“Come and Kneel and Dream” – Nayana Nair

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Come and kneel here my child.
This is our new lord, our new god.

Come here and learn his face,
learn all things he doesn’t like to see in us.

Promise me that you will never try
to be a reflection of him, never hold him in your heart.

Even as you bow to him, to powers of cruelty
repeat to yourself again and again,

that no god ever killed freedom; no savior,
no beacon of light, no provider of grain owns your soul.

This is all that I have managed to do so far-
silently witnessing and persevering.

Cowardly, I have survived without giving in, without opposing,
without saving, without killing anyone, protecting just you and me.

To bow my head with tears in my eyes
is the only thing I could do with the strength the new gods left in me.

I do not know what to ask from you, what to teach you
but somehow you must outlive all those who prey on all things good.

My crimes of silence and tolerance leaves me no right
to speak of peace or love or future

but I feel fear and hope thinking of you.
You – who has never seen the world with open sky and kinder hearts

will either dream of a strength drawn out of blood of others
or you might just realize the value of everything that people call weak now.

Come and kneel here my child, in front of all those who teach us
to build our own prisons and build them bigger thrones.

All those who hold our lives hostage binding us with our own fear-
look at them and imagine a world where they don’t exist; not even within you.

In name of education

(Image taken from acralive.org)

Have you ever wondered what do they teach the children in schools today? ……Well, I know…to a large extent, at least. Well these days they are learning to spend their whole day doing the never ending list of homework…which sadly gets renewed everyday…and in the meantime…the whole family is busy completing their project work….When they are in school…the teachers ask them to get the next exercise as homework…and if they are kind hearted enough they’ll probably solve those already solved examples. They pile up their notebooks and project…and never ever give it a second look ever again…. (Maybe they’re reusing their files for their own purposes….) and the whole time teachers know that the children’s project work…..that is too good to be true…has been made by someone else…you present a doubt before them…you’ll then probably end up getting scolded “what! You don’t even know that? What are you doing in school…..blah…blah….blah…” in short student never go to teachers to ask doubt….and in the end…at the parents meet teachers says “if you have any problem…why don’t you come to me” (as if they don’t already know what are the consequences of asking doubts )…and by mistake a parent complaints against a teacher…for not teaching good enough…no harm done to teacher…its still the student who suffers…

In the end…students are vexed…teachers irritated…and parents hopeless from this so called developed system of education. What’s the result…children practically don’t know anything…..(this is real life situation…)…and then they say…no child will get failed till eighth class however low the marks….a good reason for them for not studying…..

If this is the education they impart in schools these days….I’d prefer home schooling

And if you read newspaper…you must have come to know that we stand second last in the whole world as far as education is concerned.

So there maybe many ministers…. out there….boasting what a difference they have made in this field…they’ll probably end up saying….

”look…you can clearly see the difference made by our REFORMS…no students attempt suicide…lamenting about their marks”

Well they are right….now it’s the guardians that will die…….no one knows what’s happening…students are confused…and so are parents….