Imagine for a minute that there is a school. I know its going to be a little tricky to imagine, because it has been over a decade since we left school. It is especially difficult and funny to image now, considering the fact that we have acquired pot bellies over the years, and are busy fighting a loosing battle with receding hair lines. I understand. But please try. Imagine a school. A school that isn't just for kids, but a school in to which once you join, you shall be its pupil for the rest of your life.
Like any school, children are admitted in to this school without their consent by parents. Usually because the parents are proud pupils of the same school. This school is a boarding school mind you, meaning, the school is also where the pupils live. The school has a very long and praiseworthy history. It is said that it was started by the greatest teacher in the world, someone who is extremely knowledgeable, creative, kind and lovable. He created the school's unbeatable, unquestionable and all encompassing curriculum. It covers all the subjects in the world, not just the boring 6-7 useless subjects that we were taught at regular schools. The great founder had made it mandatory that this curriculum and all the subjects and their syllabi be strictly followed to the dot, to ensure that the pupils benefit from its merits.
This time tested curriculum is taught to everyone with great conviction and reverence by the specially chosen teachers. These teachers are trained rigorously to pass-on the subject matter, as-it-is, in the textbooks written by the founder himself, to the pupils. It is sometimes said, usually by a dropout, that the subject matter is too arcane and has lost its relevance in the present day, but that is stupid talk, because it is still thought with same passion and the pupils love it.
Apart from the curriculum, the founder has also laid down a very strict, un-amendable and definitive set of rules for everyone. These rules are to be followed with full conviction and absolute submission. They were not just created to ensure discipline and order in the school and its vast population. But it said that these rules were in fact made with great foresight to help the pupils understand and distinguish right and wrong. The rules are clear, as they are all encompassing. For instance, there are rules that specify what dress to wear, what should and should not be eaten, what to say, which way to sleep, what to think about and what not to think about, so on and so forth. But the absolute most important and fundamental rule is the rule of total belief. Every one should, without exception, believe in the unquestionable supremacy and legitimacy of the school's curriculum and more importantly its great founder. Because after all, belief is fundamental to life, whats the point of anything if one doesn't have belief. All of these rules have to be followed without fail at all times and there is absolutely no chance of escape if one breaks these rules, because the founder has his eyes on everything. It is said that no action or even thought can possibly escape the founder's vision. Such is his all seeing ability.
There are some rules and general procedures followed by the school which have received severe criticism by outsiders and dropouts. These are rules and procedures which imply that female pupils are generally inferior to males; all pupils are equal, but some are more equal than others; pupils are segregated in to sections/batches based on their parents' sections/batches and the lower sections are generally ill treated, and so on. But such criticism didn't/doesn't affect the pupils. They believe that the great founder must have made these rules in his infinite wisdom for a purpose, for reasons which are incomprehensible to mere pupils. This criticism they strongly believe is the foul-play by the other schools. Sorry, I failed to mention that there are other schools like this too.
These other schools, some bigger and some smaller than your's are also said to have been founded by wise and great teachers in different times of the past. Those schools also have seemingly similar curricula, rules and doctrines. However, they were never able to reach the greatness of your school nor they shall ever be. Because their founders are not as smart or just or powerful as the founder of your school. But that doesn't stop those misguided schools from launching verbal and physical attacks on your school and the great founder himself. In order to thwart these attacks and teach them a lesson, your alumni and fellow pupils have laid great examples in the past by attacking the rival schools and mercilessly killing the opposition indiscriminately. Some brave hearts had even given their lives for the cause, but they were well appreciated by the great founder later. The great founder could quell these attacks himself, with no effort at all, but then, the pupils would not get an opportunity to prove their beliefs and put their skills to test. The rivals don't even deserve the great founders wrath.
But these are rare and trivial matters. The most important element of any schooling is however, examinations and the progress of its pupils to higher echelons. This school has an amazing way of conducting exams. They are nothing like the dreary pen and paper based exams in regular schools. Exams here are more like social experiments. Pupils are subjected to various tests in various subject matters, at physical, mental and emotional levels. Pupils are scored based on their perseverance, emotional entanglement and most importantly the strength of their belief in the curriculum. These tests are administered usually by the founder himself (albeit discreetly) to avoid any bias or through other pupils under his strict purview. Some of these tests include causing physical pain/injury to the pupil, their family or loved ones; deliberately withholding success or reward to deserved pupils in order test their belief; tempting pupils with carnal indulgences to test their resolve of abstinence etc. Scores in all of these tests are extremely important in the overall final grades.
There is, however, an equivalent of "Spectrum Series" available to help pupils pass these tests. It has been created by the schools alumni and it is called "praise & beg".
The essence of "praise & beg" is, by incessantly and devoutly praising the great founder of his...umm...greatness, and by begging him for pass marks, the chances of passing the exam will increase. Although the effectiveness of this method is purely subjective and also at the mercy of the founders discretion. Even with all the tough examinations and rigorous indoctrination, the time a pupil spends in the school, before reaching the final occasion of the "Passing out ceremony" is not fixed. The founder decides when a pupil is ready for it.
It might be interesting to know that if a pupil, may be you, believes that all this is nonsense and tries to jump the wall one night and escape, he will be shot. In the head. Even if the shot misses, life is no fun for dropouts. They will be rightly ostracized, called names and will be left to live a lonely boring life. So who wants to dropout anyway?
Forget that minor detail as it is of little importance. The "Passing out ceremony" is what is important. For it is truly awesome. This is the occasion that all pupils grow up yearning, preparing themselves and praying for. After all, this is THE occasion. The time when pupils shall leave the school and spend the rest of their time with the FOUNDER HIMSELF. Truly an amazing experience that cannot be described in words many say.
The Founder and the alumni stay in a mind mindbogglingly beautiful villa outside the school; quite far away and inaccessible to most. The villa as beautiful as it is, its full of all kinds of wonderful things anyone can ever think of. And hosts great party's, cultural events and in general has a great vibe to it. Surely who doesn't desire to spend a never ending weekend at such a place? And what fun would it be if anyone could just knock at the door and be allowed. All that schooling, handwork and abstinence is worth it after all.
But there are a few who say this villa is an illusion and is in fact no bigger than a 6ft pit in the ground with not enough place for one to even turn over. They claim that the proof to their theory is the fact that no one has ever come back from the villa to corroborate its existence. Surely a lame argument, that doesn't prove anything. Who wants to comeback from an awesome party if you can stay forever?
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By now, surely you must be thinking this school sucks and that you would never spend a day in such a school. And most definitely would not let your kids (one day when you have them) anywhere near this lunatic enterprise.
But if I have utterly failed in holding you throughout the deliberately depressing prose I wrote about a fucked up school, you must be thinking I am mad and have completely lost it. Now before you get out of the mood I have been trying to get you in to....please do one last thing.
Read it again.
Yes.
From the beginning.
But this time, as you read, replace SCHOOL with RELIGION, CURRICULUM with your favorite holy book, THE GREAT FOUNDER with GOD, PUPIL with YOU/I/PEOPLE, "Passing out ceremony" with DEATH and VILLA with HEAVEN. Oh, and alumni with dead people. Do it. Seriously. Its fun.
The reason behind exhuming our long buried blog to write this revolting post with the Religion and School parable is, a little revelation that struck me. Some of us have gotten married recently and the rest of us will follow suit as it is apparently inevitable. And apart from the various blessing (so I am told) that marriage brings, it also brings to us the burden of being parents. Parenting is a frightening amount of responsibility if you think about it. To bring a human being up....to "raise" a person, an actual fellow human being, and be responsible, quite directly, for that person's destiny is astonishing. But it will happen. We will be dads. Hmm.
So I have a humble request and observation to make. To be responsible for a persons destiny and effect their course of life requires you/me to be a person of a deep understanding and awareness of the world around us, everything in it and particularly the relevance of human beings in it. We ought to be on a higher moral standing ourselves to tell others what is right and wrong. We should know what is true and what is false with full certainty before we preach someone else. We are clearly no where close to knowing any of this and are hence in no position, or hold no right to fuck with our kids' minds. So gentlemen, this is my request to you.
Take an oath, as I do so myself. That you shall not interfere with the free will of your kids and do not inject your ignorant beliefs, predispositions and irrelevant nonsense passed on to you by the previous generations into them. That you shall teach them to appreciate the beauty of truth/reality and the power of inquiry. Let them find their own god if they wish to. But keep your damn religion out of it. Don't MAKE them read scriptures, give them the encyclopedia.
