Indian Education System: The bad Dad of India! And Chitrahaar

Have you read it, probably yes or no? But have one more bite!

Moral of the Story: “Kapil Sibal has created a storm in a tea cup by suggesting that there could be a higher watermark of performance in Class XII for students aspiring to enter the hallowed portals of IIT.”

See K Vaidya Nathan’s action:

Bites of Two Folks at IIT!!

• "Me: Hi, congrats on cracking IIT JEE big time.
• Roomy: Thanks! Wasn’t such a big deal.
• Me: I am curious why you say so. If I had your rank I would be shouting from the rooftop of my house to anybody who would care to hear.
• Roomy: Well, it’s not such a big deal because I have been programmed to perform well over the years.
• Me: I am not sure I understand your ‘programmed to perform’ thing.
• Roomy: See, while my classmates wasted their time watching stupid cricket, enjoying stupid Hindi movies and playing stupid games, I never did any of those stupid things.
• Me: Let me confess that I have done all the things that you call stupid. I have watched a lot of one-day and test match cricket. I have also ‘wasted’ time playing cricket apart from other games. Though I haven’t seen tonnes of movies in theatres, I surely have watched most of the movies that came on DD. In fact, I have watched countless Chitrahaars as well.
• Roomy: What’s Chitrahaar?
• Me: Skip it. You still haven’t answered the ‘programmed to perform’ part.
• Roomy: Oh yeah! While others used to stupidly while away their time, I used to attend memory enhancement classes, speed reading classes, vedic mathematics, etc apart from programming classes like BASIC, FORTRAN, etc. So you could say I was programmed to perform.
• Me: No wonder you made it to computer science and I am in a lowly electronics and electrical engineering department.
• Roomy: Yeah, that’s because I never did stupid things.
• Me: I notice that you use the word ‘stupid’ more than any other word to describe lesser mortals. Anyway, I am still curious to know how you prepared for JEE.
• Roomy: Well, I started to prepare when I was ten.
• Me: You mean when you were in class ten.
• Roomy: No! when I was ten years old.
• Me: I hadn’t even heard of IIT then. Anyhow, how could a 10-year -old prepare for IIT JEE. I thought you had to be a Ramanujam to solve complex math problems as a child.
• Roomy: No, I started to mentally prepare myself for IIT JEE.
• Me: How do you do that?
• Roomy: See, actually my dad is an engineer. He wanted to do his engineering from IIT but couldn’t get past JEE. When I was ten years old, my father told me, “come what may, you got to make it to IIT.”
• That’s how my mental preparation started.
• Me: Have you heard of some such thing as ‘human rights commission’. They could have rescued you.
• Roomy: What do you mean?
• Me: Just kidding. But seriously, when did you really start preparing for JEE?
• Roomy: I started by attending coaching classes for IMO/IPO (international
• mathematics/physics Olympiad). After that I enrolled for FIITJEE. I used to study at least six hours a day apart from school.
• Me: I guess summer vacations would have been fun since you had no school to attend.
• Roomy: Yeah, during summer vacations, I did not have to attend school. During vacations, I used to study twelve hours a day.
• Me: I hope you had enough time to sleep, at least.
• Roomy: Actually, when I used to feel sleepy, my dad would suggest that I do math. Good way to save on sleeping hours. I am glad my dad was there to guide me.
• Me: Good Lord! You don’t have your dad here, so you can at least sleep well here.
• Roomy: Well, my dad has asked me to enroll for coaching classes for CAT. He wants me to do finance at IIM.
• Me: Maybe, we are too young to decide for ourselves what we should do, but can’t help wondering, if your dad wanted you to study finance, why bother with IMO, IPO, JEE and the four years of engineering.
• Roomy: You see, I am programmed to perform. My dad would feel bad if he can’t boast to everybody that his son has aced all exams in the country. I would feel guilty if I did not live up to his expectations.
• Me: I had heard stories about suicides here. I think I relate to them now.
• Afterthought: One of my friends actually committed suicide at the end of the first year because he did not have good grades. I have heard from friends in school how they felt suicidal when they could not get through JEE. I hope the education minister doesn’t add to their woes by indirectly making them slog even more and stressing them further."

Who knows how many stories are going like this ever since the establishment of IIT.