10 classes of the modern world

Why doesn't the American government want  its citizens to go to college? Please someone answer this question for me.

Ninad and I had been to visit Oxford a few months back. Ninad was smitten. We had stayed in London with my friend Dr Ephia Yasmin who is a gynaecologist specialising in infertility and she had prepared the most wonderful itinerary for us, as meticulously as her preparation of her cases for In Vitro Fertilisation. The last audit in her hospital had revealed a success rate of over 90% in her patients. Which is actually almost miraculous in IVF.

My sister Jumi had to move to Houston about 4 months back as her husband had got a job posting there. Houston is all about Texas which is all about NASA. Texas also has a large number of world class educational institutes and therefore when my son said he wants to do aeronautical engineering and join NASA, I thought why not Texas. I am a firm believer in the power of dreams.

Only some dreams are so expensive that, well, in our society which claims to be classless, but has actually become a globally uniform class system based on the economic strength of the individual, people of my social class have to tell our sleeping and conscious minds the impracticality of some dreams.

You don't think there is a class system? If you can afford such and such amount of money you can travel first class and get served in nice china cutlery and use the loo in the front of the plane. You have wider seats, which become beds and you can sleep during journeys. You get limousines for airport transfer and a special buffet  in the first class waiting lounge.

If you can afford only second class, you sit in smaller seats, called economy class. You squeeze past your neighbour sitting on the aisle seat and any seat in between you and the aisle to go to the loo. If you are on the aisle seat, you keep being requested to excuse people and pull in your legs or get up from your seat depending on how large you/the person wanting to get past is.

Then you have economic classes that can travel in their own private jets, classes that can afford travel in AC coaches in trains, a class that can only travel 2nd class by train. A class that can afford to travel only on public city buses, a class that save money by not travelling even on city buses, a class that travels by  bicycles, a class that cannot afford even bicycles.

A class that does not travel at all, that sits and sleeps on the same pavements 24 x 7, begging for coins and food. And you thought the Indian Varna system divided society. In an Assamese village, one will find the class system still being followed. A Brahmin will not marry a Kshatriya. But they will socialize, the poorest and lowest social class will sit with the richest and highest social class on the same bench at a wedding feast and be served the same food, and all social classes have a roof over their heads and get to eat at least 2 square meals a day.

Can't say that about the urban globalized world of today with at least 10 social classes I have outlined above. And I have digressed. Ninad took one look at my blog page and told me that my blogs are too long and who would therefore read them? I have digressed once again.

College education in the USA is soooo expensive, based on my internet searches for Ninad, that I have deep suspicions that the American government wants a country of high school graduates with no further education. Whatever the reasons might be. I do not want to risk a controversy at this stage by speculating on the reasons.