As a perfect kid, I ruined many a childhood.
Mr. Sharma’s daughter could never match my grades. No matter how hard she tried, I was always a few marks better. Mr. Reddy’s son could never beat me in athletics. He ran the hardest, but I was always ahead.
And this was just the tip of the iceberg. When I was on a stage, I sang like a cuckoo. Trekking, declamations, surprise tests, you name them and I’d aced them. The sullen faces of my opponents swelled my chest with pride. The envy in their defeated eyes boosted my self-esteem.
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To top it all, I was blessed with a genetic lottery that made me relatively easy on the eyes. Not that looks mattered much back then, but let’s just say whenever there was trouble, the cuter kids always walked away with lesser punishment.
However, none of this came easy. Day in and day out, I was made to work towards attaining, what is commonly branded as ‘excellence’. Children are naturally endowed with wandering thoughts. This was clearly a vice that needed to be reined in, and replaced with the virtue of motorised thinking. This is where my parents came in.
Since I was born, they had meticulously chalked out every minute detail about how my life was going to be. All that I accomplished was shaped around honing my ability to achieve some pre-defined goals.
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It all began when I was three. This is when my occupation was decided. Considering I was a boy, I couldn’t settle for anything less than being a doctor or an engineer. They were chosen because both these lines of work met the three primary criteria of public acceptability: prestige, societal relevance and money.
Gender bender
More important, professions were supposed to be gender-specific. Women tended to gravitate towards the arts while men had an inherent knack for the sciences. Even in practical terms this was supposed to make sense. Arts would last the ladies till they got married and gave up their dream of having a full-time career. Men, on the other hand, were meant to find real jobs.
The fact that I enjoyed singing more than trekking didn’t count. Neither did my affinity to write stories have much value. These were hobbies. By all means I could indulge in them, but turning them into a profession was unimaginable. They were designed to be nothing more than leisurely pursuits, best left within the confines of ‘spare time’. In the real world, you see, poems could never outshine equations.
By the time I turned seven, I’d learnt the art of being in a state of perpetual competition. In fact, the word ‘competition’ was qualified with the popular adjective of ‘cut-throat’. The medieval practice of decapitation was back. Only this time it wasn’t as literal, but most certainly as painful.
Off to tuitions
After my classes I would be packed off to tuitions. Nobody cared whether I needed them. Tutors were the new teachers. They made sure I practised all the questions so many times that my mind was just mechanised into deducing the answers. Mechanisation bred perfection, thoughtfulness mere distraction.
As I turned ten, my school became more demanding. Co-curricular activities were introduced to help develop character outside the boundaries of a classroom. The only way to do that was obviously to turn all kinds of recreation into a contest. Of course, I couldn’t lag behind here either. So, right after my tuitions I was sent across to various coaches. One of them worked on my sporting abilities, another on my language skills. That I left very early and reached home only at night was immaterial. The medals I won would make up for the lost time.
Today, however, Mr. Sharma’s daughter runs a successful international business. Her grades do not hold much credence. Mr. Reddy’s son is a civil servant. His scores from back then are irrelevant. I, on the other hand — the perfect kid, the teacher’s pet, the golden boy — am at a point of stagnation.
The trophies decorate my mantlepiece, but there are no real achievements to recount. The report cards grace my bookshelf, but there are no memories to get nostalgic about. At times my mind drifts towards what I could have been, but then it is quickly overpowered by what I have been made.
Moving about, I see a number of ‘perfect kids’ on the horizon now — occupied with their phones, engrossed in their computers, revelling in their successes, embroiled in a state of constant rivalry, chasing an illusive happiness. If there was one thing I could tell them, it would be this: As a perfect kid, I did ruin childhoods, including mine.
akilbakhshi@yahoo.co.in