Dream a dream

Have we as a society become too obsessed with mathematics and science? So it seems. Last year, my neighbour’s daughter topped her Class 12 board exams in Humanities at her school. I went to congratulate the girl and her parents. While the girl accepted my compliments with a smile, her parents didn’t look that ecstatic. Her father said that he had actually wanted his daughter to take up science after Class 10, but she was inherently inclined towards literature. The girl’s decision to take up literature as a main subject at the college level was initially met with strong parental disapproval, but she dug in her heels. Her parents had little choice but to agree to what their daughter decided. This was another case of parental ambition riding roughshod over a child’s academic interest. Like any other over-ambitious parents, the girl’s father clung to a dated worldview.

No wonder, even today, students pursuing literature at the college level rarely find well-wishers supporting their choice of stream. We have been conditioned to believe in a stereotype that a “good student” is expected to pursue science for a bright future.

Every year, thousands of students join coaching classes in Rajasthan’s Kota to make a career in engineering and medicine. These coaching classes are nothing but assembly lines manufacturing copies. The pressure to succeed is so high that many aspiring students end their lives for their fear of failure.

The reason why many artistic and literary talents are crushed at a young age is that we don’t make an effort to identify and channel talent in the right direction. Many parents force their children to choose science or mathematics after Class 10 despite their lack of interest in these subjects. Is it any surprise that most of these kids do not show even a scintilla of enthusiasm for complex mathematical sums and recondite chemical equations and formulas? Students with a creative bent of mind rarely pass muster in our technology-driven society.

The famous author Paulo Coelho once said that it took him almost 40 years to pen his first book. His father, who was an engineer by profession always felt that if his son became a writer, he would starve to death.

For some students, science and mathematics are right up their alley, while for others it could be literature or even music.

It all boils down to their respective area of interest. The problem is, Indian parents always want their child to become an engineer, a doctor or a scientist, and rarely a musician, singer or a painter.