hats off! How easily they justify their act of begging, hiding behind the curtains of religion.
“If they have chosen to stay in the lowest rung of the society what can we do?”, said a friend of mine to me.”I mean, just look at them no work, no deadlines no tension to look good, happy-go-lucky life!”, he added. Little did he realize while saying so that this menace is not just limited to begging, but underneath it flourishes many more serious crimes like human trafficking, murders, smuggling s and what not! (Who doesn’t remember the “’Slum Dog Millionaire’, the movie depicting the nearest picture of this epidemic.)
It’s okay, in fact good to be generous to disabled and elderly and help them. It makes much more sense if you give food to the hungry child begging to you instead of money, coz the money you give them has a decent chance of going to some elderly criminal or even some mafia.
Instead of enjoying the thrill of bargaining with that man with the amputated limb, I saw and more like him struggling hard to earn their livelihoods and simply refusing to switch to begging, it is certainly more liberal to give him 10-20 bugs extra rather than flaunting your generosity and money in front of your friends by giving it to some not so needy beggar. But the imperative to not giving money does not mean we have to turn our backs on them. Instead, donate alms and money to the NGO’s and other government organizations working towards the rehabilitation of the pauper and beggars.
Because-”jab hum Badlenge, tabhi to Badlega India!”

eve teasing

“I held your wrist, twisted your arm and landed a bang on your face. Teri himmat kaise hui chune ki? (How dare you touch me?)

‘Beep Beep Beep……Wake up wake up wake up ……. It’s a brand new Day!

6:15 a.m. it was. I was already late but did not repent it. Coz the thing I could not do in broad day light I had finally done in my dream, or rather nightmare I should say. You know what; you have started to haunt me even in my sleep!

Do you know when it was first when I realized that I am no longer a small baby but now have been characterized (as every other girl) in an ostensibly ‘weaker’ class of society in this male chauvinistic world? It was not when I hit puberty. But it was when I was followed by one of you my way back to home from school. Your lewd stare, the sly whistle, the lingering look, cheap gestures, all shattered me in a jiffy.

Unable to track you, I was asked by elders to let the bygone be bygone. But you had made a lifelong impression on my mind. Finally I knew now; I had grown up!

Kudos to you!

No one can deny that your such activities are an indispensable part of every girl’s being. You are everywhere, buses, shopping arcades, restaurants, railway booking counters, cinema halls, bus stops, and every other conceivable place.

In a crowded place, one of you bumps into us unwarranted and then your seemingly casual touch! You rubberneck me as if some asset at display. Even if I try to confront you some time, you are already ready with your-“Maine kya kiya? (What have I done?)” as guiltless as an innocent child unsullied by any kind of sin.

It is really commendable each time you seemingly ‘unintentionally’ brush your arm against my back or thigh in a bus or train and still you have a hell lot guts to stare straight into my eyes when I look at you in disgust and still have that ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ attitude. Really, Hats off!

You well-timed clap, your seemingly casual touch, your lingering look at vulnerable times, the humming of a suggestive song, passing down the crude and sarcastic comments, bikes flying close with hands stretched to grope us! You must have had to practice pretty hard to masters these skills. Tough job of yours!

There surely must be some thrill in ripping behind us in every possible hazardous manner. May be you try to flaunt your macho who can accost or rather terrify, anyone.

You know what; all thanks to you that my activities and clothes are under constant scrutiny any my late nights are curbed.

It kills me a little inside each time a have to re-think over a dress before entering a public place. Even in a decent ‘salwaar- kameez’, why do I appear Lady Godiva to you and so you become the voyeuristic Peeping Tom!

I am sure one day you would agnize the disgust you cause to me and that day would be the one when your daughter would come up to you and say-“ Daddy! I don’t feel safe!”

Yours seemingly leisurely object,

A Regular girl.

 

 

SOCIAL

404,920FansLike
12,373FollowersFollow
©