In India the DIFFERENCE between buying a Weighing-machine and being weighed at some govt school or hospital

This is one of those rare posts whose titles don't give you enough idea on what's going on inside my mind. To tell you the truth I've never been to any hardware store to buy a weighing machine, though I've some experience of being weighed at school. To speak of being weighed at school, I must say all those who attend govt schools ( all of which provide educational services free of cost except for KVs ) are not that lucky enough to stand on a weighing machine as most of the schools don't have one. In fact in this post I'm going to tell you something on such a school which doesn't possess a weighing machine.

In the city of Bhadrak, amongst its many old buildings and many new ones, there do exist some gray patches of thatch lying here and there in an irregular pattern. One of the biggest gray patches lies just opposite to our location, it's a tribal colony with huts of low mud walls, earthen floors and thinly thatched roofs. Almost all of its occupants are labourers who work on daily wages and the remaining are low level labour contractors. This colony is, as far as I know, kinda a forbidden area for us, children of higher castes and higher earnings. So I, as no exception, have never been to its deep insides. Still I'm sure of the fact that there's just one old broken down tube well, one desi-liquor shop, two paan shops, one small grocery store and ONE SCHOOL within that elongated gray patch. Well, a broken down tube well doesn't matter much as all occupants of that colony, from children to old men, drink liquor and not water. And I don't exactly know but I suspect, under some section of the Right to Education act it has been stated that the distance between two nearby govt schools must not exceed the length of hundred yards.

To make this post more interesting the concerned school functions in the ground floor of the same building whose first floor is the office of Inspector of Schools of our district. And that concerned building lies on the invisible line that separates the tribal colony from several blocks of pink buildings of the same design, these are quarters for govt employees. Some of my readers from developed countries may wonder how a school can function within just one floor of a building !! But that's our Indian standards. We believe in minimalism unlike you people. We believe in minimalism in every known field including education. In fact, this is the state of govt schools only. When anyone important from your nations visits ours, our politicians don't show them govt schools where common poor children go. They, instead, lead them to private expensive schools, where their children go; to schools which provide educational services of international standards rather than eggs and rice for mid day meals, clothes that would identify the poor from the rich and free text books with umpteen printing mistakes.

I don't know what do they teach and learn at that school or whom do they teach. But I am certain of just two facts. One, I saw one of my neighbors (indeed a fat one) bring a weighing machine home yesterday. And two, a small girl was working with the laborers at our very own building site.

As right to education act states it, that girl must have been a student of that concerned school, provided that she lives in that tribal colony and that the teachers of that school and the inspector are not ruddy hells of moronic nutters. If she is not a student of that school, then I won't wonder, that's certainly normal here.The government may open a school in every ten yards and provide Hyderabad's famous biriyani for lunch, still they won't get expected numbers of students for a school as long as their parents are not getting enough money to spend at the liquor shop. In fact there are loads of parents who are educated enough and not drunkards and earn fair amounts of money to spend for their children's futures, but they also have a shortcoming. they think themselves to be too wise. They don't bother sending their children to public schools run by the govt, instead they choose to buy so called knowledge from venders who open private schools, private residential colleges and private engineering and medical colleges. They indeed keep trying to buy their children's futures from the very beginnings. So the govt schools remain only for children of poor parents who spend 90% of their daily earnings in drinking liquor.

If she is a student of that concerned school, what was she doing at a building site at 11am on the last working day of the school before summer vacation ?? I know the teachers don't have the answer, but I have. That girl's mother was working at our site, but the night that preceded yesterday she was beaten black and blue by her husband for she earned more than him. ( blame me, who suggested my dad to give those labourers extra wages for working in sun while we usually remain comfortably at home ). And then he drank to his wife's health spending almost all of her earnings that day. Hence the daughter had to come to work instead of her mother.

I know the school masters are asked regularly to prepare reports on their pupils' health(as my mom's a teacher herself, I know it well ) which certainly includes the weights of students. I hope the school master must have guessed the weight of that girl to be 42 kgs and reported to the Inspector of Schools (as there's no weighing machine at that school; where would they keep a weighing machine when the school of five classes runs in just three rooms of a building). But I know, out of that 42 kgs only 22 is the weight of her own flesh and bones. Rest 20 kgs were weights of sand and cement provided by us, of eggs and meals that the govt had provided to be given to her (which i am not sure whether she has got or the school master has eaten them up ; that, indeed, is the job of the Inspector of the Schools who resides just above the school rooms.) and of the burden of a family of drunkards ( I never bothered to ask her if she drinks or not; why should I? I am a man from a richer family and a higher caste...) that lies on her shoulders.

This is an abrupt end, I won't write beyond this. I won't bother to think, I won't analyse, I won't speak out. For I live on this side of the road and she on that. There lies the high way, that separates the place of our dwellings, the lands clad in concrete, the place of fat men  from the place of their dwellings, lands clad in small earthen huts, place of people who get themselves weighed at schools with no weighing machines in possessions. I belong to this side of the highway where lives my neighbor, who will be using that weighing machine of his to calculate the amount of pounds he will be losing in gyms or by jugging... and they belong to that side of the high way where live people who don't need to know how to loose weight or how to reach the gym.  Well, here I give you the title of this post ,

"The difference between buying a weighing machine and being weighed at a govt school is nothing but just eight metres which is the width of anormal high way in India..."
{ on the other side of the road}