Dear Sir,
Its been 43 years since you have written your letter and I am sure it has passed through a million hands since. Even people who matter like Edward Boyle have acknowledged and written back to thank you.
43 years on, the world hasn't changed much. I guess it needs more than a Letter to change it. But what your Letter has done and can do cannot be thanked for even by a million letters from Gianni's like me who were a little lucky than you.This letter of mine, am sure will be among the thousands which you have received since your first publication.But what has instigated me to write it is the sorrow of letting 43 years gone waste since you first opened the Pandora's Box.
Your Pyramid is more valid in India today with increasing population and compulsory education laws and teachers still teach 18 hours a day, the young kids are as Timid as in those times, Gianni's are in abundant and Pierino fill the Universities, the Knife has turned into a sword and Rabrindranath has been trapped in the National Anthem and Gandhi in the portraits, Geography has become social studies and mathematics is as dreadful as it was ever, poor still travel miles to reach school and Teachers have left their jobs to create flourishing businesses out of after school tutions, I still pay my full taxes every month with a 2 percent education cess and need Rs 1.5 lac to get my kid admitted in a good school to start his rat race, government has stopped recruiting teachers for primary schools because of abundant supply and still 1 out of every 5 teachers is absent for a full year from schools, geniuses are still BORN and somehow GOD only curses poor with STUPID kids, Even at 32 I have not voted in a single general elections and my kid's history book changes with every change in the government every 5 years, the passing on of the knowledge is the job of only priests or parents while a teachers job is making sure the kid lives are cut down to the lowest denominator with the knife and I still don't know how many flats are there in my Building.
What has really hit me is that some people who have been close to me had been or want to become a part of this filthy system irrespective of thinking how they have suffered at the hands of the same system. By becoming part of it they have or will become the carrier of the same philosophy which you and I hate, sowing what their next generation is going to reap.
If the weakness of the Indian Education system is not rectified, we might loitre The greatest strength of India, its democracy. Also, its this strength itself which needs to be used to overcome the education system's weakness.
While I don't see any dramatic changes happening immediately, I also cannot sit on the boundary line seeing my kids struggling. This letter of your's has very strongly negotiated with my soul to start THE SCHOOL OF BARBIANA in India and which I will start soon. I don't want anyone reading your letter after another 43 years and writing back to you again a similar thank you.
With Deepest Regards,
Manish Saini
