After a few hours of television, we have airbrushed SurajSharma’s tryst with his university exams. The focus is back on the film, evenas the young first-year Philosophy honours student of St Stephen’s College,protagonist of “Life of Pi,” sweats it out in his semester tests, with lessthan 50 percent of real-time classroom knowledge, his shortfall made up throughwritten assignments, the last ones completed under the prying gaze of news TV.
“All’s well,” some of us have tweeted, as we moved on to thenext juicy controversy, making a mental note, meanwhile, to try and watch whata hundred fawning reviews and the Fox PR machinery want us to believe is anoutstanding cinematic experience.
One more problem left to lie! Who has the time for more ofMr Pi?
But wasn’t it just a few months back that Unmukt Chand, theIndia under-19 cricket captain, had been similarly yorked? By all indications,a similar bout of cruelty (and fame!) will return to haunt one more prodigiouschild, her parents and teachers, in the not-too-distant future. Unless, ofcourse, rules written in a bygone era force a college like St Stephen’s tosimply stop admitting the modern-day maverick and pack the class withhomogenous 98 percenters.
Let’s face it. In the good old days, we studied for a gooddegree, we acted and we also played a few sports. The aim, at least the hope,was that we’ll pass out as “well-rounded” individuals and then, and only, thenmake our lives as executives, civil servants, journalists or whatever.
This essay isn’t to take sides or even to support starperformers like Suraj or Unmukt. It isn’t even to say whether St Stephen’sCollege should (or shouldn’t) enforce the 66-percent attendance rule given toit by Delhi University. It is simply to flag the problem and point toward aninternet solution. Beyond the technicalities of Suraj’s purported written workthat was treated as equal to 21 shortages of attendance, a far deeper problemis how single-minded pursuit of excellence can be fostered, needing, as itdoes, long periods of absence from one’s classes.
I know a few purists who say that Unmukt and Suraj made achoice. They, or shall we say their ultra-ambitious parents, knew the rules beforethey queued up for admission. So now they must conform rather than demand anadmit card for the exam.
In fact, once admitted in the BA Programme, Unmukt didn’teven play for St Stephen’s ” coaching, practice, tours, involvements with DelhiDaredevils, not to mention some advertising shoots, took most of his time. Similarly, Suraj spent a large part his firstsemester of college education building enviable frequent-flyer mileage,promoting his remarkable voyage with the tiger on a boat, his IITian dad intoe, claiming to substitute for a Stephanian don!
Logically, both kids have made more name than we did in alifetime and their fistful of dollars, too. But is that a reason we must ejectfrom their undergrad education? Is italso our case that less famous children, who are similarly short of attendancebut may be doing something equally worthwhile for the society we ourselvesfailed to build, have no place to go except boring correspondence courses? What of colleges where classes are anabsolute sham?
Would these kids be better off attending online tutorialsand videos from the classroom that Suraj and Unmukt missed out?
