What makes for 'excellence'?

The photograph below was taken in front of a lavatory in one of the most elite educational institutions in this country, one of our 'centres of excellence'. Comment unnecessary.

Pretended interests

Looking up this news item I have been quietly laughing for some time. Now that studying the 'arts' (as they are called in India) is beginning to pay good money - via advertising, journalism, law, management and suchlike - a lot of high scorers in the plus-two level examinations are making a beeline for them at the time of college admissions. One more open secret publicly revealed: in India it has always been about money and comparative ease of landing jobs, period. No question of personal interest in any subject/career. As I have been saying for donkey's years, if suddenly tomorrow millions of parents and their kids heard that studying history or painting was paying much more than engineering and far more jobs were available, the IITs would be emptied, and nobody will go around saying 'I too am deeply interested in science' any more...a lifetime of teaching has taught me very well how many are really interested in science, or any other academic subject for that matter.

Without comment

The above is a sample of what teachers are doing with the English language all over India.

My thanks to Saikat Chakraborty for sending me the picture.