The Primary Teacher

Most of you who have been to Singapore and are ‘Food Fanatics’ must be remembering the Satay, Bak Kut Teh, Char Kway Teow, Laksa and several other Southeast Asian food served in the very Singapore style. This time also on the last day, on my way back from ITB-Asia, my farewell dinner from my friends was at the usual place, East Coast Sea Food Centre near Changi Airport, one of the few horizontal corners of Singapore, with lots of ‘Chilly Crab’ and ‘mantao’. The Chilly Crab, which has almost become the ‘Host’s National Dish’ to honour guests at Singapore comes as a big portion and hence needed a walk along the beautiful East Coast before proceeding to the airport. Two small boys, escorted by a senior gentleman were taking something like a balloon, to be put together as a children’s playing item, from another gentleman. One of the small boys wanted to have it first, when the man giving it to them said ’son, you must have patience’. The small boy impatiently replied back “I have money”. The man again told him ‘but son, you must have patience’.

This was a touching experience for me, are these the values we are trying to teach our children, is this the future of our human civilization and many more questions may have come to our minds. Then where do we start working on this. In Asia, we need to empower the large rural areas; where there are still some deep rooted values and we need to start from the schools for children there. We need to let all our children of the world learn from the rural communities of Asia, where their lives are still governed by the environment around them and help the children of these rural areas feel proud of what they have and accordingly help to conserve them.
   

End of September, 2012, a group of very senior Australian teachers organized the ‘Regional Teachers Training Workshop’ at the Primary School at Kolakham (the last village adjoining Neora Valley National Park upper region), covering about 03 rural primary schools from the area. The Neora Valley Jungle Camp, which was set up to support the local primary school (Government) had already become a model rural primary school under the Singapore – East Himalaya Program for the entire Darjeeling Hill area, further enhanced by present program under ‘Growing Through Education Foundation’, with the mission to ‘Help Schools in Need’ in the East Himalaya.

Here, I had managed to introduce Deoashish, the ‘Himalayan Baul’, who had put together a few socially scattered children into a group called ‘Varnamala’. This was the first effort in East Himalaya for someone to write, compose and give music to Nepali (Gorkhali) alphabetical rhymes. Though he had gathered some popularity in the Himalayan towns of Kalimpong and Gangtok, yet I always thought that his composition was most appropriate to the rural areas of Nepal, Sikkim, Darjeeling Hills and other Nepali speaking areas of Dooars with Northeast. The introduction seemed to work and within 02 hours the small children Kolbong and Dagyong schools were singing and dancing to the tunes “Adua khaye piro mani, ama pani auncha nani...”. This is because of the fact that the words of the rhymes represented what the children saw in day to day life.

Varnamala Class (click here to watch video)

This is what education is all about, relating subjects to day to day happenings in and around and not pushing students in the artificial ambiance of classrooms and further in the digital/computer boxes making the children deaf and dumb about the environment around them. If one visualizes the ‘Gurukul’ s/he will realize that the children of all backgrounds had to go to the Guru (Teacher), usually in the fringe of a forest, where they used to be taught in the outdoors with the classroom under the tree. Here they learned all the elementary things of life. This was to a large extent adopted by Kabiguru Rabindranath Tagore for the school level, which still continues at Shantiniketan, near Kolkata.

Even at the Nalanda, Taxila and Sompura Mahaviharas (Universities), probably the first known universities of the world, the students had to go from village to village for alms or from vihara to vihara in search of knowledge, all of these were for the fact for them to understand all the levels of the society and the outdoors which the human beings live with. With the Cambridge or the Oxford Universities, the pattern changed and was much influenced by the industrial revolution, the walls around the classrooms became a must and text books, exercise copy books, pencils, rubbers, pens, ink, ruler etc all came out as industrial products, which students had to consume. The trend continues with the digital age, with the best schools to consume air-condition, laptops and internet, with digitally smart teachers who can best copy-paste the human environment and present it in the four walls.

Most of our visit to the ‘Places of God’, which is often referred to as pilgrimage, is today completed through television or on internet. The ‘pilgrimage’ is all about the ‘Yatra’ or Journey that one has to undertake to reach the place of God. The journey which makes you understand the different communities, their culture, the different forms of nature and the outdoors in general. The journey that makes you wiser in the process of reaching the ‘Place of God’. One has to travel in person and not virtually to achieve it. The five senses with the sixth support which we are born with becomes defunct without travelling and living beyond the four walls of houses, vehicles, classrooms and computers. It is, as if people have forgotten to travel outdoors, even when they undertake travel it is within such controlled conditions that there is no connectivity with the outdoors. The time has arrived, when we must strive to be a generation who will play with the clay and water to make gold from the sun. A generation who will travel outdoors for their ‘primary education’. 

Gangasagar, yesterday’s legends and today’s truth

Partha Pratim Roy, an active young historian from Coochbehar, who nurtures a profession in tourism and journalism, has made a effort to explore one of the oldest festival on the Ganga, just when she meets the Bay of Bengal. Next time you are in West Bengal, India in mid January, do not miss this festival. As per Partha’s report, after visit to the festival, things seems to be improving.

Makar Sankranti is a major harvest festival celebrated in various parts of India. According to the lunar calendar, when the sun moves from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn or from Dakshinayana to Uttarayana, in the month of Poush in mid-January, it commemorates the beginning of the harvest season and cessation of the northeast monsoon in South India. The movement of the earth from one zodiac sign into another is called Sankranti and as the Sun moves into the Capricorn zodiac known as Makar in Hindi, this occasion is named as Makar Sankranti in the Indian context. It is one of the few Hindu Indian festivals which are celebrated on a fixed date i.e. 14th January every year. Main essence of Gangasagar Mela belongs to religious belief of Hindus, who believe that through Gangasnan (dip in the Ganga) one can achieve their MOKSHA (Salvation). 

Decades by decades Holy Places are major meeting points for Indian pilgrims. Every year more than 08 Lakhs of Pilgrimags pay their homage to Gangasagar from various part of our country.. Government has taken all necessary steps for hassle free visit. They have provided good drinking water facility, 08 Mobile water treatment plants, 60 Ambulance with 60 Doctors, 6000 Police personals. Several  Non Government Organisations also provided free medical camps, accommodation facility free foods for pilgrims. Since post independence this is the first time Government .has introduced huge scale of electricity on 24hrs basis. For easier movement prepaid taxi services also have introduced for the first time.

 Sankaracharya of Puri visited the Mela.  During press conference he has shown his gratitude to Ms. Mamata Banerjee for withdrawing of Pilgrim Tax. He has also requested to Ms. Mamata Banerjee to look into the matter of cleanliness of Ganga and also requested her to protect Ganga in West Bengal. As per his concern he is so scared about the future of Ganga because in Northern part of India, Ganga is obstructed by several Dams or hydroelectric projects. He has demanded and appealed to State or Central Government Bodies to Protect the Ganga on top priority basis.

pix: On the road to salvation (As you can see in this picture, for a Hindu to be at the Gangasagar once in a lifetime means a lot and even helping others to reach there means much more).

Guru Gyandas, main Mahonto of Ayodhya  also  showed his gratitude towards to the present Government for withdrawl of Pilgrim Tax. He has also raised his demand to declare the mela as NATIONAL MELA like Kumbha Mela. Dignatries like Jasawant Singh and Uma Bharati also took the holy dip. 

Shri Subrata Mukherjee, public Health Engineering Minister for the state of West Bengal  giving his speech during Press Conference promised that the Gangasagar Mela 2013 will be more colourful and govt would have taken various steps in this regard. He has told the Press about withdrawn of pilgrim tax; introduce health insurance, 24hrs electricity, disaster management team, free water pouch (approx 8lakh) as their success.