Today's Sunday supplement of Hindustan Times, Brunch, carried a short story by Chetan Bhagat. Titled The Cut-Off, it is the account of a school topper who plans to take his life because he will not be able to get into SRCC or Stephen's despite scoring 92% in his CBSE 12th Board Exams. "Everyone tells you how to live your life. But no one ever tells you how to end it.." is how the narration starts. It goes on to talk of the burden the eighteen year old carries from having made one calculation error in the exam. While he does draft a letter off to the Education Minister complaining of the lack of enough universities for even the top 5 students of every major school in the country, he eventually ends up blaming himself for not having worked enough to earn that extra 3 per cent that could have gotten him into SRCC. The expectations of parents, neighbours and relatives, disappointment at not living up to your own expectations, the futility of scoring 90% in boards, everything has been brought out in a way that it grips your small intestine, pulls it out and wraps it around your throat. The Hindustan Times E-Paper carries the story. Would recommend a reading, I'm sure most of us shall identify with at least parts of it. I know I do.
How can the student attach so much expectations with just 92% in his score-sheet? Anything below 95-96% is a totally worthless these days! He deserved the treatment he received.
ReplyDeletenice story...wondered if chetan's last book could be as beautiful as this one..
ReplyDeleteMr. Sibal you have already screwed the IITs now screw the other good commerce colleges...you just got to open one in every state :P
@ Harshit: I disagree. Opening new colleges, more number of good universities is not going to screw the education standards. It is the mindless tagging of random buildings as centres of excellence which will. New colleges backed by infrastructure, faculty and other support shall only help in making higher education more accessible, which is the need of the hour. And by the way, how many good universities does US have, aren't there more than one in every state?(I am referring only to the ones your institute-mates apply to, not the random colleges).
ReplyDeleteGood story, but wonder what is it with Bhagat and portraying the girls so dumb in almost all his writings (though I did notice some sanity in some of the female characters in "One Night...") 3 Mistakes would leave any self-respecting girl fuming on that stupid character protrayal. Even in such a short story, the man can't stop using the fairer sex for silly humour.
ReplyDeleteVery well written short story .... the guy's good at depicting such situations ... and yes, I can definitely relate to some of the points regarding life in high school :P ..
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