A School For So-Called Fools

Varsity it was of rare renown, Of wards well-grounded, never kept down, Where wordy nerdy wise Seldom would win a prize, Commoners strive where to wear top crown. ______________________________________________________ Daddarpada Vishva Vidyalaya, Chitradurga, in Karnataka, India. Leading the team here is a man who calls himself ‘dumbest of them all', but he is a pillar of folk music. He never got past class one in school. A school dropout, he wandered around the State exploring abundant folk practices and travelled as many as 29,343 villages, and gave 12,508 stage shows, sharing the rich traditions of folklore. The five year course at the university has less theory and more practical lessons covering some 64 disciplines. Why such a university? The present system of education, he feels, is aimed at filling the stomach, and not the soul. The course content centres on these five tenets: - shrama, i.e., labour, efforts - krama, order, sequence, priority - pari-shrama, perseverance - parākrama, valour, and - vikrama, victory. ______________________________________________________ Happenings |09.07.14|