The Never Ending Goal Chase

I'm sure many of us have faced this situation where never ending hopes are given to us by our parents that things won’t be hectic once a particular exam is over and life will be a piece of cake after that. Like many others even I have heard that all through my life but the point is even after writing the much coveted exam and doing well in it, I would hear the very same words from my parents a couple of years later for another exam.

I remember before 7th Standard, exams were no big deal. They were just means of getting to the next level and my parents were happy if I did fairly well. Then came my first board exams when I was in the 7th standard and this whole new concept of some anonymous person evaluating your papers and not your dear teachers really scared me a lot and at the same time I suddenly saw that my friends had gotten more serious and they were glued to their books. Like everyone else even I put in that extra effort and finally wrote the exams with flying colours and thankfully I got a good score and I joined MES. Till then my parents aim for me was to get a good percentage so that I could join MES. MES apart from being a damn good school, also had a very good junior college offering PU courses and it was easy for the school students to get in there.

After 7th I was spared of these board exams but not for long. Then came the dreaded 10th Board exams that had double the hoopla, double the hype, double the tension and every damn thing in double. At this time I started hearing this famous dialogue from my parents which continued a lot even after my 10th and that was," This exam will determine your career, if you do well in this your life will be set. Now you have to get a good score to get into a good college". What I really couldn't understand at that point was, I was anyways going to join MES Junior College which was also a damn good college, then why the greed. I was asked to do well in my 7th to join MES and now what??? Anyways I did my best but my percentage was not so very great to get into MES Main College so I settled for Junior College.

Life was very unfair to me at this stage because it was just a year of fun and frolic before the super dreaded 12th Board exams came into picture. Now this was triple the hype, tension and everything possible. I remember at this point of time everyone's immediate aim was to get into a good tutorial. I remember Gururaj, Shastry and many other tutorials for which people were trying to get into. Since the venue of Gururaj Tutorials was very close by to my place I was trying to get in there. I still remember the cut off percentage for getting in there was so high that for a minute I felt that getting into a good college was easier than getting in there. By the grace of my dad I somehow got a seat and I still vouch the fact that I have never toiled so hard in my life like the way I toiled during my 12th.

Days were so hectic. First and foremost there was nothing like summer holidays or public holidays, we had to go every single day including the weekends and secondly an encore by my parents about how important this exam was for our career and how getting into a good college would help us achieve that. During summer holidays, we would attend tuitions twice a day. The commencement of college was a harbinger of doom to everyone. We had to attend college and then attend tuitions and then go home and do assignments for both college and tuitions which hardly gave us any time for ourselves. On top of that almost all the lecturers in college knew that 90% of students were attending tuitions and were attending college only for attendance so we had to bear their brunt as well. It was one big, never ending year for me. Finally I gave my board and CET exams and did very well in my boards but badly screwed up in my CET. All the hard work just went into the gutter.

I then joined engineering and I'm sure everyone will agree that this one of the best period in anybody's life. Just when I was beginning to think that everything is settled and I have joined a good college (MVIT) and things should be smooth now, I got one more lecture about how doing well here will get me a good job and after that life will be a piece of cake and I will not have to worry about anything. So I managed to do fairly well and even got recruited into a good company through campus placements.

So life is set. Finally I don’t have to bother about exams and no more lectures from parents. Just when I was going about with my work, I get a mail from our HR regarding the annual appraisal. Gawd when will this ever end????