DUB Speak

Don’t be another brick in the wall

Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr

Why must we read poetry? Ah, poetry. We’ve all read our fair share of poetry in school, and some of us took with ourselves till later in life. In my opinion, C.B.S.E. pretty much killed literature. Beautiful stories of great aesthetic pleasure by writers of great calibre were reduced to mere two marker questions based on entirely factual premises. What mattered was not why John Keats thought of nature as a source of everlasting beauty and joy, but what did John Keats describe as the perennial source of joy. While examining the why of it would have introduced the students to the literary and historical movement of Romanticism which not only marked a significant shift in the kind of writing that was coming out during that time, but also introduces us to newer notion of imagination and perceived reality and Enlightenment.

But all this never happened. We were never exposed to the magic of Neruda and the  realism of Marquez and the assertiveness of the female suffragette movement through real literature. Neither were we taught how so badass some women in history have been . All this is very conveniently put aside in the subject matter of arts and political theory, with the apparent assumption that this is not important for students of other subjects to know.

I feel, no matter which subject we’re studying, it won’t do us any harm to learn about feminism, to learn Marxism, to learn about patriarchy, caste system, religion based dominance and violence. Rather, it will only help us being more active and engaged citizens of a seemingly dormant society. It will make us more sensitive to the problems around us, it will make us more akin to identifying loop holes in our system, and work to change it, than just being just another brick in the wall.

[email protected];I think my life would be much better off if I’d make as much effort in reading books as much as I do in buying them. A bibliophile through and through, I possess a keen interest in the history of art and museums and I believe that walking with oneself is the best form of adventure. On a more random (a.k.a siddhi) note, my dream destination is the Rann of Kuttchh, because I find it oddly displaced in time, an entirely different story, and that’s how I truly want to be.

Comments are closed.