Since i heard the sordid tale of my school a few weeks back, i can't relate to the reality with the days we had spent together in our formative years within the high walls of the space called Narendrapur. A school that inspires awe amidst one and all, a school that builds not only someone's career but manifests, in Swamiji's words, "perfection already in a man", a school that is unique in itself that grows with time but believes in the ashrama tradition is something we can hardly think now.
One can visit the campus on the southern fringes of Kolkata to find the true meaning of the word, discipline. Well, that was the idea on which RKM Narendrapur was built in 1943. Students were few, handpicked ones, who would get the best of education and training from the best of teachers. We were the last few batches to have tasted the quality teaching. In the past 10 years or so, the institution has been apparently cornered by the state government to lose its high chair of centre for excellence.
The process was easy. Like other government-aided schools, Narendrapur has to get teachers from a pool created by successful candidates qualified from SSC examination. Precisely, this is where the government played a trick to supply teachers who are hardly qualified to teach students whose level of intelligence surpasses the former! A peculiar situation that the present lots of students have to face day-to-day. Meritorious students here no longer go for the once-respected profession of teaching that too school ones! Some of the university toppers turn out to be teachers, but that's generally confined to the college or university campuses themselves. Schools usually get teachers who prefer Haranath Chakraborty to Eisenstein! Or, Chhaya Prakashani books to Stephen Hawking! A teacher like the great Ajit Sengupta is just a rare-found at Narendrapur.
Then came the age of cellphones. Our on-campus off-the-syllabus expeditions were largely confined to "choti cricket" during the days and "Superhit Muqablas" on Sunday evenings! Our distractions were few although we went through one of the most transitional phases of human history in this part of the world: India opened doors to foreign companies with ecnomic reforms in 1991, before that Reebok or Coke was brand only to be watched during football World Cups! 1992-93 on one hand were "black years" of Indian democracy with the demolition of Babri Masjid, curfew in major cities, including Kolkata; the birth of serial blasts in Mumbai; the financial jolt with Harshad Mehta scam at BSE; but on the other this was the time when day-night ODIs with back-to-back successes in Tests and ODIs saw another era of marketing cricket unfolding that culminated in IPL 15 years later! MTV was a new thing and drawing rooms started to change forever with the advent of STAR and other TV channels later on. "Dekh Bhai Dekh" was soon to be passé. Also, the first FM station in the country was set up at a place hardly 15km from our campus! So were the first cellphone signals started sending beeps, also from the first tower set up in Kolkata in 1995!
Parents created a ruckus the other day when Narendrapur inmates were found talking on cellphones — something unimaginable in our days not that we didn't have mobiles then but we were brought up under strict discipline. Narendrapur lacks discipline these days besides dedicated teachers who would stay with students at the bhavans. Over-ambitious concerned parents hand over cellphones and iPods unlike my parents who could well gave me a Walkman also! But they didn't. Here lies the second problem in degeneration of an institute. Even during guardian calls on Sundays — as i was never a calm and quiet kid but the one who would play cricket at room and break window-panes or play table-tennis at odd hours — my mother used to listen to the complaints against me and rebuked me sharp. The other day, two guardians threatened our headmaster, who was at the helm then too, if their wards were given TCs! Although the students were shown the Narendrapur main gate eventually, our headmaster had to be put under medicines for the stress and humiliation he never faced.
I won't say Narendrapur is in crisis but alarm bells are ringing. Even if there's a change of guard at the Writers', the government won't change its policy for the sake of a single institute. At least we should try to carry the torch for sake of present students and the Generation Next.
One can visit the campus on the southern fringes of Kolkata to find the true meaning of the word, discipline. Well, that was the idea on which RKM Narendrapur was built in 1943. Students were few, handpicked ones, who would get the best of education and training from the best of teachers. We were the last few batches to have tasted the quality teaching. In the past 10 years or so, the institution has been apparently cornered by the state government to lose its high chair of centre for excellence.
The process was easy. Like other government-aided schools, Narendrapur has to get teachers from a pool created by successful candidates qualified from SSC examination. Precisely, this is where the government played a trick to supply teachers who are hardly qualified to teach students whose level of intelligence surpasses the former! A peculiar situation that the present lots of students have to face day-to-day. Meritorious students here no longer go for the once-respected profession of teaching that too school ones! Some of the university toppers turn out to be teachers, but that's generally confined to the college or university campuses themselves. Schools usually get teachers who prefer Haranath Chakraborty to Eisenstein! Or, Chhaya Prakashani books to Stephen Hawking! A teacher like the great Ajit Sengupta is just a rare-found at Narendrapur.
Then came the age of cellphones. Our on-campus off-the-syllabus expeditions were largely confined to "choti cricket" during the days and "Superhit Muqablas" on Sunday evenings! Our distractions were few although we went through one of the most transitional phases of human history in this part of the world: India opened doors to foreign companies with ecnomic reforms in 1991, before that Reebok or Coke was brand only to be watched during football World Cups! 1992-93 on one hand were "black years" of Indian democracy with the demolition of Babri Masjid, curfew in major cities, including Kolkata; the birth of serial blasts in Mumbai; the financial jolt with Harshad Mehta scam at BSE; but on the other this was the time when day-night ODIs with back-to-back successes in Tests and ODIs saw another era of marketing cricket unfolding that culminated in IPL 15 years later! MTV was a new thing and drawing rooms started to change forever with the advent of STAR and other TV channels later on. "Dekh Bhai Dekh" was soon to be passé. Also, the first FM station in the country was set up at a place hardly 15km from our campus! So were the first cellphone signals started sending beeps, also from the first tower set up in Kolkata in 1995!
Parents created a ruckus the other day when Narendrapur inmates were found talking on cellphones — something unimaginable in our days not that we didn't have mobiles then but we were brought up under strict discipline. Narendrapur lacks discipline these days besides dedicated teachers who would stay with students at the bhavans. Over-ambitious concerned parents hand over cellphones and iPods unlike my parents who could well gave me a Walkman also! But they didn't. Here lies the second problem in degeneration of an institute. Even during guardian calls on Sundays — as i was never a calm and quiet kid but the one who would play cricket at room and break window-panes or play table-tennis at odd hours — my mother used to listen to the complaints against me and rebuked me sharp. The other day, two guardians threatened our headmaster, who was at the helm then too, if their wards were given TCs! Although the students were shown the Narendrapur main gate eventually, our headmaster had to be put under medicines for the stress and humiliation he never faced.
I won't say Narendrapur is in crisis but alarm bells are ringing. Even if there's a change of guard at the Writers', the government won't change its policy for the sake of a single institute. At least we should try to carry the torch for sake of present students and the Generation Next.
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