“Me: Hey, what class are you in?
Him*: Tenth.
Me: Engineering or medicine?
Him: Engineering.
Me: Which college do you want to join?
Him: IIT.
Me: IIT? Why IIT?
Him: …
Me: OK, what are you going to do if you don’t get admission in IIT?
Him: I’ll repeat.
Me: And still if you don’t get admission?
Him: …”
Him: …”
A casual conversation with an Indian student will roughly go like this. For those who don’t know, allow me to explain. In India, every student who is worthy of being called so, wants to “get into IIT”, a process of initiation after which he* is said to be Enlightened. He* shall then be forever known as an “IITian”, a term collectively used to define the best minds of India.
Says who, you ask? Well, that’s the interesting part. It is part of a social convention that exists among the parents and teachers of this great country; the founding principle of which states that good grades are equivalent to talent, which in turn is equal to higher popularity, which gives way to bigger pay, and ultimately to happiness.
Do you know something curious about human intelligence? It comes into existence the moment a foetus is conceived inside a mother’s womb. It reads information from its surroundings and takes decisions based on it. Most importantly, it remembers both the information and the decision. During puberty, critical thinking starts to develop inside the brain, and we begin questioning everything we perceive. However, it’s too late for the things that have been imprinted in our minds since we were born; we accept them as rules which cannot be broken.
And it is one of those rules which tell you that good grades are equivalent to talent; we’ve been hearing it since forever; ergo, it must be true, right?
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
The thing is, true talent is not quantifiable, and hence, not comparable; you cannot assign numbers to measure it, and therefore, you cannot call yourself more talented than somebody else, if you get more marks than him*. This relative assessment of performance is one of the principal drawbacks of The Great Indian Education System. Everybody worships the “toppers”, a collection of individuals whose entire worth is counted according to their position among all students who wrote a single examination. If you are not a “topper”, you are nobody; you are the unwanted junk of the system.
The next big lie we’ve been told is about popularity. Be a nerd, and people will be dying to be your friends. Sure, you’ll always have some guys asking you to help them out in the exam hall. But those kind faces rarely remain as soon as they get out of the room; when you are no longer needed. On the other hand, people who are cheerful and with a smile on their face, always manages to mingle in a crowd of total strangers. The reason for that is obvious: people are drawn to happiness; it is something that has been forgotten in today’s hectic life. In other words, EVERYONE wants to be happy.
Why then, are we so afraid to do what makes us happy? Because of social stigmas. Peer pressure. Parents’ expectations. Teachers’ expectations. Pretty much everything that controls a student’s life, tells him* to follow the path shown to him* by The Learned Ones. God forbid you be unhappy while doing what The Learned Ones tell you to; lest they will make you feel so guilty about yourself, that you can’t help but break down whenever you think you have “let them down”.
So, a note to all The Learned Ones, please think about what you want in your (respective) student’s life. Do you want that enchanting smile on his* face, or do you want… No, nobody will wish that happiness to disappear. So take a deep breath, calm yourselves down, and take The Leap of Faith. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I trust you to make the right choice. Because after all, today’s students are tomorrow’s citizens, and what they become is your choice. No big deal.
*It's a patriarchal society
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