Grinding the soul into dust: Extracurricular activities in Indian schools

 

It is often said that engineering colleges in India are often depressing places as they are the graveyard of dreams. This I suppose is a cruel price to pay for a country that does not the proper job placement for creative and intuitive people.

However I would say whatever dreams that many have are likely flawed to begin with. Let us say a young fellow fancies himself a musician in high school or a young girl chooses to be a dancer.  It never appeared to me that Indian youngsters in general ENJOYED these hobbies . But it was because their parents placed in these various programs as it would look good on their applications for colleges as well as bragging rights with the neighborhood uncles and aunties. And now with social media , an even wider net of nosy busybodies.

Like any boy in any Indian school system, I remember being urged to take part in activities such as public speaking , dancing at some independence day function, singing or reciting poetry . Or even some karate antics such as smashing stacks of wood. I quickly withdrew from such activities and became aloof not because I disliked them per se but something about how we were trained to approach them was off putting. There were many who memorized speeches and poems and just blurted them out even understanding what the heck they were saying. I felt that if I wanted to speak about it something, it would be something I should be interested in, not something selected from a pre approved list . In Kendriya Vidyalaya in Hyderabad  , a schooling experience I wouldn't inflict on the children of my worst enemy, there was a guy who would recite Brutus's speech "Friends, Romans, countrymen" from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar pretty much every week on stage at assembly! Later it turned out that he knew exactly nothing about ancient Rome and its republican institutions before Julius Caesar transformed it through his vainglory. Without that knowledge and context, the speech is meaningless. And the method in which they were taught to deliver speeches was very rigid and off putting. 

Rather than enable spontaneous but restrained self expression, they were compelled to robotically make hand gestures at particular phrases and artificial pauses (an old radio trick for dramatic emphasis). The effect was awkward and comical like in the movie "Ballad of Ricky Bobby" where the titular character makes hand gestures because it is expected and not due to spontaneously aiding his self expression . He admits "I don't know what to do with my hands!".  

I was always uncomfortable with classifying humanity into the binaries- introverts and extroverts. People are far more complex and cannot be boxed into such narrow fields. And so it goes with the Indian personality-Indians are not the most outspoken and exuberant people but can anyone refer to them as introverts? Given a chance in the spotlight whether at a party or on stage, they can ruminate for hours.  It was this quality that the British (themselves no strangers to droning on) was one of the basis for classifying them as non martial. "A race of gas bags" as Winston Churchill put it (he would know!) . Madan Mohan Malaviya once gave a speech for two and a half hours and then apologized for his brevity! VK Menon delivered a marathon session lasting 8 hours at the U.N.(longest speech to date delivered at that organization) on the issue of Kashmir. and later turned out that it had little effect on the outcome. 

The reason is that Indians are rather opinionated though often lacking much knowledge to form such an opinion. An American who travelled across India continuously for two years noted in amusement that Indians wished to end arguments by brandishing their credentials "well I have an MBA" as if that clinches it , it doesn't matter that the topic was the fishing rights of indigenous people of Finland. Appeal to authority or naked credentialism is their default setting. And why the tendency to opine with knowledge? Opinions stem from ego, not knowing or rather not wanting to know stems from complexes. Hence this combination of ego and complex gives Indians a sort of indefatigable verbal energy much like an orbital motion around the sun consists of two opposing forces. In our own time this finds its way in the internet and the incredibly off putting tendency of Indians to argue and troll aimlessly as a sort of self defense mechanism for their wounded ego. They will defend anything and I mean anything from sati to untouchability to the caste system and even public defecation. That is because they are just programmed to do this from childhood and just execute their tasks without thinking much like an NPC

So much for verbiage. But genuine and passionate self expression are the arts. There is a reason why music and dance forms of a culture are considered its soul, more so than religious traditions (which claims ownership of the soul). These artforms are the ultimate in self expression of the collective community. India is not lacking is various forms of dance and music be they incredibly subtle and nuanced such as contemplative dhrupad and Carnatic or incredibly exuberant and earthy folk music and dances. But I wouldn't know that from watching the performances of Indian children on stage who seem to be executed protocols as if from an Arduino board than anything else. And these days we can watch these sad spectacles on YouTube as well. There is nothing more depressing than watching Indian children dance and sing. I myself participating a few times watched in horror as our instructor behave more like a Marine Core Drill Sergeant from Full Metal Jacket rather than inspire any genuine emotion or talent. Of course discipline in any artistic field is required but no amount of technical skill can conceal a lack of genuine passion for the endeavor.  Often children are not even interested in these activities but are pressurized by their parents . Is there anything more spiritually degrading and crushing than being FORCED to dance? There is a reason why Bollywood villains in movies often force the leading lady to dance, it is to focus on their sadism and intention to inflict degradation which in turn creates revulsion in the audience. But  then these viewers after exiting the theater go home and promptly inflict the same on their children! Heck I have seen some startling spectacles in a restaurant in a hotel in Dubai where a Bhangra performance was taking place and one of the patrons, an Indian lady yelled at and cajoled her two children (who couldn't be more than 9 or 10) to go and dance with them. They clearly were not interested and I am pretty sure the performers on stage did not wish for such intrusion. But our desi Karen wasnt having it. They would dance god damnit whether they wanted to do or not, she went as far as to dance from afar and ensure that they imitate her moves.Furthermore made a video of this humiliation for posterity. If there are psychological studies  which show that the release of such videos is as traumatic as the release of a sex tape, I wouldn't be surprised. Alas this type of parenting is far from uncommon. I have witness similar behavior in different parts of world from Indians but this one event was especially jarring

And to this you add the tsunami of information thrown at them in high school particularly in the sciences curriculum and you see the result as most 17 and 18 year olds enter universities as if in a daze ,appearing shell shocked. Watching students cram for CBSE, ICSE and later IIT and other exams is a sort of grotesque academic mukbang. As with mukbang , broken people consume vast amounts of food without really savoring any of it , so do the Indian students cram and practice problems without really grasping the underlying fundamentals. 

And then they wonder why India does not produce good leaders or start companies. Keep in mind the much celebrated Indian CEOs of Microsoft, Google, Adobe, Pepsi, Revlon and now OnlyFans(??!) are not pioneers but glorified middle managers . They dont really call the shots but execute orders from the board of directors and shareholders. The era of the bold and brash CEO is gone , everything is now done by consensus. and focus groups.

This level of soul crushing is also the reason why the average Indian's intuition is terrible. Never mind reading people, they can barely read their own surroundings. It is not a coincidence that India leads in selfie related deaths. I already addressed how Indian are unable to walk or drive properly and why the special forces are so mediocre. 

But again why listen to me, somewhere on Youtube and Quora , some hot white chick is gushing about how the sheer awesomeness that is India. Enjoy.