I wonder what school children these days have for essay topics… Must remember to check it out sometime… The problem is that I have completely lost touch with the entire schooling system. I have cousins who are either of my age, or way too smaller. So, there is a kind of an alienation from the essay thingy. Plus, I rather keep away from neighbours and others who come for essay and math help. Solving their computing problems is enough headache already!
Anyway, back to the point, essay topics. Do they now have advanced autobiographies? Like an autobiography of a cell phone? Or that of a computer? Or that of a mouse (pointing device)? I am sure the mouse one will be an awesome. Or how about a clip-on nail? (Cannot remain sexually biased anymore, these days, you know!) Or how about Batman? Don’t know what today’s generation thinks. They say, every gap of five years results in a generation gap. By those standards, I already have a generation gap between the current schoolers and me, probably even two!
Or what about descriptive essays? What could the topics be? Twenty minutes on the 8:17 Churchgate fast? Or am I getting ahead of my time?
It will seem really sad if the essays are still stuck to the age-old dumb topics. I would have loved to write an essay on Paul van Dyk, or maybe Coldplay. Or even Coupling. But I guess, that is not happening in schools. How about, the effect of BPOs in the view of Bush reelection? Or the rising tide of crimes (this would be lame, probably)? Of the growing knowledge of sexuality? Of the desire to end all?
It seems rather sad now, on reflection, that the school system never really did teach me to write imaginative essays. Or good argumentative ones. Or philosophical ones. That developed later (and is developing, even now). I started writing quite a lot of unconventional stuff in my regualar topic essays, but that happened very late in my school life. For example, I mentioned how a mouse (a real one, this time) caused havoc on a ST stand, in my essay of An Hour at the ST Stand. Or instead of the standard loathing and cribbing of certain death of the chair in its autobiograhy, I had once written how the chair decided it was tired of people being sat on it, and so wanted to stage a revolution. Of course, not everything was appreciated. Those who did, awarded me top class marks, while those under the mask of rigidity, tried to reason out with me…
Unconventional thinking, and unconventional writing is natural. Everyone has that. It’s just that convention kills it. And yet, convention is important. I cannot imagine live without convention. Imagine if some screws were to get tightened if you rotated them clockwise, while some others, anticlockwise. Or a lift that went down when you pressed up! Or a start button that read stop! Convention promotes assumption. Assumption often brings security. And kills lateral thinking.
With me, I can think in both modes, as if there was a switch. In my interview, I could start off in the lateral thinking mode, when required. But it feels quite unnatural. As if something is amiss. It should not be like that. But then, it is, and I might dare imagine, if life itself could reach the stage it has today, if it were not the way it is!
Anyway, this has significantly digressed from what I wanted to originally point out, which was basically all about the essays. And so, I shall leave it here…