Two Stories. One Moral

Two stories. One moral.
A few days ago, the CBSE results were announced on the Web. On that morning, the garrulous maid who cleans our home came in a bit late, with a grin on her face.
‘Anna, she began, ‘ This morning, I have to keep a watchful eye on a boy who lives in another apartment where I work, who has just written his tenth standard exams.’
‘Why?’ I queried
‘His mother is off to work and has asked me to ensure he doesn’t do anything silly if he gets marks below his expectations. His mother says that you really can’t predict how children will behave these days.’

Can you imagine this? A mother who found her work more important on such a day, abdicating her responsibility of just being with her child to a maid. A mom whose known repression of her son led even her to believe that he could not be trusted with himself. Is this what education does to us?

Incident Two: two days later, I was seated by a window in an Airbus to Mumbai. Next to me was a two year old, with her mother beside her, holding an infant in her lap. Her husband sat across the aisle.
It was clear that the children were scared. They were crying at a very high pitch, with the mom trying hard to soothe them, to little effect. As the plane took off, the two year old turned hysterical, which made me suspect the possibility of a block in the inner ear, and some pain – a not unusual occurrence, as the plane gains or drops altitude. Thankfully, the television saved the moment, and the child quietened down, even as the mother nursed the infant. About forty five minutes later, as the plane dropped altitude, the children began to howl again, clearly due to the pain in the ear. The mother went back to nursing the infant, which only made the two-year old cry louder. In her embarrassment, the mother’s face turned red, her initial indulgence with the child turning to outright hostility – she began to beat and pinch the two year old, even as she herself began to cry. The air hostess offered some sugar that would help in swallowing and, hence, in relieving the pain. The angry woman rejected the offer – how could anyone know how to manage my child? I looked away, as she actually pressed her palm against the mouth of the child to prevent her from crying, her other hand pinching the child’s bottom with force. The screaming child shifted position and lay on her mother’s lap; her crying had now reached a feverish pitch. When I looked again, the mother had opened the dining tray onto the head of the two year old and was pressing on it with all her might to hurt her own child. I looked away and waited for this family to leave the aircraft before getting off myself. Is this what education does to us?


If, years (perhaps two decades or more) later, these two children – one, a boy who has just finished his CBSE and the other, a two-old girl belonging to a different city, a different culture – decide to dump their parents in an old age home, or choose to migrate to another country leaving the elders dependant on a nurse, can you blame them?
How does one start the movement from literacy to education?