(With exams just around the corner, some food for thought for pushy parents)
By Ratna Manucha
It was the weight that began dragging her down – slowly, irrevocably, into the abyss of deep, dark despair. She couldn’t remember when it had creeped in on her, like a silent ghost, enveloping her in its tight embrace.
Looking back on hindsight, it was probably the day she got 98 percent in her Pre Board Math exam. She was never a brilliant student – but definitely an above average one, so when her marks came, her over ambitious parents couldn’t contain their excitement. If she could get an almost perfect score in Math, what was stopping her from getting the same in the other subjects as well? After all weren’t they all much easier?
So began the endless rounds of tuitions after school. Her life came to a grinding halt. That was when she found herself biting her nails till they bled. Her parents never noticed. They were too busy ferrying her back and forth between the various tuitions. She stayed awake at night, biting her nails and picking at her hair, wondering how and when her life had taken an about turn. She tossed and turned all night long and finally fell into an uneasy sleep at daybreak.
Needless to say, she began missing the school bus and had to be dropped to school by her father who then got late for office.
‘You were never like this’, he complained. She felt the all-familiar weight of his expectations crushing her and dragging her down yet again.
Life was so much simpler when she was a mediocre student. In fact, she still was…but something had changed – her parents’ expectations from her, which made her shoulders droop and changed her sprightly walk to a slow dawdle.
She needed to get back to her old life, and fast. This was not the life she envisioned for herself. She was missing her music lessons and the after-school bonhomie with her friends as they waited for their respective school buses. She shifted from one foot to another as a thought began forming in her head. When and how had the dynamics between her and her parents shifted? They were friends, all three of them and she never hid anything from them – ever. But were they hiding something from her? Were they hiding the fact that they secretly wanted her to be an over achiever where her studies were concerned? Was that carefree demeanor on their part a sham? When they said, ‘We want you to be happy,’ did they really mean it?
Math was never her favorite subject. English was. Yes, she had got a near perfect score in her Pre Boards but could that be a fluke? Maybe the topics she had laid emphasis on came in the exams. Yes! That was exactly what had happened! She needed to talk with her parents and open out her heart to them.
Now, all she needed to do was get both her parents together, sit them down and tell them that it was her dream to pursue a career in journalism. If only she had done that before instead of just blindly following their plans.
Why oh why did she have to get a 98 per cent in Math? All this exercise in futility wouldn’t have happened. And why couldn’t she trust her parents? They loved her unconditionally and would always accept her choices. One mistaken judgement on their part didn’t make them her enemies.
She took a deep breath and then let go. Let go of all the expectations, the pressure and the all-pervading fear of disappointing them.
She felt a huge weight lifting off her shoulders. The relief she felt was palpable.
Suddenly, she felt so light, she almost laughed out loud.
(Ratna Manucha, author and columnist, lives, dreams and writes in Dehradun, her happy place).
