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My Friend Sancho
My first book, My Friend Sancho, was published in May 2009, and went on to become the biggest selling debut novel released that year in India. It is a contemporary love story set in Mumbai, and had earlier been longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008. To learn more about the book, click here.
If you're interested, do join the Facebook group for My Friend Sancho
Click here for more about my publisher, Hachette India.
My posts on India Uncut about My Friend Sancho can be found here.
Recent entries
So it’s about 10.45pm, and we’re headed in a tourist taxi to Siena Village, a resort a few kilometres…
I don’t know why, but I find this kind of funny. And what’s with the quote marks in that…
Jonah Lehrer writes in Wired: Here’s a brain teaser: Your task is to move a single line so that…
So while everyone’s celebrating the arrival of Akhilesh Yadav and how he’s revitalised the Samajwadi Party and UP Politics,…
... is done. The next time India walk out to play a Test match, my favourite sportsman of all…
05 September, 2007
Schools And Comparative Advantage
Niranjan Rajadhyaksha writes about his daughter:
Saawani usually does extremely well in her school exams, and so it has also been this year—but with one significant exception. Till now, her school put her through an art exam, but the marks she got were never counted in the final tally. The rule has now been changed. And her poor drawing abilities are pulling down her overall tally. But what has really worried her is a remark by her art teacher that the school will not promote students who have failed the art exam.
The problem we have is this: Should we ask her to stop focusing on the subjects that she very transparently loves and is good at, and ask her to take outside tuition in art, or should we tell her to keep concentrating on what she is good at? Should education build on a child’s strengths or should it try to minimize her weaknesses?
This, to my mind, is where the principles of economics come in. Like countries and companies, should schoolchildren focus on their comparative advantage or not?
Read the full piece, it’s quite wonderful. It also explains why “each of us is likely to remember at least one person who did not do well in school, but later shone in life.”
Posted by Amit Varma in
