Not too distant in the past, I noted three news items concerning the respectable field of education that came into the limelight from different geographical areas of India.

First story is from a Madhya Pradesh town of Ujjain, dated March 2012. In this scene on the right of the frame is a very agitated, but not very young looking man using his index finger to make a strong point to an older person on the left of the frame. The dialogues were being delivered only by this, not so young person, supposedly a student of Ujjain College. The background is that the student union body elections are being postponed and the professor seems to have taken this decision. The student leaders do not like it. After all it may be a stepping stone for their entry into the world of real politics. They would not allow anyone to mess with or delay their political careers. We can hear the student threatening the professor in a chilling tone, ‘We will tell you what does Gundagargi mean?’, ‘Be ware of the consequences’, ‘We all know what you people are doing in the name of education’. Many beeps had to be inserted in his long dialogue sequence to self-censor the sound bytes. It was a very lengthy single shot in which the so called student leader delivered his lines without any hesitation or fumble. Third important person in this scene was standing in the middle of the two main characters and was wearing a police uniform. For some vague reasons he was also wearing a metal ‘riot helmet’. I guess they over-dressed him. His uniform was ill fitting, as it was hanging loose on his body. This guy in the middle did not deliver any dialogue and no visible action was assigned to him too; quite like a C-class ‘junior artistes’ in Hindi films. He only adjusted his pant once by pulling it up. All he did was to shift his look left and right between the professor and the student leader according to the punch in the lines. The scene ended with the leader exiting from the right of the frame, followed by the so called cop.
Next day the perhaps camera could not pickup the thrilling action sequence in time. But promises (read threats) made in the previous unrecorded scene seemed to have come true, behind the camera. 3 professors were beaten up by would be Indian leaders. Camera picked up action when the professor was already unconscious and was being lifted into an ambulance. He was declared dead after that. The professor who was a part of ‘scene one’ placed on left of the camera is now confined to wheel chair due to severe real beatings.

In the reversal of the roles, the setting moves to a very small school in small village in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir. Some very young children with pink cheeks and runny noses are happily running around in the school compound. Walls of the school have been raised higher to keep the terrorist’s bullets away. But no one can predict a known teacher to do the unexpected. A teacher comes calmly out of the laboratory with a bottle in his hand and started spraying some liquid on the young ones. It may have taken a few moments for the kids to realize that the liquid had actually started burning them. Only then they all decided to pick up their bags and run! In the beginning a 6 year old boy got the liquid on his face, while others got their backs and clothes burnt. A girl of 9th standard, carried a boy for 7 km on her back to reach him home! The teacher had been missing from the scene.

DAV Girl’s College, New Delhi. A cell phone rings in the classroom; a student picks it up. A teacher feels very let down. The girl student gets a tight slap for using a cell phone in the class. The college goes on strike. The girls go on flash strike and protest by clapping and singing slogans. A girl jumps the high gate to enter in principal’s home, another one is trying to break the gate by banging it with a stone.

Do these 3 episodes educate us in any way? It can be hazardous guessing game for me. But generally I would imagine that however irresponsible and disrespectful students may get, the teacher is a teacher. He or she still holds the responsibility of retaining their mental balance and composure.

Very idealistic sure, and should be so too, but what about the teacher spraying acid on his little students! What about that teacher?
Any ideas, anyone?