Sunday, May 22, 2016

Board Results and the noose

It’s that time of the year, no no don’t get any ideas, I am not talking about spring or the birds or the bees or any romance. It’s when the board results are declared and every minute that is the count down to the release is like a count down to death. Some start doing path, prayers to the Almighty aka like me, some start eating copious amounts to deal with the stress of the results being declared. It’s been a crazy one-week. I just went from being a normal human being who smiled, cracked jokes to this irritable quiet version of me; it was as if the hardware inside of me had malfunctioned. This behavior where I was quiet, wasn’t pinging everyone, all and sundry and just being the gregarious me, had everyone worried. I had friends calling asking where I had disappeared and why I wasn’t chatting.
The insane pressure the society puts on us, about the marks and how much you and your child scored is as if they are less than normal one should go commit suicide in the chullu bhar paani!
The trolls that have hit the virtual world are all true , every far off relative , every aunt , uncle, starts to worry about how much your child has scored and what he or she is going to do . Actually, I should not be feeling bad, if the party in Delhi didn’t spare the PM           and worry about his name, his degree and how much he scored why his name was written completely, or whether it was computerized list, who am I so why should I worry. Successively, over the years we have started judging children, the parents over the results they achieve. We, overlook the child, his innocence, and his potential. In fact, in our forties now I don’t think we even remember how much we scored in our twelfth, we don’t even bother now. How is that we start judging them on the basis of percentage scored and they become a statistic? Today, four have committed suicide, till the end of the week we don’t know how many. Some get reported, some don’t. It s the Indian hall of shame. We don’t talk about this, we just shove it under the family carpet and we have this composed face because what will Mrs. Sharma Ji, Mrs. Singh of the kitty say?
Today, in the weekly conversations the PM has with the country, he mentioned about one young boy from MP, who in spite of scoring an 89.33% wanted four marks to score a perfect 90 which would make his family happy.
What are we driving ourselves to? A society of perfect individuals, robotic, driven to perfection with no time for play or innocence. When did this change become? Why are marks a measure of your child, his smile, his worth? Or are we so self-driven by degrees, translate into money, social status and all sorts of material possessions as a mark of success!
And, then the irony when we turn them into these cold, lacking human values driven by mammon they face stress and try to re –discover the power of stress free life, yoga, and the wisdom of ancient texts.

Today, I am a normal mother contended with what my son scored, supported by brilliant friends who told me it doesn’t matter what he scores, but that he is a good human being g. I’m afraid, that doesn’t translate into admission into the college that just look at the magical number. What is the future of our children, how do you expect them to escape the cynicism of failure, mediocrity, of being average, of not attaining it?
Don’t look for answers from the man in the moon, or from the green men from Mars. It all lies with in us collectively.

Ps: any tips to get the hair to be not so whiter than white that I put the politicians to shame?

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