The Defense of Liberal Arts

I was watching The King's Speech the other day, (brilliant movie btw, C.Firth is delishh!) and there is this bit where Firth's character, who has a speech impediment, has to recite a Shakespearean verse to his speech therapist, Geoffery Rush. The verse happened to be the eponymous verse from Hamlet, the one that everyone and their uncle claim to understand - To be or Not to be. At first glance, it seems a random verse but in the context of the movie, where Firth's character, George the sixth, is struggling to come to terms with his own existence as as a stammering, public speaking royal, the verse is extremely significant. It was an odd coincidence but it reminded me of the time I studied Hamlet in school whilst battling my own existential quandry. At that time, when I read the verse, I remember thinking that if there was someone more uncertain about things than Hamlet, it was me.

I shone all through school because of the diversity of the subjects we were studying. I loved that the specificity of science was balanced by the abstract hindsight of History. So through school, from standard 1 to standard 10, you could say I was thoroughly intrigued. So in standard 11 and 12 when I had to make a choice of what I wanted to concentrate in - whether Science, Commerce or Arts, I couldn't decide what I wanted to do simply because I had no measure of what I excelled in and what I didn't. I was sort of an all rounder and as everyone knows, there's nothing worse than the fate of an all rounder.

I chose to concentrate in Science simply because it had an aura of sagacity to it. Also, it seemed like the most logical thing to do because I grew up in an extremely scientific household. No-brainer it seemed. Unfortunately though, all my friends got separated into the other sections. You see, they had a much better idea of what their strengths were and appropriately chose to play to their strengths. A most excellent strategy, if I may so comment. So while I learned the irrefutability of science, they learned to glean insights from abstract prose. While I learned the rules of calculus, they were debating the importance of the UN in the modern era. I always felt short changed when I hung out with them. Their learning seemed to evolve with them while mine was fixed and centered around the rules of the universe.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my courses. Learning about the building blocks of the universe and the rules that govern them is a wondrous thing in itself, but I rued the fact that there was no room for debate or discourse. E was always going to be equal to MC^2 and that certainty sucked. so I hung out with them - the wannabe poets, the budding political analysts, the specious economists and was awash in their glow. I remember lying out in glorious sunshine, on the lawn outside a 150 year old building where our classroom was, and listening to my best friend recite "The Lady of Shalott" I comprehended for the first time what unrequited love must feel like thanks to Lord Tennyson. It made me wonder. It put me in another's shoe. I sat in on classes when they read poetry which introduced me to poets such as Phillip Larkin, D H Lawrence, Tennyson, and ofcourse T S Eliot. I remember being in agony when I found out that I had missed out on a poetry class where they spent 3 class hours decoding "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" I had read it and re read it, and each time, I came off gleaning something new, something abstract. I argued politics with them, we discussed the middle east peace process and took sides on which country had the most functioning democracy.

These discourses ripped open my certain world in science. There was no right or wrong but you learned to form an opinion or an insight. I was learning to make up my mind and defend them instead of having certainties handed down to me. I learned more about life outside the class and slowly started getting disenchanted with my own studies. I got caught up in an existential crisis that behooved a teenager - what did I want in life - certainty of logic or the uncertainty of the abstract? to be or not to be? I couldn't agree with Hamlet more.

When I look back on what made the most impression on me in those years, it was the Arts. Poetry, literature and political science.I don't remember now what a benzene ring looks like or how the carbon molecule concatenated, but I do know that the arts taught me to appreciate the philosophy and absurdity of life. It gave me the liberal outlook I still possess and transformed me as a person. From a world of black and white, I embraced the grey. I couldn't have asked for a greater gift from my education.

So not to sound preachy, but I think its time the Arts got its due in the Indian Educational system. We are a society that produces way too many engineers and not enough poets.