Dagger drawn

The angst that an entrance exam creates amongst the parents of four and five year olds has to be seen to be believed. To put a tiny tot through a comprehensive test which adults could fail, seems to be the basic criteria forsome prep schools, which are feeder schools to middle or high schools. In a misguided attempt, the previous government tried to ban these entrance tests without much success. The bane of the parent, who cannot get his or her child into one of these allegedly `elite’ schools, is a sorry indictment of the state of education in Mumbai. Maureen through vision and sheer dint of hard work has wrought a wonderful, individualistic, education system in a school which is in real terms another building. Yet, the mind boggles to think of the miracle she, or any other gifted headmistress, could have wrought through a really good space with plenty of light and fresh air.

In my quest for the perfect K G, I visited most of the `much touted’ good schools. To say I was deeply disappointed by most would be an understatement. Most seemed like chicken coops with too many children squeezed into too little a space. How can a child be expected to take strides into formal education when the environment is so dismal. Again,however good the headmistress or teachers are, the student-teacher ratio soon defeats the purpose of letting each child find his or her space and grow confidently into a well-rounded personality.

The Christmas School concert showed all the Headstart tots in a highly creative, yet individualistic light, but can the same yardstick be applied to their next seat of learning? In my quest for my younger son’s prep school, the same negatives of overcrowding and pressure of high achievement seemed inevitable, but in the heart of Mumbai has come up one of the finest schools in the land: The American School at the Bandra Kurla complex under the able tutelage of the headmaster Mr Gordon W Bradford. It is undoubtedly the first of its kind in that it has 12:1 student-teacher ratio and is laid out in a modern hi-tech environment where the emphasis is as much on education as on individual personality enhancement.

An advanced learning environment with facilities and a teaching staff to match, the school is a definitenumber one. As parents, we only want the best life choices to offer our children, a good education is high on that agenda. Surely our government should give a good education the same priority and help create an environment like that of The American School. In such an environment, a headmistress like Maureen could draw out the potential from each and every student to create a better tomorrow for our youngsters.

THIS is the season to be jolly. January is upon us and there seems no sign of the social set letting up. Night after precious night, the city seems to be in the throes of a manic mood of sublimal celebration. Invitations pour in and one is inundated with follow up phone calls for confirmation of attendance. At times it skewers the mind’s propensity to think, as it clouds one’s reasoning and judgment. Waking and sleeping hours get hopelessly entangled into a perpetual jetlag syndrome of the body clock being out of sync. Add to this heady concoction even one tiny ounce of personal trauma and you havethe perfect recipe for an emotional shutdown, enough to have you reach for the nearest bottle of Prozac or Valium or better still get on the phone to your `astroguru’.

The other social phenomena that one commonly comes across rather a lot these days is the misconceived notion that one belongs to `the’ exclusive social top of the pyramid. The criteria to belong to this class of the cognoscenti is vague at best but the current crop of wannabes lack that all-important `do or die’ ingredient true blue Indian hospitality. Mind you it still exists all over rural India and in abundance in middle class India but the chattering classes of the `Noveau’ parvenu have still to come to grips with sharing, to the point of deprivation of self. Truly, the mind boggles at the prospect of any of this charmed circle ever depriving themselves a thimbleful of `me and myself’.

So, in the final analysis, why do they fail in the generous-to-a-fault hospitality stakes? Perhaps no one taught them better hospitality, like goodmanners, has to come from within. It is imbibed from our teachers and role models within our environment. In the global village we live in this lacunae in social grace could cost one dear, both in the social stakes and in lost business opportunity. After all who wants a JV with a social scrooge (pardon the pun). Let us open our hearts and homes with the true blue spirit of giving and the goodwill that follows will be like manna from the heavens.

Again, without sounding patronising, I find so many young social party animals look like they have been cloned. Same peroxide blonde Rapunzel locks, copycat Gucci / Vuitton handbags, with pedal pushers and platform heels completing the uniform. Unvarying and quite plainly boring. Most of this set miss the point of vacuous anonymity that `the look’ creates.

On a more sombre note, a close girlfriend, whose father was taken seriously ill recently, observed philosophically, "Fortysomethings have the onerous responsibility of coping with their parent’s ill-health andmortality." A morose fact that a huge contingent of us are facing and stoically trying to come to painful terms with. I must admit to a catatonic, morbid unpreparedness to face the death of a beloved. And perhaps in the wisdom of my girlfriend I will eventually find a strength however temporary. I hope the Lord in his finite wisdom gives all the fortysomethings a resolute will to cope and overcome.