An AMBIGUITY

MAKING OTHERS QUACKS

ERASING TRADITIONAL, HERIDITARY, FAMILY and CLAN KNOWLEGE and SKILLS

WHAT is LEARNED and WHAT is UNLEARNED

The IMMENSITY of OTHER KNOWLEDES

An AMBIGUITY

I did notice that when my sister joined a government owned company as an Engineer, she had to learn the job. Now the question that should rise in my mind was whether the company really needed an Engineer for that job, or whether another person with adequate knowledge in other sciences would have been enough. The question could even extend to the level as to whether any other person of adequate intelligence can do the job, if he or she can be given proper knowledge foundations.

This question came into my mind when my sister was discussing about the difference between setting up an Engineering college and a Medical college. She mentioned that setting up an Engineering college was quite easy, for not much infrastructure was required other than a lab and some equipment. However, in the case of a Medical College, an immensity of things was required. The study was quite focused, and really required the full five years to complete. There was absolutely no time to study any extraneous stuff to fill in the years.

MAKING OTHERS QUACKS

Now, this mention of Medical Collages brings another theme to my mind. I was discussing about Homeopathy with a qualified Homeopathy doctor. Homeopathy is a very effective medical system. It is really based on the software codes of human beings, life and reality. However these things are not quite really understood. Homeopathy was a treatment procedure in India which anyone could practise. For, it is like learning software-error finding and correcting. Does not really need any formal qualification, same as in the case of a computer software technician. In the US, I understand that it can be practised without any qualifications.

In India, suddenly the government established Homeopathy Medical colleges. The moment the newly graduated individuals came out, they demanded that all others should not be allowed to practise. All persons who had been practising Homeopathy for years suddenly became quacks, and the newly graduated Homeopaths became Doctors.

Now, when discussing with the Homeopath, he was of the tormented mind that the people were not extending equal levels of respect to Homeopath, who he claimed were doctors. The term Homeopath was anathema for the Homeopaths. They wanted to be described as Doctors. At first, the allopath doctors couldn’t bear sharing this exclusive term with others.

The Homeopaths take up the cause that they had studied for five years in a Homeopathy Medical college. However, on close examination, I was able to discern that actually only six month study is required to master Homeopathy. However as in the case of Engineering, it is extended to five years to give it the necessary ‘weight’. It cannot be said that the engineering and other professional course graduates are unhappy about this length of study. For, it really gives them a nice time to spend in college. Moreover, they get a qualification with which they can overwhelm other persons.

About the quackery issue, many other professionals have been turned into quacks by the so-called modern education. For example, Ayurveda practise has been a traditional medical practise extending from time immemorial. The skills, information, knowledge, experiences etc. have moved over the centuries from father to son or from elder to junior or from guru to shishya (disciple), in traditional ayurveda practising families. When the newly graduated professionals from the Ayurveda colleges came out, their first demand was to define the traditional practioners as quacks.

ERASING TRADITIONAL, HERIDITARY, FAMILY and CLAN KNOWLEGE and SKILLS

Well, such cantankerous attitudes have played havoc on traditional skill, and many are simply disappearing. It is not possible for solitary practioners to go and file a Writ in the Supreme Court of India.

Talking about traditional skills being erased, by this nonsense called compulsory education that doesn’t even give good English to the student even after some 17 years of study, let me mention about carpentry. When I was small, I was witness to a group of carpenters arrayed under the leadership of the master carpenter, connecting the top frame of a huge building, in wood. It was a skill that called for exquisite mastery over the art of carpentry, wood quality, precision engineering, and a lot of management skills. However, none of them had been in an engineering college, or taken up a management degree. Beyond that, in the Indian feudal language codes of those times, carpentry came down below in rank.

Now, it would be quite difficult to find young persons of that calibre as carpenters. Actually, if the carpenters had been taught good English, the lower caste branding would have disappeared. Now, the question is what is the crime a good traditional carpenter is doing if he insists that his son should learn his skills by practising and learning the technical exercise along with them, instead of doing the insipid textbook exercises that a schoolteacher can dole out to the child? All the child wants is good English from the school, if he is interested in Carpentry. Moreover, how can the government insist that the child should sit in a school, where the feudal words give a lower ranking to his own father, in comparison to the doctors, engineers, teachers, government employees etc.? Is it not a case of forcefully taking a person hostage for being insulted?

WHAT is LEARNED and WHAT is UNLEARNED

As to the others, what have they received? A huge majority are of abysmal standards in English. Most of them do not get any adequate knowledge in computers. Computer skills would really come from computer usage and not from a textbook based computer class in a school. (When my daughter who was quite good in computer, and studying C++ at age 8, she was forcibly admitted into the local English medium school, had to deal with such questions in her computer class: What is an input device? What is CD drive? etc. It was like teaching cycle riding in school, with a textbook, and such questions as: ‘What is a bell? What is a pedal?’, asked for testing proficiency in cycling).

As to individuality, most of them are trained to be a sort of serving class of the teachers. The same feudalism they would be forced to exhibit to others who they should necessarily suppress with words, if they are to achieve social elevation. Indian formal education is simply dirtying the human being, instead of improving it.

Individuals grow up learning the power of words and what can garner respect. It is money that can garner respect and honour in a feudal language. Corruption is not a crime, but simply the necessary code of feudal languages, wherein homage is a requisite for displaying feudal respect. This is what the children learn from schools.

The IMMENSITY of OTHER KNOWLEDES

Now, let me simply list out the immensity of knowledge that is out there. Most of these things are items with which I was personally involved in my life in many places as a person trying to do business:

1. Leather processing, leather product making, leather product business, leather product export.

2. Travel and tour, ticketing, religious places tour, holiday tours

3. Resort and hotels, setting up, running, various jobs connected

4. Restaurants and eateries, catering, culinary art, roadside eateries, motels

5. Bakery, confectionary, biscuit making, cookies, chocolates

6. Vegetable whole sale business, retail business

7. Fruits wholesale business, retail business

8. Carpentry, Timber, Wood cutting, Saw mills, Furniture, Carving

9. Stone cutting, Carving, Sculpting

10. Fishing, High sea fishing, Coastal fishing

11. Marine life culture, Shrimp farming

12. Mushroom farming

13. Paper production, Paper wholesale, Retail, Paper products

14. Battery production, Batter plate production, Batter acid and other auxiliaries

15. Vehicle trade, Vehicle repair, Tyre retreading

16. Auto electrical, Repair

17. Export and import

18. Handloom

19. Textiles, Sari, Readymade, Cotton cloth, Hosiery, Wholesale, Retail

20. Construction, Construction materials, Plastering, Concrete work, Iron work

21. Iron Industrials

22. Publishing, Desktop Publishing, Book production, Printing, Periodical production

23. Internet, Web designing, Affiliate marketing, SEO optimisation, Blogging, Google Adsense, Google Adword

24. Cargo transportation, (Licences & permits, Octroi, Sales tax, Excise permits, RTO papers)

25. Labour consultants

26. Educational consultants, Liaison with foreign universities

27. Chemical business, Chemical distribution, Wholesale, Retail, Import, Export, Processing, Packing & forwarding

28. Medical laboratory chemicals, Reagents, Wholesale, Retail

29. Medicine & Drug sales, Wholesale, Retail, Production, Transportation

30. Alcohol sale, Wholesale, Retail

31. Home appliances, Wholesale, Retail

32. Films, Making, Direction, Various other works, Studio work, Editing, Distribution, Cinema halls

33. Drama, Theatre groups, Direction, Acting

34. Music, Production, Recording, Editing studios, Distribution

35. Driving, Commercial driving

36. Tourism, Guides

37. Circus, Acrobatics

38. Martial Arts, Training centres

39. Mud work, Tile making, Pottery, Image making, Crafts

40. Silk, Silk worm rearing, Sari production, Various clothing production

41. Fashion Designing

42. Real Estate, Building, Sales, Brokering, Rental

43. Advertising, Hoardings, Marketing, Various methods and tools

44. Software production, Accounting packages, Various software marketing, Digital products

45. Astrology, Vasthu, Fengu-shi, Numerology, Divining, Mantra, Pooja, Yagna, Yaga

46. Yoga, Training

47. Games, Football, Volleyball, Athletics, Shuttle badminton, Lawn tennis, Table Tennis, Game organising, business

48. Accommodation, Paying guest accommodation

49. Footwear production, Cobbler work, Wholesale, Retail

50. Stationary business, Wholesale, Retail

51. Computer sales, Repair, Wholesale, Retail, Computer Auxiliaries

52. Evangelism, Prayer groups, Retreat centres,

53. Cleaning, Building cleaning, Gadgets, Tools, Appliances, Business, Contracting, Chemicals

54. Pest control, Fumigation

55. Beauty parlours, Haircutting

56. Medical Diagnostics, Medical Laboratory, ECG, Various Scans

57. Marble business, Wholesale, Retail, Laying, Cutting

58. Massaging, Masseurs

59. Aluminium vessels, Various works like recycling and refreshing of vessels

60. Electrolysis

61. Painting

62. Managing various business activities like construction, handloom production, carpentry, sawmill work

63. Jurisprudence, lawyers, legal experts

Well, many of these items mentioned above are things in which I was directly involved for a brief period in life. To understand the depth in each one of them, there was no need to be involved for a long period of time. Other items, I was not directly involved in, as in the case of Circus and acrobatics, but had the spectators’ impressions.

Each one of them has great complexity and information that can really be termed to be of more depth than textbook knowledge. I will just take a few illustrative examples to bring this out.