Well, what starts as good may not remain good always....(or that is what usually happens). Yeah...may be reservations fall under the same category...different people have different opinions, here's mine:
Venkamma, the woman who sells flowers near our house was quite excited the other day. My mom usually buys flowers from her, and seeing her enthusiasm that day...enquired what was the matter...
She replied that her daughter's SSLC results may be out that day, and was hoping she would pass the exams (SSLC is Secondary School Leaving Certificate equivatent to 10th Std in Karnataka). Naturally.....she was elated at the prospect of having a 10th Std passout in her house!!!
Really, the so called educated populace of our nation would be delighted to welcome a new member to the SSEC (Secondary School Educated Club)!! Well, the sad part is, even if Venkamma's daughter scores good marks in 10th, she would not be sending her to college (and take advantage of the quota reserved for the backward classes)...what an irony, when the real 'leverage of education' for the downtrodden starts...Venkamma is closing the door on better prospects for her child.......
Its really sad that there are many Venkamma's in our nation, who just stop at the point where the real push begins...Alas, most of them climb the mountain, only to go back on the same side, rather than continuing in the journey and finding the easy descend on the other side to the the smooth valley down under.........tut tut.
Its really ironical that not many really deserving people get the benefits of our systems...do they need reservations in IIM's and IIT's ?? (well, it would be a surprise if they even know..... that such institutions exist!)
Need of the hour is free education to economically and socially backward classes till secondary school level, give active encouragement to people in the lower strata to cross the hurdle called 'high school'.......and then think about IIM's and IIT's.
Well, here's a funny article I read the other day in Business World (Wanted to just paste the link, but you need a password to logon to the site):
"From Business World, Diary of a Non-Obc Man: An excerpt from Emcee's diary exactly 50 years from now.
Ahmedabad, 30 April 2056: I attended the bash at the IIM-OBC Alumni Association to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the reservation of seats for OBCs (Other Backward Castes) in IIMs. Since I'm not an OBC, I was not supposed to attend, but at present, we MBFCs (Moderately Backward Forward Castes) together with the Non-Scheduled Tribes have a political alliance with the OBCs. We sipped champagne and talked about how so many of us had progressed from reserved seats in the IIMs to reserved jobs to reserved promotions. Unfortunately, the party broke up when a Non-scheduled Tribes faculty member objected to the OBCs dancing with all the pretty girls ? he wanted equal opportunities for every caste at each dance. I pointed out that the Non-scheduled Tribes had exceeded the quota of champagne reserved for them. The party ended in a pitched caste battle.
1) May 2056: Today, I became president of the IIM Board of Directors. Under the present rotating presidency system, a member of each caste is made the president by turn. When it was the turn of the MBFCs for president, they had to choose me because
I'm the only MBFC on the campus. True, I'm only the campus dhobi, but then every caste must be given an equal opportunity. All those centuries of oppression by the OSBFCs (Only Slightly Backward Forward Castes) and the OFCs (Other Forward Castes) must be rectified. I hope to restore the high standards at IIM ? I overheard some foreigners calling it the Indian Institute of Morons, the other day.
2) May 2056: They've announced the cricket team for the series against Australia. I was overjoyed when they chose an MBFC man as captain. But my hopes were dashed when I realised he was a Most Backward Forward Caste and not a Moderately Backward Forward Caste. The selection committee lamented that it was gross discrimination that no member from the Jarowa tribe (the Stone Age tribe in the Andamans) had ever found a place in the Indian cricket team. A squad has since been dispatched to the Andamans to capture a Jarowa tribal to play in the national team. I hope he will improve their performance ? they had an innings defeat against the Maldives recently. I would have played myself except for the fact that I lost a leg some years ago when I was in hospital with a toothache and a doctor recruited through the Unscheduled Caste quota extracted my leg instead of my tooth.
3) May 2056: There are too many NFCs (Neo-Forward castes) in the IT business. Under the terms of the Business Reservation Act, their firms will now be taken over by the other castes. I hope they will be able to restore the Indian IT industry back to its former glory. For some unfathomable reason, it has gone down the drain after job reservations were implemented. I went for a movie featuring star actor Mungeri Ram. He may lack teeth, be four-feet-three and have hair growing out of his nose, but this year it's the turn of the EBC-RYs (Extremely Backward Caste-Rural Yokels) to be stars and Mungeri Ram is the best of the lot. I wonder why foreign movies have become so popular.
4) May 2056: A truly great day. We now have an OFBMBC (Other Forward But Moderately Backward Caste) general as the Head of the Armed Forces. I hope he'll be able to win back the territory we lost ever since reservations were implemented in the Army. Since then, the north has been taken by Pakistan, the North-east by China, the east by Bangladesh and the south by Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Only last winter, we lost the war against Bhutan and free India is now limited to the western coastal states. But I'm sure the OFBMBC general will turn the tide.
5) May 2056: My wife and I have been blessed with a bonny daughter. Since my wife's an SBBNSBC (Slightly Backward But Not So Backward Caste), my daughter will be an MBFC-SBBNSBC.
I must lobby for reservation for her caste. She's the only member and I'm sure she has a great future".
Ciao till next time...Harsha
