Today's world...

"Are you freaking serious???" was the only question that came to mind when I heard on radio that some institute(read: coaching classes) was offering a course in which students could prepare for Medical and Engineering from class VIII itself... CLASS EIGHT!!! This is the age we live in... Children being pushed to do well... Children being pushed into starting to think about their careers even before they have an idea about what career is... When I was in class eight, all I could think about was how to pass my exams and which boy/girl liked which girl/boy... Class eight is when children enter their teenage... Aren't kids supposed to enjoy the famous "infamous" phase of our lifetimes??? Agreed that kids nowadays have become much more advanced than what we were in our days... But does it in anyway mean that they have sacrifice their age of "fun and frolic" and concentrate on something that though is an integral part of our life, is not life itself...

Apart from the ad on radio, I also read about a child who committed suicide before the boards started... And the reason, without any doubt, was of course, the fear of the boards... So what is it about the board exams that scares, pardon me for saying it, the shit out of every child??? The boards are not some kind of gigantic monster that will rip your head off, tear you into pieces and then enjoy every piece of meat... It is JUST AN EXAM... Nothing extraordinary about it... I did get the examination blues when I appeared for my boards and did end up faring well... I got an 89% in my 10th boards... And no rewards for guessing the "comments" that I was bombarded with after my results came out... "Just 1% less..."... Yes, 1% less... That is how much I studied and exactly how much I deserve... The fact that 33, yes 33, students in my batch of 180 scored above 90% doesn't mean I got any less... Those were the people who worked hard and got their result... I got what I worked for...

So if someone was sick and could not study for the exam, and ended up doing poorly in it, does it mean that he is an imbecile who does not deserve to live??? NO... Exams are not the end of life... If someone doesn't do well in it, doesn't mean he is not good for anything... And nowadays, its not marks that ONLY matter... You have to have substance to become something in life??? There are millions of people who did not do well in their school exams, yet today they are known world-wide... What would have happened if they had committed suicide or stopped hoping for better things in life???

Everyone says it has become so competitive today... Competition is healthy up to a certain extent... But the very thought of pushing your child into doing something he doesn't even understand due to competition is just complete display of the regard we ought to have for life... If asked to relive any period in my life, I would have to say those days in school when we lived in complete ignorance of the big bad world outside, the absolute careless splendor with which we live... But would the kids who are in school now answer the same??? I don't think so... The school is no different from the world we are exposed to now... Those precious moments in life, when the only thing we had to worry about was the tiffins we'd take, the number of games periods we had are the ones we hold close to our hearts... But now it is entirely different... Nowadays the kids have to worry about are whether or not they are better than their 'friends'...

It saddens me to see the state of things nowadays... Parents pushing their children to do something that they wouldn't even want to do in the first place, children not being able to live the 'childhood' they are entitled to... The world indeed has become a sad place to live in...