[Book Review] To Sir, With Love

One sinister backdrop: Prejudice.
One slum-ish neighbourhood.
One dark skinned teacher in a troubled school.
And one hope: the young minds.

How does one feel when a person who is qualified, trained and intelligent as an engineer (in a society where there was lot of demand for such qualifications), one does not get a job due to the color of his skin? How does one feel when you feel the hatred in a restaurant, in the bus, in a Taxi cab and on the road? How does one feel when infact this hatred is supposed to NOT EXIST as the british society is supposedly liberal?

This book is based on experiences of the author E. R. Braithwaite, a person of African origin in post-war London. He is well-educated and hopeful of getting a good job after being de-mobilised from RAF after WW-2. Instead he has to take up a teaching job in one of the poorer schools of the city. This school is for those children who have had a discipline problems in earlier schools. The children are as prejudiced as the their parents who live near-by.

The children are determined to mis-behave. It does not matter to them whether the teacher is a white or a black. But in case of the author, coming from the mindset of being treated badly, the indiscipline is even more difficult to handle. As the story progresses, the author not only manages to 'cure' the indiscipline, but also make the children a better human being. The children show an unexpected attitude towards unshackling the bonds of narrow thinking and also try to teach their parents a lesson or two.

There are also a couple of side-stories: Tension and dramatic politics between various teachers, romance between the author and one of the fellow teacher. But the author does not allow these side stories to derail the flow of the main theme.

Why is this story relevant to us? Today in india we face a similar situation. Officially and legally we dont have any caste-system in our society. But reservations for one and upper-caste egotism for another have been causes of strong under-current within the society. There are regular allegation of one party being victimised by the other which is the cause of social tension. The situation is not very much different than what is faced by the author, although in India all parties feel victimized.

This book gives hope to those in India who think that things will change with coming to next generations if enough is done. It is possible to wipe out the prejudices entrenched in the society if the children are given correct guidance.

I hope we have more and more teachers who think along the lines of the author. Amen.

[Regarding Book] Games Indians Play: A prejudiced view without proper analysis

This is not a book review, but my impression of the book after completing 1/4th of the 200 pages. Games Indians Play is a book by V. Raghunath.

This book is supposed to explain the 'Why we are the way we are". It starts of with saying that we as Indians have typical characteristics which is not found anywhere else in the world, be it developed or developing or under-developed countries. The traits like: Jumping the Red light, Being late and untrustworthy, keeping the surroundings unclean, bribing and corruption, jumping the queue and being insensitive about needs to elderly etc. It has a foreword by none other than Mr. Narayan Murthy.

I completely agree with him that all the traits are completely valid and true. We see them day in and day out. But where I disagree is that these traits are special to Indian genes and are not found anywhere else. Having been to many countries and interacted with people of many different nationalities, I find this completely ridiculous. Here are my personal experiences:

1. The bus I was waiting for in Nice, France was 20 minutes late. The driver was unapologetic and kept chattering with a person sitting next to him all the while from Airport to my bus stop, many times taking his eyes from the road. All of these are supposed to be typical Indian characteristics.

2. People honk of impatience at traffic lights in Italy. I have seen them taking a shortcuts which are not exactly legal. So impatience on the road is not "India only trait".

3. Uncleanliness is quite rampant. Dog owners dont lift Dog-Shit from roads in Germany, they litter the downtown in most US cities, China is as dirty as India.

4. Taking advantage of a unsuspecting tourists is quite common in China, Italy, Greece etc. A friend of mine lost his Wallet in China and another friend lost his laptop in Rome, both incidents happened within Airport premises. My colleague was ripped off 3 times the normal fare in Beijing, China.

5. And if bending the law is typical Indian attitude, I cannot account for piracy of movies and music. And how can we take into account the Enron's and the Worldcom's? And china is not much better than India when it comes to bribery.

Overall this may be a good book from analysis perspective, but has been twisted for the sake of publicity. People tend to buy more if it is related to India rather than a generic behavioral science book. But this is unjustifiable when book shows India in negative light without any reason just for the sake of publicity.

I hope nobody buys this book and make success out of anti-Indianess.