And here comes the end! Or rather the beginning as the month of March brought with it the mayhem that millions before me have faced and many more will face. Whenever it crops up, it brings out the nervousness of even the solidest characters.
I am talking about the board exams, of course. I’m just one of those ordinary guys who is expected to produce extraordinary results in the Std XII board examinations, and I would be lying if I said I was not nervous. All the information that my eyes had taken in, in the last couple of months were clogged up in my fingertips ready to be spat out in the examination. Thus have I became victim number umpteen of the Great Indian Education System where very little knowledge goes to the mind and almost nothing to the heart as teaching becomes coaching. I have suffered the bitter experience of losing my love for a subject solely because of the way it was taught to me.
Learning with understanding is a thing of the past. ‘Get good marks to get into a good college’ seems to be the new mantra. As I stand at the pinnacle of my school life and reflect back on it, I realise that the thousands of tests I had written in the past were just a build-up to the climax — the board examination. And suddenly when I realised the magnitude of the situation, I felt a bit nervous. The only solace for me was that I would be taking the examination along with millions of other aspirants, who were all as nervous as me.
R. BALAKUMAR, XII A, DAV Boys School, Gopalapuram
