There is a joke in Malayalam: An elderly person asks a school-going child, “What are you studying for?” When the child says Class 10, the man shakes his head. “No. I meant why, not what, are you studying.” Another joke goes like this: A senior citizen asks a child how many days he went to school this year. The child says, “Only when I had to escape the rain.” Funny as they are, these jokes are also poignant. They shine light on how little you stand to gain in school.
Millions of children in India attend Classes 11 and 12 at a time. In fact, Class 12 exams are currently underway across Tamil Nadu, and more than 8.75 lakh students are taking up the finals. But even as generations change, some things remain constant.
Years ago, when I was in Class 12, we were also told that it was the most crucial year in our school calendar. We were made to believe that our marks in Class 12 determine our future and the career path we take. Given that fact, I never quite understood why I, with ambitions of becoming a journalist, had to be saddled with trigonometry and calculus. That too when I had just struggled through Class 10. For most students, the peer pressure and the stress to score high were, and still are, unbearable. I was one such child.
I joined Class 11 in a government school in my hometown of Nagercoil, which is in the Kanyakumari district on the southern tip of the country. The school was called Sethu Lakshmi Bai Higher Secondary School, SLB school for short.
I could not adjust to SLB. The atmosphere there was sharply different from that of my previous school. The biggest trouble was showing up every day at 9 am. My home was not far from the school, only 10 minutes away, and I cycled to school every day. Still, I was late on most days and had to rush into class in the middle of the first period.
My mother was ill at the time. She was fighting multiple sclerosis, a disease of the central nervous system. As the disease was fatal, I used to live in the constant fear of her impending death. I was so scared, I could not focus on my studies. Instead, I started walking out of class just before lunch. Once my attendance was marked, I jumped out through the window — no bars, mind you — and went to a movie.
I even began stealing from home to buy movie tickets. There were as many as 10 cinema halls in Nagercoil. On any given day, I had seen the movies in all 10, sometimes twice. I watched Hollywood, Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, and Telugu films, in that order of preference.
In the maths/computer science stream, I had papers in English, Tamil, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computer science. I chose the computer science stream to avoid biology. I had no hopes of getting into an MBBS course after Class 12.
My English was good, and I had no problem performing well in the subject. Tamil was a bit of a struggle, but I managed to learn the language. I began studying with the help of textbooks, as I had no notes from class. I joined a tuition class to help me with computer science. My teacher at the school was also my tuition teacher. But tuition classes for physics, chemistry, and mathematics courses had to be discontinued as I did not show interest.
The fact is, I was terribly alone. I could not study at all. I found it a dreadful task. I guilt-tripped over bunking my tuition classes after my father had paid through his nose to get me a decent education. Except for English, which I sailed through, studying for the rest of the subjects was a drag.
My mother knew I was bunking. I told her, but she did not tell anyone, not even my father.
An anecdote from the English class is worth recalling. It was a class on tennis. The teacher asked us what a moonball was. I was well-versed in tennis. I used to watch matches between Boris Becker and Ivan Lendl. I was a big fan of Becker and Steffi Graf, who later married each other. I answered the question correctly, pointing out that the player had to hit the ball over the head of the opponent. The teacher asked the class to applaud me. I became favourably disposed towards my English teacher after that incident.
Another incident was morbidly in contrast. I was not allowed into the physics practical class as I had not completed my record book. The teacher asked me to show up with my father, who refused to come to my rescue, saying what happened was my mistake. This went on till the quarterly examination in Class 11. During these three months, I contracted a terrible cold, which simply would not go away. Hoping I would never catch a cold again and that my body would develop immunity to the common cold, I did not go to a doctor. I was right, that was the last cold of my life.
Subsequently, I was not allowed into the physics theory classes as well. I would be repeatedly sent to meet the principal of the school.
Both my physics teacher and the principal were chosen by the Tamil Nadu government as the best teachers in the school. I did not get along with both of them.
I did not attend Classes 11 and 12 properly. Put together, in two school years, I had attended classes for only 200 days. I was bunking left, right, and centre. Appa had to come to school and bribe the clerk to get my hall ticket issued.
In addition to my personal woes, our teachers went on a strike when I was studying in Class 11. Our home was a stone’s throw away from school. Every day, I would watch the strike and other happenings in school with interest. The strike extended for months, because the state government would not give in. This was in 1993.
I lucked out in the end. My aunt, who was a local school teacher’s wife, provided me with the requisite question papers. I had to study three papers in each of my five subjects sitting at home. The questions would only come from the distributed question papers, making my task easy. I passed, but only barely.
Millions of students go through a gradual process of alienation in Classes 11 and 12, especially in Class 12. My single most difficult subject was maths. I was shunted from one tuition class to the next. I must have studied in every tuition centre in Nagercoil district.
I did not want to study hard. I did not want to go to college at all. I did not know what to do in the short run. Amma was too ill to intervene, and Appa did not care. My brother, who studied in the same school, was doing much better than me.
Appa was a banker. He worked in a nationalised bank in Nagercoil. While good at work, Appa had alcohol dependence. That did not bode well for me, as I rarely saw him before 11 pm.
My grandparents, who lived close by, too were in the dark about my studies. As I had scored 78% in SSLC, everybody assumed I would do well in Class 12.
But I could not even focus on class. I kept blanking out. My insomnia kept me awake at night. I read everything except schoolwork while studying for Class 12. My bunking, too, continued unabated.
My movie-watching led to good things, unexpectedly. Today, I am a film critic.
But back then, I did not know what to do. Finally, I decided I would opt for BA English at Hindu College. But my aunt, who had helped me, wanted me to choose BSc Physics at Pioneer Kumaraswamy College (PKC). I was least interested and kept insisting that I was to do English.
The alienation I felt became a dark, deep secret. On the outside, I was cheerful. On the inside, I was riddled with guilt and fear. I slowly became machine-like and hid the whole story from near and dear ones. Friends, family, or relatives did not have a clue. As it is, I did not have a reliable friend in school and rarely heard anything important from anyone. As a result, I did a lot of stupid things, including going to school on holidays, as I did not keep up with events.
My grandfather, Sundara Ramaswamy, a famous Tamil writer (he is sadly no more, having passed away in 2005), finally intervened after hearing from Amma that I was always at home. He asked me to his house and asked me about my studies and future. He encouraged me to take up English literature.
But my aunt was insistent. She knew the head of the physics department at PKC, who was also my physics tuition teacher for a while, and thought he would keep an eye on me if I joined the college. I did not know what to do at all.
The pressure on me to choose a course was abnormal. The whole thing was a nightmare. Peer pressure also got to me as my closest buddy, Ranjith, was doing well in school.
Appa was also very disappointed that I did not want to do any professional course. He was particularly hurt that I was not to be an engineer. He agreed I could take up English literature. But Athai’s writ was written large. She kept telling everyone that BSc was a more competitive course than BA. My Athai was my mentor in many ways and was also my Hindi teacher for many, many years.
Appa was also building a new home for us. That kept him preoccupied. Once the new house was built, my family moved there with my paternal grandmother and a stay-at-home domestic worker to take care of cooking and Amma.
Close to my Class 12 finals, Amma’s condition worsened. None of us thought she would recover, but all of us kept mum. I was in a constant state of debilitating fear about my exams. As March marched closer, I was at a total loss. I cannot adequately describe the state of my emotional chaos.
The exams themselves were a nightmare. I was nearly caught for copying, even though I did not copy. My papers kept flying in the wind, causing the examiner to look at me suspiciously.
However, I did copy for my maths exams. After finishing, I counted and came to 70/200 marks. That was a pass. Not wanting to take chances, I took Saravanan’s answer paper and copied it for 28 marks. If I did not score above 120 marks, I would not qualify for engineering. Appa has specially asked me to cross 60% in maths. But I did not care. I walked out of the exam armed with what I had.
I wish students, including my classmates, did not have to go through this torture. We do not have a proper elective system. For example, I wished I could take up music in school. Or cricket. But such avenues were impossible in the Nagercoil of 1994, whether that be in school or college. I had an interest in learning the mouth organ. I would practise for hours at my grandparents’ house, but I had no qualified teacher. No one, including me, knew if I was any good at it.
The best school, I always thought, combined a violin class with maths. I know that Einstein used to play, and play terribly when his calculus was at an end.
Also, a credit system would be super cool. You take up different subjects for a set of credits, which would ensure that you passed. Such a system has been implemented in many colleges, but not in schools. I was also in the state board syllabus, which meant my course was particularly unimaginative and lacking in innovation.
Teachers, too, prepare you primarily to score marks, not to develop an interest in a subject you hardly know. Our whole system is skewed towards scoring high marks. The rote learning system, which was regimental at SLB, was particularly uninspiring. Also, I had no idea about the relevance of rules such as walking along the corridor in a straight line based on your height.
Assemblies, which happened in a large playground in front of the school building, had no point, not when conducted under the hot Nagercoil sun. I did not care for them. SLB had been built by the British – and the building was easily a landmark in my town.
Today, after years, I am haunted by my behaviour in those two years. On many days, I still have nightmares about them. Hope your Class 12 is better when you take it, or was easy on you if you already have.
And, oh, I scored 68% in Class 12. I ended up doing my BSc in Physics, but that is another story.
Views expressed are the author’s own.
Nandhu Sundaram lives in Medavakkam, a Chennai suburb, with his wife and daughter. He loves the city deeply and wants to change it everywhere he goes. He loves movies (all kinds), books and cricket. He is also trying his hand at short stories.