A man has been granted by God different means to know, to understand, to judge. Eyes are there to see and perceive; ears are there to hear and catch; the mind is there to store the knowledge and to use it when needed; reason is granted to judge and act thoughts get aroused translate them into action. All these are processes with which the ‘rational animal’ as man is has been endowed.
Acquiring knowledge through all the above noted means is the privilege and prerogative of a human being. The more knowledge one acquires the more enlightened doe’s one become.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Those who fail to use their God-given means; their physical and mental gadgets — to the full, remain far behind in the race of knowledge. Hence it is that it is being said that ‘Knowledge is power’. Possessing only physical strength but lacking in mental health, man would still be in the animal stage.
Education, therefore, is one factor, which is constantly being emphasised upon in the modern world. Now the means to acquire knowledge and to educate ourselves have also far advanced and now none can take the pretext of saying that he wants but he does not get.
Image Source: careerminer.infomine.com
That, perhaps, was the situation, once upon a time but now it is not. Education now has become a continuing process and it is not only the classroom which can provide the means of all knowledge, all education. The world outside has also much to say, much to tell, much to educate.
Wordsworth, the great poet of nature had said in one of his poems —
ADVERTISEMENTS:
One impulse from the vernal wood
May teach you more of man
Of moral evil and of good
Than all the sages can.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The poet has said it about nature and nature in all its glory can be found if we set our foot out to tour the places of natural beauty Only in our own country what no teacher of geography can teach, which no book can provide, what no Atlas can so vividly present to us is what can be known and felt by us if we go touring the places of natural beauty.
Let these places be up in the Himalayas, the Kashmir valley, the Gulmarg 2730 meter high-offering fine skiing slopes and excellent nurseries on the slopes. If the teacher teaching you Botany is there accompanying you, he can help you to personally locate the varieties of plants and herbs from these nursery slopes.
What your geography teacher had once told you about the snow-covered peaks of Himalayas, you are there face to face with them. Going to Gangotri and Jamunotri you would know how and from where descend down the twin sacred rivers.
The valley of flowers would be a treat to the eye and a knowledge which you are getting first hand is what no classroom teaching can teach. The sky high pines and devdars; the variety of landscapes, the beautiful sunrise in Darjeeling, the vast waters of the Brahmaputra, the verderous beauty of the Nilgiris and the greenery and scenic beauty of Kerala — all these educate you to know our vast country at close range.
You are led to ponder and think how God, the Creator, has given so much treasure to mankind. We begin to philosophize and feel mesmerized. No sages can teach you all this —this is what Wordsworth means to say.
Then the fresco paintings of Ajanta and Ellora caves, much might have been told to you in the history class about them but you could never have imagined that they would be so beautiful even after having been there for hundreds of years; the sacred Buddhist centres as Kushinagar, Lumbini, Shravasti, Sarnath, Gaya — the guides there would teach you more and you would learn more about Buddhism and all about Lord Buddha.
The resplendent Taj of Agra, the Fatehpur Sikri, the Red Fort or the Pink city of Jaipur, the Amer Fort; the Jaisalmer Fort, the beautiful lake palace at Udaipur, the Haldighati — where Maharana Pratap, the great hero fought valiantly against Akbar — an on the spot-study would tell you more than any book of history can tell.
During your tour you can visit the Victoria memorial at Kolkata and know a lot about men who mattered during the British Rule, you can visit the Shantiniketan — the dream University set up by Rabindra Nath Tagore.
Down south Hyderabad offers the Salarjung museum, the rarest of rare collection of artefacts, the Nizam Vll’s personal museum; still further down the Meenakshi Temple — a symbol of art and architecture. The Fort William at Chenfiai, the first British built fort; The Vivekanand Rock at Kanya Kumari where stands the life size statue of Swami Vivekanand who became India’s Vedantic ambassador to the West.
There is no lack of knowledge that you would learn from your tours, history, geography, culture, religious, nature’s beauty in all its glory—the ancient, the medieval and the modern India — all presented live to you.
Then if you can visit the numerous dams — the Bhakhra Nangal in Punjab, the Gandak and the Rihand Dams in Uttar Pradesh, theTehri Dam in U.P which has generated so much of ecological and rehabilitation controversy. You can meet people there and know their problems at first hand and assess for yourself what the controversy is all about.
Further on travelling to Bihar you would come across the Kosi Dam Project, the pamodar Valley Project and the Mayurakshi Dam project of West Bengal, the Hirakud Dam in Orissa, the Nagarjuna Sagar Project in Andhra Pradesh, the Tungabhadra Project in Karnataka and the project to tame the most capricious River Sarvati near Mysore — the dream project of the great Engineer and planner, Dr. Visheshwarayya.
Bombay, now called Mumbai is itself a place worth visiting during your tour and interested in Dam Projects, if you are, the Koyna Projects, Konya is a tributary river of Krishna and the project on it has been constructed near Satara District of Maharashtra and then the most controversial Dam Project of Gujarat — the Sardar Sarovar Project which has generated great and widespread protests from those who would be displaced while granting space to this project.
Your round of visiting the country and seeing the Dam Projects would get completed with the Chambal Projects in Rajasthan.
On visiting these projects while on one hand you would get first hand knowledge of what major irrigational and power generation tasks these projects are performing, on the other hand you would also be able to assess what tremendous development our country has made after independence.
Pandit Nehru used to describe these Dam Projects as our new places of pilgrimage —Teerth Sthals — of modern India and those they really are. While our other places of pilgrimage provide us with a religious, cultural and devotional aura of our ancient country, these projects give us the picture of the emerging modern India. Without visiting the sites you can hardly know their enormity in size and in Potential.
The Golden Temple at Amritsar, the beautifully designed churches of Goa; the chain of pilgrims visiting Vaishno Devi in Jammu; the Dargah at Ajmer and at Fatehpur Sikri; the Vishwanath Temple at Varanasi, the Kali temple in Kari Bari Kolkata; the Jagannath Temple at Puri, the Meenakshi Temple in South, the Rameshwaram Temple down south — all these give you so much knowledge how our country has an eternal Unity in Diversity and caters for all faiths and all religions — the truly ‘Secular’ concept about which you might have heard so much said or read so much written.
But seeing would believe and it would all enlarge your vision of life and enlighten your intelligence. If this is not education what else it is — education means enlightenment and broadening of the vision.
Tourism only in our own country, for the present would give you all that true education stands for.