When I first heard that I’d be visiting one of India’s top-ranked universities with my class for our annual science trip, I couldn’t help the shivers of excitement that travelled up my spine. Three days of restaurant food, jumpy bus rides and no math class?
Count me in!
Believe it or not, though, Chinese dumplings for lunch everyday wasn’t the only thing I was hyped up for. Apart from good food, I was really looking forward to attending some of the Physics lectures and getting a taste of what it’d be like to live a life dedicated to figuring out the resistivity of a platinum-coated piece of iron… or whatever it is that scientists spend their time thinking about.
Turns out, I had plenty of opportunity to stand back in complete awe of the marvels of modern science, but I also ended up learning a few, more unexpected lessons along the way…
Our first morning on campus, all twenty seven of us trooped over to the aeronautical department for a couple of hours of demos and tutorials. My mind was blown approximately every 31.4 seconds and it was hard not to get excited at every single station. There were so many things to see and the kids who showed us around addressed our questions without once smirking (given our sizeable ignorance, that must’ve been quite a task, I’m sure).
Before we knew it, our teachers informed us that we only had time for a quick stop at the head of the department’s office before rushing off for lunch, and I still remember the rising admiration that swelled in the pit of my stomach as we trotted down two flights of stairs to meet him, this crazy important man with this crazy enormous department to overlook, his mind probably too busy contemplating modern science’s big questions to worry about the petty things that the rest of us mortals are so caught up in.
But I stand corrected.
The man we met that afternoon wasn’t the suave scientist I’d concocted in my head. Instead of trying to explain anything of relevance to us, he launched straight into what seemed like a well-rehearsed spiel detailing the reasons why the most important thing for us to ensure as citizens of tomorrow was that India trumped the USA in terms of GDP.
And that was it.
There was no talk of the need for responsible scientific innovation or the environmental consequences of our current pace of development. He didn’t even try to push in some self-promo and talk about all the activities the university was involved in.
Apparently even asking for THAT would’ve been expecting too much.
No, our man decided to ignore all that stuff and jump straight into informing us that we had only one purpose to fulfil as we grew up and that was to beat big, bad America, whatever it took.
Sorry “ did he forget to mention how? His bad. We absolutely HAD to smash the US, he was sure about that, but only in terms of GDP, nothing more, nothing less.
He tried to impress upon us the dazzling importance of this great task by throwing around a whole bunch of figures and statistics but honestly? Nobody was buying it.
Not only had we repeatedly studied why a booming GDP is hardly a decent measure of a country’s progress, the idea that so-called “development” at the any cost is no longer sustainable was something we were all painfully aware of.
When we asked questions and argued that there were other ways to view development, not only did he shoot these opinions down completely, this adult scientist with a mindset built for the 60’s stood there and -wait for it- laughed. Straight up tilted his head back and let out a series of wheezy guffaws that stunned us into a shocked silence; we weren’t used to arguments taking this route, that’s for sure, but Mr Bigshot Scientist just continued talking like he didn’t notice our wrinkled noses.
Now, I’m sure you’re wondering where I’m going with this and I just want to say that the point of this write-up is not to mow down the things he said or bring anyone under fire. It’s not to put anyone down or tell you the benefits of ecologically sound practices.
No, the whole reason I wrote this is to share the biggest lesson I learned that entire trip, which is that people with power can be terrible misguided, too.
I can imagine how Mr Scientist’s large, booming voice and impressive title might make it seem like he’s got it all figured out, like his word is practically the law, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Despite his macho stance and condescending tone, it didn’t take a genius to sniff out the feeble base upon which his monologue was built.
At the end of the day, the things he said had very little substance, and all the power in the world can’t make up for that.
So I ask you, dear reader, to question. To be curious and attentive and think through things on your own. It’s tempting to throw up your hands and go with what everyone else is preaching, but that, more often than not, is a recipe for complete disaster.
Just ask the twenty seven of us.
Trusha Ganesh
Rishi Valley, AP
