Hitler and Homework

Two stories from India - one about smart folks setting up to help kids and the other about the abysmally stupid. The stupid one first.

Granted that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and that perceptions of history and world events often vary across geographical boundaries.  For example,  the names of Fidel Castro, Yassir Arafat, Ho Chi Minh and Karl Marx don't quite bear the same negative connotation in many parts of the world as they do in the west, especially the US.  Countries which have themselves struggled for freedom from colonialism or feudal exploitation tend to sympathize with nationalistic movements in other parts of the world - even bloody ones.  But Hitler? Leaving aside racist neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, can any one still harbor a fond (and in this case, appetizing) image of Hitler in this day and age?  After all we have learnt in the sixty plus years since WW II?   Apparently yes.  Utter ignorance too can lead to the resurrection and rehabilitation of Hitler - at least as the symbol of an upscale eatery  in Mumbai, India!   

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Mumbai: Hitler is back. This time in Navi Mumbai. However, he's not building gas chambers but dishing out gastronomical delights. And of course, it's controversial.Stomach this! Hitler is "apparently" cool these days. Well, that's at least what the owner of a restaurant thought when he named his new eatery Hitlers' Cross.

"It's just that we wanted to give a different name. We wanted a good campaign. That's the main reason. Nothing else," Managing Director, Hitlers' Cross, Puneet Sabhlok said.

Billboards, balloons, lamppost kiosks, there's a mark of Hitler everywhere around Khargarh in Navi Mumbai, where the restaurant is situated.  Hitler may have ordered thousands to death but that isn't stopping people from visiting the restaurant.

"The name has a very negative impact because Hitler reminds you of a gas chamber. But, then, I thought, let me try what's this all about," a patron, Vaishali Shreedhar said.

However, Khargarh's Jewish community is appalled.  "I don't think anybody will eat at that restaurant. Because the word Hitler disturbs us," Sect. of the Bethel Synagogue, Joseph Massin said.

Feathers have been ruffled but regarding people’s emotions being hurt, the proprietor of the restaurant said, "I haven't thought about that."

Hmm... didn't think he did. What a dolt! The customers thronging the restaurant are not exactly of the enlightened variety either.  See a story here about the nature of the clientele and sponsors of the "Restaurant of Bad Taste".  (Link via Sepia Mutiny)

The next story describes an ambitious plan for the remote tutoring of US school kids in rural areas - from halfway across the world in India.  A Bangalore based company, Tutor Vista plans to fill in the gap left by the US education system. Hopefully, they will be able to get  Bill Gates' foundation and local phone and cable companies to pitch in. Good intentions alone will not get this venture off its launching pad. It needs high speed internet.

"One problem with the No Child Left Behind Act is that 80% of the kids entitled to after-school tutoring--at taxpayers' expense--aren't getting it, according to a new government report, and some rural districts offer no tutoring at all. But extra help is on the way. And like a lot of customer service these days, it comes with a distinctly Indian accent. The Bangalore-based TutorVista, which last fall began providing online tutoring to U.S. students in everything from grammar to geometry, last week announced it will provide a year of free tutoring to kids in the 10 poorest rural counties in the U.S.

That means all students in, say, Texas' Zavala County or South Dakota's Ziebach County can get first-rate help--which ordinarily would cost $20 an hour--regardless of whether their school is performing poorly enough to be on the NCLB's watch list. (The only catch for kids in impoverished, remote areas: they must have access to a high-speed modem.) TutorVista chairman Krishnan Ganesh dismisses critics who lament the further siphoning of jobs overseas. "There is plenty of work to go around," he says. "The American educational system is pathetic."

   

Comments

[PIAW]

I am glad you blogged about this restaurant. Gives me an opportunity to express my revulsion about it. It's bad enough that the restaurant owner fliply suggests that it is no more than a marketing ploy. But, it is worse that people are patronizing the restaurant just to check it out.

As a Hindu I feel chilled to the bone. I cannot even imagine how minorities in Kharghar and elsewhere must feel. What a low point for the concept of India as a progressive inclusive society.

I cannot help thinking that the incuriosity and lack of historical perspective is exactly what you get when you have an educational system with a single-minded focus on grades/marks - and on math/science to the near-exclusion of everything else.

So, it is an ironic juxtaposition that the second part of your blog entry talks about attempts to export tutoring services from India.

I don't think America or the world can afford that model of education. To make Americans more incurious would be disastrous for America and for the world.

[Sujatha]

Sanity prevails, or should I say that since the restaurant owner has gotten the publicity he wanted, he is relieved to backtrack from his faux pas!

[Henna]

There was also a comment from one of the celebrity promotors of the restaurant. He said something to the effect of: “I am not really agitated as I have not read much about the man (Hitler). However, from what I know about Hitler, I find this name rather amusing.”

Maybe he didn't know a LOT about him but he must have heard of the Holocaust! Which means that nothing about the name is amusing!

What absolute ignorance.