Tenth Results - an Indian Hurdle

It was March 7, 2019. The first day of CBSE Xth Board exam. And the first exam was Mathematics. What a start! (Let’s hit the road running, was what CBSE thought, me thinks!)

The full year’s portion was the syllabus and the children were to attempt the written exam to score 80 marks. (20 marks was school internal examination guaranteed to be received in full if the hand writing was neat, homeworks done and class questions answered.)

My daughter was one of the lakhs of students appearing for this exam and she was putting up a fighting brave front. She is not brilliant and loves to take life easy. Not a great combination to get the acceptable “Indian good marks” (80% above).

But in her credit, she knew this was the ‘life steering’ examination and started putting in a good effort 2 months prior to the exam date. Based on her marks only she could choose her (life) stream.
Her school conducted 3 model exams and her marks were swinging far away from the desirable 80.

Anyway, the pens to be used for writing the exams had been placed at the feet of Goddess Saraswathy. The hall ticket was also “poojified”. (Yup, new teen word contestant for the Oxford dictionary!)

And I had been given strict orders to wake her up by 6.30am on the day of the first exam so that she could ‘remind’ God of her existence and her need for marks.

The routine of the first exam would be THE routine to be followed IF the exam proved to be of ‘desirable types’ (another teenage usage).

Morning dawned, God was reminded & exam hall (in a different school) reached.

CBSE is run by ‘brilliant minds’. They produce 3 question papers for the same subject exam and distribute it to students to ‘prevent malpractice’. They are so brilliant, they seem to be making 3 DIFFERENT question papers...& NOT do the easy SHUFFLING of questions.😏

What does this do?
One set of question paper might be very easy, second set might be moderate and the third might be difficult.

They proved to my child that exam is not just studies, but also luck.

She got the difficult set.

The student sitting beside her finished answering his set in 90 minutes while she was attempting the final question at the 179th minute! It seems her heart had been racing since the time he finished his paper. Poor thing!

I was standing at the gate with multitude of other anxious parents...a peek into the facial expression of the child would divulge a world of information for the mother!

And my daughter walked out with a faint smile with her friend who ran crying into her mother’s arms. Almost all the parents whose children were not crying ran away with their wards!

My daughter shed her first tear and soon opened the floodgates. I anxiously showed my husband waiting in the car to not utter a word. She cried all the way from the exam centre to home.

I force fed her lunch and put her to bed. I have not sat with her till she fell asleep for the past 13 years. Thank you, CBSE for reminding me of the good ol’ days.

The phone was ringing incessantly and both set of grandparents were saddened by the news.
My mother asked me to remind her ‘sweety’ grand daughter about how her life is the BEST even though she nearly failed (the much hated) maths in her tenth. 

“Just ask her to pray that her husband is good in maths like I did. That way the genes of her children will be alright. Look at you and your brother. So good in maths like your father”, said my mom... You can always trust my mom to come up with such dramatic and practical long term advice!! 😝

Evening was lecture time!
My husband and I reminded her that we would love her whatever her marks and tenth exams were just to get admission to her preferred course in 11th standard. And we asked her to focus on the next exams.

She was at her pessimistic best and said,”What use? My overall percentage would come down because of ‘stupid’ maths.”
“I have knowingly got the answers for 16 marks wrong, how many would I have lost unknowingly? I did not even get time to check.” ☹️

The performance of the rest of the exams were gauged on the performance level of maths - ok better / little better / much better than maths!

And the math morning routine was NEVER repeated. A new set was formulated!

A family function was scheduled very near the day of result declaration. And my daughter prayed that the results would be declared only after the function. As we Indians have no inhibitions in asking the score and totally judging the child. 😐

My husband and I also dreaded the result day. My elder daughter, pursuing Masters in a far off land, used to openly wonder how she would find time in her busy schedule to pacify her younger sister.

My daily prayers were that she pass in all subjects and get 'at least' 70%.(Et, tu Brutus? ... Yes, me too!)😐

Whenever Results are declared, FB pages which has absolutely nothing to do with these tenth results (like cookery , gardening pages) gets flooded with posts like this - My son / daughter scored 90 or 95 or whatever % in the 10th /12th boards. The pride of the parent shines so bright.

Even people who never post (other than probably while they travel abroad, or are in Business class lounge 😂😂) suddenly pop up on social media!

What these parents do not realise is there are children who have not scored as well because of various circumstances. Are these kids in anyway lesser?
I remember a photo where an elephant, fish, monkey & some other animals are all asked to ‘climb a tree’ as a fair way to grade!

I was shown the misery faced by parents whose children had not “performed well”.

I have never posted these sort of messages before and I decided NEVER to post such messages EVER.

We all must refrain from comparing our children. Each child is special.

I repeat each child is special. Please do not compare your child based on a common system.
Sir. Ramanujan was horrible in every subject other than maths.
Einstein loved only physics.
There are so many artists and musicians and sportspersons who failed miserably in studies.
And the super duper rich business men? Do you think they were all brilliant in studies?

P.S: Results were declared when I was not home. My daughter called me crying.

But these tears were HAPPY TEARS!😃

She scored extremely well.
Much more than expected. And as of today it looks like she is getting the stream of her choice.