Last month, an 18-year-old JEE aspirant in Kota committed suicide. In her suicide note, she apologised to her parents for failing to fulfil their expectations. Two more suicides have also been reported in the last two months, and one more death in undetermined circumstances on Friday. Perhaps, the fear of academic failure, shame and criticism drove all these youngsters to take that extreme step. Last year, Kota witnessed a record 26 cases of alleged suicide by coaching students. These suicides can also be attributed to the students’ inability to cope with the stress and pressures of studies. Consider how the sanctity of human lives is being sacrificed at the altar of societal constructs. It appears that the students who took their lives were driven more by parental expectations than by their own desires, highlighting the significant influence of external pressures on their mental well-being. But these students, come what may, must eat pressure for breakfast. From their childhood, they may have been ingrained with the belief that the ultimate path to success lies in becoming software engineers, doctors and, even investment bankers, where they can enjoy a feather-bedded career. Cracking civil services exams is now considered another holy grail, as it ensures social status, financial stability and respectability.
Managing the pressures of life is not a walk in the park for today’s youngsters. Over-ambitious and overbearing parents, reminiscent of Gradgrind from Charles Dicken’s Hard Times, fixated on facts and practicality, pounce on their children’s evolving imaginative and emotional life, suffocating their free-flowing thoughts by mentally conditioning them to join coaching classes for cracking the medical and engineering test.
Nevertheless, reality TV shows continue to provide a breath of fresh air in our lives. Here, youngsters, hailing from diverse social backgrounds, are held together by the glue of musical and dancing talent. Their selection to the reality show could serve as the trampoline they need to elevate their musical careers to more respectable or higher levels. These music and dance reality shows are a crucible for young talents, where individuals undergo intense and life-altering experiences that mould and refine them. Here, no contestant feels inferior to another, simply because they discover a sense of unity through their shared passion for singing and dancing. Reality shows offer participants a level playing field as they feel liberated from the pressures of joining the rat race for jobs and striving to enhance their social status.
These singers and dancers might also be students studying engineering or medicine, yet their parents are remarkably flexible and open-minded, allowing their children the freedom to follow their passions.
In another reality show, a dance group of boys comprising participants from ordinary families spoke about how they initially encountered staunch resistance when their parents deemed the idea of rehearsing for a reality show a sheer waste of time. The parents believed the effort wasn’t worthwhile and that their focus should be elsewhere. By their own admission, these youngsters’ minds were initially a cul-de-sac of thoughts, with no clear path to resolution. However, the boys persevered and continued their pursuit. They won everyone’s heart with their superlative performance on the show. Their parents, who were present during the performance, expressed happiness witnessing their children’s achievements. In the 2015 movie Tamasha, Ranbir Kapoor’s character experiences a sense of suffocation due to parental pressure to study engineering. Despite reluctantly agreeing to the course, he eventually decides to leave it the midway. Throughout his childhood, he harboured a strong inclination towards acting and mimicry, which led to his decision to follow his passion. American psychologist and author Timothy Leary once said, “If you find yourself feeling like an outsider, like you don’t fit in with the crowd, that’s a good thing. That means you have the potential to make a real difference in the world.’’
Parents now need to confront their assumptions and biases. It is high time we made our children derive happiness and satisfaction in activities they enjoy. We need more parents who can understand their children’s emotions and ambitions, effectively channelising their potential in a beneficial direction. The education system should encourage creativity, rather than homogenising students into a standardised mould. Students should be encouraged to develop an interest in literature, philosophy and political science, both at school and at home, with the aim of fostering a passion that may lead them to choose it as their major in their undergraduate studies. The great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky was an average student in school. An imaginative soul since childhood, he preferred daydreaming about tortured souls and brooding in cemeteries over memorising Latin verbs. In our society, a youngster with such vivid imagination, akin to Dostoevsky, might be considered mentally unsound.
In the book The Parent’s Tao Te Ching, American author William Martin has an important message for parents: “Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives…Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life…Make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself.”
The writer is a Delhi-based journalist
