The Last Leg

Board Exams. The very words are followed by a mock shudder replete with funeral bells ringing in the back ground and a sense of gloom and doom pervading the atmosphere . The present day generation is blessed with a fertile imagination…why don’t you ask any 12th std student just how many different variations of dreams he or she has already had when it comes to the Math paper?

A typical Indian student would love to fast forward their last year of school and then would spend the rest of his or her life pining away for it. Memories were meant to be made in the 11th std and you had the right to demand a free period only the year before. Extra-curricular activities? Ditto. Friendship? Learn to be selfish is what they say. An ordinary day for a 17 year old in this country is spent attending tuitions, spending an average of 7-8 hours in school, climbing up stairs with ultra heavy bags (cursing the stairs has now become a very integral if not a forgotten part of student life) and of course non-completion of home work and late submission of projects aaand (*deep breath*) piles of records that are to be completed (God bless us all Biology students!)

So are weekends the days we laze away? Nah. How we wish. Weekends & lets include even Fridays are spent cramming for our tuition tests

Last but not the least how can we forget the little Einsteins (read:Toppers) in our midst who our society so lovingly nurtures and appreciates. Lesser the hobbies better the marks. As if all the mark clamouring is not enough we have bountiful of unsolicited advice from every possible passer-by on the street. The smirks and the oh so obvious ‘ poor you!’ glances and definitely the most irksome of them all ‘If you don’t do well who will set an example for your siblings? are available in unlimited supply.

If you think after the exams the drama can finally end i can only pity (envy?) your ignorance. You haven’t seen the real torture yet. It begins on your result announcement day..heightens when we receive those very expected flood of calls from your loving relatives and even from gloating nerd friends you haven’t really bothered to keep in touch with. The reflection is there for all to see even on social networking sites when the frantic activity on Facebook suddenly stops and there is deathly calm and quiet. No cocky statuses or wall posts. Just the Geekoids and the nerdsters who pounce at the hapless site of a friend to announce- what else?-their marks. When everything finally whirs back to life it is to finally change their education info from school to college. Marks are tactfully not mentioned.

Ask us what Myocardial Infarction is , we’ll be able to tell you. Ask us to differentiate or integrate we’d do it in a minute. Set up a circuit? Sure thing! But the funny feature of our education system is that we are ‘taught’ but do not learn. Out of sight, out of mind. Three years on I doubt if  even 1% of the student population would be able to set up a circuit if their life depended on it. Learn your answers throw it in the paper but how much of that has really made their way into our thick skulls is of no consequence. An education system is a success when students learn for real .It’s not successful (obviously!) when students feel like ending their lives. How can it be when it is a pressure cooker environment where the stress is so unreal, that you want to explode?! Teens in south India have the highest suicide rates & more than half are due to study related reasons. 50-75% of all deaths among women is between the age group of 15-19 years. Hardly flattering. The ones with real brains who’ve absorbed what they learn make it to the elite universities after which they inevitably end up abroad with a great job. They are amazing individual achievements but not that good for a country that has produced them. Poor research facilities and low pay for college professors is not the way forward for a country which wants to beat (lets all laugh) China. Let’s remember that not every poor but educated boy becomes an APJ Abdul Kalam and that not every LSE graduate can hope to be the prime minister our country. But what we as citizens and active participants can ensure is that we keep those very (perhaps even despised) nerdster and geekoid friends from taking flight.
On a final note I thought I’d like to give a glimpse of what actually happens in tuitions at around 5:30 in the morning. Well for one, we are all heavy lidded & ready to collapse on our uninviting books. Someone asks “how much time left?”
‘…..Radioactive displacement law…..pay attention!...rate of disintegration…’
‘HOW MUCH?!’ with an agonized look. ’45 minutes’. Hopeless expression and both drift to their respective dreamlands that is keeping them company at the ungodly hour in the morning.

Mathmares

Mathematics. Perhaps because of the way it sounds (so forbidding and unfriendly), the subject and I never quite got along. In our 14 year long relationship there were a lot of if's, but's and tears. To say I had a mental block would have been an understatement. I took great and if you may , even tons and tons of perverse pleasure in talking about it with fellow friends who like me had an active dislike for the subject called Maths. When the final exams arrived there would be a great celebration at home when Math exam got over. Math over. Exam over.
The trauma could finally end for me and for my hapless parents (yeah both my mom and my dad) who spent every evening trying to get me to understand concepts. And I must say my cranium and the contents inside put up quite the fight.
As the years progressed and the sums got tougher .My parents washed off their hands and said that it was time for non-interference on their part and that maybe (HOPEFULLY) it would be better if I tried learning on my own and that they would not mind my marks and would be proud of my efforts at the end of the day. And I must mention that they put up with my atrocious marks quite stoically. Many a times I wondered if our 'irreconciliable differences' ( Math & me) would mean a complete disintegration of our shaky relationship.
And then came a year..a very wonderful year where we worked together. The 10th grade when I finally realized that we could after all be friends and perhaps develop a fruitful partnership. And for the first time , the first EVER time, I began to look forward to a Maths exam. I relished the sums and finally could finish a problem without too many scratches and cuts. Even the answers left mid way indicated that at least some part of my brain could think analytically. And for a girl who scored spectacularly in the theory part of Olympiads , but also held the distinction of getting a big beautiful zero in 'logical reasoning' that was a big deal.
Stupid me.
So it is with mixed feelings and great trepidation that I shift to state board after a decade long stay in good old CBSE. People put in heavenly ideas like 'easy portions' 'no outside questions in Maths' 'no need to rack your brains' .
And I gleefully thought Yay! no more Mathmares for ME! But (yet another but) someone forgot to mention that Mathematics whether in CBSE , Matriculation or State board is Math never the less. And that they still involve numbers, equations and formulae
My inability with numbers spills over to other allied subjects- Physics and chemistry...not that I was any good with Biology ( My only shining moments were with the languages).Two years zoom past and History repeats itself yet again. I would have loved to elaborate how, but at the moment the wounds of the 12th (yes even this one)Math board exam debacle is very much fresh in my memory. So I will not go into the details. Needless to say I have finally made peace with my fate. Though a divorce right now seems likely I'm looking forward to an amicable split where we remain friends. After all 14 years is a long time and no subject has had the privilege of forming such a deep (even if meaningless) relationship with me.
And so now I bid goodbye to my Math mares and look forward to my new ( and hopefully brighter) future in the Arts stream where I'm in my element and can finally be at peace.
Here's to HAPPINESS *clink*

Of the year gone past.

You don’t recognise a bad year when its going on and we most certainly don’t see a good year until its gone.

Well. How has the past year been? Lounging on the bed in a bedraggled state sometime late in the night is hardly what you’d call an appropriate time to contemplate a series of events spanning a massive 365 days. But of late I have been discovering quite a bit about myself. One among the lot- I’m hugely inspired only when I’m bored to tears & when I resemble a half stoned hippie (My much loved used & abused bohemian long skirt being a testimony to that).  A few weeks have passed since the beginning of the year. Resolutions have long since been made and broken & now that the excitement of finally being an adult & legal has finally subsided I can afford to save a few quiet days for contemplation.

How has 2012 been to me? I tentatively dance around that question. Its an easy enough answer. Tumultuous. There I have my answer.I dislike dwelling in the past. So Lets move on i urge myself, You have your answer!. But. Its MY head you’re talking about. A head that can’t shut up. So the reflection continues. Could I say it was..Happy? Bad? Crazy?

January was a time we were at school. Exams, prep tests, textbooks & uniforms were the order of the day for the average 17 year old Chennai school girl that I was. 12 months on- my hair’s longer, I have a fringe(?) of sorts, lost weight & most obviously- I’m no longer two plaited (its one now)  & uniformed. And that was just the physical transformation. My mental metamorphosis has perhaps- I’ll have to admit- not been the joy ride I had hoped it would be.

When I read all those coming of age novels I’ve always cringed at their experiences, but back then I was a naive pre-pubertal awkward & gawky teen wondering why growing up had to be so unnecessarily painful & secretly thinking the protagonist’s  screwed up thinking had something to do with all the mess. And now when I’m finally over the threshold of official adulthood I can finally understand it all, having gone through my own series of messy situations,mishaps, depths of depression & highs of happiness.

I can emphatically state that I am no longer the fresh faced school girl who walked out of school gates. Disappointments can teach you to grapple with the hard truth, failures teach you to guard yourself, let downs make you a touch cynical and..and wait,  does the Heart rules over the head?..well that’s a lesson I’m still trying to figure out among so, so many others.

 How can a single person get through with all this in just 300 odd days? Well you’d be surprised how much of a learning experience transitions can be. I’ll be honest with myself. I have most certainly seen better years, but none as educative as this one.

I wonder if people write those growing up books because it helps them gain a better perspective of what they’d gone through. Becoming an adult is no easy task. Every time I stumble (and this year a bit more than usual) I find a little message signed – With (tough) love, Life.

Its 14^th of Januray, 2013 and I look back to the year with wonder (how the hell did I get through this?), amusement (I really said/thought/did that?), a hint of regretful longing & just a teeny weeny hint of sadness for the naiveté I feel I lost somewhere in the process , because its when the years go by do you realize innocence is indeed a priced possession that you can’t wish back. And I am realizing that it’s a word is so much more than just a physical state of being. Instead its a possession that is so clearly lost in the hurry to become big, to grow up & to grow fast.