By Manjori Sanyal
Hello and welcome to this wonderful event, a talk show, an Elocution where I get the whole stage to myself to talk to you about some of my very favourite topics. Today, it's going to be all about the role or impact education has on my personality, in my personal development. I will not tell you my name as I have figured over the years that it is not relevant anymore but I am a flower like any other which has been used over centuries in coronations, funerals, weddings, graduation ceremonies, house or office warming ceremonies – basically the meaning is ‘therapy and floral/leafy decoration’. So, now that the first step of introduction is out of the way from my end, it’s important to understand who the audience is. We’ll take a moment, or a lot longer to say our names out to ourselves and come up with a profound explanation to our own holistic existence of what our value is on this planet and at which instance are we willing to not be associated with a floral/leafy decoration? If I can guess the right answer, that’s when we’re learning. What I mean to then say is that’s when education is coming into our systems through the channel of therapy, counselling, consultancy or as plainly said, through a teacher, a prophet, a sage or a guru. It’s too obvious how simple this concept is. Our personality is as far as our name goes and its dignity in this universe.
It’s a lot easier now to answer the next question. It’s going to make you think that I have the sequence wrong because it has the word ‘first’ in it! When in doubt, you can’t reach out to me because you have a better answer to this in your own core and the meaning of you name and existence is going to frame up a unique answer to it.
The very first question then to ask is ‘Why is it important to develop personality?’ or an even more basic question: ‘what is good personality?’ In a lot of families and cultures across the world, kids are not allowed to be a part of discussions. Matters pertaining to financial allocations, purchase of property, and the schools selected for the children, the hospitals they should go to, the food to be cooked at home or even the person they’ll marry. Now one could think that why would a child be involved in such serious, big-people conversations and choices. Let me elaborate on just 2 of these. But you’ll get an idea on how I’m thinking.
Financial Allocations:
Wouldn’t it be great to tell your child how much you earn? For instance; let’s talk about me. I earn 10,000 a month. I volunteer at a nearby rural school and that’s the max they would pay me. I have no savings because I spent it all off. So, now I pay 3000 out of that 10000 to the Veggie Uncle who visits our apartment building every morning and is kind enough to bring our choice of vegetables and fruits to our doorstep whenever we need anything. And we do, very often. We don’t indulge in any daily payments but he does place a small handwritten note on how far we’re from the 3000. It could be negative or positive. He just tells us and we just pay him and eat healthy food! I sometimes pay him a little more, depending on who paid me more at the start of the month and sometimes later at the end. We don’t really follow many rules there at all. It’s a friendly association. The only provision is that the supplies are fresh and my son Kabir, 7 can pick up anything from the footpath he lays his make shift shop on. My kid also gets a freebee from Veggie Uncle every now and then. He gets to learn the names of the products in 2 to 3 languages and they talk a lot about a lot of other things. Kabir loves his van and new scooter, his pen and notepad, the huge plastic sheet that becomes a shade for when it’s raining or too hot in Mangalore.
Another 3500 goes to Mallika. She used to clean the house when my mum lived with us. Mum was on a wheelchair but was full of life. She used to sing, write poetry, stories and life experiences we had while travelling around the world. She never earned a dime. Never had a job offer or colleagues, but is more popular than a lot of people I know. She eventually got bored and wanted to shift back to the retirement village in Kolkata where she has a lot of friends. The reason she had even come to live with me was because dad passed away last year and she needed to detox from a life of 50 years with him and 6 months without. Mallika has been a good friend for too long and we just can’t let her go. She spends more than 500 from those 3500 on chocolates, bread, eggs, grated coconuts, hair ties, sometimes slippers and so much more every month. Again, Kabir and I have no idea what it costs to get any of these things and Mallika never really reduces the size of that sweet grin she has on, each time she brings something for us. She’s 2 years older to me and the best colleague I’ve ever had. It’s almost every day that she cooks something special for us and brings it for us to taste. She tells us about all the different events in the close by temples, market places and neighbourhood. Her younger daughter is a cancer survivor and a fashion designer looking to study facial makeup. Her husband is a brave fisherman who wades through the Arabian Ocean every other morning to sell his catch at the beach. He only recently returned from South Africa where he worked as an oil pump technician in one of the oil reserves. He does both his jobs because he’s passionate about them and now, has bought himself a van that he rents out to his friends for money. She spends a lot of time talking to Kabir in Kannada and Tulu about lots of things. He finds her very useful when he has to complain about me.
So 6500 - That’s our definite expenses. And there are a few other petty things, like his 3 monthly coding classes of 7000, 500 every class for our Classical Music class, weekly Shavarmas and Biryanis – For the rest his dad pays. And he’s not comfortable with sharing his expenses with us and I respect that. His name – means coronation. It is a very important and common Indian name but I am sure it is a meaning the whole planet understands! With this open communication about financial use, Kabir learns not just some calculations but also understands the relationships that have emerged out of a quasi-barter system in the name of business and money.
School Selection: When Kabir and I were in New Zealand, Wellington, we walked up to a few schools and spent a day or two in those schools. He played with the toys and books, spoke to the staff and teachers there and he was about 3 around that time. We had mini picnics under the trees in and around the schools. We took a lot of pictures too. After dark, when we got back home, we spoke about his visits and he was very happy to choose the closest one to our house. At 3 he was able to make a choice based on the comfort of getting in and out of the school over the reputation it held. It wasn’t a bad school at all. If it’s a school, it can’t be bad! And most importantly for me, Kabir was studying there. So it simply had to be the best school! There were a lot of gardens and flowers around him and none of them were plucked for any ceremony. The feeling of being alive and emerging to a natural change in form was not as painful to be pinched out and placed on the feet of another being or thing for just a day, or even worse just a photograph. But then again a photograph is what education does to people and they can treasures that moment of truth for ever. Sometimes I get eaten by an animal or pollinated by insects. It’s far more enriching to be a part of the animal faeces than to be thrown in with a self-styled, artificial ornaments made of pins, needles, bad plastic and shiny paper after a ceremony. And I guess that is because there’s a huge discussion on global warming. That’s another part of education and what we do with it. I think it’s all natural. It’s the beginning of a new kind of end. Not the end as in a sad finish where we all perish and Armageddon becomes a reality. It’s far more subtle really. It’s where the end is not given half as much importance. Education screams out in our text books for centuries that the world is round. We will not end. We’ll just keep rolling on and there’s no way we can get bored either. There’s just so much to learn, to imagine and become who ever we want to be. And it’s as simple as making a phone call to a 10 digit number from that tiny toy in our palms. Educations are not limited to classrooms and I will talk about that too, because it’s one more of my favourite topics.
That super imposing phrase, ‘Don’t talk when elders are talking’; have you heard it often? If you have then you have to work doubly hard to build that personality you are aiming for or the society expects from you. Because if you were told to respect the flow of thought of anyone else but you, that would mean to say, you have in some way decided for yourself that you’re not good enough. But, if those elders hadn’t shouted at you while they were talking about some life changing reality and looked at you with enthusiasm and hope – now, that’s the meaning of true coronation. No need flowers, music, arty stuff, dance, food or anything fancy associated with it after distribution of invitation cards - a smile would suffice. The role of education in building personalities would be as simple as that.
Thank goodness for my parent’s parenting skills - that was not the case at home. My da’d name converts into the name of the world’s most famous leader which also means that he has no idea what sorrow means and my mum; her name means ‘East’ – the direction in which as we all know the sun rises. The universe is stuck with the notion that the sun will rise and the moon too will rise. So ideally, the situation is that there’s no reason to panic or feel any sorrow. Being born to them makes it obvious that sorrow was only introduced to my sister and me from the other influencers. But because, our DNA didn’t recognize it and we knew only 1 skill, that’s how to be a catalyst of happiness, we eventually because teachers to kids. Why kids? Because they are the purest form of life! I got to talk, express myself through words, spoken, written, sang out when I needed to with my own lyrics, danced, performed or only shot out facial expressions and – basically excelled at body language over years of living and not practicing I It only is in my DNA to be expressive. I only got to know that there is such a restriction to speech when I went to high school or we were in common social gatherings that had elderly people talking - crap! Crap - because it had conversations that were metaphoric - into demons laughing at me with a body language that read, ‘tough luck kid, it’s hard enough to recognize all the demons in this same universe let alone trying to slay them, o take your so-called profound observation some-where-else and let me grow in gossip and negative conversations. That’s also what the role of education is in your community of nice people.’ It’s very easy to pull out a smile and let your clean, shiny teeth be a reflector and say, ‘I love challenges. And I promise you from right this same instance that explained time to all of us that I’ll continue to be the flower at your coronation. Never has the words of a therapist gone wrong. And that’s not ego talking. That’s equality singing out praises of self-love and awareness. The funny reality is Ying and Yang, they both have 1 thing in common and that’s - conscious.
The censor boards have age restricted contents and it’s working well for us now. Ever thought why though? It’s scary, but I’ve thought about it extensively and figured it out that, the reason is - a lot of us have gotten used to knowing that our views are not going to be heard, let alone being appreciated. We were so used to hearing the voices of those elders from the adjacent rooms, while studying and preparing ourselves to earn a living that we shut ourselves off. A lot of us respected our elders so much that we gave them the absolute authority to decide our goals in life without even consulting us. Now, many or most of those elders are either on their deathbed or have actually moved on to the other side. They had taken charge of our education. All we needed to do was build our personality!
So now, that leaves us thinking what our personality actual is like? We’re able to mould ourselves; we can smile when we’re actually broken on the inside; we long to hear those voices but still wished they had spoken on our behalf; we search for them in our kids and let them tell us what to do because we just love being told what to do. And that’s not essentially a bad thing if the suggestions are for our benefit and for the benefit of the wider society – the universe as we love to call it. After all, we did all that shutting down and moulding our conscious so that we can earn a living for our children. From the very beginning of life we were clearly explained that we needed to be successful – make money in other words and not to be happy or enjoy our lives - simply because we needed to cater to more people. That’s the role of education in our reality. The personalities that said it to us were so charismatic, that we believed them not just for us but for generations together. The matric of success could simply to be comfortable with ourselves – the only thing we’re born with – our body, mind and soul. It was always at aiming for something which was mercilessly out of our reach and then, it was about spending the rest of our lives at achieving that far-fetched goal.
So education definitely had a huge impact in our personality development.
Everything I’ve just said sounds rather very demotivating for a few and didn’t really put education is the brightest of lights. Maybe because, there’s a huge difference between educations as we know it and learning things; and most importantly how that is communicated. For example, learning when to push the pedal of the bicycle and lifting your feet off the ground is directly proportional to the size of your smile, but education makes that exact same thing into 2 science subjects called physics and biology. It then breaks it down even further till we can prove it through diagrams and formulas that the push of the muscle in the leg is what pushes the bicycle against gravity. I wonder why that’s important to do though. Why couldn’t we as kids simply learn through exams conducted in the playground? If it was about scrutinizing our spellings and handwriting, then we could have written what was in our minds, as stories, poems, articles and anything that was interesting enough that we would focus on making the best presentation. I’m glad that EdTech is now emerging as world leaders in the way we teach our next generation; reading, writing, coding, online method of study, letting kids play outside so that they build their socio-economic skills and resistance or immunity towards diseases. My seven year old son knows what bitcoins are because his friends both, random online people and real people he talks to discuss bitcoins. He’s absolutely sure that he wants to be a bus or an auto rickshaw driver when he grows up and as I understand, he may also want to be a bitcoin’s trader. In class though, he gets absolutely bored. Just like how I used to and a few of my client’s kids who are diagnosed as ADHD do too. All of us, we have/had a few things common. Our notebooks were filled with drawings – our textbooks were mainly huge paragraphs with little humour. We knew the topics of the class conducted way before school reopened. We read through those chapters, spoke to our folks about it, did our mental research and then waited for school to reopen only to listen to interesting debates that could happen. But that never happened. What happened was one person stood in the front of the class and dictated notes that we had to quickly write, neatly too with the correct spellings and then get the same thing checked by the same person who dictated it and then put some random numbers and said that we were worth those numbers. If they didn’t like those numbers, they informed the principal and our parents were invited to school, but nothing was amazing after that. There were heaps of complaints and there were demands negotiated about how they would choose better numbers to write on our books or pages. This went on for a few years and eventually I decided not to study. I had a boyfriend, who later became the father of Kabir, spoke about everything but study and when we did study it was so amazing. We could talk, laugh, giggle, put things in perspective and make fun of all those who looked extremely agitated when we didn’t do exactly what they wanted us to do. Today he runs an International Event Management company and I have learned to Master Businesses through Administration.
Funnily enough, after almost two decades of corporate experience, I’m now a full time teacher. I volunteer at a rural school where I am a counsellor so that excuses me from making my students memorize concepts and it gives me the liberty to talk to them as a buddy and understand their understanding of gravity, muscles, strength, the food they need to eat to push that pedal, the right time to go out and ride the bicycle, the amount of oil or lubrication the chin requires so touching base with physics, geography, biology, EVS, social science and language. There – Their emotional success is the highlight of my sessions with them. And the other part of my life goes towards being an EdTch trainer too who again does the same thing; impacts lives of students or parents who blindly now follow the norms but still want their children to excel at public speaking, speaking their hearts out and all that with a positive personality for kids living in Canada, America and Texas. Why did I say that I earn 10000? I haven’t specified the currency, that’s the role of education in my personality!
Let’s shift our focus towards the safety nets we have for our parents and children. Not so much for us because, growing up, we didn’t have so many protective gears. It makes us look like we’re walking the ramp or for a few of us, it’s merely claustrophobic. We were learning on the go. We saw too much, we were exposed to a lot of ideas, emotions and conversations with zero threat to our parent’s parenting style. Did that make us more confident and comfortable in any situation? Well, I would definitely think so. We built our confidence because we were pushed into situations that we weren’t ready for. For instance, the boy or girl who’s name started with A, always was the teacher’s favourite roll call number! I’m not saying that it wasn’t stressful. It was, and in all means it was! But, I think, we emerged as complete men, women, teams and friends! I believe that the equation has changed now. It’s yet to be determined if the newer generations are comfortable with their methods or are struggling to cope. I guess, time will tell.
There are always two sides of a situation and for me, up until now; it has been quiet a ride growing up. Yes, seriously! It has been. I'm all of 41 years old and still growing! Just today, I was talking to one of my clients. I am a counsellor; helping people getting in touch with their true selves, knowing simple ways of falling back in love with their names and finding that purpose to look forward to in life! In other words I’m evolving as a life coach, mentor and a professional who enjoys psychological dissections. So, as I was saying, I spoke to my client. And I’ll share with you one of the tips of finding peace that I learned over time. It’s not particularly a free tip. I have a hope that there’s a potential to earn 80000 by the end of your reading!
So here goes - We grow for as long as we have the growth mind-set. It’s what is promoted through several researches and studies that consider continual improvement and growth strategies to be the core of a successful lifestyle. I’ve tweaked it a bit and achieved enormous victory. When we interchange our words, our understanding and absorption of those concepts start becoming our DNA. We start evolving and that’s when success can be a pedestal that we can happily leave behind. Winning and awards, badges and certificates, even educational mementoes become nothing more than a handcrafted tiara that we can imbibe in ourselves. It’s relishing the journey and no longer having an eye out for the final destination. The target can simply be the feeling of research-orgasm! The euphoric jumbling up of bodily and mental exhaustion in finding answers and enabling our own selves in experiencing it first-hand! That’s what education would be proud off!
I learnt to walk but then, someone in school, or maybe my parents taught me to walk the talk. And that's what's welcomed me here today. Just knowing how to read words or copying text from another book or even the internet for that matter doesn't mean much, unless I'm able to understand what it really means. It's the actual use of the concepts in my life and in the lives of those I'm in connection with is what education essentially means.
I learned to read. The a aa e ees, the a, b, c's and the 1, 2 3's. But in all honestly what really has been memorable for me is how it was sung out to me. The sweetness in the voice of my teachers, the smiles they smiled, the way the only thing that mattered to them was the wonderful time they were having while watching my personality getting built. We all look forward to making this world a much better version of what it already is today.
Each and every day is a creative new beginning. Either it's the technology that sends people to outer space or the simple logic of relativity or TCP/IP I study in my books. It's the ever growing concern of global warming or the fact that trees are the main resources for carpenters building masterpieces. It's education that tells my friends, my family and me that new variants of covid19 has literally created havoc all over our planet and it's also education towards hygiene that tells me that prevention is better than cure. All I need to do is wash my hands and cover up as much as I can to avoid any infection. Or I become stronger than the variant that’s trying to demonize me!
So, then again, what is the meaning of ‘personal development’? Essentially that's my perspective over things. My personality isn't it?
It is education that builds us. Develops the way we conduct ourselves in front of others, in isolation, in our comfort zones or even when we're under pressure. The stories in our books, the events of history, the widespread love of education are the true curators of our existence. Today, there are an overflowing number of apps available for download on our smartphones. Most of the contents of the digital communication are to do with smart personalities, crisp conversations, quick calls and deliberate articles. The level of awareness and character is overwhelming. It's the Era where the Baby boomers have given way to the idealistic cult. The population is flooding with ideas and thoughts that are not just radically revolutionary but its newness is contagiously logical.
It's imperative to mention dignitaries here. Swami Vivekananda. He studied literature, converted himself to different religions to explore the world of spirituality, learned music, travelled the world and showcased his abilities built on the basis of education. And today, he stands out as one of the most admired personalities of the generation. Gandhi. Not a day goes without bringing up a discussion regarding him. A barrister by profession; and how casually he disrupted global businesses in a time when the obviousness wasn't appreciated. A personality groomed via education and to be remembered for another few hundred years if not a thousand. Shining people of the recent times - Kalpana Chawla - Space Traveller and scientist, R. K. Narayan - eminent writer, Satya Nadella - The CEO of Microsoft, Sunder Pichai - CEO Google. Indira Nooyi - Head of PepsiCo Global. Raj Subramayam from FedEx. The most recent sensation – Rishi Sunak. The list goes on to prove that perfect personalities, charisma and success stories are outcomes of fantastic and quality education.
Personality is developed when we look at the bigger picture, when we're able to take a step back and watch things from a holistic point of view. It's not in arguments that we win, it's not in becoming a prize winner to show that we won. It's in growing as a nation, growing in teams that make us come across as successful. The truest ever a matric of being a leader is to be accompanied by smart personalities of equal or higher intellect and emotional values. And that is governed by the Law of Attraction. We send vibes out to the universe every millisecond of our existence and in return we are recipients and transmitters of the same. The only thing we do have control over is the catalysts we wish to be at every coronation experience during those milliseconds or even smaller time durations, which eventually is the essence of the halo we adorn our brain with. The infamous Corona of the recent times!
It's taken me a few minutes to articulate the words beaming in my heart, my soul and my mind to bring to your notice that in each moment I'm learning something new. I maybe in school listening to my mentors or watching the little ones play; I could be doing a science project or participating in an inter-school competition; I could be even playing a game on the internet; mentoring my students; discussing concepts with their parents and my colleagues; spending my intimate moments of truth with my lover; watching my child exhibit beauty in his existence; appreciating my family, my parents and most importantly my sister. Her name translates into the feeling of calmness or numbness after being intoxicated by a fruit. Our parents are worth the admiration I feel for them in all those moments of coronation that I live by every single day. I don’t have an option but to become a better version of myself constantly. I'm constantly learning and my aura is positively impacting lives way beyond horizons. I'm humble but yet so proud of my personal development. That’s the role of education I have imparted over years and will continue to do so because I’m passionate and honestly, I don’t know more than that!
Today has been an absolute pleasure to able to stand up here and talk to you wonderful people about what I think is the driver of my cognitive development. I believe that if I continue with the same dedication, hard work and integrity towards my education, nothing can stop me from being that awesome person that even you would love to work with now or in future. The world is round and even if it was flat, we are connected in more ways than we can imagine.
Thank you so much for your time and your patience in listening to me today. It would be awesome to know your views and you can connect to this terrestrial being on https://www.linkedin.com/in/manjori-sanyal-0661712/
Please have a wonderful day/night ahead as I will most certainly do
By Manjori Sanyal
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