Birthday of Lakshmibai

Khoob Ladhi Mardani…. and the rest of can be completed in chorus by all without any assistance from Subhadra Kumari Chauhan. We know who we are talking about, the Rani of Jhansi - Lakshmibai. And yesterday, it was her birthday.

We celebrated it too, with my son writing a poem on her, as an ode to a valiant warrior, and to a woman who can be held up as an example to generations and to a mother who nursed her child till her grave.

I would grant it to the British, though such occasions were much too rare, when they would admire certain values that India stood for.

Such stellar was the Rani’s courage and such stark her valor so Spartan her lifestyle, so all of which she displayed with characteristic defiance till the last that she breathed, that Gen Hugh Rose who took the surrender of the forces of Jhansi post Indias first war of independence in 1857 was impelled to acknowledge at her grave – “here lies the woman who was the only man amongst the rebels”.

But such words of praise never came from any Muslim ruler or man of influence for anything that was indigenous. They, despite having imbibed a lot from the country, continued to deny all that was good and stable in that civilization.

Well this queen of valor, grew up not far from where I studied. Bithoor was where she and Nana the son of the Maratha rulers frolicked as infants, was just 10 kms from IIT Kanpur. this was also the place where she learnt warfare. But IIT Kanpur community chronically gaping in awe and wonder toward the west would rather be mindlessly celebrating Halloween, than be mindful of the birthday of Lakshmi bai. I have never heard the UP Government too celebrate her birthday.

Zero point one

Studies by Jared Diamond a well-known anthropologist revealed, human beings and chimps share 99.9 pct of the genes. It is always the 0.1 pct that makes all the difference.

“Life is a race” said the nerdy dean of 3 Idiots of Amir Khan - in his characteristic and syllabic lisp - and in this race the chimps lost, in what you could well call a photo-finish. Till about 5 mn years ago, they were at par with us.

What I would be very curious to learn is, if humans and chimps or apes could be inter-fertile. May be I should give this idea to Spielberg, and he could drive the world crazy with his creative conceptualization of a third specie - this one a hybrid of the winner and loser ie the human and the chimp.

I remember, a schoolmate of mine, who could have qualified for this hybrid category. One skill that he surely had more than rest of us was of effortlessly climbing trees. He could also neigh like a horse with fidelity enough to smite a thorough bred mare. Although, he could only hem and haw at any question that would be asked in class but somehow his answers usually far from correct, would for sure make all laugh.

In India for sure, the 0.1 pct is well understood by all. The difference between he who tops and he who does not is only 0.1 pct. The difference between who gets selected and who does not is also 0.1 pct. On every significant digit, there are ten rank holders standing.

The Indian education system model is not bad, but the mode and method certainly leave a lot of room for improvement. The latter reeks of a system fighting fatigue and futility. Kapil Sibal is also firing stray or shooting in the dark, and is not able to provide a sustainable recast to the rickety system. Much to ones dismay, he is focusing more on how to flabbergast a baba or foil an anshun.

As a consequence, one would be surprised to note, in a country of millions unemployed, not one industry in the country has access to skilled manpower. They all train people on the job. If you train a person on the job, then he is fit for just the job. Any innovation in the job becomes difficult to come by and the adeptness is more at copying than creating.

The country today is at an inflexion point. Depending on how we do our things, we could go either side. an for this reason the mode and method are more critical than the model. Yet, let us not stop hoping for the best.