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The results fallout

V Gangadhar

It is one fallout after another. Even as we are still submerged under the Pokhran nuclear bombs fallout, comes another one, the results fallout.

Everyone is talking about percentages, application forms, admission processes and the importance of knowing the right people at right places. The newspapers are full of young geniuses who have secured incredible marks in their board examinations, 99 per cent, 98.876 per cent and so on. They had studied for ten hours daily from day one. Some of them said they owed their success to their parents, others to their teachers in school and quite a few to their coaching class teachers. The high-percentage, high-profile boys and girls talked about becoming nuclear scientists, instrumentation engineers, computers wizards and shake the world. One of them wanted to be another Bill Gates.

The results season will continue for another month or so before settling down. Classes will commence, coaching will go on full steam, and the brightest and the best will start burning midnight oil. The focus of the media will also shift. But today, the toppers are basking in glory. And why not? They deserve occasional attention more than our politicians or cricket heroes.

These days, the results of the board examinations do not appear in our leading newspapers. Of course, the results sheets are sent to newspapers office which are flooded with telephone and personal enquires from the students, their parents and friends. Copies of the marks are sent to the respective schools and colleges, from where the students learn about their fortune and fate.

This was not so in our days. Results of the examinations, from SSC to MA were published in newspapers. Since the results were declared in the mornings, most newspapers came out with special editions. These were sold in the main bazaar which was crowded with students and parents. Many of them, after glancing through the papers, left the scene joyously. A few slunk away, crestfallen.

Examination results, to a certain extent, were great levellers. The silent, studious kind of students who never talked about their performances, walked away with the honours scoring high marks. Then there were the students who talked about the entire examination process flippantly and acted as though they cared a hoot. Yet, when the results were announced, they quietly left the scene, unable to face the harsh reality of failure. But this mood lasted only a couple of days. After that, the braggarts were out explaining their failure: 'Oh, the examiners never cared for original thinking. They always shower marks on those who mug up the answers and then reproduce them in answer books. The results would have been different if originality had been favourably considered..."

Today, much before the announcement of the results, the students have finalised their plans for professional courses -- IIT, IIM and so on. We were not so enterprising. Those with the highest percentages normally opted for B Sc (chemistry, physics and maths) or (physics, chemistry and maths). Some of the eccentric geniuses chose maths as their major project. The honours courses also attracted a number of the most outstanding students. I do not remember anyone of my friends who had secured high marks opting for medicine, engineering or dental courses.

The aim of most students was to get a degree and then try for a job. It was even argued that a degree was not really needed for a job. Quite a few enterprising young men from the village, after passing SSC, studied shorthand and typing and left for Bombay where jobs were waiting for them. The first time they returned to the village on a holiday, they smoked cigarettes, had handkerchiefs tied around their necks and talked glibly about Metro, Marine Drive, Flora Fountain and the sophistry of Bombay girls.

Thinking back, I am amazed at how well some of my stenographer friends did for themselves in Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi. Their work and intelligence were appreciated by their bosses who promoted them to executive positions. In fact, they did much better than the other graduates who opted for clerical jobs. The graduates and their parents preferred safety and job security to other factors. My friend Ambi's father, who had retired as a clerk in the defence accounts department, was thrilled when his son got a job in the same department. "It is a pensionable job, you see!" he exulted. Here was a 20-year-old boy attending office for the first day, and his father was already thinking about his retirement and pension!

In every examination, unfortunately, there had to be failures. For them, the future lay with tutorial colleges which prepared them for supplementary examinations in September/October. The tutorial colleges prepared only failed students and were staffed by retired college lecturers. As far as I remember, we had no parallel coaching classes to challenge the authority of regular classes held in schools and colleges. There were no hoardings or ads extolling the virtues of the 'Agarwal', 'Bhola' or 'Brilliant' coaching classes. Attendance was always compulsory and whether the professors were good, bad or indifferent, we had sit through their lectures.

Students who appeared for the March-September-March examination route before getting a degree were nicknamed MSM which also stood for the Madras and Southern Maratta Railways of those days. But they could not be written off, just because they had failed in board examinations. Quite a few of the MSM group in my days, were enterprising and ended up holding important jobs. Some of them compared themselves to Winston Churchill, who used to fail in every subject in school, except English. That did not prevent him from becoming Britain's most famous prime minister and a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Some years ago, I ran into an old college friend of mine who was so brilliant that he could solve the Calculus problems faster than the maths lecturer himself. I had expected great things from him. But he was glum and talked bitterly about his experiences as a senior clerk in the Reserve Bank of India and the misery of commuting to work daily all the way from Dombivli. "Do you remember so and so?" he asked. "That bloke who passed his BA at the nth attempt. I meet him every six months when he drops in to arrange payment for his son studying abroad. He told me he runs an ad agency and is worth several millions." There was a trace of envy in his voice. It was the voice of a topper who could not reach the top in life.