Mihir’s clever plan

Mihir groaned and pulled the quilt over his head to muffle the loud voices outside his room. Reaching for his phone, he discovered it was 5 o’clock….Who was arguing this early, he wondered.

As the volume grew louder outside, he heard Mama and Anu akka at it again… akka had overslept, when she was supposed to be up at 4.30 am to study for her physics test!

A week later, as Mihir barged into the kitchen after school, smelly, ravenous and looking for munchies, his parents were so engrossed in a discussion that neither nagged him, as they always did, to have a bath first.

Papa, absently scrolling through the website of some integrated coaching centre, said, “These centres will instil some discipline in Anu, I feel.”

And that was it… within days, Papa and Mama had checked out not one but five coaching centres.

Mihir began to panic. So Akka, just approaching her eighth grade finals, was also going to ‘vanish’, like his buddy Dinesh’s elder brother Bansi? Two years back, when Bansi anna got into grade nine and was all set to captain the school cricket team, he had also enrolled at an integrated coaching centre that prepped students for both the 12th boards and the JEE engineering college entrance exams simultaneously.

Mihir hadn’t seen him even once since then — neither at Dinesh’s house, where he hung out pretty often, nor on the cricket pitch.

“But akka, can’t you say ‘No’ to Papa? The JEE is four years away… you don’t need to start mugging up now,” Mihir grumbled, as they both sipped masala chai on the balcony.

But akka wasn’t convinced. “Bro, I think I need coaching… engineering is my dream, not Papa’s or Ma’s. I won’t get into a good college on my own.”

“Nonsense!” Mihir thundered, spilling hot tea on himself in the process. “Akka, everyone in class borrows your physics notes that you gave me! The new chemistry teacher was so impressed when I showed him how you explained stuff to me. He actually said, ‘Your sister will go places…’ Imagine… all that without any tuitions!”

Akka laughed and then shook her head. “Mihir, my friends are enrolling at these places starting this summer.”

Mihir couldn’t bear the thought of Anu akka disappearing into a coaching centre for four full years. Who would he play board games with? And who would he race with down the hill from their apartment to the bus stand?

He began working on his parents first. One day, as Ma and he were making sandwiches, he said, “Next year will be the very first time Akka won’t be in the school play… she’ll have to give that up.”

Ma didn’t reply, but her worried expression told Mihir he’d hit a nerve.

Just to drive home his point, he added, “And no trips to Mangaluru to see Ajji-Thatha, no swimming in the summer, no badminton at the court downstairs… hope akka can handle this.”

With akka herself, he switched tactics. He knew that, at this moment in her life, she wanted to be an engineer (though three years back, she’d dreamt of being a vet!). He was also certain that she, of all people, did not need a four-year-long coaching regimen to get good marks.

“How about if I become your official alarm clock, so that you never oversleep on test days?” Or “I too will finish my homework as you study and make your favourite mushroom omelette every morning?” Or “Imagine… after two years, in grade 11, you decide you don’t want to be an engineer… then what happens? You’d have wasted two good years of your life sitting in a coaching centre!”

That last remark did get Anu akka thinking. She remembered that till recently she’d dreamt of running an animal shelter.

With Papa, Mihir kept sharing horror stories of what excess studies and pressure did to the teenage brain. How coaching centres led to kids just mugging up but losing their love for learning.

Soon, 12-year-old Mihir’s three-pronged strategy began to work! With him now as akka’s guaranteed human alarm, both her test scores and his improved. His mushroom omelettes got so good, he began offering options of cheese or spinach omelettes too — all at 5 in the morning!

One day he overheard Ma telling a friend, “These should be the most carefree time of a child’s life… why do we focus only on an exam four years away, I wonder?”

And later that night he heard Papa tell Ajji, “These coaching programmes really cut a child off from all family life — their schedule is so jam-packed. Anu will miss her daily badminton and Scrabble games with Mihir. They even have classes on weekends… when will we talk to her?”

At that moment Mihir knew he had won! At least through grade 9, he knew he still had akka! He began checking online for new omelette recipes, certain that his mushroom and spinach specials had played an important role in akka’s decision to coach herself.