My ‘Dark’ Secret !

This time again it started when a friend of mine shared a news link about the suicide of another engineering student due to mounting pressure of studies. Almost the whole nation saw a similar case, in brilliantly directed movie 3 idiots – which would have made many of us to feel lump in our throat.  Unfortunately in our college as well, we saw a similar situation when in a single semester two of our immediate seniors crumbled to this pressure. Infact, one of them was ‘virtually present’ in the class during the same time of the day !! Such incidences do occur with such regularity that we slowly start feeling indifferent to them . And this post also, belongs mainly to some of my experiences rather than the cause and remedies of these suicide cases. In the recent case, the news was from the college NIT Hamirpur [which is the best engineering college in my home state], so I stopped at the news for more than a few minutes.  And the news dragged me slowly into my pensieve of thoughts.

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I am a small kid sitting in the front seat in my classroom in ’2nd’ standard. My English teacher, is teaching us a new topic in the class. The name of the topic is ‘The Cow’. She is making us write ten sentences about the cow – ‘I have a cow. Its colour is Black. … … … I love my cow.’ The class is coming to an end and now ma’am is announcing about the written test of The ‘Idiot’ Cow  in the next class.

This is evening time. My parents are busy with the construction work of our new house. I am sitting in my room. I am little worried about the tomorrow’s test. I am trying to fit those ten lines about The ‘Stupid’ Cow somewhere in my cerebral cortex, but my neurons are showing a clear deficiency of  potassium ions. Suddenly Edison’s bulb has got lightened up in the north-west corner outside of my brain. I am taking out my rough notebook on which I know I’ll write tomorrow’s test and will show it to the ma’am. I am sharpening the lead pencil to make its tip needle-sharp. And now I am copying The ‘Moron’ Cow from my class notebook to my rough notebook but with a very light outline of the words – so as to make them pretty comfortable for the next day when I’ll over-write them again in the class !!!

Its the next day. I can see the stick in the my teacher’s hand. She is making us sit at a distance from each other. I am getting into a seat towards the corner of the class room. I can clearly see the light shades of words on my rough notebook. I am making them dark now. Ma’am has already started ‘handling’ those who are not able to write anything on their notebooks.  I have completed writing my ten lines about The ‘Dumb’ Cow and now I am showing my notebook to ma’am. She has awarded me with ‘very good’ on my notebook. I am again back on my seat and can see some other students  getting good ‘dose’ from ma’am. I am relieved I am not one of them. The day ends !

*

That was me when I first time cheated in any of my exams or tests. The classes went on and tests/exams kept on increasing BUT fortunately I never did cheating in exams ever again – well, provided you agree to me that asking the person sitting next to you in the exam hall is not called exactly cheating – thats just ‘doubt clarification’ .. isn’t it !!! The school got over and I was in college to find out that the rat race was still on ! I saw some of the really brilliant people around me using the most innovative techniques of ‘clearing’ exams – awesome use of  technology which may still be missing in latest iPhone OS 4,  the mind-blowing calligraphy techniques which probably can set a new records to write whole Ramayana into a small piece of paper, the strategic  placement of friends and foes in exam halls which will leave even the pieces on chess board of Anand look boring, the  heart wrenching melodramas with professors giving a strong competition to Ekta Kapoor’s talent and ofcourse not to forget the ‘symbiotic’ relationships among students which is after all natural phenomenon !

Me too was tempted to take advantage of some social bondings in exam to add a few extra points to 2nd  place of decimal of my CGPA. In 3rd sem of mine during the mid terms I patched up with some friends of mine and  yahooo got a few more correct answer in my sheet than what I actually knew ! But I believe I am a bit lucky that God has his own ways to make me teach lessons. In same semester my SGPA gone down from 8 point someone to 7 point someone.  And some misplaced sense of self-righteousness creeped inside me, adrenaline rushed in – to avoid such measures again. Many times I happened to offend my friends because I was not able to help them in exams,  many times I felt helpless when I couldn’t move my pen further in the exam while everyone around me was doing the ‘things’ comfortably, people used my own 3 MP mobile camera for their exams but I couldn’t use it except for looking at the remaining time in the exam. I made it a point to my ego that I won’t take any such help further. But to be true I tried to restrict these things mainly not due to my ego but it was more due to the fear of getting caught doing these things in exam. [In the lonely corridors of our department you can still clearly listen to the horror tales of our professors.] Because had I been really honest, I would have shown these traits while doing those assignments, those practicals and those projects as well.  And yes there were also many people around me who were far more honest than my own standards.Well mighty Joker guy proved right again here “You are only as good as the world allows you to be.”

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This is the first time I have ever shared the dark secret of that 6-year-old kid in 2nd standard to anyone. Though as I said I wrote this post mainly for sharing my experience but still I’ll correlate my thought process a little with what I started with. There is a contrasting similarity between the  mentality of  6-year-old kid and these suicide cases. Think about it – when only ten line about an idiot-stupid-moron-dumb cow can make a 6-year-old kid learn how to cheat for the first time, definitely those ten subjects in a single semester can make some 20-year-old guy take those drastic steps ! When I did this in 2nd standard my fear of getting caught while cheating was minimal in comparison to the fear of getting a big zero in my test. When I was in college the fear of getting caught was more prominent than getting ‘poor marks’. But had it been the case of fear of ‘failing’ in the exam, surely even the horror tales of my profs wouldn’t have stopped me taking such helps.  These students restore to the the drastic steps like suicide because our education system seems to have created such haunting atmosphere where even fear of ending one’s own life seems nothing in comparison !!!

P S : To all my college friends, I have no intentions to define anything right or wrong  about these exam clearing techniques! And yes I may have taken help at few other occasions as well, other than what I have mentioned above …. but no more than ‘doubt clarifications’

P P S : Maa, in case you are reading this … please … I am sorry …

Arjun Says …

Tags

Arjun, Distraction, Gita, Heart, Krishna, Mind, shalok

Verse 34, Chapter 6, The Bhagavad Gita.

This has been one of my favourite shaloks since I was in 9th standard. It would have been more  meaningful if only, I could have realized it earlier. As you grow up, you start realizing things more often. And now I am looking for an answer to it, which is seen nowhere around me. But there is one golden rule – to know the answer, one must first understand the problem clearly.  This is first step towards the solution or just another futile attempt to control it ? I wonder if this all is nothing but just too much of philosophy only. May be I can just try to sit back and chillax – sounds like a paradox !!!  The literal meaning of this shalok goes like this -

Arjun says : The mind is restless, Krishna. Its turbulent, obstinate and very strong, and to control it is, it seems to me, more difficult than controlling the wind.

Arjun was damn lucky to have a saarthi like Krishna …

हिम्मत करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती !

Tags

Himmat karne waalon ki, Hindi, Inspirational, Maine Gandhi ko nahi mara, Poem

This is one of my the most favourite poems. I just wanted to have this poem in my collection on my blog. There is a lot of controversy about the author of this poem. Some say its Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’ and some say that it is by Harivansh Rai Bachchan. I tried to confirm it from some sources but I couldn’t find any reliable source. In case if you can provide me some good reference about the author of this poem, I’ll appreciate that ! And here is the link to video of this poem from the movie ‘Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara’.

लहरों से डर कर नौका पार नहीं होती,
हिम्मत करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती ।
नन्हीं चींटी जब दाना लेकर चलती है,
चढ़ती दीवारों पर, सौ बार फिसलती है ।
मन का विश्वास रगों में साहस भरता है,
चढ़कर गिरना, गिरकर चढ़ना न अखरता है ।
आख़िर उसकी मेहनत बेकार नहीं होती,
कोशिश करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती ।

डुबकियां सिंधु में गोताखोर लगाता है,
जा जा कर खाली हाथ लौटकर आता है ।
मिलते नहीं सहज ही मोती गहरे पानी में,
बढ़ता दुगना उत्साह इसी हैरानी में ।
मुट्ठी उसकी खाली हर बार नहीं होती,
हिम्मत करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती ।

असफलता एक चुनौती है, इसे स्वीकार करो,
क्या कमी रह गई, देखो और सुधार करो ।
जब तक न सफल हो, नींद चैन को त्यागो तुम,
संघर्ष का मैदान छोड़ कर मत भागो तुम ।
कुछ किये बिना ही जय जय कार नहीं होती,
हिम्मत करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती ।