Somebody forwarded the following jpg in Gujarati tonight. It was fun reading through, but so did come along mixed emotions. I don’t know what the basic schooling reminds to you or not, but my early days at the Baherampura Hindi Prathmik Shala run by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (mid 70s-1981) came back calling to my mind. It was, like most SARKAARI schools, a wholesale picnic spot for those enrolled to be part of it. My parents were teachers, so they did not deem it necessary to send me to far flung places. There weren’t many Hindi schools in those days either. They preferred teaching me at home, while overlooking the nature of place I’d been enrolled to.

It was also the era of Sholay, Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendar and Gabbar Singh. My class would get divided into small groups (gangs rather) and reenact all famous blockbusters of that time, hurling cries of “Are O Sambha”, “Kitne Aadmi The” and “Tera Kya Hoga Kaliya” loud in the air. MASTERJI (rather PANDITJI, as we kids called our class-teacher) would disappear soon after taking the roll call. I had my own small gang set up, which would slip out to play cricket at a pre-chosen venue. It was total entertainment for all us kids, until we got thrown out due to aging. It came at a huge price, though. Very few could read and write properly by the time they enrolled into high schools. Only a few could go beyond high schooling. Most came from poor households, so they did not have any desire or means to study anyway. I had my teachers back home, who compelled me to carry on until I had post graduated. My elder brothers, also a product of the same junk PATHSHALAA, went on to complete their PhDs.

Following lines made me somewhat emotional in this backdrop tonight. Emotional since they brought back the nostalgia of my childhood, and also because they reminded me of the stark realities of having India’s haves and have nots to my mind, this despite so many years after Independence.

The sky is the limit, they say it for those who can really climb up to make at the top in life. However, I found it frightening to even look at the same blue sky, as this story of mine must say! I got this shot captured through my cellphone camera, while walking down the SG Highway in Ahmedabad, this late afternoon. It left me wondering with mixed emotions. The first thing I could ask was, how do they manage it? Neither did they have any safety apparatus to evade or survive emergencies nor was their climb up the tower any smooth. Or am I making too much out of nothing by writing this? Do electricity firms show such disregard for their own workforce in other nations as well? Yeah, men do fall and die in a city like Dubai or Shanghai, where the reality has seen overheating. But, they also get better equipment and insurance to survive on there. However, we are faced with the Indian scenario in this case – most probably state owned firms – that see no logic in taking care of their own workforce – a meagerly-paid one. This sums the other side of India’s emergence as a major economy. I have myself been investing in the share market after the market crashed worldwide, hoping to gain some quick bucks. It is exciting to take part in the money-making process. However, there is an unaccounted queue of endless poor Indians that will not be spoken about by this success story. Btw, I walked along to notice how they had already completed this risky maneuver at several other places.