IMAGINATION ADDICTS

KODAIKANAL: MARCH 5
I sit in on a class of final year students discussing manipulation of thought through maps, photography and metaphor. Am I prejudiced in finding the girls intellectually more mature?
The class finishes and I stay on at a table with three students. Teenagers tend to be wary of revealing themselves. They find safety in number. A full class and I might be able to provoke a general discourse – even an argument. Three is too few – though I try with the question I posed throughout Hispanic America. Why do so few students intend entering Public Service?
These three answer me rather than speak to each other.
S1 (f): The pay is too low.
S2 (f): It's modern Indian society - everyone for themselves.
S3 (m) has no opinion. He wants to be a sports journalist.
Or Politics?
S1: It's impossible to stay clean.
End of subject.
Do they spend much time in their imagination?
S3 (m) imagines doing things – driving a fast car, scoring a goal.
S1 (f) fears that she day dreams too much, that it effects her grades.
I want to ask, not what she dreams, but why she dreams. Is she seeking shelter and from what?
From whom she thinks she is?
Or from what is expected of her?
Or from what she expects?
I don't have the right and S2 is talking now of a lonely childhood in which her only companions were imaginary - as they became my addiction both as a child and as a writer of fiction. So to Goa...

SCHOOL

KODAIKANAL: MARCH 5
The International School is coeducational. 60 % of the 571 students are Indian nationals, 121 are from other Asian countries, 58 North American, 41 from Europe, 7 African, a lone New Zealander and a lone Omani. The curriculum melds the US Public school syllabus with the International Baccalaureate. 100% progress to University, not a bad record...And the school has 14 music teachers. In earlier days Kodai produced diplomats, administrators and academics. The modern trend is towards entrepreneurs and CEOs. For further information check the Web.
My own opinion? A joyful and stimulating path to adulthood...