Noel Manuel
The talents that lie within us are phenomenal and waiting to be explored. Like the gold digger, who does not know the precise location of the gold, we too do not know the exact area where are our talents can be put to use. Irrespective of our education or illiteracy, it is there, within each of us and the more time we put into discovering it, the better we learn what our talents are best suited for.
Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take. But by the moments you spend, digging for your talents that take your breath away.
It is no surprise that many of us spend our time focusing on what our education can actually fetch us in life. And because most our lives evolve so much in the dingy rooms of our schools and colleges, we lack the breath to discover the talents that we are gifted with.
Parents and educators today are afraid to take the risk of advising children to spend time discovering talents. Because talents after all, do not necessarily guarantee a secured future. But then, does education really do? There are millions of educated unemployed people around the world and equally desperate to make a breakthrough in the profession that they had dedicated themselves to, years ago.
If education is important, so are talents and in the present day scenario, parents and educators need to balance the importance between education and talents in order to give our youth the option of securing their future.
Multi National Companies better known as MNC’s have come to understand the importance of talents and due acknowledgement is being given to the breed that possesses them. The call Centre craze that had latched onto the younger generation a decade ago is now flooded with people from all walks of life and particularly those with talents. Education has taken a backseat and talent in the form of excellent communication skills is above all else, at least in call centers.
Our education system needs to go beyond the realms of a certificate course and positions or ranks also need to be enthused when we are judged in the proficiency of our talents in a particular area of activity.
Except for political talent, our country lacks in all other areas of aptitude. Be it sports, music, arts, etc. there is a dearth of talent and India’s participation at international events reflects the true picture of the scarcity of this precious gold.
The exploration of talents are very much part of the educational system and until we create infrastructures and rope in trained explorers of this precious gold, our education system will hardly go beyond certificate courses.
Take for instance our youth, who spend almost a decade trying to master the tricks of numbers or crack the codes in mathematics and finally end up in a call center where proficiency and talent in the English language is the order of the day. Excess manpower for a particular subject has popularized it like never before and no or inefficient manpower for a subject that dominates the global arena is ignored.
This situation is more or less like comparing coal and gold. Both are extracted in the same manner and are equally important. We can do without none. But when given the option to choose between the better of the two. Gold is naturally the more superior chemical element than the black mineral.
We need to seriously regulate our educational courses to the demands of the industry that offers the maximum job opportunities. And until we emerge quickly from the bottles of our traditional methodology of studying to secure government jobs alone, we are destined to face an employment catastrophe.
Considering how over the years precious talent is being lost or even ignored, one can’t help but ask if our country actually lacks the will to revamp the educational system where talents can be nurtured alongside academics to enable our parents and educators realize and discover the rich deposits of gold that lie in the dingy rooms of our schools and colleges.
In our very own state, there are good number of youth, who are unemployed and the saddest part is that most of them are educated. The other day I had the opportunity to interact with a student who completed his masters a couple of years ago and mind you his talent in music is exceptional. His repeated efforts to get through various state examinations for a government service have been futile, but his spirits are high on his talents and he has been able to eke out a living from it.
Talents have three forms of expression. You need not necessarily only focus on the physical aspects of life to express talent. They could come either in the form of mental expressions or natural expressions.
Vishwanathan Anand is an example of mental talent and his off and on standing as world number one is indication of just how precious this personality of gold has become for the country.
Similarly, Bhaichung Bhutia has exemplified the importance of talent in its physical form and the golden boot discovered from the hills of Sikkim has become an icon for young football aspirants.
Shiv Khera, a renowned speaker, reveals the form of natural talent when he mesmerizes people through his speeches in books such as ‘You can win,’ ‘freedom is not free’ and ‘living with honour.’
Talent, as my teacher had once told me, is the form of discovering your mental, physical or natural ability and making it known to the world every time you choose to exploit it.
It may be hard to believe, but true that a majority of our youth fail to encounter their own talents throughout their lifetime. There are still others who are made to sacrifice their talents because of financial, social and personal problems. And there is that section at the mercy of parents and educators, who are forced to believe that pursuit of talent is a waste of time, energy and money.
Some of the most successful people in the world today, and I am confident, are those that chose to discover their talents. And whether we choose to believe it or not, the future belongs to those parents and educators, who dare to discover any of the three forms of expression of talents within our youth.
noelmanuel@rediffmail.com
The writer is the Bureau Chief (Nagaland) of Eastern Panorama (News Magazine of the Northeast), Coordinator of the Northeast Region (Poetry Society of India) and Life Member of the Poetry Society of India, Phonetics Trainer.
