Peer Pressure

This story is not at all funny, in fact, it makes you think, think about the kind of pressures the kids of this generation undergo. The pressures that did not exist in our carefree childhood days. Sometimes, I feel that at forty, I have already grown too much for my age.

I work as an honorary member in our housing society management team for the last eleven years. The society, as a part of security initiative, on the directions of local police installed Close Circuit Camera (CCTV), to double ensure watertight security around 12 cameras are installed, that tracks a person’s entry from the main gate till the moment he reaches the particular apartment.

Being IT savvy, I have been entrusted the responsibility of looking after the entire setup of this CCTV network. It was not such a boring job after all to watch some hilarious clips. Members of the society for all and sundry reasons started seeking footage to search for any and every item that was lost, even inside their houses. Obviously, we did never entertain such stupid requests.

That day, last month,  as I reached my workplace, I received a phone call, firstly from my wife and then from the society secretary and reported a theft, reportedly by a kid from our own society.  They required security footage, I told them we would meet in the evening to check the footage.

That evening at seven as we assembled before the security monitors to check the footage, the doubting Thomases were proved correct. The boy whom everybody doubted was the culprit. He was seen donning a raincoat upping his hood and entering into that particular wing of the society. After exactly ten minutes, the boy could be seen running away. All he could grab was a 100 rupee note.

The family in whose house this theft took place witnessed it. The boy and his family were also called. The boy was a small 14-year-old teen. He was unapologetic in the beginning and was showing all traits of a trained criminal. He did not accede to the fact that he did the theft, as nowhere in the clip, it was conclusively seen that the boy entered the house. The more the committee members and the parents of the boy pressurized the kid, the more did he turn stubborn. I then held the hand of the kid and pampered and cajoled him a bit. Sadly I could relate with the boy, as back home, my son is just a year elder to this boy. I told him to accept whether he had done any mistake and we would request the family to settle the matter then and there itself. Getting a bit firm, I told him that if he did not tell the truth and entire truth, the matter will go in the hands of the police and then no one can help him. This carrot and stick policy worked and he slowly started accepting and said I entered the room and took just 100 Rs. note. The parents of the boy were feeling ashamed of their kids’ activities and the mother sobbed pitifully. 

I felt very sad and down as I came back home. It was not a matter of reported theft of Rs.100/-. It was the need that was created amongst kids. When we were kids, a 10 rupee note was like a jackpot for us, we kids never saw a Rs.100/- note with us as pocket money. 

Nowadays, in schools and in colleges, a trend has set amongst kids to throw parties on any and every stupid cause. The kids from affluent homes with liberal parents are the one who lavishly spends money on such parties. The kids with not so affluent conditions or with strict parents find it difficult to return favors of friends. Someday their turn comes to throw a party and the kids have no money to spend, to save embarrassment, they either borrow money from parents giving false excuses or not all, but some, like the kid in this story end up stealing firstly from their own house and then from any and every source.

Somehow, I feel that the parents of this generation are the real ones to blame.  Most of the parents today, born in late 70’s or early 80’s were from middle class or lower middle-class upbringings, during the pre-liberalized era when there were no luxuries around. In a sentimental bid to let our kids enjoy the luxuries, which we could not during our childhood days, we pamper our kids beyond a certain extent, resulting in scenes like I mentioned in this story. We have cushioned our kids, we have soft gloved them, prevented them from all kind of insecurities. Somehow, we have made our kids handicapped because of this. Today’s kids do not know how to face precarious situations, because they have never faced them. No, I don’t mean that we must expose our kids but must sensitize them for sure.

As for the boy is concerned, he roams around even today as nothing has happened. Totally unapologetic.

Does Education matters ???

Our Batch for 10th Standard.

Childhood days were days of great dreams, dreams of becoming big, in haste to grow up we would imitate ourselves like grown ups, learn their body languages of grown up people whom we then idolize, habits which stuck up with our persona and in turn swayed us away from our own originality.

The common career trend in our childhood days was to study hard, become either doctor or engineer. It was a profession of repute, it still does is. IT, Biotech, Hospitality or other similar sunrise industries which we see now was not even heard of in the 80’s. Schools and Education was the main source of achieving what we’d then dreamt of, of becoming big.  We would be pampered, cuddled, forced to study, study even harder. The boy or girl earning more percentages then us would be envied upon by parents, and at times hated by us, for because of them, we were being looked down and forced to do what we did not particularly liked much – to study.

Childhood days were of forced education i guess, because most of the times we kids did not understand what we have learnt, so just mugging up was what we used to do. But, as we grew up we started to cope up with the system and learnt more precisely what we were required to. Education then we thought was the only thing that can change lives. Education is important, but, it is not the only thing that can change lives, is now what i believe, your attitude, your experiences, your approach can also change things upside down.

We were in our tenth standard and it was the final year of our secondary education, a make or break year that could shape up our future permanently. Obviously, we all were very serious about the year. Coincidentally, the school in which we were enrolled was a new and our school wanted to prop up the best of results, the teachers exulted extra pressure on us to perform better. We all were a good batch and were expecting a good result for the school and ourselves. There were a couple of students who not so good enough, teachers pressed them hard to study.

Then there was this boy, who had different ideas, he was average in studies, he had good dreams, dreams of college life and the fun of it. He would study as hard as us.  After the exams he was the boy who rushed to various colleges to collect admission forms, and he had scouted around 25 different colleges & collected forms in that one month of vacation.

Soon the D day arrived, and we all waited with anxiety for the results. At around 5.30 pm the teacher came with the results and declared the results, just the basic result of pass or fail, in the class of forty, only three students failed to pass the hurdle that evening , it was a good result by all measures. We were jubilant and it was one of the happiest moments of our lives.

But as our happiness sunked in we soon realized that the boy was nowhere around, we understood that he had failed the exam, the boy full with dreams to enjoy the college life could not have gone to college that year, he was broken, he was nowhere around. He was my best friend, he still is, after so many years, we were actually a gang of four. So we three friends rushed to our homes to find him, we checked up with our parents whether he was seen in the locality, the happiness was now replaced with tension, tension that this emotional boy might end up taking some drastic steps. We reached his home and inquired with his mother whether the boy turned up, the anxious mother said no and asked what was the matter and about the result. We lied to her that the results would be declared tomorrow morning and made a hasty escape. Now, we were really tensed, where would this boy have gone after all. We confided the story to one neighborhood uncle who was very close with us. He too now joined the search for this boy. Our search finally took us to the secluded railway tracks, where we found a faint shadow of a boy sitting all alone on the tracks for the train to arrive, we ran towards him, as we went near and near we found that he  was the boy whom we were searching for so long. As the boy saw us, he became unusually aggressive and started shouting us to stay away from him, he picked up stones from the track and started throwing it at us. His anger might surely have hurted us, then the uncle came in front and said “…son, you want to harm me, come throw the stone, hurt me”, saying so he kept on moving closer and closer to the boy. The boy could not have hurted the uncle whom we all liked so dearly. He helplessly hugged the uncle and wailed and weeped like it was the end of the world for him. Somehow, just somehow, we were able to convince the boy that it was certainly not the end of the roads for him, we managed to bring him back to his house and then we told his parents what had happened. They were also broken.  Time, as we say was the cure, the boy recovered from the failure. No he did’nt study further or re-appear for the exam. But that did not deter him from achieving his goals.

We are still in touch with each others, sometimes, the boy who is now a man, a father of two, becomes nostalgic, comes to the locality, he now stays in other suburbs, he becomes sentimental, takes me down the road where it all happens, once he even took me to the track where he was going to give up his life. He  once thanked me and my friends for saving his life.

Today, the boy is a successful businessmen, he is a Wealth Consultant, last time when i visited his office, i found fifteen employees, mostly graduates and MBAs working under him. The boy in a jovial tone told me, you friends went to colleges to complete your graduation, i plunged into this field and today i employ graduates like you under me, come you too leave your job and join me, i will pay you more than what you earn.

The joke he did somehow hurted me, for i somehow felt that i spoilt some fine years of my life learning the subjects which were never of any use to me. The history of world some six centuries ago that i learnt, is of no use to me, the geography – the easterlies, the westerlies, the physics, the geometry the trignometry nothing, nothing helped, i never understood what Pythagoras, nor did i ever understood the laws of the elements, the law of probability, but still i mugged up just everything and scored handsomely.  What was the use of such education ?

The boy on the other hand,  utilized these precious years gainfully to learn life, to learn people, to learn trade and today he succeeded, he earns atleast five times better than me today. Money is not the factor, the confidence the boy gained is worth appreciating, the command in his tone, the way he presents himself is worth appreciating.

So the pertinent question that lingers to me, is education, the way that it is taught in this part of the world really helpful ? For the kid mugs up the entire year, reproduces it during exam and the next day he gets blank, he learns nothing in the process.  In a way he learns the topic by heart but nothing ever touches his heart. Thankfully, some steps are being now taking to overhaul the education system, I guess it was long long overdue.