EDUCATION and IMAGINATION

As a kid, I was extremely dreamy and imaginative.

When I was three,I swallowed a seed and I thought now I would have a plant inside me and I would get free supply of watermelon throught the year.
When I was Five, I wished I could fly. ( I think everyone had this dream at some point of time.)
When I was Seven, I wondered why I had to get married to a boy. For two years, I was in co-ed school and I hated the way the bullied around. Moreover, I didn't really like the idea of me leaving my mom and dad while he got to stay with his!
When I was ten, I didn't understand why my maths teacher said if 2 men can complete the work in 4 days, 4 men could do the same in 2 days? My English teacher, on the other hand, told me a week before that apparently,  TOO MANY COOKS SPOIL THE BROTH
When I was Twelve, I wanted a baby and I didn't understand as to why I have to wait till I get married.
When I was fourteen, I wondered why my Social Studies book was so worried about Population of India? Moral Science book says that children are gifts of god. If it is true, how could the government possibly regulate the number of gifts God wanted to give me?

I had imaginations, dreams, visions -- some remained as memory in my mind while a lot of them got lost with time! During all of these phases, I was ridiculed by my people around me and I eventually stopped sharing with them.

I was a child then. Ignorant about many facts of life. Ignorant about many realities. But then dawned on me the benefits and good effects of education. All of my above questions were answered. A lot of them which I don't remember now, also got answered. I was exposed to REALISM of life. I knew why things were happening the way it was happening.

But this blessings came with a curse. It killed the Dreamy child in me. It killed the power to imagine the impossible and make unreal things become a fact of life. Now, I am made to think like an ADULT which basically means I ought to use the Rationality that my education and my society has taught me. I ought to behave in a manner acceptable by a reasonable man in a civilised society.

REASONABLE MAN ..... One of my beloved professor defined him as "Little man down the street". I loved this definition of hers .... vague, unique and innovative.... even though it made little or no sense to me. Reasonable-ness, is the most unreasonable aspect of one's life. And who would define civilised society?

If I speak what I think, I would be deemed as DUMB and IDIOT. If I speak as you want me to think, I would call myself FAKE and DEAD because people who can't dream for themselves are nothing but Brain controlled machines operated by the society. But who could be blamed for all these? This is what Educated Society does! The Best of all writers singers poets artists are the one's who never had or never gave importance to formal education. Some people wonder how they could write or create such art without any formal education? My reply to them are ..... they could create them only because they were not formally educated.

As a child, I looked at the sea and would imagine what would happen if I crossed the Horrizon Line? Which planet I would fall in? Which alien would I meet? What should I take for them from my planet? But when my science teacher told me that the line was not the end of the world, I was extremely disappointed. I could not meet my alien friends anymore.

I looked at the mountain and I would tell myself that one day I would climb it and get my mom one of those stars. But then I was told that the mountains actually don't get to touch the stars themselves and that they are some light years away from us! I felt i had failed my family.

Now, I am a working woman. Independent.  Self sufficient. Self reliant. Saving money to give gifts to my people. Material gifts. The Horizon is no longer an object of fancy (when I am sober). Stars are no longer sought after (because most of the times they are covered by the pollution of city life). I have no time to climb mountains. I need to climb up the ladder of my organisation. I could gift my promotion as gift to my dad. And they would be happy. People around them would be happy. And when I see them so proud of me, I feel satisfied, contended and relieved.

What if I couldn't give them what I wanted to when I was a Irrational Baby, now I am able to give them what the Rational Society loves. With this incentive and this reasonable thought, I shut away my book of poetry and get back to work because when you become an adult, dreaming is meant for people who are Useless, Jobless and have nothing better to do. For all others, they have bill-able work to complete, go home, eat and sleep and continue the circle till the brain gets tired controlling them and the society has had enough of them and need new machines to try on.
And that's when the new Generation step in to replace the old. And thus Education creates a new Generation of God made Machines!