We lack thinkers?????

Ah...after a long time. I am sure my blog friends will be really happy to see me again here and they will be more happy to know that I am planning to start two more blogs...one for Isha Vidhya and the other one is a dream of mine ...a blog for all the Indian scientists and technologists in Life Sciences to put their thoughts and visions about current issues and problems in a simple way so that it can reach a common man.....
Just to start with my second phase (???) I have to share a thing with the readers(ayyo...Raji they are just 5 or 6..why do you boast as if you have 1000s). Today I sent my blog link to my fiance Krishna. Have talked so much to him about many things, but was always hesitant to send my blog link. This is one place where I have always put my thoughts with no doubts of them being understood or accepted. :)..now all these posts written by me when I was in crazy moods, how will it be taken by him?...what will he think about my "me"...well whatever...here is my crazy world Krishna...come and explore this...
I wish I had started writing my blog when I was in Netherlands...then you all might have seen this innocent/naive...sweet little (?) Raji...whom I myself longing to see these days...gosh......I can hear Ramesh laughing...he knows me from my good old Dutch times...
Read an interview today by Mr.Nachiketh Mor of ICICI foundation (where these foundations go when we are struggling to start our schools or where their funds go?). He claimed that India lack thinkers in its institutions...:)
http://getahead.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/jul/14/slide-show-1-achievers-interview-with-nachiket-mor.htm
I remember some hot discussions I had with some of my friends on this same topic...especially what I had with Ramesh some 4 yrs ago...He said "India has great people or minds, but there are no great institutions to groom these people"...yes we can produce good Engineers, Doctors, teachers who are technically great..but intellectually not that great. Most of us were trained to keep the system running or for our own survival. Remember a quote in Tamil which says "just making people to think about their own survival, wife, children and home excluding rest of the world is also a conspiracy....:).We all are part of a great conspiracy..do I sound like an American president? :)Great minds have always been revealed to the world when they broke this conspiracy..often they were also disliked by their own people for this.
Like Bharathi was hated by his own Tamil society when he was alive and Vincent van Gogh was rejected by even the most liberal and vibrant Dutch system. Very few minds were fortunate enough to be accepted like Tagore, Gandhi, Vivekananada and few other people. But I also think that they were accepted mainly because they did not disturb the ego of the mainstream society or they were clever enough to stir it in a soothing but also powerful way. A Che would have never been accepted in India.

Reacting to Nachiketh's interview Vishwanath (Vish-anna), who is our academic head of Isha Vidhya reacted in the following way in his face book link

Cp Viswanath
In Indian tradition, the teacher did not have an income but all his needs were taken care of by society. However, the teacher occupied the highest pedestal, even above the kings. Today the teacher occupies no pedestal and teaching is among the lowest paid professions. Can we justifiably complain about the quality of teachers we get?

and my reply for that

Raji Kumaraswamy
Anna :)
I still believe that its the most noble job on the planet, giving a part of your knowledge to someone is not a joke..but are we recognizing it is the Q. First of all, the teacher himself/herself has to recognize it and has to have a clear understanding of why they are in that job. If the world around them are going to judge by the salary they earn and they themselves came only because they were failures in other areas then the recognition is not going to happen. I think in the ancient time, this awareness was there.
Sometimes the best services or jobs need not get the best pay, it needs the best recognition...sometimes the best life also need not be attained by someone with the best pay or earning. I have shared this many times with Isha Vidhya teachers personally when I talk to them and have envied them many times. My own involvement in the academic research took a different turn only after realizing this.Glad that I had this short break.
Affection, Raji