Saturday, May 07, 2011

3 out of 5000 students is statistically not important

"Why are you always reporting negative news about IIT Madras? We also have the maximum number of patents but you didn't report that. But you would want to report the death of 3 out of 5000 students which is statistically not important. Why don't you go to other engineering institutes and find out how many died there. Why only IIT?"

Why did Nitin Kumar Reddy die? Is it as simple as 'inability to handle pressure'? Or is it good enough to blame the rat race?

Why did the dean of students say 3 out of 5000 is statistically insignificant? Is it as simple as callous attitude? Or is it good enough to blame the media which apparently pressurized him into making such a statement?

If at all one is truly distressed by such sad events, one would dig deep into the cause of such happenings and every unquestioned assumption will be looked into.

Why is the desire for careers and big pay packets by all the educated ones around is disconnected from the suicide? Why is the callous / desensitized attitude we all show towards all the violence around us disconnected from the deans reply? How come peoples desire to buy apartment after apartment disconnected from the recent 2G scam in India? How are the million rupee marriages in India disconnected from the rat race? How is the desire to ensure ones kids go to IIT and then to Stanford disconnected from the death of Nitin Kumar? Why is the need to uphold family pride and the urge to gossip ill about others not a contributing factor? Why is our acts of pressurizing others to respect / love one unconnected? Ultimately, why is the desire to establish oneself as a separate person, disconnected from all of creation, not related to this sad event?

Only when we care enough to see the fullest extent of the causal matrix, can we notice that all the fears and desires we carry in our heads are fueling that causal matrix. And only when we act decisively to change ourselves, can we even nurse a hope of putting an end to such completely unnecessary sad events. The refusal to act despite all this is no different from the (apparent) insensitive comments of the dean.

2 comments:

Prakash(IITM Alumnus 1996) said...

I think it's not the administration, but the parents are to blame. The parents, especially in AP drive their wards to such an extent to succeed in academics. In the meanwhile, the other aspects of human development get completely ignored. They don't have courage to face even small situations, and can't even develop meaningful friendships. Didn't he have anybody to share his greviences, among his friends, who could support him psychologically? In these days of instant communications, he didn't even feel comfortable to share this with his parents. If any of the above are not true, this suicide wouldn't have happened. It's wake-up time for the parents. Along with academics, teach your kids sports, arts and spirituality.

Partha said...

Hi Prakash, thx for the comments.
These are good steps that you are suggesting (teaching arts, sports etc).

But, more than finding solutions based on changes to education system (which are useful), I feel it is more important to find out why the parents pressurize them to succeed? It is important to look at the nature of the human mind that is constantly behind fears and desires to find this out.

Then, it points a clear finger at the way every individual lives. Then we can transform ourselves. Only when a lot of us transform that way, and find the divine within and surrender to it, can such things end.

If not, such unnecessary acts of violence will continue (in modified forms may be).