The Train Tracks

This is going to be one of those posts
The ones that never seem to end
That may not have a clear point to make
That does not follow a rhyme or meter
That's a prose pretending to be a poem
Or perhaps a poem pretending to be a prose
I'm a little confused on that
But that's okay
Because it lays out the theme rather well
Of this unending post
Which technically hasn't even started yet
But strangely
Started a few weeks ago
Or perhaps it's been several years
I'm not quite sure
Like I said
There's a little bit of confusion

A month ago
I went running with a cousin
Well, he was running
I was jogging in between my breaks
In any case
We went down the road
And reached the train tracks
And instead of turning back
He turned left
To run along the tracks
On the gravel
That pile of stones that you see from the train
And it was a gorgeous path
Difficult to run on
But with a thrill of its own
Occasionally crossing the tracks
Or even a bridge
Keeping an ear open
For the rumbling of a distant train that never came
And some time later
As we sat under a tree
Catching our breaths
Enjoying the wind
Taking in the shade
I said casually
"I've never done that before"
"Gone running along the tracks?" he asked
Nodding slowly, I added softly
"Or even walked along them"
And he looked up
Surprised
Shocked
At the absurdity of the statement
And I couldn't blame him
It sounded absurd even to me
And this was my life we were talking about
I had never walked along train tracks
Why?
I just hadn't
It had never occurred to me
I mean, sure
Sitting on the train, staring outside,
I had always wondered
And yet
Never when I was on solid ground
You see
It was out of the path
In fact, it had no path
So I'd never wandered
Or strayed
Yet all the time
I couldn't help but wonder
Why Frost had never mentioned
That the road less traveled
Was reserved for the guys
That they could bike around the country
Alone
And I couldn't walk five minutes to a friend's house
Without worrying my parents
That they could hop on to a truck
And go wherever it took them
And I couldn't walk the street at night
Without stressing over every passing gaze
That they could run freely along train tracks
While I had never strayed from the well-built road
And sure
This isn't any absolute
I know girls who travel alone
Who wander alone
Who walk without fear
Well, in fairness
I know one
The others I've just heard of
Because while it's not an absolute
There's no denying they're few
And that's messed up in its own way
That we've managed to raise a population
Of which half is doused in fear
But blaming this screwed up society
Is hardly a novel response
Or even a useful one
When the problem is more within me
And today, as I was listening to a friend
Talking about taking a month long trip to Shantiniketan
I couldn't help but think
I want to do that
I want to be able to do that
To travel alone
To be with myself outside the walls of home
To hop on to any bus
Destination unknown
People unknown
And just wander
To go on a road trip
With or without a guy
With or without company
Not because I mind the company
I love it, I really do
But it needn't be a pre-req
To hitch a ride on a passing bike
Or in a truck heading out of state
Even better, on top of that truck
No plan in mind
Where the music and my thoughts are enough
To go where it takes me
And walk on the unbuilt roads
And meet the gazes of strangers
Talk to people I don't know
Travel the road less taken
Quite literally
And yet
Caution calls out
Warning me
Telling me the things it has always told me
Don't go out alone
Especially not in the night
And stay on the main path
It's not safe out there
Especially for women
And this makes sense too
After all
Safety isn't a joke
We all read the papers
Watch the movies
Hear about the rape
Hell, most of us have been molested
Just walking down the street
So it really doesn't seem all that crazy
This idea
Of wanting to be safe
And I get it
I really do
I wish I didn't
But I do
I want to be safe
I don't want to be hurt
Or be a cause of hurt for others
But I also want to live
And people say
At least some people do
Life is outside the comfort zone
Outside that safety net
And so
There's a constant debate in my head
One side telling me to just go
That it's all in my head
That it's easier than I've been told
And I won't know until I try
And this other side
The one that obediently sent regular updates
As to my whereabouts
Says it's not worth it
That it's the idea I love
That this isn't who I am
I'm not Cheryl Strayed
I don't wander off the path
I love being around familiar faces
I love my comfort zone
Far too much
And while that's true
The comfort zone is addictive
The call of the wild grows louder
Maybe I'll hate it
Maybe I'll love it
But I won't know until I try
So go, why don't you
Stop complaining
And just go
As the wise Nike said
Just do it
Make a choice
And live with it
Either way
Stop complaining
Life isn't meant to be lived with regrets
But how does one know
Which choice will lead to regrets
How can you know before hand
Whether to jump off that plane or not
Whether that chute will open or not
There's only one way to find out
But it requires trust
Not just of myself
But of countless others who I don't know
And as I'm rambling
I've realized I'm going on a tangent
Earlier I had written
That it's a choice
Between wanting to live
And wanting to stay alive
But I've scratched that bit off
Because the more I think of it
It really isn't that
Living or staying alive
It's not so black and white
This isn't a about a trip
Nor a single life-altering event
Nor the boasting rights of having traveled
Nor the thrill of experiencing the unknown
It's about every single moment
Of stifled choices
And raging fear
That has enveloped me
Since the day I was born
The desire to not lose my options
By virtue of a few different organs
The desire to be able to take a local bus
Late at night
Alone
Or to walk the streets of the neighbourhood
Without heartbeats raising
With every passing gaze
It's not about figuring out what I want
And sticking to that choice
Though I agree
That that's important too
But it's more than that
It's about wanting a certain kind of world
And trying to help create it
One where the things I do or don't do
Are based on my interests
And not on my fear
A world where I have that option
The one that Frost spoke of
All those many years ago
Of choosing the path less travelled
Or perhaps one that doesn't even exist
Or even the one everyone goes by
Because it seems the most interesting
Of walking along the next set of train tracks that I see
Simply because
I can.

Nouns versus Verbs: The Great Debate

A: Do you like to write?

B: Absolutely!

A: So you’re a writer?

B: Oh no no no no. *waves hand modestly*. Nothing like that.

************ 

As the title suggests, this post is about the great debate between nouns and verbs. In case you’re racking your head in an attempt to figure out which particular debate this one refers to (given that there are probably so many of them), I’ll mention right here that the one I’m talking about might not exist (at least, it seemed to draw a blank with Google).

So, I’m going to start it.

And while this particular topic might have been inspired by dousing myself in grammar over the last few months, it actually has little to do with it. In fact, it is about something far more important and difficult to grasp: life itself (*cue gasping and cringing*).

Now, without further digression (there’ll be plenty of that later), let me put forward my motion for this debate:

Nouns suck. Verbs are awesome.

There.

For those of you who are not familiar with the technicalities, here’s a quick grammatical overview: nouns are words that, among many other things, show who or what a person is. For example, a child, Peter Parker, female, teacher, etc. On the other hand, a verb is more about the things a person does. For example: walk, talk, run, sit, teach, etc.

On their own, the two seem fairly harmless, but I’ve recently come to realize that the former has destroyed more dreams and lives than one could fathom (okay, maybe the ‘what will others say’ might take the trophy for that, but nouns are a close second).

The first problem with nouns is that they stop people from fully claiming the things they do. A friend of mine really enjoys sketching (and is quite good at it), but when asked if she’s an artist, she’ll shake her head vigorously. Another friend who will dance at the sound of any beat refuses to call himself a dancer. “I like to dance,” he says. “But I’m not a dancer.”

And yes, I get that most of these words – teacher, dancer, cricketer, writer, artist – have a connotation that suggests a level of expertise, and so are kept mostly for the “professionals”. But the result of this professionalization is that the verbs, which are accessible to and enjoyed by every other person, suddenly need an external body to certify them as being good enough to be nouns.

This closely connects with how we view everything we do in our lives, and even more so with that one thing that our lives seem to revolve around: our careers. These nouns have associated themselves with a question that has haunted me (and I’m assuming others) for a large part of their lives:

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

For those of you who’ve had a clear answer to that question from the day you were born, I guess it really isn’t a problem. But for the select few who’ve felt beads of sweat begin to form the moment these words threw themselves at you, the following might be a relatable struggle.

A: What do you want to be when you grow up?

B: Uhh…well….I guess…I dunno….a doctor maybe? I’m not really sure though.

Although I’m known to all as that confused soul who can never quite figure out my career, I’m starting to wonder if the problem isn’t in my lack of clarity (though the indecisiveness really doesn’t help); there is just a slight chance that the problem is actually in the question: the expected answer is a noun. It’s a bloody noun that will define the rest of your life. How on earth is a high-school student (or anyone, for that matter) expected to seal their entire fate through one noun?

Imagine if the same question were replaced with a verb.

A: What do you want to be when you grow up?

B: Uhh…well….I guess…I dunno….a doctor maybe? I’m not really sure though.

A: Well, what are some things that you would want to do?

B: Oh. Let’s see. I want to write stories, dance, teach, learn filmmaking, study biology in more detail, swim in the sea, travel all over the country, cycle to another city…

A: Okay okay! That’s sounds like an unending list. Which of these do you want to get started on for now?

See the difference? Verbs.

As an individual, there are so many things that I enjoy doing or would want to do, yet somehow, when it comes to careers, it’s always about “becoming someone”. Sure, occasionally the career counsellors would try to simplify things for us by saying, “Why don’t we begin with the things you enjoy doing.” Yet we’ve always been told to choose one thing out of this list to make a career out of, and relegate everything else under the heading ‘hobby’ – something you enjoy doing but will never actually have the time for.

And there’s something really messed up about this, right? There are so many people stuck in careers they don’t want to be in, because at some point in their hormone-crazed years, they (or more likely their parents) decided who they would become, instead of what they would actually want to do. Of course, there are responsibilities, and I’m not trying to diminish their importance. But we read stories of that guy in his mid-forties who left his fancy corporate job to start up a new venture, and we applaud him for his courage, and this reaction only reiterates that what this guy did is not the norm – that actively pursuing things you enjoy doing is not the norm. That change is not the norm. That diversity of interests is not the norm. That the thirst for different kinds of experiences is not the norm. The norm is that we choose who or what we want to be at the age of 18 (or, apparently, even before you hit puberty), and we spend the rest of our lives becoming or being that person, no matter where our interests might want to  take us (I really think that “being” shouldn’t even qualify as a verb).

All this because of nouns.

I mean, sure, society and individual choices might have a little something to do with this, but they’re nothing compared to the nouns. And that is why, we really need to reduce the importance we give to nouns, and began looking much more seriously at verbs.

I’ll end my piece by re-stating my original words of wisdom:

Nouns suck. Verbs are awesome.

(Unless you have to actually teach these things. Then, verbs will make you want to re-evaluate every decision that led to you standing in front of 40 confused 3^rd graders staring at you blankly while you attempt to explain tenses and rules).

Trust

I dream of a world

Where I could walk down the road

Any road

At any time

And feel no fear

Meet the eyes of others

Randomly passing by

A smile on our lips

And trust in our eyes

I dream of a world

Where I didn’t hesitate

To help those who ask for it

Where I could roll down the window

Stop my car

Offer some money

Give a ride to a stranger

And not wonder

The entire time

Whether I’m the one

Being taken for a ride.

I dream of a world

Where I can travel by bus

The only woman on it

The only man on it

And not fear

Fear for my safety

Fear for my life

A world where every other person

Is just another passenger.

I dream of a world

Where strangers aren’t feared

Where people aren’t doubted

Where gazes aren’t avoided

A world where trust isn’t naivety

Or something to strive towards

But rather

A world

Where trust is.

Just is.

******** 

I've shared this quote before, but it's something that keeps coming back to me again and again.

"...teach them not to fear. Fear is good in small amounts, but when it is a constant, pounding companion, it cuts away at who you are and makes it hard to do what you know is right." 

- Inheritance, by Christopher Paolini

On Values and Education

I was in grade 8, sitting in our mandatory “Moral Science” class, which was taught by the teacher who was also known as the ‘Discipline Head’ of our school (the kind that made even the most courageous hearts begin to simper). You know, the kind who would storm into class and demand loudly, “Is there anyone here who does not believe in God?” (I forgot to mention it was a convent) and many of us would sink down into our seats to avoid any eye contact, all the while forcing our mouths to stay shut.

Every week, we’d learn about the importance of kindness, and patience, and respect; and every week, we would struggle to remain awake in the class. Occasionally, to break the monotony, we were divided into groups and asked to come up with a skit to show a particular value – but not even once were we given the option of saying, “But what if…?”

**************

During my four years in college in Canada, I met many people from Pakistan, and got to know so much about the country, that by the time I had to leave, my closest friends were all Pakistanis. When I joined Teach for India immediately after, I wanted to create a classroom where students thought about Pakistan as openly as I did, and yet, seeing that they were in Grade 2, I felt it was too early to engage in such a conversation. Plus, I think a part of me just balked at the idea of trying to infuse values with education, given the damage that my moral science classes had tried to do on me. So, I did nothing about it. And one day, one of my students walked up to me with a drawing he had made and showed it to me proudly, saying, “Yeh India hai. Aur yeh Pakistan hai. Aur yeh India Pakistan par missile daal raha hai.” [This is India, and this is Pakistan. And this is India throwing a missile at Pakistan.]

****************

Over the years, I’ve gone back and forth on my stance on values in education. On one hand, I feel really strongly about the need for education to include (if not entirely focus on) values; on the other, the notion of ‘moral education’ makes me squirm in extreme discomfort and want to run in the opposite direction.

My two years with Teach for India only furthered the tug-of-war. While part of me still resisted the idea of moral education, another part felt that there has to be something more to education that just the learning of facts and the passing of exams. And yet, I didn’t know how to even approach the subject of values.

In my second year as a teacher, that decision was taken out of my hands as the school adopted certain value-based rules that all classrooms had to comply with: something like a moral code of conduct. There were rules like respecting others and taking care of school property and being honest and kind. I think the intent was genuine, and the students actually seemed to love it. They were given incentives to comply with the rules, and would also come up with skits to act out these rules (I’m seeing the pattern only as I’m writing this).

Yet the entire time, I had this nagging feeling that something was off about this. Something wasn’t working. The students still fought as much as before; they showed respect only where they knew it was worth their while; and there was really no evident concern for each other’s well-being. And I kept wondering that if these values could not even get them to care about each other, weren’t concepts like Pakistan, the environment, humanity and the world out of line?

I joined the Fellowship enthused with the idea of completely transforming the lives of my students. I left the Fellowship so disillusioned by the entire education system, such that I couldn’t even say why we even needed education. On one hand, I could see the mess that we called our planet – the wars, the rapes, the hurt, the pain, the suffocation. On the other, there was a hoard of people hailing education as our only savior. And I just could not see the connection between the two.

I thought an MA Education would offer some answers. But by the end of the first year, after having studied the sociology, philosophy, and psychology of education, I couldn’t even say what education was in the first place. There were too many questions, and no solid answers.

The only thing that I knew for sure (though entirely based on intuition) is that there had to be more to education that just academics – whether we call it skills or values; whatever it is, there had to be something more. And so, I found myself subconsciously pushing myself to take on research projects that were about values, such as analyzing the approach to moral education in Krishnamurti schools through a philosophical lens, and studying how children’s literature is used to ‘teach values’. And the more I researched, the more I realized how complex this subject was. But somewhere along the line, I think I began to form a more solid opinion of where I stand on the issue.

So here it is.

Question 1: How does one teach values?

Do you give students a list of values that they must imbibe? Do you guise values in the form of rules? Do you incentivize students with rewards and punishments? Do you instill values using the fear of God approach? Or do you regale with them with old and tested ‘moral of the story’ tales?

For me, I think the answer lies in the question itself.

How does one teach values? You don’t, because values cannot be taught.

At best, you can make students think about values, but you can’t teach them.

At best, you can present students with situations where they are forced to look at all the perspectives in the situations, and understand the conflict that each position holds.

At best, you can encourage students to attempt to reason out their own position on issues through a thorough discussion.

At best, you can let students know that no value is absolute, and that it’s okay to feel confused about your thoughts.

But you still can’t teach values.

At least, not the kind of values we tend to think of. You know: kindness, perseverance, respect, courage, honesty, etc. The stuff that we believe we should force into our students when all around them they can see a world that is clearly going in the opposite direction.

This brings me to the second (and perhaps most important) question: what do I mean by values anyway?

Clearly, my idea of morality is not the imbibing of the list of values society generally tends to propagate. It’s something much more abstract, and because I can't explain it, I’m going to hand it over to an expert.

Krishnamurti said that morality is “an awareness of and sensitivity to an individual’s relationship with everything around – to people, to nature, to property, etc.”

That’s it.

Think about it. Could this definition work? Could the development of a social consciousness and awareness of self actually encompass the kind of students we want to see in our classrooms?

If yes, then perhaps an approach that encourages thinking and discussion and reflection doesn’t seem so far-fetched after all.

*********** Original End of Post *************

A friend messaged me saying that this post ended too abruptly. And that's true, but I think I stopped writing because I thought it was becoming too long already. But as a result, I skimmed over what was probably the most important part of this post. So, for those of you who have the patience to continue reading, here it goes.

Assuming you've thought about the definition of morality (yes yes, I'm being presumptuous about the interactivity of this medium), let me try to hash it out myself.

When we say awareness, it's not just an awareness of your surroundings, but an awareness of your relationship with the surroundings. This means, an understanding of how your actions affect the people and the nature around you, and vice-versa. For instance, an awareness that throwing out that wrapper on to the street because you can't find a dustbin would mean that it would either lie there forever and add to the garbage on the ground, or that another person would have to come and pick up after you. An awareness that when you brandish your victory in a competition, you're possibly taking away a notch of your opponent's self-confidence. An awareness that when you chain up that dog to prevent it from biting your child, you're probably causing the dog a considerable amount of discomfort and pain.

This list could go on. But I'm hoping that you can begin to see the kind of consciousness that emerge from this kind of awareness. 

Notice, however, that these statements do not suggest a simplistic right or wrong. In each of these situations, there is a clash of beliefs: personal convenience versus public cleanliness; the joy of victory versus the disappointment of defeat; concern for your child's safety versus concern for the dog's pain. There really isn't one simple way of making a choice here that could be applied universally.

[On a side note, I think this is where most of our attempts at teaching values gets sidelined. We assume that there is a universal right thing that everyone can agree upon. We approach values with a kind of simplicity that completely neglects the complexity with which they work in our lives; sometimes, against each other. We teach honesty. We teach loyalty. Yet we never consider difficulty of the situation where my honesty could lead to a friend getting in trouble. Or a situation where kindness to one means unfairness to another. Or countless other situations that represent life far more accurately than the fairy tale black and white versions.*]

Yet an approach to morality that emphasizes awareness presumes that value-based decisions are difficult, and might lead to different conclusions for different people. It will push people to approach any given situation with an openness and eagerness to understand the situation from all possible angles, and then leave the individual to make their choice.

And really, that's all we can ask of people. Consideration of different perspectives. Thinking about the impact of their actions (or inactions). Such that going forward, whatever decision they make, it stems from an understanding of its merits and demerits. Imagine a world where people made decisions with the humility to accept its limitations, instead of the conviction that it's the best decision and should appeal equally to every other person as well. Well, it might be confused world, I suppose. But it might just be a world willing to listen to and learn from each other.

************** 

*Thought for the day: If we were teaching a lesson in class that emphasized forgiveness, do you think it would be worthwhile to get students to think about why it doesn't apply to the legal criminal justice system?


Disclaimer: This post may not be representative of Krishnamurti's beliefs. I've used his definition of morality and interpreted it in my own way.

The Moral of the Story

Can you recall reading a story that made you smile, laugh, cry, fume, fear, and feel all those emotions that refused to leave you even as you forced yourself to try and sleep for the few remaining hours of the night? The emotions that made you want to grab the nearest person and discuss the story to no end, only to realize that everyone in the vicinity had already gone to sleep? The emotions that played on your mind for the next many days, surfacing randomly and unannounced as you went through your routine, triggered by the slightest of memories.

Now, can you also recall the last line of that same story, which said in big, clear letters, “The moral of the story is…”?

If you’re one of those few people who actually answered yes to both questions, there’s a high chance that you might want to write away this article as pompous and self-righteous (which admittedly, it is). But for the other group who read the second question and went “Huh? What…?” – a group that I’m hoping is in the majority – this might just be something you connect with.

For as long as I can remember, the stories that we read in schools – the ones that not-so-subtly taught us about good and evil – ended with a moral of the story. You know, ‘honesty is the best policy’; ‘slow and steady wins the race’; ‘a friend in need is a friend indeed’, etc.

Cringe-worthy, I know.

But the fact is, these ‘moral of the story’ stories have reigned children’s literature for the longest time. And as much as I criticize them, they’ve been a favourite of many teachers and parents. Why? Because we as a society tend to believe that children need to be taught values, and that stories are a great medium of doing that. And in a way, that does make sense. After all, a lot of what I've learnt has come from books. And what would be the point of having books for children if they can’t pick up these values through them?

A lot, actually.

Last year, I did a research project on children’s literature, and what parameters are / can be used to determine what qualifies as good children’s literature. I spoke to many writers and editors, and through that process, realized that one of the biggest issues with children’s stories is that they are written for children.

Read that sentence again if you need to.

Let me explain.

When people write a story in general, they write it because they want to tell the story. The basic intent is just that – telling the story. But when people write a story for children, they’re suddenly burdened with the subconscious task of teaching them something. About good. About bad. About choices. About struggles. And while some of these subjects are worth learning about, they come at the cost of the story itself. What results is a struggle, “a battle between instruction and amusement, between restraint and freedom, between hesitant morality and spontaneous happiness” (Harvey Darton).

Basically, the intent to educate overpowers the intent to tell the story.

And that’s tragic, because I loved Neil Gaiman's suggestion that the four words that best capture stories are: “And then what happened?” These words capture the pull of the best stories, the ones that leave you with the thirst for wanting to know what happens next, and the power that stops you from putting the book down.

Replacing those words with “What did we learn from this?” somehow doesn't match up to that excitement. It takes away not just from the story itself, but also undermines the children reading the stories.

The assumption that children need to be taught about good and bad, that they need to be protected from the complexities of difficult decisions, that they need to be presented with a world that exists in black and white, - really undermines the kind of thought they are capable of. An editor captured this by saying, “the happiest things are there in stories and the saddest things are there in stories…just as adults need exposure to them, so do children”.

So then, how does one write for children, really? Starting with a disclaimer that I personally have no experience in this particular field, I’d venture a guess saying: “the way you’d write for anyone”. Begin the story by asking yourself about what story you want to tell, and not what lesson you want to teach. Stop thinking of children as children, because the moment we do that, we dilute the story with the banalities of simplicity that pull out all the shades of colour from it.

But – what happened to the learning? If we say that stories are a great source of learning, how does that happen if we ignore the educational component?

Take the example of Harry Potter (because, let’s face it, how can any blog that I write [particularly one about good stories] be complete without a reference to Harry Potter?) A study found that children who read Harry Potter showed increasing tolerance to cultural diversity, and were less prone to prejudice. In fairness, I can’t vouch for the validity of such a claim, but I can completely see it happening. Who could read the Harry Potter series and escape without respect for people with all kinds of magical and non-magical abilities? Who can claim to love Hermoine and yet hate ‘Mudbloods’? And who can laud Harry's courage without admitting to his fear and anger as well? The book is a great space for grappling with values, but I doubt that J.K. Rowling set off to write these books with an intention to teach children to be good. At least, I hope not.

Think back to some of your favourite books and stories. What did they have? Personally, I think the best stories have it all: the choices, the conflicts, the struggles, the fear, the hope, the anger, the ups, the downs. The stories that stay with you are the ones that draw you into the lives of the characters and make you feel what they do. And watching the dilemmas and successes of the characters can foster empathy and tolerance, and important moments of crisis in the stories can aid emotional and moral development in children. But that development is incidental, not intentional.

An editor summed up these thoughts fairly well: “If you think about an issue and then write a story about it, then it doesn’t seem natural. You might as well write an article then.” Like this post. It’s self-righteous. It’s preachy. It’s presumptuous. But then, it was never meant to be a story.

Musings from Ladakh

Something that crossed my head as I gazed at the mountains in Ladakh...

Meandering through the roads

My eyes are drawn to you

Rising high

On each side

Standing stiff

Yet flowing

With an inexplicable ease

Towering

And soothing

So different from the others

Not a patch of green

Your head held high

Bare

Gorgeous

Gigantic

Unending

And…

Majestic

So majestic

It’s not a word I’ve ever used before

Nor felt any inclination to

But there’s no other way to describe you

As I crane my neck high

Feeling humbled in your presence

And I can’t help but wonder

Who was it

Who first looked upon you

And thought

I own you

You belong to me now

What was going through his head

As he chose to add you to his list of possessions

The clothes

The car

The dog

The child

And now you

What was it

That made him lay claim

To a peak he could hardy reach

To a range he could barely see

And what were they thinking

They who came after him

They who inherited you

They who called you theirs

They who went to all lengths to keep you as theirs

Believing

Strongly

Like their ancestors before

That they own you

That you can be owned

And you stood there

As generations passed

As wars passed

As claims passed

You stood there

Majestic, as always

Not in your pride

Not in your power

But in the simple belief

That you just don’t care.

On People and Stories

I’ve been an avid user of Facebook for many years now (8 to be exact), and I can look back and see how my relationship with this site has changed. It started at the end of my teen years, where the initial source of pleasure resided in the increasing number of ‘friends’ that you had. Over the college years, it moved to witty status updates, the ones that you felt strongly about, and yet also enjoyed seeing the number of likes go up. In the last few years, it’s become more about engaging in fleeting dialogues about social issues around the world – a way to shout out against the injustices and appreciate the nicer events.

But recently, it’s changed again. Now, it’s no longer about national or global issues. It’s not about political or social change. It’s about something that I’ve come to realize is so much more important to me.

It’s about individuals. And their stories.

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It started with a simple ‘like’ of the Humans of New York (HONY) page after having read a few of the anecdotes that were shared on it. A few months later, I came across of Humans of Bombay page, and decided to like it too. And then a Humans of Bangalore. And then, one day, I decided to search for ‘Humans of’ on Facebook, and decided to follow almost every page I came across: Humans of Vizag, India, Karachi, Dilli, Delhi, Singapore, Toronto, and probably a few others.

And every day, I found myself waking up to stories of friendship, love, inspiration, tears, struggles, death, smiles, passion – stories that resonated with me no matter which part of the world they belonged to. And each time I read and shared one of those stories (and trust me, there were a lot), I’d find myself thinking – why isn’t this stuff used in classrooms? Why do we read stories that have been created especially for the purpose of education, but ignore the stories where the real education is found?

I mean, imagine a classroom where one such story is shared with students on a daily basis – how much would they open their minds to the diversity that begins in their home and cuts all borders? And imagine the students themselves going out and talking to people and getting such stories – how could they not learn from such a direct and raw experience?

See, the thing is – stories have a power. And I don’t know if this is more true for me than for others, but stories are the only way I’ve ever learnt. The only way I could understand the digestive system was to think about what happens to the morsel of food from the moment it enters our mouth. Ask me to relay any sociological or development theory that I’ve learnt in the last two years, and I’ll draw up blank. But tell me the story of the worker who is forced into slavery by working in the brick kilns of Pakistan (Humans of New York), and I’ll never forget it. I’ve never been able to remember the structure or function of the government that we learnt in civics despite numerous attempts (my dad will attest to that), but the story of the old woman in Vizag who travels daily to the city to sell eggs because her entire family deserted her leaving her with no other source of income – I think I’ll always remember that. 

Increasing research is now suggesting that stories are the best way for a person to learn, because that's how our brains are wired. Think about it - HONY, in a single trip to Pakistan, has probably been able to tell the world more about this country than any history book or media coverage ever could!

And I've been trying to figure out what it is about stories that appeals to me that I can't find through information and data or even my favourite Wikipedia. And I think it boils down to stories being about people. About individuals. They may tell tales of political upheavels and social change; they may be about large events in history; they may be about complicated concepts; but they are still stories of individuals. And crazily enough, as violent and disruptive and thoughtless as we humans seem to be when we act as a group or a mob or a nation, as individuals, we’re very different. We become people who care, people who struggle, people who learn – people who feel. The concept of slavery in the states doesn't hit you as hard until you hear about the stories of individuals who suffered. Why did The Kite Runner become so popular? Not because it had a great plot (which it probably did), but because it gave us all a glimpse into life in Afghanistan from a single person, a glimpse that the media never could give.

And it doesn't matter if it' fiction or non-fiction - it's the story told through the eyes of the person that matters - a story that draws you in, makes you feel the fear and the hope of the protagonist to the extent that you know it'll never completely leave you. I mean, imagine if the Harry Potter books were just a series of events describing the magical world into which this new person has entered to fight the Dark Lord, without us ever experiencing it through Harry's eyes, and feeling his wonder, his confusion, his doubt, his determination?! (Okay, don't imagine that. It's shudder-worthy).

So where does this leave me?

It leaves me with a firm belief in the power of stories, and yet surrounded by textbooks that emphasize historical events and scientific concepts over stories. Sure, the NCERT has attempted to move in the direction of stories, but these stories are still limited, because they focus on creating a fictional story whose sole purpose is to introduce the topic of addition or fractions. They are stories created for a purpose - a purpose of teaching something (a whole other blog post needed on that topic). Whereas the stories that stay with us - the stories of HONY and Harry Potter and The Kite Runner - these are stories that were told just because someone wanted to tell them.

And those are the best kind.