It’s high time you give us (Humanities’ students) due respect

Today, my cousin brought back some horrible old memories. No she wasn’t in it, it was about me, when I was in school. I was talking to her, my cousin in class eleven, on the phone, when she told me that she took science as her subject in school because there was ‘nothing’ she could do with Humanities. Moreover, people would think she was dumb!

This she blatantly said to someone who was a passionate humanities’ student in school, and now, in college as well-Me.

It’s a trivial thought, I know. But the ‘class-divide’ has been there since time immemorial. Things haven’t changed much, since i left school too.

But let me tell you there is NOTHING wrong in studying humanities. It’s a great stream and I have enjoyed myself studying it. It is much more ‘intellectually-stimulating’ and increases rationalising skills much more than any other stream. It also makes you more aware and gives you a broader outlook and perspective on things.

So if you want to advise your kids/siblings/cousins against it, think again.

And now I’ll leave you with something I had written when I was in the eleventh. This too, was out of frustration, due to all the flack I got for doing what I like best.

If you are one of those who holds the popular outlook that humanities students are sure-shot goners, read this. Hopefully this will change your outlook a little.

Humanities’ Students: We dare to be different

All my life I have been condemned to being a social reject and a useless retard merely for the fact that I loved my social science subjects! Well ok, so I am mathematically challenged! big deal! But there’s so much more that I can do which theverbally challenged mathematical geniuses cannot.

All that apart, I was driven by my love for everything that had the word ‘social’ in it, and yes, I did the unthinkable. Iactually opted for humanities in the eleventh. On my first day of class eleventh, I was ecstatic, knowing that I would no longer have to be a slave to books which could have been put to better use as gym weights and that my creative streak didn’t have to suffer an unnatural death. But there was much more to this..

Talk about happiness being short-lived, and there you have it. Little did I know that the murderer of my ecstasy was waiting for me in my own living room… my colony aunty-ji!

Has someone ever told you how some of the wild animals are the most formidable creatures on earth? Well you can give that ‘someone’ a reality check and introduce them to this particular species which will put the most ferocious man-eaters to shame! Yes, I’m talking about, none other than… the colony aunty-ji!

So… when I reached home I was greeted by this formidable creature… and before I knew it, it was too late to escape. And it all started… “my son got a 98% in 12^th and got into IIT. He left ‘2’ marks that’s why uske number kam aaye!” And there it was coming, the next question… I would have given her all my property and would have gone off to live a life of an ascetic if she wouldn’t have asked this next!… “Toh beta, what subject have you taken PCM, PCB, PCMB, PCMC, PCME or just commerce????”

Oh gosh!.. Where were the dinosaurs when you needed them the most? And then came my reply… I felt as though I was a fugitive being questioned for what crime I had done! “well… aunty… actually… I took humanities!” and bingo! The expression on her face said… ‘oh! My God, she’s a serial killer!!

After an agonizing 30 seconds of silence (which seemed more like 30 hours), she spoke, “kyun beta, what will you do with humanities?… how will you make your career? What will you do after 12^th? Aap ke liye toh saare darwaze bandh ho gaye (all your doors have been closed)!!”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Rather I was reluctant to argue for the fact that she would first bring me down to her level and then beat me with her ‘experience’!!

But I would like to put across the message, once and for all, to all the aunty-jis on this side of the Suez Canal… that ‘humanities students aren’t lesser beings!’ And that there is a life beyond being a ‘sciencee’!! And let me tell you… you need a large amount of those grey cells to score in humanities. Well, simply put, it’s easy to gobble up some formulas and vomit them out on paper replacing some of those unearthly symbols with numbers. But it takes a good amount of grey matter to analyze what the Harrapans were trying to convey by composing pictorial manuscripts. Basically, the difference between a sciencee and humanities’ student encountering unearthly symbols would be that a sciencee would mug it up and, like a machine, reproduce it on paper. But a humanities’ student would analyze what they mean and why were they made in the first place. And you obviously need a greater amount of verbal and analytical skills to be able to think that way. And I guess that was the main reason why we humanities’ students were termed ‘weird’… because we dare to be different… we don’t have set boundaries and we have the freedom to think beyond the formulas and the physics’ text book (which would be a weightlifter’s treat).

So all you aspiring humanities’ students out there go ahead and dare to dream. As a wise man once said, “No dream is small if you believe in it and give your best to make it come true.”