A devotee going to Sabarimala temple chant songs, such as “Kallum mullum kaalukku methai, swamiye ayyappo, ayyappo swamiye, swami sharanam ayyappa sharanam, kettum ketti sabarimalak, aare kaanaan swamiye kanaan”. What do these slogans indicate?
A very good friend of mine and I agreed that one of the challenges an employer faces in employment is recruitment. Similar to the line from the poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’: “Water, water everywhere. Nor any drop to drink,” there are many people available for recruitment- be it low-skilled or semi-skilled jobs. They may talk well and present themselves well but when they are recruited the employer finds that their skills are substantially low.
It is not the lack of knowledge to deliver for they have the knowledge. For instance, if it is IT skills, they know excel and MS Office. But if you ask them a question, such as “Can you segregate this data into males and females with and without qualification or include additional parameters?” they would not know how to do it. They fail to do it because of the lack of a deeper knowledge of the subject.
Technical knowledge has to be mixed with a deeper knowledge of a subject. Sometimes we call it an experience to qualify, quantify, compare, and contrast data. So, I said to my colleague, the biggest challenge is getting people with the ability to differentiate knowledge. She immediately said that an employer not only require heads with differentiation ability but also heads with less weight. I was amazed. This provides a more clear presentation of the problem that people are egoist — ego of thinking that “I” am somebody. I have a prestige of myself built beyond the values of the company, my family, community, and society. And, anything that affects my prestige is not acceptable. In addition to being arrogant and egoist, the second drawback is the inability of the individual to have the patience to understand the values and implications of data as well as segregate them using simple IT knowledge to make a sensible meaning.
Why does this happen? It is from this context that I analyse the Sabarimala prayers and my question was why devotees of Ayyappa take penance, we call vrutha, then go by hard way ‘kallum mullum kaalukku methai’… that means the travel or the journey is very hard. He keeps a ‘bhandar’ or kettum ketti sabarimalakk– which contains ghee, coconut, and offerings to God- kept on his head or shoulder. It should not be kept on earth because it is a very prestigious offering to be taken all the way to Sabarimala.
What does this indicate? Does it indicate humiliating egos? Does it indicate that accumulating values of a person’s prestige and pride, that differentiates a man from others or the lack of skill and knowledge to differentiate a given situation? It clearly indicates that your life is an experiment and the hardships are a part of the journey. Hardships come in order to experiment and learn about oneself, and to test one’s ability. It guides you to give back to your own creator all that you have gained. You will not accumulate and create a mess of yourself. That is the concept of Sabarimala.
However, people have accumulated so much prestige for themselves and are not willing to do anything because they are afraid that it will hit them. Moreover, they are not willing to take any hardships on themselves and are not willing to experiment with anything. The seeds of acquiring prestige for self, working beyond limits of tolerance, and differentiating a person from others are qualities that are unbecoming of a human being and huge issues to a productive community.
Human beings make mistakes. But why do they make mistakes? They do not make mistakes for their livelihood or to save their lives but commit mistakes because they are trying to improve and create a new world which they are likely to fail. But from every failure, they wake up and work again. That is human nature. If somebody says that he/she cannot be tested or that she/he is not willing to experiment because his/her prestige will be damaged, that is unbecoming of a human being. And, from where has this been gathered?
Somewhere education took a wrong turn as education does not convince students that human beings can make mistakes. Creating mistakes, belittling oneself and restarting again is part of life. But people are not willing to accept their mistakes because they are egoist. They are anxious and self-defensive and thinks that they have a value and cannot get exposed or be belittled. But one cannot be a productive being, if one is heavy-headed and is unable to test oneself, experiment, and gather the impacts of data by proper IT-based applications.
When we study Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Maths, History, and Languages- we should not only learn a concept but also develop context-based thinking, critical thinking, and process-based thinking. So, the curriculum in a school should be designed accordingly and teachers must follow a differentiated lesson plans with proper learning attainments beyond knowledge and into the character and career building of an individual.
This is what I think is the right approach.
