A “serious” conversation between a 21-year-old and a 12-year-old
Whenever two people meet and talk, a clash of viewpoints takes place. Confabulating is a mode of expression. The more you talk to someone, the more you get to know about the views that the person on the other part preserves. Sometimes these talks could take a nasty turn as one wrong use of wording is enough to spoil the party. But even so, you end up learning something constructive if you participate in a productive conversation consciously.
It is my belief that you must always try to learn something unique from a conversation. It is indeed true that not every chit-chat makes you learn something new, but it is not a waste if your approach, before entering a conversation, always remain the same — soaking some wisdom out of your counterpart. It must be “serious” so that you, while retrospecting, manage to experience something unique, something uncommon.
That was a funny wintry morning when I had this extremely “serious” conversation with my 12-year-old cousin. So, allow me to start from the beginning. That was a sweet yet chilly January morning. In a bid to eliminate my bad habits, I started waking up early in the morning and began reading newspapers. So, there was no exception on that day as well. It was Sunday, and I had my hands on the first page of the newspaper.
At a glance, I saw two eyes peeking through a narrow door gap. I immediately recognised that those were of my 12-year-old cousin. He arrived at our place to spend his weekend. He could see what I was doing but still managed to utter these words, “What are you doing?”
“What do you think? I am reading today’s newspaper,” I answered quite rudely. While continuing his sole task of peeking at me, he replied, “you read the newspaper daily?”. I, acknowledging his interest in the matter, said, “Yes, I do!” The next thing that he did could be unexpected to someone meeting him for the first time, but it was not so for me. As I expected, my cousin, without taking my permission to enter, dashed into the room and sat beside me on the bed.
Before making our way further into the story, you should know a bit about my cousin, who is 12 and the only son of my maternal uncle. He is currently studying in the seventh standard, but reading books doesn’t interest him. According to him, reading is donkey work. But the task that truly uplifts his spirit is spending time with smartphones. He could spend hours and hours playing video games on the device and watching videos on YouTube. At the age of 12, he has grown a lot. One day, he would be a tall man, and I am sure of that.
He is intelligent and kindhearted. But when it comes to his academic upbringing, I do maintain some serious doubts. When asked to read a sentence, he could not read without making mistakes in pronunciation. And those mistakes are indeed laughable. He could not spell words like “master” and even “meat”. He would spell “master” as “m-i-s-t-a-r” and “meat” as “m-i-e-t”. And it is not about English. English is not his first language, neither is mine. But he is equally weak at everything that requires a pinch of primary education. I don’t know whom to blame. But teachers, who don’t have proper knowledge of how to teach children in online classes, seem vulnerable in this case.
The pandemic has completely ruined the education system of our country, India. Teachers in my cousin’s government-led high school have sent them voice notes over Whatsapp. How could a child learn something from Whatsapp voice messages? And after a year, students, in this online-based educational eco-system, are earning free passage by getting promoted to a higher standard, learning nothing from the voice messages sent to them via Whatsapp. So, my cousin is a victim of this pathetic educational system.
I have been told time and again that making mistakes is only fine if one learns the lessons from those mistakes. But to do so, one requires an adequate ability to recognise the mistakes first. I doubt that my cousin possesses that distinctive skillset.
Always hypnotised by the virtual world of video games and smartphones, my cousin took a good look at the page I was reading at that time. Pointing my index finger at one of the several pieces featured on that front page, I asked, “Can you read the headline?” He timidly shook his head to deny my request. He opined in our vernacular language, “English, oh, English is not my cup of tea!”
Although he failed in his attempt to tell what was written on that headline, he did so by trying to read, which means he was interested but lacked the knowledge or expertise to read the headline aloud. So despite feeling utterly bewildered, I noted some points to be proud of him. At least he tried. I asked him the question in our mother tongue, “What have you come here?” The answer what similar to what I had expected. Speaking firmly this time, he answered, “I was watching a funny video on YouTube. But then happened the power cut, and so I have come to have a chat with you.”
Until now, I was unaware of the fact that there was no electricity in our home. Since my windows were ajar, I was reading my newspaper under the sunlight. And since it was a wintry day, there was no need for an air cooler (a fan in my case). In the next moment, I tossed another question at him, “Why have you come here? smartphones don’t always require wifi connection to access the internet; you have mobile data, you could’ve continued to watch the video.”
“The data pack expired last night,” answered my cousin. While answering, he was grinning with his teeth displaying the yellow spots of negligence my cousin had bestowed upon them. “You don’t take care of your teeth?” I somewhat reprimanded him in a high-pitched voice. “No, I do,” he disagreed.
He was sitting beside me. Now, I told him to come in front of me. “We hardly talk; let’s have some conversation today, come and sit in front of me,” I requested. He did so like a well-mannered boy.
The “serious” conversation took off.
“Not only do you fail to take good care of your teeth, but you are gradually getting worse in your studies,” I began the talking. “I am in the seventh standard now, how come I am here if I am not good at studies?” he countered. I already had the answer prepared in my mind (you’re there because of the online test amid this pandemic situation), but I somehow resisted myself, knowing that those words might end up hurting his sentiment and breaking our growing discussion subsequently. I chose to take another path.
“Do know what is the most important thing in today’s world?” I asked. “Money?” he said unhesitatingly. “You are smart,” I replied. Flattery from my side seemingly filled him with great joy. He said, “Thank you, I know I am smart!”
“I know you are,” I was trying to relax the tension in the room. But then, I started emptying my quiver, “What is your future goal or aim?” He replied, “I want to do some job.” “Is that how you want to make your living?” I countered. He answered, “yes!” “Do you have any special abilities?” I asked. “Noy yet,” he calmly replied.
“Why would a company pay you?” I continued to interrogate. He replied, “Because I will be doing something good for them.”
“Now tell me, what is the thing needed to do a job?” I asked with enough serenity. He responded, “you need to have some particular expertise or skills in those particular fields.” “You mean to say that you require knowledge of the work you are paid to do, right?” I opined. He replied, “yes, brother, yes!”. “So now, think twice and tell me what is the most efficient way to gather knowledge,” asked I. “Reading the book, isn’t it?” he knew the answer. And I nodded with extreme pleasure. I was (or as I thought I was) finally able to make him understand the value of books and reading.
Without stretching the matter further, I insisted, “Look, brother, you are useful to your employers until you add some extra value to their organisation with your expertise. You need to prove your usefulness first, and only then, you could hope to get repaid in a meaningful salary. If you join a tech company and possess no knowledge of the field, you will be thrown into the bin right away. You will be no use to the company, and your employers will have no faith in you. As a result, you will end up losing your job and being unemployed. Do you think you have any expertise in any field?”
Ashamed, he nodded, “No! (in a deep voice and with a bit of regret)” To calm the heated atmosphere down, I whispered into his ears, “Look, you don’t need to memorise anything. You don’t need to study your ‘dull and boring’ textbooks day in, day out. you just need to develop a particular skill so that you could be relevant in the future.”
Regaining some vibrancy, my cousin agreed, “you are right, I shall work harder!”
When the two of us were looking at each other in a sense of revitalisation and feeling what a whirlwind the last few minutes had been for both of us, a distinct voice that was of my mother came calling my cousin, “Hey, the power is back!” Hearing that, my cousin, in the blink of an eye, jumped out of the bed and left the room like the Flash.
From jumping out of my bed to leaving the room, he was only able to say, “I have a video to finish. I have to be real quick.” Perhaps watching the unfinished video was what he meant by “I shall work harder”. I didn’t understand.
