Geetanjali Krishna: Questioning the status quo

When I bumped into Om Prakash after a long time, I asked how his son was. When I had met him last, his bright-eyed intelligence had left an impression on me. "He's just dropped out of school after completing Class X," he said proudly. "Now I have enrolled him in an English-speaking course." I asked him why he had done so, and he told me an interesting story.

It all started four years ago when their neighbour's son dropped out of school after Class X to work in a multinational pizza chain as a waiter. "Initially, we all thought it was a big mistake," he said. But the younger generation felt differently. They talked amongst themselves, wondering what opportunities they were missing out on by spending their days in the government school in west Delhi. The elders were proven somewhat wrong when the boy managed to make a success of his job. He was smart, spoke English well and hard-working too. Soon he caught the attention of the manager of the establishment and within two years, was made a supervisor.

However the boy wasn't quite satisfied yet, for he knew he couldn't rise any further, thanks to his lack of education. Elders advised him to complete schooling through open school, but instead, he got together with two other staffers in the pizza joint, found a small investor, and opened a cafe in his neighbourhood. Their speciality was, unsurprisingly, pizza.

Unwittingly, the boy had given the neighbourhood much to think about, even question, about things they took for granted in their own lives. Prakash, who completed his education from a Panipat school, recalled that when he passed out, the only job he could easily find was that of a driver. "So that's what I've been for the last 20 years. And with little scope for career advancement, that's what I'll continue to be till the end of my career," he said. In comparison, today's generation, he said, simply wanted more. So when his son asked him what good it would do for him to complete Class XII, Prakash had no credible arguments in favour of education - especially when the neighbour's son seemed so happy with his own business.

In fact, he'd sparked off a craze for studying spoken English in the neighbourhood. Today, Prakash's son is pursuing a course in car mechanics and learning spoken English on the side. His eventual aim is to sell cars online. "With some friends, he is already working on a business model and website," said the proud but clearly worried parent.

If nothing else, I said, completing his education would have given his son a back-up plan. "Given the standards of teaching in government schools, my son felt he was simply wasting the best years of his life carrying on there," countered Prakash. Life was hard, he said, for those emerging into adulthood from straitened financial circumstances. On the one hand, their aspirations were higher than those of their parents. Their schooling was not comprehensive enough to equip them with skills that could help them compete for good jobs. "Even if they graduate from a Delhi college, if they don't speak English well, they'll get the same jobs they'd get after completing school," he said, in parting.

The conversation got me thinking about the oft-ignored significance of role models, especially for people on the cusp of adulthood. It remains to be seen whether the neighbour's son has actually inspired a generation of successful school dropout entrepreneurs. But wittingly or not, he has forced them to question the established order of things, and perhaps that's good thing.