Manohar Parrikar on Water Melons and Education

Narrated by Manohar Parrikar.
“I am from the village of Parra in Goa, hence we are called Parrikars. My village is famous for its watermelons. When I was a child, the farmers would organise a watermelon-eating contest at the end of the harvest season in May. All the kids would be invited to eat as many watermelons as they wanted.

Years later, I went to IIT Mumbai to study engineering. I went back to my village after 6.5 years. I went to the market looking for watermelons. They were all gone. The ones that were there were so small.

I went to see the farmer who hosted the watermelon-eating contest. His son had taken over. He would host the contest but there was a difference. When the older farmer gave us watermelons to eat he would ask us to spit out the seeds into a bowl. We were told not to bite into the seeds. He was collecting the seeds for his next crop. We were unpaid child laborers, actually. He kept his best watermelons for the contest and he got the best seeds which would yield even bigger watermelons the next year. His son, when he took over, realized that the larger watermelons would fetch more money in the market so he sold the larger ones and kept the smaller ones for the contest. The next year, the watermelons were smaller, the year later even small. In watermelons the generation is one year.
In seven years, Parra’s best watermelons were finished. In humans, generations change after 25 years. It will take us 200 years to figure what we were doing wrong while educating our children. Unless we employ our best to train the next generation, this is what can happen to us. We must attract the best into teaching profession."
#RIPManoharParrikar

Education in different Indias

A kid turned up at our hospital today with complaints that she was unable to see the board at night. Confused, I asked her 'why would anyone wanna see the board at night'. Her dad replied, that at her boarding school, they have classes during study hours at night. Thinking maybe she was in class 10 or something, I quizzed her further... she was in class 7!

On one hand it's painful the farce thousands of kids receive in the name of education, teachers aren't regular, children can 'play' during class hours itself, they can go up to class ten without passing any exam or knowing to read or write even in their own mother tongue. These are the kind of children we at Bhumi work with. We know the education they receive is inadequate but aren't sure how much to supplement that with 'better quality' education without ruining their leisure time.

Then here's this other India which extinguishes their family time and childhoods for the sake of academic excellence and better future careers!