I happen to be in the somewhat unusual situation of having one child in public school and the other in a private establishment. The September sticker shock of the private school fees is expected, of course, but this year I had the painful experience of shelling out big bucks for the my daughter’s uniforms, a complicated array of inner and outerwear that will take a computer algorithm to figure out.

While standing at the checkout line at the uniform shop, the absurdity of the whole thing struck me. Not that I object to uniforms. As a former student from India, I am very comfortable with the idea. What strikes me as illogical is that, really, it is the child who is going to the public school who should be wearing a uniform.

After all, one of the primary objectives of having all the children dress alike is to eliminate the differences and imbue the kids with a school spirit. Even in an Indian ghetto like Ardenwood, where I live, there is a fair amount of racial, ethnic and economic diversity. And perhaps the most troubling to the mother of a daughter, there is also cultural diversity, with a pretty wide variety in necklines and hemlines.

On the other hand, in the private school, there is a staggering level of homogeneity in both the economic and cultural situation of the students. Left to themselves, peer pressure and strong parental involvement would probably drive them all to a fairly similar, well dressed look and the uniform seems like overkill. As I see it, in a private school, the purpose of the uniform is to make an elite system further a sense of distinction in an already privileged class.

Why public schools don’t mandate uniforms is beyond me. One of the most common reasons given is that of the potential cost, but as any parent can tell you, by the time you pick up the latest low-waist jeans and the high-top sneakers, you are as much out of pocket as the snob in the multi-million dollar home across the street. Keeping the uniforms simple would also keep the costs down.

Another criticism is that the uniforms impinge on the child’s individuality and infringe on his/her rights. This is a laugh, considering the whole purpose of school is to create a herd mentality. Just insisting that the children dress alike is hardly going to make a significant difference. In fact, it might be easier to impart the values of cooperation and team spirit, two values to which a lot of lip service is paid in the classrooms.

At a time when the public school system in the US is going through such upheaval and introspection, I would really recommend a good hard look at introducing uniforms universally. I know it would take the guesswork out of the whole back-to-school shopping experience. If it has the added benefit of making all the boys look neat and the girls look like nuns I, for one, will be thrilled!

The following is a cautionary tale for those of you who take their scriptures and their religious tomes a little too literally.  Even for such a well known epic as the Ramayana, there is the Valmiki version, the Kamban version and of course the saccharine Tulsidas version. Behind all those stories is probably a kernel of truth – a story of a banished king who fought a villainous emperor somewhere in India. That kernel has been woven into legend by centuries of storytellers, each embellishing it in his own style and with his own little touches.

This is my 11 year-old’s Sonic the Hedgehog-laced version. I caught him telling his 5 year-old sister the story of Vali and Sugriva. Except, of course, the characters were Bokkun( a black character from Sonic-X) and Baby( a monkey character from  Super Monkey Ball). Our heroes were SonicRama and Foxmana, on their way to rescue Seetamy.

“After Seetamy was kidnapped by Dr. Bad Boon, SonicRama and Foxmana came upon a small group of robot monkeys and their king Baby. He was once the king of all the robot monkeys but he was overthrown by his brother Bokkun. Baby said that he would help SonicRama rescue Seetamy if SonicRama helped him take back his kingdom. . SonicRama asked Baby,”Why do you want to fight your own brother?” Baby replied,” Bokkun took away my kingdom and became king himself. He took away my wife and children as well.”

So Baby challenged Bokkun to a swordfight.  SonicRama was supposed to hide and shoot Bokkun with an arrow.But as Baby was walking to the place where the sword fight was supposed to be, he stumbled through some blackberry bushes and became as black as Bokkun. So SonicRama couldn’t figure out which one was Baby and which one was Bokkun. The fight was a draw.

The next time SonicRama told Baby to stumble through a bunch of raspberry bushes instead. So this time Baby became red. SonicRama fixed a special arrow in his bow. He shot Bokkun. Bokkun didn’t die, instead he started to tap dance.  He groaned, “How embarrassing” and tapdanced all the way to Mobotropolis where he was thrown in jail. He spent the rest of his life in jail – tapdancing.”

It is good to know that our tradition of oral storytelling still survives. The only way that tradition can continue is if we allow our stories to evolve with us. Instead of treating our epics as recorded history why not just take the lessons that they teach, lessons which have not lost their relevance with the years? In fact the versions  surviving today may well reflect the culture in which they survive and the morals of their times.

And who knows, maybe someday SonicRama will take his rightful place in the pantheon of gods.:)