NAME SAKE

Remember how we all used to write our names on our books and copies every year at the beginning of the session in school. The gesture was not only to prevent our belongings from theft, but also to put the stamp of our name on them permanently, and more essentially, to emphasize on the sense that the particular object belongs solely to us. Those who used second hand books must have experienced the strength of this bonding between the ‘name’ and the ‘object’, when faced with the ordeal of rubbing off the name of the original buyer with an eraser, and on being unsuccessful in doing so, scratching it off vehemently with a pen. But despite the thorough scratching, the name would still be faintly visible. Similarly from cricket bats, suitcases, silver utensils, vehicles, to name plates on the front door of homes, we find the name of the owner firmly establishing a relation and a sense of belonging between the ‘owner’ and the ‘object’. But unfortunately, this privilege of having one’s name inscribed on one’s belongings is only limited to a certain privileged class in our country who can afford to possess belongings that can bear their name.

All objects generally bear two names, one of the manufacturer, and the other of the buyer/owner. But what gets lost here, are the names of the numerous unacknowledged minds that have toiled rigorously to give the product it’s final shape. When we see a beautiful Ritu Kumar saree, we applaud her artistic genius but not the tailors who have also been inseparably instrumental in giving the garment it’s ultimate look; when we see a jazzy car or bike, we praise the company but not the engineers whose brain child the car/bike actually is; when we see a spectacular historical monument, we appreciate the ruler of that era but not the people who’ve carried the bricks on their head or the craftsmen who have done the engravings on the wall; on watching a thought-provoking film, we all admire the actors and at the most the director but not the story writer, screenplay writer or the spot boy, without whose vital contribution, the film would not have been able to make the powerful impact that it did. Do any of us know the ‘NAME’ of the person who has built the Statue of Liberty, the Peacock Throne, the Pyramids at Giza, the leaning Tower of Pisa, The Golden Temple, The Ashoka pillar, the Red Fort, the Taj Mahal, and for that matter, all famous historical monuments frequented by tourists? These historical monuments, cities and artistic wonders are not attributed to the genius of the artists who had conceptualized and built them, but to the reigning king or queen who had merely funded the piece of art.
Men have an innate tendency of criminally restricting the praise and adulation deserved by an entire group, only to it’s leader. Of not acknowledging the merit of an ‘individual face’ from amongst a huge ‘faceless crowd’, and a ‘particular name’ amidst a vast mire of ‘countless NAMES and faces’. We give Bill Gates the credit for inventing and upgrading ‘windows’ that has changed the face of modern technology and work culture around the globe but nobody acknowledges the genius of the team of technical experts assisting Bill Gates throughout his research and experiments. In our freedom struggle, weren’t there many more martyrs than just the famous few, and each with a heroic story of his own, who had as fearlessly laid down their lives for their motherland as Bhagat Singh, Bose, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Azad, Bismil or any other freedom-fighter of the well-known lot. But how many of their ‘NAMES’ do we really know and remember today? Gandhiji, being the leader, has got his due recognition for initiating the Satyagraha, Swadeshi and Civil disobedience movements but what about all those ‘insignificant ordinary people’ who perished during the non-violent marches by becoming fodder to the British guns and victims to their brutal lathicharge and died before being able to see the dawn of independence. Are their any roads named after them or do they have their photo on currency notes? Alas! We don’t even know their ‘NAMES’.
It’s not solely our deeds but the stamp of our name on those deeds that make people remember and acknowledge us even after our death. We all are working so hard in our respective fields not only to earn money, but also to earn a name for ourselves, appreciation for our good work, and recognition for our talent. It’s said that “strong towers decay, but a ‘great name’ shall never pass away”. But what if one is, unfortunately, not engaged in any such significant deed that can bring one a ‘great name’ so as to be recognized & remembered. What about all the non-famous, not well-known lesser mortals working in factories and farms, building roads and houses, painting hoardings on roadsides, and selling vegetables on carts who are “born unnoticed and die unsung”. Such men who won’t be considered eligible by history to be remembered and lamented anywhere in it’s multitudinous pages which exclusively acknowledge rulers, warriors, saints, scientists, philosophers and reformers. Such men who won’t ever be able to reach the level of affluence that is required to own a ‘possession’ that can proudly bear their ‘NAME’. It’s such insignificant men who scribble their names at some significant public place or public property like – on the walls of historical monuments, on rocks at famous tourist spots in hill stations, on trunks of trees in public gardens, on the seats of buses and trains, on tables in colleges and offices, and on currency notes - consoling themselves that if, by chance, someday someone luckily notices the name, then they’ll be known to that one person atleast, and won’t die completely unknown.
After all, everybody’s ‘NAME’ is not as BIG as Pramod Mahajan’s, to get extensive media coverage till one full week before and after their death. Infact, there are ‘smaller and less important NAMES’ of people who died in the recent Mumbai floods, and families of ordinary people who lost their sons, fathers and husbands in the recent Mumbai bomb blasts, who were impudently reduced to mere numbers, “NUMBERS OF CASUALTIES that unfortunately occurred”. Probably, those “NAMES” and lives were not as important as that of well-known politicians, industrialists, sportsmen and film stars to be made into “BREAKING NEWS” and “COVER PAGE” stories.
Haven’t we all seen characters at school, college, our work place or social gatherings who dress in a weird manner or behave abnormally just to give their personality that ‘trademark peculiarity’ with which they can stand out from the rest of the ‘homogenous crowd’ and get ‘public attention’. Although, it’s quite a crude trick to get noticed and to be known to people by their ‘NAME’, what is noteworthy here, is the intense urge in people to get noticed even at the cost of being a ‘laughing stock’. And at times, this overpowering urge to be known, to be recognized and acknowledged by one’s ‘NAME’ makes one choking with anonymity & oblivion so desperate, that he/she ends up writing his/her name just anywhere, no matter how insignificant the place is. No wonder while walking on Shivaji Marg opposite Lady Hardinge Medical College, I came across this man-hole with the name “ram singh” etched on it. Ram Singh must have been the mason who made the man-hole but unlike others, he had cleverly ceased this opportunity to jot down his name, if not in the ‘elitist’ pages of history in golden words, then atleast with a piece of stick on wet cement so as to make his ‘insignificant’ name ‘indelible’ somewhere, even after he dies. And what better place to have one’s name inscribed ineradicably than on one’s own creation, even if it’s just an utterly stinking man-hole. Atleast, by doing so, he was able to console himself with the faint possibility of someone someday reading his name and knowing that there exists or once existed on the face of earth an ‘unimportant insignificant ordinary man’ by the ‘NAME’ - Ram Singh. But the people involved in the construction of many historical monuments, especially Taj Mahal, weren’t as lucky as Ram Singh, to be able to tell their ‘NAMES’ by etching them down on their creations because of merciless rulers like Shah Jahan who had given orders to chop off the fingers of the architects, craftsmen and designers involved in the construction process so as to claim the entire credit himself. Otherwise, each marble of Taj Mahal would have similarly borne the ‘NAME’ of an ordinary person involved in it’s construction, groaning under anonymity and silently pining for acclaim & recognition. .
Today ram singh’s wish has been fulfilled as I, shubhro sen, have come to know that there lives an 'ordinary insignificant man' named ‘Ram Singh’ who has made a man-hole at Shivaji Marg. Only if I were able to tell this to Ram Singh, then he would have died a peaceful death.

BY : SHUBHRO SEN

SPARE THE ROD AND SPOIL THE CHILD

What makes school life memorable is not only the fun of it all – (bunking classes in the secluded junior school corridors, secretly eating your partner’s tiffin and then feigning innocence, making noises during the class from the last bench to disturb the teacher, breaking test-tubes in chemistry laboratory, burning noisy fire-crackers in the toilet, bringing chits to examination hall in socks, forcefully acquiring the seat from juniors in the school bus, giving a leave application saying you had severe ‘loose motions’ although you were feasting on a 'five course meal' the previous day), but also the day, or in some cases even days, when one was beaten black and blue by a teacher either for misbehaving or not completing his/her homework or for indulging in certain unprintable deeds. Alongwith the unforgettable memories of the first drink, first suit, first car, first salary, first date and first kiss, what one also finds impossible to forget is the first instance, when one was screamed at, slapped or severely thrashed by a teacher or the principal. It is not because of the bruised skin or the pain that one still remembers the “rod”, but because of the feeling of shame which came from the humiliation that one had to face before the whole class, and in some cases, even the school, that it still remains the 'worst nightmare’.
I was in K.G.2 then, and our teacher was Ma’am Talwar. She was one teacher who could give even Hitler a run for his money. We had been given words to translate from English to Hindi and I, being from a Bengali family, was a bit poor at Hindi. The first few questions didn’t give me much trouble, but then came “marrow”, and I was left at my wits end. We call it “potol” in Bengali, and I being in such a desperate and helpless situation, used the better of my discretion and giving the Bengali word a hindi touch, wrote “patal”. Mrs. Talwar was terribly infuriated at this insolence and had nearly chopped me off with her rasping slap. As far as I can recall, I was the first person who was a victim to her thrashing in our batch, and though too young to feel the humiliation, I certainly felt ashamed when till many days after the incident, I was made fun of by my classmates.
Then, while in school, my first rendezvous with corporal punishment was quite harsh. Our games teacher, Sir Virdi, was a national level boxer. He was notorious for thrashing students quite mercilessly, which was quite evident from the circumference of his biceps and triceps, that was greater than most of our waist-lines. That fateful day, I had woken up late and in the haste to reach school in time, I forgot to take my games dress along. When he asked me the reason for not bringing my games dress, my naïve answer was “Sir, I forgot”. The next thing that followed was a thundering blow from him, which badly shook all the nuts and bolts of my body.
But the worse was in class 10th when our maths teacher Sir Siddiqui hit a boy in our class so hard on his ear-lobe that he was rendered partially deaf. He had to be hospitalized and the teacher was on the verge of losing his job.
All these incidents of corporal punishment which have become so comman these days in schools and coachings, though even with the view to correct the students, have their root cause in the innate impulsive and violent nature of the teacher. No misbehavior, indiscipline, or irregularity in homework and classwork is as mammoth a reason, as to warrant as inhuman a beating that leads to fractured bones, and at times leaves the student physically retarded for the rest of his life.
It’s also important here to look into the psyche of the teachers who indulge in such inhuman behavior. Family feuds, personal tensions, financial problems, work pressure to complete the vast syllabus within the stipulated date, and the presence of certain disturbing elements in the class make the teachers, like any other person in any other profession, lose their self control and cool. But what the teachers forget here is that they aren’t dealing with grown up adults but small children who are physically much weaker to bear the atrocity of their bad temper.
I don’t disagree that in some cases where the child is less a student and more a ‘juvenile delinquent’, sparing the rod will undoubtedly mean spoiling the life of the child. But it’s for the discreet teachers to judiciously decide that to what extent should they resort to corporal punishment, in order to bring the child on the right track.
Student councilors and psychiatrists, who’ve studied child psychology, do strongly feel that harsh behavior, in most cases, instead of improving a child makes him/her more stubborn and vindictive. He/she becomes further obstinate, insolent and rebellious. In some cases, the student starts repeating his/her mistake intentionally, just to irritate the teacher.
The need of the hour is, for the teachers to find, a more effective and humane method to correct the perverted yet vulnerable minds of the students. If not done so, then incidents of students assaulting teachers in clandestine roads with a group of boys or kidnapping teacher’s family members to avenge the humiliation faced by them in class will become the order of the day. Children are not like a piece of iron that needs to be hammered repeatedly to be given the desired shape, but like clay that has to be moulded carefully and skillfully with both hands into the shape of mature responsible human beings.

BY : SHUBHRO SEN