THE CLUTCHED GOLDEN BIRD

'The good thing about science is that it is true whether or not you believe in it.'

India, the incredible land of diversity, culture, tradition, values, heritage, which confines history and architecture, the narrator of folktales that stretch from one bend to another, also holds close its age-old stereotypes in the new millennium age of science and progress along with the gold of its ancient saga.

As I plugged in the washing machine to spin my uniform clean for the Annual Day, my mother came running while chanting unanimously and switched it off. I could not react for the next moment but my curiosity jumped in and asked if I was close to an electric shock but she said that I was sinning if I washed clothes on a Thursday.

Over the years, as I grew up in my household, these irrational beliefs became commands and facts than statements open to arguments.

Science, has evolved, and our country that houses such values has also provided home to scientists and technology experts as Kalpana Chawla, APJ Abdul Kalam, C V Raman among many.

Had Kalpana Chawla's mother pointed out that menstruating women don't ride up the space, could we still be as proud to call her the first Indian woman in space?

Stereotypes are a huge problem in our society. They label on how a person of a particular caste, sex, personality or race must behave. Discrimination roots out from stereotypes and gives birth to various problems in the spectrum of psychology, health and social involvement. The rituals, the labels, the prejudice, all of them combined put a lot of pressure on individuals to lead the 'ideal' life full of successes, that omits failures and looks down upon them.

Rural India is far from science and rationality and follows blindly the stereotypical thinking that has been passed on generation after generation without a question. Doom harbors on our villages as they are far from the global culture, changes and transformation and the sources of their lives continue to be ancestral knowledge and experience that they gain through their lives in the same surrounding. The power of knowledge and the fire of education if lit up in every house, these villages can become stations for the greatest of science discoveries and we shall tread upon the path of change as we aspire to see every chimney in rural India huffing rationality than prejudice.

The art of unlearning certain things at certain points in life is essential as we are growing and developing towards a positive, more scientific world that keenly reasons out every practice and every ritual. We can bring change and growth in these minds as we open them to the world of science, art and education and make them believe how important it is to question before we absorb, change before we criticize and understand the necessity of inculcating scientific thought in this world of constant advancement.

APJ Abdul Kalam had said," Science is a beautiful gift to human kind, we must not distort it." This journey might have begun from unreasonable practices but shall end as we all dwell in the pledge to educate each and every one towards a rich and dignified lifestyle away from ignorance.