छुट्टियाँ ख़त्म या छुट्टियां शुरू

Now that the summer vacations of my son, who is in Class III, have ended, it seems mine and my wife's have truly started.

Till the last week, as we raced towards the deadline of school re-opening, we were fully consumed after our office hours in making charts, sticking pictures, tying up project-reports and what have you, all in the interest of timely completion of his "holiday homework". I talked to some "fellow travelers" in distress and the common refrain was - इतना तो हम हमारे टाइम में पढ़ लेते तो आज IAS कर चुके होते !!

The phrase "Holiday Homework" truly must rate amongst the top 10 oxymorons in the Indian English. After all, what remains of holidays for a poor child with so much homework to complete is anybody's guess. I fondly remember our times when holidays were pure fun, untouched by anything remotely curricular and academic. And this did not make us any poorer in education, my contemporaries would agree.

I am sure I state the obvious in saying that it is we parents who are to blame for this sorry state. Today, when most of us are maniacally driving our children towards super-human goals, we expect the schools to play their part. Driven, therefore, by our anxities and in their zeal to provide us a better "product" that education has now become, the schools work out unassailable tasks for the children as homeworks, which even parents find quite tough. No wonder then that there have sprung up specialised shops catering to school projects and homework!

I wish the educationalists and acamedicians would recognize this as a problem and devise some such simple assignments, if needed at all, which could make the lives of our children more relaxed and fun, and ours more relieved.

Happy and Gay?

Apropos the Delhi High Court judgement over gay rights, it is amusing to note that both the opponents and proponents of the judgement have, even if inadvertently, reduced this issue to just a Freudian debate.

This judgement is an endorsement of personal liberty and rights and inclusiveness, which any sane and civil person already understands. That the state also now does so is all the more welcome. It is one less opportunity for the insensitive law enforcerers to harrass civil people on imaginary pretexts. So far so good.

However, the accompanying celebrations and felicitations and the whole picture painted in the media has twisted this issue out of context. It almost seems like a glorification of the LGBT lifestyle choice, if there is one, over our less interesting, boringly normal heterosexual lifestyles.

This we definitely do not need. It has to be clearly understood that the issue is about inclusiveness towards the "differently normal", if I may dare to coin a term, and not about their validation as normal.

The same sentiments are carried in my letter to the editor in today's edition of Indian Express, Delhi.

I would love to hear what you think about this sensitive topic.