It has already been more than a decade since the dawn of the 21st century; science and technology have brought a dynamic revolution in almost all the facets of life. Through the crests and troughs of my not-so-long life, I have stumbled upon many machines of diverse kinds and stupefying variations. In this so-called cyberpunk era, where it is quite hard to differentiate between fact and fiction, the machine considered to be the most ground-breaking is probably the computer. But this computer has now evolved into a much more sophisticated form, commonly called a robot.

In my country Pakistan, astonishingly there is no deficiency of robots. These robots are fairly different from other robots. The funny thing is that they have 100 percent human DNA. These bio-robots grasp education by attending schools, colleges and above all, academies. The robots I am chattering about are in fact the students. Some of these robots are my class-fellows.

I am not being rude in any way to give them the grand title of “robots” as they deem “memorization” to be the golden key to go through exams, get good marks (I confess some of them do get brilliant marks) and achieve academic degrees. It seems as if this memorization virus has penetrated into the blood of the students of these days, as if a mosquito has really bitten them, attempting to enjoy their sweet blood. All they need is an anti-memorization or “anti-ratta” vaccine, but do we have it? No, not yet!

It is really a pity that these students do not comprehend the “joy of understanding”, which is the essence and keystone of education. As a matter of fact, it is the aftermath of our defective education system. I am not a part of any “Zara Sochiye”-like initiative. Then, one may ask, “Why am I being a mockingbird on this issue?” It is because I have tasted the perks of the true education along with sweet syrup of joy of understanding.

When it comes to me, I do not classify myself as a robot. Rather I fall in the category of cyborgs (half-humans and half-robots). I used to be a normal human some years ago. Just to survive through this traditional system of education, I had to give up my desire of being normal, and ultimately became a cyborg. My cyborg mind comes halfway between humans and robots. It can memorize but not with as much knack as those bio-robotic minds. Unlike those minds of robots, mine can do much creative stuff. And that’s the sheer reason I prefer being a cyborg to being a robot.

There are other cyborgs like me. Some people are lucky enough to retain their human self and get education in my country. But most of the institutions are flooded or rather jam-packed with the aforementioned robots. To become a progressive nation in today’s world, this detrimental situation needs to be alleviated at the first priority. There are volunteers out there working with their utmost efforts to bring a change. My sincere salute goes to all of them and I pray that our next generations may not have to face these problems as there may be a constructive revolution in education very soon.