I have been interested to write on this topic ever since but the immediate impetus which coaxed my lazybones to sit down and write is a newspaper ad of a reverend study circle. The study circle claims to provide an oh-so-nice and never-before-seen guidance for students interested for ‘getting into’ IITs. It claims to provide foundation course to students of classes like 7 n 8, to equip them better for future test.
Can it get worse? Now, what does a 12-13 old has to do with IIT entrance exam? As if he hasn’t got targets to achieve in those age. Thanks to the helicopter parents, a 13yr old leads a life of a 17yr old! As a punch line of a popular ad goes- Bachcha hona bachon ka khel nahi hai(its not a child’s play to be a child anymore). Perhaps the next would be a pre-foundation course for kids at kinder garden or better still, like the mythological ‘Avimanyu’ who learnt the intricacies of breaking a ‘chakravyuh’ inside his mother’s womb, we could have mother opting for maternal foundation course in their pregnancy days.!
Excuse me; I don’t intend to mock at IITs or IITians. I respect the elite institution and those connected with it. What really appalls me very much is the mass hysteria connected with it. Today, it has become an obsession to take up science( irrespective of one’s orientation) at the high school. Then go to innumerable ‘come-here-come-here’ coaching centers, and then take admission in some innumerous ‘first-of-its-kind’ XYZ engineering colleges. The package they receive with the job at the end of their degree is a big open secret. But, the parents choose to quadruple it and present it before disinterested relative, friends and neighbors.
Oh god gimme a break!
Ok ok, you say it provides a job security and the reputation of being, read with hallowed reverence, an Engineer (hold your horses)!
Whom are we trying to fool around? It just shows the fetish of Indians to be obsessed with big brands and empty (high sounding) words that buys no barley. We are inherently susceptible to be belied by tall talks,.
The outcome is, as my father puts it, ‘SQUARE PEGS IN ROUND HOLES’.
I have a good friend. She could have been a world class athlete, provided the right grooming, but she is struggling to be an engineer! We have so many misfits in our society.
The group I am referring to above once upon a time included me and my family. We had been through the same phase but my staunch refusal to be a part of the nauseating race and my parent’s belief in my decisions has made ‘all the difference’. I may not have emerged as a successful person with all goodies but at least I am doing something which I always wanted to and I believe in.
Oh com’mon, urban unemployment is such a delusion. A person with right entrepreneur skills can always carve a niche for himself.
Take breath baba, now when next time you go for decisions please think twice. Don’t jump into the water coz everybody’s doing the same.
If you are till not convinced, please go and watch ‘3 Idiots’ at the earliest!
