As I entered the classroom, I saw a gang of boys grouping around and fighting to see into a mobile phone which was as big as an engineering calculator. There were other few boys and girls having their ear phones connected to i-pods and MP3 players, listening silently to music and completely detached from what was happening around. A few other girls were busy smsing to, probably their boy friends.
I am the Mathematics teacher for class IX for one of the very famous schools in the city. It was a Saturday and the school was off for rest of the grades. The 11th grade people had a special class on the day and it was the last session which I had to handle. I knew that they would be bored and annoyed to listen to a maths lecture at that time when the rest of the world is relaxing at home.
As I came in, few of them noticed me and wished me. I started to talk “Hi students, How are you all ? Today being a holiday, let us see some light subject”
Vimal said “Ma’am.. Today being a holiday, we shall give off to the subject also”
Janani seconded him “Yes Ma’am.. We shall have some general chat today”
I said “ Okay, only for some time. After that we will have a small lesson”
“So.. what do you guys do on a holiday usually?” I asked them.
Subash said “I get held up with my play station. Once I sit with it, it’s hard to move me from there. Today is ruined” with a irritated face.
Madhu answered “Normally I go on net. Facebooking, gtalk, all those.”
I asked “What is facebooking? Something like ticket booking?”
Yogesh exclaimed “You are not there on facebook ! How can you live without it?”
I asked “Is it some essential thing like water or food?”
“No ma’am.. It is a social networking site. It is kind of another world which is connected through internet. We keep in touch with our friends in that”
As Yogesh was explaining to me, I saw Preethi typing sms in her mobile. Her eyes were looking at me, but she was typing so fast into that. I remembered about my mother telling me to join in a typewriting class ‘inter’ as I finished my 10th grade.
But this was different kind of typing which needs no tution.
There was noise at one end of the class. “What is that, why are you guys shouting?”
“Nothing ma’am.. We just booked tickets for a movie. It was on demand. We managed to get it.”
“From here? How did you?”
“We booked it online, very costly”
“Oh, you could have gone directly to the theatre to purchase the tickets. It could cost lesser no?”
“But who will go all the way, so long? It will be tiring”
“On a fine Sunday, take the metro bus or train, travel with your friends, watch what is happening on the roads, have the fresh air blow on your face, see new faces, get something to eat, have fun and laughter and so on.. Isn’t that refreshing? Does that make you tired?” I said.
“It sounds nice, but it makes us tired. This is comfort” replied Nandhini.
“Then you will become a couch potato. You will put on weight and worry about it then”, I said.
“We will go to gym or fitness club for that” Swetha smiled.
“Why do you want to walk on a treadmill in a same place when you have such a big earth with greenery to walk and refresh yourself?”
“But where is the music system in open space?” asked Paul.
“You are the best singer for yourself” I smiled.
“But how without AC?” said Johna.
“Oh my God, this is a disease. I don’t know why you guys are so much into technology.”
“Ma’am.. This is comfortable, these are necessary for us. I don’t know how people survived without a computer and net connection those days” questioned Aswini.
I could not answer to them and finally told “Okay, Let us come into Maths for a while”
“Again ma’am, we all have computers, just open an excel, put the 2 numbers and ask it to multiply, it will fetch us the answer in less than a wink. Why do we need to memorize tables and formulas?” said Vinithra.
“Vini is right. We have google, just type in Pythagoras theorm and it will give you even what is pythagoras’s wife’s name. Why do we need to learn by heart these theorms and proofs?” asked Chandru.
I really did not have an answer to them.
“If they allow the kids to do their homework in systems, it will be easy. To write a poem 5 times, just Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V ”, Arvinth laughed.
I thought how do these kids think like this. In fact they are no more kids.
“Enough guys, let us get into the subject now. We will do matrix multiplication today” I turned to the board and started writing a matrix problem.
“Ma’am there are softwares which can do all these. Just feed in the numbers, they will crack the matrix into pieces” screamed Arun.
I wrote the problem on the board and turned to the students.
I said “I will give the assignment paper tomorrow. 2 days time for you. Complete it and submit by Tuesday. Concentrate on your presentation part also”
“Ma’am.. can we send the assignment to your mail?” Williams asked
“What ? Mail ? No Willy.. make it in a paper and submit on Tuesday”
“Why ma’am, this is easy for us?”
“Oh.. how to handle you.. I don’t have a computer at my home. Will you agree to submit now?”
“Really !! How do you live without a system and internet? Ok ma’am, don’t go for a desktop, buy a laptop or better go for a 3G mobile. You can have a handy internet resource” Prashanth adviced.
I thought these people are going crazy. Technology is driving them crazy. It is actually ruling them. They are forgetting the real happiness of life and driving themselves mad towards technology, and this is a bad sign.
Suddenly the wind started to blow hard outside. It started as drizzling and then ended up to be a heavy rain. Force of the wind became stronger and turned itself into storm. Trees outside broke their branches and fell on the road and student’s bike stand. Students were worried about their vehicles, they stopped doing maths and went towards the window to look out.
The bell rang signaling the end of the day. But no one could step out in that weather. All of us stayed inside the classroom. “Let us forget about the outside weather, it will be alright in some time, don’t worry ” I said.
They all returned to their places and saw me. Nisha cried “I want to leave to my home now, I should not have come to school today”
“Why? What is at home today?” I asked her.
“My father is a member of social welfare association, they are going to plant saplings at my colony for the Save earth campaign. I want to participate in that”
“Oh, that is good to hear”
“Yes, I wanted to plant one myself, I will be happy on seeing it grow into a tree along the years. Now I cannot attend the campaign”, she was upset.
Abinaya said “I scheduled to go for ‘Teach India
Sanketh said “I am performing a dance program today evening at the cultural academy for collecting fund for the flood hit victims of Bihar , I need to reach the venue soon.”
“I too desperately want to leave now” Ashok said
“Why do you want to” I asked
“My parents and I had planned to visit an orphanage and give the children my old notebooks, books and clothes. We had told them that we will be there at 2. I can’t go now and it is already 1:45”
“Are you interested in such offerings and all?”
“Of course, I become happy when I give surprises to others and make them happy”
I thought to myself, these people know what is real happiness. Still they are obsessed about binding themselves to the newly born electronic stuffs. Their notion is that they are upgrading themselves with technology, but in reality they do not.
They are shutting themselves down from actual tunes of life and logging themselves off from the archived beauty of the earth. The good old ways of living gave us interesting turns in our life. Today most of our lives are boring. It will be nice, if we go back in time. If not we be spared, at least the earth will not become a desert, ozone will not become a hole and all the ice will not become water.
But after all…... Why did I write this in MS Word ! It would have been a nice feeling if I had written it with my pen into a paper !
No comments:
Post a Comment