Are You The Same Person?

Among the many popular stage plays in Sanskrit language, Mrichchhakatika occupies a pride of place. This play by poet Sudraka, written nearly 1800 years ago, is a 10-Act Drama that has been translated to many languages. It is translated into English under the title "The Little Clay Cart" at least twice by two different westren scholars. It is said to have been staged many times in Europe and America as well. Its French adaptation under the name "Le Chariot d'enfant" generated a lot of interest in the west about Indian stage productions. An earlier version of the same theme by name "Daridra Charudatta" is said to be written by the celebrated poet Bhasa.

The central characters in this play are a rich courtesan (Nagaravadhu) Vasanta Sena and a noble poor person by name Charudatta. The story is set in the Ujjain town of the present Madhya Pradesh in Central India. Samsthanaka or Shakaara, Aditi (wife of Charudatta), Maitreya and others form the supporting characters in the play. The story revolves around the love affair between Vasanta Sena and Charudatta and the villany of Shakaara, brother-in-law of the king, who is chasing Vasanta Sena. 

Mrichhakatika has fascinated the film industry as well. One of the earliest films ever made was on this topic. A Kannada silent film was made on this theme as early as 1931. A film by name "Utsav" was made by Shashi Kapoor as producer with Girish Karnad as Director, in the year 1984. The leading actors were Rekha and Shekhar Suman as Vasanta Sena and Charudatta respectively, and Anuradha Patel as Charudatta's wife Aditi. The role of Shakaara was reserved for Amitabh Bachan, but was ultimately done by Shashi Kapoor himself due to inability on account of an injury suffered by Amitabh Bachan while shooting another film. Shankar Nag, Amjad Khan, Anupam Kher, Neena Gupta, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and others also acted in the film. 

The film Utsav is known for many side attractions. Music provided by Laxmikant-Pyarelal was quite popular. There was a rare duet song "Mann Kyon Behka" sung by the Lata Mangeshkar - Asha Bhosle sisters, and pictured on Vasanta Sena (Rekha) and Aditi (Anuradha Patel). This song was an effort to show that there was no ill-will between Charudatta's wife and Vasanta Sena. Another song "Mere Man Baje Mridang" sung by Anuradha Paudwal got her the "Best Female Playback Singer Award" in 1985. There was also a song sung by Suresh Wadkar as well. The film met with limited commercial success but was a notable contribution to art cinema. 

There is a hilarious scene in Act 5 of the play,  Mrichhakatika. A messenger comes to inform the arrival of Vasanta Sena to be communicated to Charudatta. He meets Maitreya, a friend of Charudatta and gives out the message as a riddle. He asks two questions the answers to which lead to unraveling the name of Vasanta Sena. Each time Maitreya gives a wrong answer. When the messenger says the answers are wrong, Maitreya goes to Charudatta and finds the correct answer and relays the same to the messenger. The first question asked is "What is the season in which mango trees flower"? Answer given is "Summer" which is later corrected as "Vasanta", meaning "Spring". The second question is "What is it that protects a City?". Answer given is "Roads", which is later corrected as "Sena", meaning "Army".

The messenger asks Maitreya to club the two words to find the name of the person who is arriving. Maitreya replies "Sena Vasanta", putting the second word first. The messenger asks him to change the order of the words. After a funny interlude finally the name "Vasanta Sena" is found out by Maitreya. The scene is very comical and provides relief to the viewer between the more serious parts of the play that are enacted on the stage.

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Airline companies generally allow online checkin before 24 hours from the time of departure of the flight. This process helps prevent crowding at the airline counters at the airport, thus reducing work for the airline just before departure of the flight as well as being convenient for the travellers. Those with only hand baggage are benefited most and even those with baggage can just drop off the luggage before proceeding to security checks. The travellers can print their own boarding passes from either the comfort of their homes or hotel rooms. Boarding passes can also be printed at the kiosks provided at the airport lounges. Technology has rendered the whole process swift, painless and cost-effective.

The same process is also used for international travel with a small difference. Some countries require verification of visa requirements before a traveller is allowed to board a flight to their country. In such cases, the traveler is required to upload his/her passport and visa details on the airline website well before the online checkin process starts. The information so uploaded is relayed to the concerned country's computer systems which check correctness of the details of the traveller and clear online checkin. Airline companies do not allow a passenger without such clearance to board the aircraft. This system is helpful in preventing travellers without proper Visa or designated travel documents from landing at the airport of the destination country and further complications in handling such cases when the traveller has already reached their doors. "Prevention is better than cure", is the logic for such practices.

A surprise awaited me when I tried to checkin last week on a British Airways flight from Bangalore to London with onward connection to USA. When logged into the system just after the window for online checkin opened, the system refused allotment of a seat for reason that the details of the passenger uploaded were not acceptable and required clearance by the destination country. Further efforts indicated that the details provided were correct but yet clearance was not possible! The advice was to contact the consulate that issued the Visa for assistance. All efforts to resolve the issues with the Consulate did not yield any result as such cases cannot be resolved over telephonic intervention. Enquiries with the travel agent who booked the ticket suggested going to the airport a bit early on the day of travel and sorting out the issue there with the airline.

This is not at all a comfortable situation when a long journey to another country is undertaken and especially when other members of the party on the same ticket are cleared for travel. Frantic efforts to contact the customer service support of the airline brought out various reasons for such a situation to develop. Some of them could have been:

• Details of the Visa and Passport do not match as the Visa is pasted on an earlier passport. Airline websites provide for only one passport details to be uploaded and not of all earlier passports. Visa issued on an earlier passport is a very common occurrence especially when 10-year Visas are issued to travellers.
• There may be a small spelling mistake in the names on the ticket and travel documents.
• A space between names in ticket is either omitted or added, thus creating a difference between the ticketed passenger details and travel documents.
• A random checking for detailed physical scrutiny of travel documents for some passengers required before boarding.
• A temporary bar placed on travel of some persons despite issue of travel documents.

There was no other alternative but to go the airport for sorting out the issue and hope for the best! 

When the ticket and travel documents were produced at the counter at the airport, the young executive smiled at me and asked how the ticket was booked. Before answering the question she shot another question: "Are you the same person?". I mentioned that the problem could be because the visa was available in the old passport which was also produced there. She mentioned that she cannot accept the explanation as the person described in the ticket and the travel documents are not the same. It took  a few moments for me to understand the problem.

The problem was the same as was confronted by Maitreya in Mrucchakatika. The names were reversed. Just as Vasanta Sena had become Sena Vasanta, Keshava Murthy Pattabhi Ramaiah had become Pattabhi Ramaiah Keshava Murthy. In other words, instead of me my father was was booked as the passenger as the first name had become the surname and surname had become the first name! But the travel documents was in my name. While feeding the data into the system, the agent had reversed the names.

The executive repeated that she cannot accept me as the passenger booked for the flight. Looking at my bewildered face, she advised me to wait for sometime till the necessary changes were made and clearance was obtained. Luckily, her efforts to seek change and get clearance were answered in the next 15 minutes. Journey was cleared, seats allotted and boarding passes issued. The suspense of 20 hours finally ended favourably.

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What is the learning from this episode? First one is that a copy of travel document should be kept handy while feeding data on the computer systems for booking. Taking names and other details over phone may result in such anomalies. Secondly, a through check of the details in the ticket with the documents is to be done on receipt of the documents. Thirdly, those believing in the strength of prayers to smoothen things while traveling should add an additional prayer while booking and undertaking international travel!

Cumulative Comprehensive Education (CCE)?

A very interesting item of news is buried in the vast volumes of print and net news during the last two days. 66,00,000 (6.6 million) students took the Uttar Pradesh Board Examinations (UP Board) for standard 10 and 12 this year. The examinations started on February 6, 2018. There are some dropouts or absentees in every examination and the number is usually less than one to two percent. By third day of this examination, more than 6,00,000 students had dropped out, making it 10 percent of dropouts. On the fourth day, the number went up to more than 10,00,000 (one million), making it more than 15%. The highest absentee rate recorded in UP itself earlier was 6%. Thus the past records was far exceeded this year.

The numbers themselves may not tell the real tale. The Board introduced many new measures this year to curb unfair practices during conduct of examination. Eduction mafia found that mass copying was tough going indeed, this year. Installation of CCTV cameras, rounds by special squads, and even inspections by the state's Deputy Chief Minister who holds the Education portfolio were among the measures to prevent mass copying and impersonation. These measures made the task of complicity by invigilators impossible. Reports indicate that the absentees were mostly those from other states who would enrol at schools in UP not for study but for having been assured of a pass in the examination! Many of them never attended classes in the school. Impersonation was one of the methods adopted for ensuring a pass in the examination. This became impossible due to installation of CCTV cameras. Sure success was no longer that sure now.

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Those in the touch with education field lament about the drop in the level of education over the last several decades. A BA (Honours) degree from Madras University was considered as something special six or seven decades ago. A B.Tech or ME degree was a pride possession three decades ago. Mushrooming of educational institutions, colleges providing assured degrees, drop in invigilation and evaluation standards and introduction of multi-choice questions have all contributed their mite to drag down the standards of education. Questions that have answers in them (MCQs) were a novelty when introduced, but diluted the necessity of hard work for securing marks in the examinations. Their introduction was with the arguments that examinations were memory tests rather than testing knowledge and skills earlier. The joke today is that a student cannot answer a question asking his name unless he is given four options!

Cumulative Comprehensive Education (CCE) or sometimes referred as Continuous Comprehensive Education is now used by organisations like CBSE and State Education Boards all over the country. CCE aims at helping improve a student's performance by identifying his/her learning difficulties at regular intervals of time right from the beginning of the academic period and thereby employ suitable remedial measures for enhancing learning performance. The scheme of CCE has continuous inbuilt flexibility for schools to plans as per guidelines provided in the scheme. Formative and Summative Assessment methods are used for awarding marks and grades to students. Generally two tests before mid-term examination and two tests between mid-term and final examination are held and marks obtained in them with prescribed weightage are added to mid-term and end-term examinations.

At the outset, this method of Formative Assessment (FA) and Summative Assessment (SA) looks a good combination indeed. This method provides for continuous evaluation of a student and does justice to a student who has a bad day on the final examination day. One of the elements of CCE is recognising and encouraging specific abilities of students who do not do well in academics but do well in other co-curricular activities. Thus a student will get marks for attending classes regularly, behaving well with other students and taking part in non-academic activities even though he may lag behind in academic work. Though the objective is laudable, its impact on academic standards cannot be underestimated. A child getting more interested in music and dance than academic work will also get due weightage in the overall education evaluation. This also calls for maintenance of exhaustive records by the teachers, thereby increasing their desk work. This is one of the complaints of teachers in this system.

Cumulative assessment has another interesting feature. The system of formative assessment and weightage given to extra-curricular activities ensures that students accumulate the required marks for passing even before the final examination, thus reducing the final act as a mere formality for many of them. If memory test was the weakling in the earlier system, this methodology is a major deficiency in the cumulative assessment system. Lack of requisite skills in preparation of quality question papers and their regular leakage add to the problem of conducting worthy examinations.  

The effect of such evaluation is now returning to haunt the system in the form of difficulties in selection of teachers for the next generation. Someone who passed out of the system by getting the benefit of such evaluation has now the responsibility of teaching his students in academics while he himself did not excel in academics when he was a student. The teacher training system also suffers from teacher trainers, who are products of such evaluation standards. Persons sitting on interview boards for selection of teachers struggle to select one out of those appearing in the selection process since they are unable to find a candidate meeting the required standards. They are often confronted with candidates who are unable to demonstrate handling of a class suggested by the interviewing committee. The committee has to perforce judge them on the basis of a demonstration suggested by the candidates themselves!  

Educational institutions are also under pressure to show higher result levels to enable them to compete in the market for intake of students in the next academic year. Strict evaluation means lower pass percentages and lower popularity among the community. Easier way out is rehearsing "important questions" repeatedly before examinations. Excessive and unnecessary reliance on "student feedback" on evaluation of teachers tends to further complicate issues. Provision of grace marks lowers the bar and brings down the overall academic standards even more.

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The academic standards are fast dipping. It is generally said that each generation blames the next one for lowering standards of life in various disciplines. Even after providing for this criticism, the standards of academics is indeed dipping. We are producing graduates in various disciplines who are falling short of the expected levels. Many of them are unemployable in their respective areas of academic degrees. A lot of effort is put at the top level for opening more educational institutions of excellence. Various shades of politics in academic institutions is gathering more and more strength. Administrators are under severe pressure from various quarters. There are many challenging issues confronting those assigned with the task of strengthening academic standards. The tendency of those in authority not recognising these challenges has confounded the problem.

In this background, it is time now to make a comprehensive review of the CCE, both in its content and implementation.