If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem
Aakriti’s death at an eminent Delhi school, as usual, has caused emotion to take precedence over sense. We Indians are genuine emotional cartoons. We enjoy screaming in front of TV wallahs, and TV wallahs enjoy beaming our screams onto our TV screens for higher TRPs. We love to bark on TV talk shows. And those of us who do not get the exalted chance to bark in TV studios, we bark in our drawing rooms, corner tea shops, and posh clubs.
Amazingly, you can hunt for hundreds of published articles and reports on Aakriti’s death in the last few days, or scan the miles of footage on TV channels, and you will not find a single person interested in talking of a solution.
Solution? Let’s do some simple back-of-the-envelope calculations. Let’s say on average there are 2000 students in a school, whether private or goverment-aided. Now let us levy a charge of Rs. 10 per student per month. That gives us a collection of Rs. 20,000 per month for each school.
Now let us hire a qualified MBBS doctor for Rs. 20,000 per month for each school. It is a half-day job, and the remaining half-day the doctor can pursue his other practices. Furthermore, the average number of working days in a school are around 180 days in a year. So certainly, Rs. 20,000 per month is a liberal figure.
For those schools, where the students cannot afford to pay Rs. 10 per month, they can still pay Rs. 5 per month, and hire a cheaper doctor or a trainee — the kind who work at charity hospitals or government-aided dispensaries.
I’m personally aware of an incident at a top school in Delhi where a boy fractured his leg while playing football. Since he did not express his pain loudly, nobody in the school realised it was a fracture. As a result, the boy kept sitting with a wrong posture, and the crucial delay complicated the fracture. The final outcome is that even three years after the incident, the boy’s leg is not fully normal.
Had a doctor been present on the scene, even the most ordinary doctor, he would have quickly advised the boy to lie down in the nursing room, and to not move his leg till medical aid arrived. Or, he would have bandaged the leg to keep the bone in its place, so that the damage could be contained.
Qualified “first-aid” is a critical, life-saving thing. A stitch in time saves nine. All civilized schools in this world have arrangements for qualifed first-aid. Except in India.
Why? Because we Indians like to discuss the problems. The problems are entertainment. A problem makes for a superb reality show. You can abuse the school principal freely. You can shout, scream, cry in public. Give a free vent to your emotions like a junglee. Be undignified, disgraceful, and cheap in the garb of showing concern for the dead.
But solution? No, sir. We are Indians. Solution is a boring exercise. It is too serious. It involves brain-storming, and not brainless storming. Solution does not have the scope for abusing Goldy Malhotra. Solution does not have room for melodrama and crocodile tears. Solution has no entertainment value for an entertainment-starved, unevolved society looking for cheap tabloid-style orgasmic excitement.
There is a brilliant book by John Miller called “QBQ! Question Behind the Question.” The author states that a QBQ has 3 elements:
1. A QBQ starts with a “What” or “How”, and never a “Why,” “When,” or “Who.”
2. A QBQ always contains an “I”, and never a “They,” “Them,” “We,” or “You.”
3. A QBQ always centers on action.
When will the Indian society grow up from its uncivilized chest-beating on the streets in the face of a problem, and learn to behave with the calm dignity of introspection and focus sincerely on solutions?
age old traditions are these,i mean chest beating,,indians wont come out of it,,looks as if its a gone case….so sad the situation is…