When my brother was in
2nd PUC, he was enrolled to a coaching institute, like the norm it
has been for a long time. My father had to withdraw some amount from his PLI fund
(a form of savings for government employees) in order to pay the fees. Those
days, most dinner time conversations revolved around how that year – with a ‘public’
exam and other competitive entrance exams – was ‘very crucial’ in the making of
my brother’s career. (This is a religiously followed ritual in all Indian homes!)
Young as I was, I would be lost most of the time or would simply concentrate on
what was running on TV. However, I remember that often, my father would state
that it was his PLI money which had gone into the coaching classes. It was
assumed that my brother had an obligation not only to make full use of this but
also have the results to show it. My hardworking brother was amply rewarded for his
efforts, vindicating my father’s ‘sacrifice’. Today, after so many years and a
couple of job-shifts, my brother’s 2nd PUC marks sheet holds little relevance.
Still, whenever my brother’s scores in those ‘vital’ exams are mentioned in any
passing conversation, my father emphatically states that it was the money from
his PLI fund which was the key!
When it was my turn to
write the same set of exams, I was enrolled to the same coaching institute. I
had the same of teachers who had taught my brother’s batch. The stars had
aligned to recreate the magic they had performed six years ago, surely? As fate
would have it, I was not as ‘successful’. By a (happy) turn of events, I am in
a national institute – IISER – today, but that is a story for another day. My
parents were not disappointed or perhaps did well not to show it. Some of my
relatives were not so kind, though. The facilities were all provided for. ‘Success’
was assured, wasn’t it? Why had I ‘failed’, then? Many parents believe that a
good coaching centre ensures a seat in the choicest of colleges. It is banking
on this Indian belief that these institutes have sprung up like mushrooms,
churning out ranks at state and national levels in the dozens, while
minting money in the crores. (I could say that these institutes are mere factories, but having been through one, let me not.)
This summer, I tried my
hand at teaching Class 5 students at a government school for a month. I asked
them what their ambitions were and received a myriad of responses, ranging from
a teacher to a police officer to an actor. However, by the time the same
children reach Class 9 or 10, their ambitions would be, most often than not, ‘channelized’
into the generic ones – engineers or doctors. The Indian middle-class parents –
whose life’s ambition it was to be an engineer but could not achieve it – try
to fulfil that through their children. For them, it is their life’s mission to
ensure that their children reach a higher station. They spare no efforts in
making sure that the children are well provided for. Through all this, there is
an inherent belief on the parents’ side of their wards’ success while on the
other side, an obligation (pressure, rather) to succeed.
When my brother decided
to quit his previous job, my father was insistent that he do so only after
securing another. “A bird in hand is worth two in a bush. What if you do not
get another one?” he would question him, before going on to relate a probable
fall in the share market to my brother’s chances of getting a job. When logic
would not suffice to seal the argument, he would try the “I want my sons to be
more successful than I am” line. You cannot argue against that, can you?
During a discussion,
one of our teachers pointed out that with our parents trying so hard to ensure
we have everything we need, there was no scope for struggle in our lives. Ours
was a “sanitized” world, he said. With due respect to all parents, this has not
prepared us to face real-life crises. Moreover, because whatever we wanted was
so easily made available to us, we have not learnt to appreciate their value.
It is for these reasons that it is important to fail; important to struggle.
I remember that some
years ago, I had jokingly pointed out to my father an ad inviting applications
to the NSD. “Get an engineering degree first. You do whatever you wish to later”
was his response. A generic one. For most of the middle-class Indians,
engineering is a back-up option. It is the fear of failure which has turned engineering
into life’s ‘ambition’. May be going off the beaten track is not always a successful
venture. However, failure allows us to step back and rethink our ideas, our
beliefs. Perhaps, we may also realize what the true calling or ‘ambition’ is. Being
able to take failure in our stride is what makes us stronger.
It requires conscious
effort to restructure our understanding of what success and failure mean. Also,
it requires a lot of courage to venture out without a ‘back-up’ option, a
notion so deeply engrained into our systems. While in no way demeaning the
lakhs of engineers entering the market every year, all I am trying to do is
build up a case for the freedom to fail.
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