Education in India is a costly affair. Not that it is cheaper outside, but the booming education market in India has started to become a new headache for the largely proportionate middle class of the country. As I write this, a group of students in Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences are protesting against the apparent hike in semester as well as the hostel fees. Again, just a few days back when the whole issue of ‘Anti-national’ JNU broke the nation, a group of media intellects focused on the ‘subsidised education’ and the contribution of students to the nation. The larger point here being, education and expenses on education are things which go hand in hand, parallel. Use whatever adjectives you want to, but if education is an investment. The more you invest, better are the chances of your child getting a high yielding job. But like stock market, there are also chances that you might drop it all. Higher education in India, particularly technical educa...

7:30 am: The school ground is nearly empty. Few juniors walking and chatting amongst themselves as school buses arrive with a bunch of hooligan students, shouting and screaming.   7:45 am: The ground now is no longer empty; seniors have their groups made, teasing and making fun of each other. Juniors remain scared of the language monitors, of getting caught for not speaking English inside the school vicinity.   7:50 am: The microphone is brought out from the principle room by a staff boy, who is respected by all of us in equivalence to the teachers.   7:55 am: The first bell rings and all groups disperse to form parallel lines in a sequence, Class 1 A, 1B, 1C, Class 2A, 2B, 2C and so on till 10C. The longitudinal lines of each class would have girls first, shortest to tallest followed by boys in the similar sequence. Late comers would join at the end of the line along side uniform defaulters, right next to the teachers so as they could not run uncaught. ...