Academic success

The HSC results are here and the excitement and anxiety of this period has urged me to write this post.

Indians worship academic success. Competitiveness is a desirable aspect of a populous country as India but the over-emphasis on academic success somehow irks me. You have to be a 'First class' to be respected and Non-engineers were of course pitiable creatures, unless they were Chartered Accountants (first attempt). For students there is no time as traumatic as the ensuing weeks. The 'results' are to be declared. And it could make or break your reputation and your family's.

I remember a family who lived next door to my aunt in Trichy. The son did not score the 95-odd percent that was expected of him (his father was an acclaimed Maths professor and considered by many as a genius) and the whole family mourned it for weeks. They felt so ashamed that they stayed indoors and it was said the mother cried inconsolably for days. Passers-by would drop in and share their sympathies with the aggrieved family. The boy didn't score centum even in Maths, they would gossip, must be God's punishment for some sin. What a heinous crime they must have committed to deserve such a punishment. And it was not like he failed, he just didn't score 95%.

When my own results were due, I was terrified (inspite of the brave facade I put) that I would bring great shame upon my family if I did not get at least respectable marks (what exactly is respectable I leave to the readers).

Living in an apartment complex, there were many inquisitive (read nosey) maamis and maamas whose main job was to know everything and share their infinite wisdom with all and sundry. Even before the results were out, there were gossips circulating that my poor marks were due to some of my vices (which I am not going to share with my readership). By the grace of the Almighty I didn't have to live through that nightmare. (Later gossip wondered how inspite of all my vices I managed to fare well in the exams).

Grace of Almighty and power of prayer - surely. Went to the temple everyday, chanted all the shlokas I knew, learnt a few more and did Ramayana Parayanam, etc. etc. (walked around Vadapalani Murugan so many times that I could consider it a substitute for gymming). My parents did more - prayer and fasting. And so did my uncles, aunts, first cousins, second cousins twice removed, friends, neighbours, our vegetable vendor (Kaai Kaari) and maid servant. Power of prayer, indeed.

Still, I did not get into any of the 'premier' institutes and that immensely pleased the nosey maama maamis and fuelled their speculation. Again, what is premier, I leave it to my readers.

Much is to be said of these maama-maamis. For instance, their memory. They were walking-talking databases in the period after the results are declared. They knew everyone's total (on 1200), MPC, TNPCEE cut-off, ranking, what colleges they have chance in given the trend from previous years and in which department (Electronics and Computer science being hot cakes). They will dazzle you with statistics from the last 5 years. In fact most mothers of my fellow-students were like that. Thankfully for me, my parents did not join this notorious breed of number-crunchers.

Which finally brings me to the point - the prevailing perception that you are pretty much useless unless you are from the premier institutes puts enormous pressure on our children. While academic success needs to be lauded and encouraged - failure is not necessarily the end of the world and this needs to be emphasised/imprinted in the psyche of our student and more importantly the parent community.