Long live our education system.

There’s a lot of difference between reading a novel and an article in Economic Times. “What’s the similarity?” You might ask- I don’t know, but there are lots of differences. I can turn the pages of a novel really fast and impress the chick opposite, if any that is, and still not feel guilty of pretending. If the novel happens to be a Sidney Sheldon, your job only becomes easy- you know the story already!

I was confronted with jargons like “equity market”, “VAT”, “Capital returns” and I found it guilty to assume meanings -Equity sounds like Kitty, so it must be a market that sells pussies, cats I mean. VAT is it VAT 69? Does that ring bells with you?

I therefore called my friend, a commerce graduate, to clear my doubts. The following is what he had to say.

“Equity is like a hmmm…sort of you know what I mean, it’s a kind of a ..And
hey can I call you later? Someone is at the door.”

..And someone said this for VAT –

“VAT helps the government a lot. It has been implemented in a lot of
countries world wide. It helps avoid black money.”

That’s the sort of reply you expect out of a politician, not from a student of economics!
Having successfully tarnished them, what would I say if a plebeian wanted to know what a microprocessor is?

“It’s a kind of electronic device which helps us to do a lot of stuff in your
computer. its made up of lots of electronic circuits.. hey are you free this
evening? Let’s play cricket.”

Isn’t it a case of the pot calling the kettle black? Long live our education system.