Editor,
A new year has just set in, so one more year is added to the ‘old’. This is that time of the year in which I always find myself irresistibly reflecting on the ‘olden days.’ Anything old, like old people, is strangely (and rightly) respected with reverence. ‘The old’ is getting older and ‘the present’ is always devoid of the olden days’ charm and values. So there goes a saying, ‘old is gold’. Despite the scientific, technological and economic progress, and the comfort and excitement of modern days, the good old days are always missed by one and all. This is universal and hardly paradoxical. Values and principles of olden days are priceless. Today, one can only hope for their resurrection. In those days emotions were simple; the simple delights supplied all those simple yet massive fount of joy. Today, values are fast eroding, emotions have become complex and snobbish, and we see young people feeling too superior to indulge in those simple pleasures like reading or playing with their next door neighbours. Also today, an overwhelming fraction of youths seem incapable of enjoyment without alcohol.
Back in those days, students used to have plenty of play-time and would freely socialise in the neighborhood. Today, the television, mobile phones, and prejudices restrict students’ play-time to one’s own living room. In those days, locomotion was not as swift and mobile phone penetration was close to zero, yet people seldom complained about lack of time and they would converse joyfully with no lies and no judgment. Amidst poverty in the olden days, there was peace and beauty of life. Today, people have become so judgmental, loving to judge even those matters about which they don’t know a darn thing.
In the past, educated people found their primitive pleasures in reading good literature; today, this quiet intellectual pleasure is replaced with a judgmental attitude, gossip and such other fatal habits. Unlike earlier, today, the idea that we should know and be acquainted with our immediate neighbour is as dead as a cemetery, at least in our urban centers. Then, across a wide spectrum, from simple household gadgets like a shaving razor to father, mother, husband and wife, people’s attitude of ‘use, respect and remember’ is replaced with the ‘use and throw’ attitude.
Earlier, uncles were philosophers, guides and counselors. Today, majority of them are self-centered, unwisely judgmental, prejudiced and pretentiously counseling over non-issues. Earlier, adultery and divorce was scarce. Today, adultery is rampant and seems to have been taken as something excusable. Divorce too is accepted as a necessary alleviation to matrimony. Further, a modern man is living a life of distractions and dissipations with his thoughts always directed to the next pleasure. His vision of a distant achievement is nil. Thus we see fathers and sons drunk to riotous deaths.
There was a near perfect harmony in the past, but today we seem to disproportionately take life as a contest; as a bloody competition. This, coupled with the habit of constant comparisons is poisoning our society today. I am not prepared to say this, but with a little insight one could see how this poisonous philosophy of ‘competition, compare and contrast’ has led to an explosion of envy in the society. It has also led to the substitution of wisdom by cleverness. And it has led to the replacement of physical fatigue by the deadly nervous and emotional fatigues.
Earlier, people enriched themselves with knowledge and wisdom. Today, we are busy manufacturing anxiety. Earlier, people were sustainably happy. Today, with the exception of saints, happiness seems impossible, even in ‘true men of science’ whose emotions are known to be the simplest. I guess I have set enough tone for the reader to take it from here. Happy New Year!
Yours etc.,
T Fightingstar L Mawlong
Shillong-14
Give honour where due
Editor,
Apropos Ananya S Guha’s article, “Be a good Bhakt if you must” (ST, December 30, 2016), we should be sensitive about the name of one inhuman character ‘Taimur’. But where is our sensitivity about another inhuman character ‘Dronacharya’? Cruel Dronacharya should have been arrested in Republic India for cutting the right thumb of Eklavya as tuition fees. The brightest and the humblest student, Eklavya, was devilishly crippled so that he could never use his education in archery. We are giving award to sports coaches of our country in the name of Dronacharya an example of what a coach should not be! How long shall we glorify such a regressive character? Aren’t we ourselves as insensitive as those two brutes?
Yours etc.,
Sujit De,
Kolkata
BSF Secondary school
Editor,
I would like to report about the irregularities in BSF Senior Secondary School, Umpling. Being a former student of the school, I am very concerned about the facilities provided by the school. Though the education provided by the school is quite good, the sanitation and other basic necessities are lacking. There is no infirmary or any type to provide First Aid to students in case of any injury or other medical emergencies. Even though there is a Military Hospital nearby, it provides us with expired medicines. The sanitation in the school leaves much to be desired. The toilets are worse. They are not clean, unhygienic and there is no water to clean the toilet after usage. Hence a disgusting odour emanates from there. There are no canteens and classes are held continuously from the first till the fifth period without any recess. We have a library stacked with outdated books and old outdated computers and electronic facilities. The class rooms are not big enough to accommodate 50-70+ students. The infrastructure is poor and the school is being managed very poorly. If this school is to make progress then immediate attention must be given to provide students with the beast facilities.
Yours etc.,
Name withheld on request