Coming Soon, ‘The Cool Boys’

I always love the tribulations of my home village than the boons in any city in the world. But my personal experience is that it is not our surface plans but the sponsoring intentions within that always work. Now it seems that I’m destined to continue in the concrete forest of Ahmedabad. Each day, like anywhere else, sets with at least a couple experiences worth sharing. The apartment I live with my son and family belongs to a big complex with around 400 apartments in it. From morning to evening, children are seen playing in the garden, walkways and parking lots. The most common complaints on children that parents generally share are about their academic performances. Even though almost all parents throw many thousands on tuitions each month, they are not happy. They won’t be, until their children become best in their respective classes. They are worried; worried over the bad luck their successors are supposed to shoulder. 

A few weeks back I noticed my grandson, hardly ten, returning too late after his play time. When questioned, he said that they had ‘shooting’ that day. I gently explored into the details. He told me that they are shooting a film ‘The Cool Boys’ and they could complete only hardly five scenes that day. I understood that the gang had scripted a beautiful story, fixed the characters, agreed upon the dialogues and had even marked the shooting spots and arranged the costumes. All they had for shooting was an ipad. I could not believe that it is a group of children, all between seven and eleven, that is behind this much planned project. Still, it did not surprise me at all, because I always believes that each and every one born to this earth has enough talents and aptitudes hid in their individuality. Does our system of education bring them out and foster them accordingly? Never! We have a culture in which a child hurries to the public school at 3 and retires as a man or woman on a day in which all his/her experiences blossom fully. Why not we let children play at least until five? There are a few countries in the West which follows this precept. But countries like India still believe that learning at 3 is advancement. 

We have done many studies in this regard at various levels and have found that we have better smart entrepreneurs and bright intellectuals in India than in the West. How many of you have noticed that our early entrepreneurs retire early, fully oozed off all their energy? The damage done by a lost childhood spoils their future ‘hoods’. Grooming is an art; it is building an emotional connection with anybody to gain their trust for the purpose. Knowingly or unknowingly grooming is happening every moment, though people don't understand that they have been groomed. Who will tell our groomers that advancement is exposure of individual talents and not degrees in caskets? 

Joseph Mattappally