Manuh manuhor baabe

Somaaj sewa xuniboloi bhaal. Korile aaru bhaal lage
Kisu lobo laage, kisu dibo laage - Rabindranatheo kole

Went to a school adopted by company today. It was an humbling experience to see small children studying in a school without the basic amenities. When you go thru such a scenario, one realises how privileged he or she is. This is the beauty of India - teachers teaching students in dilapidated infrastructure in remotest of places and producing gems that rule the corporate world. The company where I work adopts such school as part of CSR activity. I was fortunate enough to be part of such a noble cause. We got the opportunity to radically change the face of the school with a very little investment. The end result is only to be experience – can’t be explained. The smiling faces of the teachers, the energetic body language of the students and the standing ovation from each class was an emotional experience - similar to a high or kick that you get from smoking pot and listening to Pink Floyd.

India is full of entrepreneurs and wealthy businessmen virtually in every town. I am not talking about Ambanis or Tatas. Simple, smart entrepreneurs in various fields earn a lot of money even in small towns. It makes me wonder what prevents them from doing such things? Even a small repair job, mind you not amount, improves the life of a student in a big way. The model adopted by my company was good – it did not give the money to the school. Instead, adopted a school, identified the improvement points and got it done thru a contractor. It cuts out the corruption factor if the money is directly given to the school or sarpanch.

My mother runs a medium sized school in my native. Every year she invests huge amount in the school infrastructure and result wise it is one of the best schools in Assam. She manages to do all these without any donation or exorbitant tuition fees. What drives her is the urge to facilitate world class school education that builds the foundation of any human being. The point here is that as a country if we need to grow and develop, then apart from health, the other most vital requirement is good (unbiased and free from stress) education. And bulk of this is provided by small town schools where the Narayan Murthys and APJ Abdul Kalams of the world study. As Indians, we are so strong on maths, reasoning and analysis that irrespective of our outdated education curriculum, we excel in corporate, political or any other field. Hence I firmly believe that if we take care of the education impartment system then we can produce good doctors, politicians, engineers etc who in turn will take care of the growth, infrastructure and development.

So think about it. It is as important as saving the balance 1400 odd tigers from extinction.