Anna and hope..!
Robert Clements
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - I am not sure whether I support the way Anna Hazare is going about his anti-corruption bill, with fasts and all, but I am certainly glad that the whole country is suddenly aware that we need to get rid of corruption. I heard the other day that coaching classes were teaching children how to cheat!
This is what professors were teaching their children: When caught, never confess, I repeat never ever confess. If noticed, swallow the chits, and finally; if spotted make allegations of bias against the person who caught you! Have we reached such a state that we send our children to special classes to become cheats and frauds? Don’t they learn enough at home? “Dad!” shouts the little child, “there’s a call from that uncle you don’t like, shall I tell him you’re not at home?”
According to the newspaper report 16 year olds listen with rapt attention as eminent professors who are supposed to help them solve mathematical problems and teach them the intricacies of the English language tutor them instead to become cheats!
Ah! Fagin you would have loved this wouldn’t you as you taught little Oliver Twist and Dodger, Nancy and Bill Sykes the art of picking pockets of Charles Dickens’ Londoners! Some time back a bold man called me on the phone and asked me to help stop illegal work being carried out in a complex. Earthmovers and excavators had been called in and work was going on at full speed.
The next day instead of calling that man a hero for what he had done, I heard rumors had been floated that the man was drunk when he had stopped the work. “He wasn’t!” I said. “But that’s what a neighbor said,” said my friend. Today as heard about the coaching classes, I can see what the coaches teach: If caught, make allegations of bias against the person who caught you!
What monsters are we turning into? Is there hope I wonder. And then my mind moves from Charles Dickens to an ancient Greek legend: Zeus, furious because Prometheus had stolen fire and thus given independence to mortal men sends Pandora to marry Prometheus’ brother Ephemetheus. Pandora takes with her a box, which she has been forbidden to open.
However curiosity gets the better of her. She lifts the lid to see what is inside and in doing so all the evils of the world fly out and scatter about the earth. Only one thing remained inside: Hope! Maybe the hope is Anna Hazare after all..!
—Email:bobsbanter@gmail.com
This is what professors were teaching their children: When caught, never confess, I repeat never ever confess. If noticed, swallow the chits, and finally; if spotted make allegations of bias against the person who caught you! Have we reached such a state that we send our children to special classes to become cheats and frauds? Don’t they learn enough at home? “Dad!” shouts the little child, “there’s a call from that uncle you don’t like, shall I tell him you’re not at home?”
According to the newspaper report 16 year olds listen with rapt attention as eminent professors who are supposed to help them solve mathematical problems and teach them the intricacies of the English language tutor them instead to become cheats!
Ah! Fagin you would have loved this wouldn’t you as you taught little Oliver Twist and Dodger, Nancy and Bill Sykes the art of picking pockets of Charles Dickens’ Londoners! Some time back a bold man called me on the phone and asked me to help stop illegal work being carried out in a complex. Earthmovers and excavators had been called in and work was going on at full speed.
The next day instead of calling that man a hero for what he had done, I heard rumors had been floated that the man was drunk when he had stopped the work. “He wasn’t!” I said. “But that’s what a neighbor said,” said my friend. Today as heard about the coaching classes, I can see what the coaches teach: If caught, make allegations of bias against the person who caught you!
What monsters are we turning into? Is there hope I wonder. And then my mind moves from Charles Dickens to an ancient Greek legend: Zeus, furious because Prometheus had stolen fire and thus given independence to mortal men sends Pandora to marry Prometheus’ brother Ephemetheus. Pandora takes with her a box, which she has been forbidden to open.
However curiosity gets the better of her. She lifts the lid to see what is inside and in doing so all the evils of the world fly out and scatter about the earth. Only one thing remained inside: Hope! Maybe the hope is Anna Hazare after all..!
—Email:bobsbanter@gmail.com
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