The Intellectual fools!

My first semester at the Anna University was surely anything but awkward. First of all I couldn’t take off my eyes from our girls since I hadn’t been to any of the co-education before (but not much later I found out they were all started scaring me off with their spoken English!).

As my entire schooling was done in the medium of Tamil at my village, the class room environment really started bafflling me, “Ok wait, what’s going on here? Am I in another planet or something?”

All I knew then in my village was this coconut trees & paddy fields but the city culture only talked about fancy trends & stuffs. It was such a nervy start even my mother tongue was not coming off my mouth properly in the class room filled with the brightest students in the state.

In fact, the stage fear had just started teaching me some leg dance. you could ask the last row desk how I used to stuff my head under it, every time the teachers fired questions randomly. My poor English did limit the stories I could write in exams which resulted in arrears.

Okay fine, now I could hear you yelling at me, “why this idiot is telling me all this?”

Ever since I read about this suicide (Coz she couldn’t cope with engineering studies) of “Ms. Thayriya lakshmi of Anna University”
(more :http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/%E2%80%98Teachers-taught-me-well-but-I-couldn%E2%80%99t-cope%E2%80%99/383233.html) I was upset but thinking that she could actually be kind of resembling the above story, given the motive of the suicide! But the only difference might be that she is not as numb as me not to feel humiliated in front of the environment she had never been before.

And hence my mind had started firing some queries which my heart really couldn’t able to ignore.

1. Did she value the “paper made” mark sheets & the “time made” semesters above her “once – precious” life?  Sadly, Yes!

2. Did she prefer to end life when she thought that a failure of her would damage the “so-called pride” of her parents?  Piteously, Yes!

3. Did she find anybody around her telling that no matter what, self pride is second to nothing? Rudely, No!

  Okay, why in the world a person would ever think that a life could be all about just a degree?

  Thanks to the awesome (!) culture. One part of it doesn’t know what education is & another part doesn’t surely know what college degrees are meant for!

  Stupidly, The Culture makes the people to solely believe that Education is here to learn how to earn! And in the end, it doesn’t leave any self pride in the people for what they’re living! And they never find what’s worth over what in  the life?

  Without doubt, all the village parents (incl. mine) pursue their children’s degree along with a “bank loan” and ultimately put the children to believe that “Life is lost if they fail to complete the college”.

  These parents actually live & die every day with insecurity about life that puts a heavy price tag on lifes such as this girl’s. “What if I fail the college?, can’t I come back and plough the land? Isn't there a pride?” But these parents literally kill their children with the weapon of circumstances! They don’t understand that the degrees are one of the stupid ways to earn a life, let alone it’s a fake pride.

  Nonetheless, she could cope with the new world along with the society’s blind expectation!  

  But the shameful part is when she fails to find somebody to tell her that “hey, it’s not a big deal! We’ll get this thing done next time. In fact you need a much bigger reason to get yourself hanged”.

  And I know how a college campus like Anna University looks like. You don’t get many friends or teachers there to motivate yourself really up. And they hardly speak about passion & life there.

  Unless they lift themselves up, the inferior students would stay inferior for the whole four years only to evade the embarrassment in front of the city grownups. And eventually the tougher ones survive and innocent others end up with the option of “give up”.

  I know the worst thing is to blame others!  But all I am trying here is to be these people’s voice because once I was one of them! And I kind of knew how it feels like!

  May be if there’s one reason to write & read this story, it must be to tell our bros & sis that nothing in life is big deal. And it must be also to tell the parents that being loved is the best pride than what their neighbors probably offer!

  i believe that If we have anything to contribute to this society, it must be some of these intellectual wealths rather than the material stuffs!
  And finally, may her soul rest in peace!

With hope,

Murugapandian P