Why is the average, bright, elite Indian youth not happy?

The hue and cry over competitive exams in India is deafening. There are labels that children internalize so much so that the very existence of being is reduced to just a label itself. I have heard extremely capitalistic demagoguery that harks back on the notion of non-existence until you are employed. Sadly, people pay much attention to humans being part of some social roll, rather than the experience of trying something out to really understand where one’s calling takes him, where his purpose fits in the overall scheme of things. I will counter this argument by two blunt remarks, this approach is grossly elitist, excusatory and that such thinking doesn’t suit a developing country paradigm where people are still captured under the claws of a perpetual cycle of poverty, hunger and unemployment. And, then obviously another backlash, I did counter because I can on account of the resources I have, so I am only being a resource thrift because of my academic objectivity.

We are certainly fed a promised future which is so much divorced from the reality that the present circumstances are sacrificed at the altar of uncertainty. Moreover, sacrifices are praised to the extent that being hard on yourself you think is the only way to succeed in life. I find this overemphasis on duties/obligations/sacrifices quite antithetical to how a human strives to achieve his basic necessities. Well, here, I believe, a feminist narrative would clear the fog more, when a woman is asked to silently bear all that is asked from her. Guess what she becomes in the end of it all, someone with no voice of her own even when you find her shouting at the top of her voice or rather someone who is no less than a corpse because she has made peace with her circumstances. Do tell me, here, where is the spirit to live, which is the least you could ask of oneself? I don't know, but in this recluse I find no movement and a lack of movement I equal to a silent dying of one's soul. The gravest of all errors. 

I know I sound quite dystopian but it's mostly because I can't help myself from telling you what I consider best. I have recently read an amazing article about the number of students committing suicides because they cannot clear this or that exam or rather because they scored less than their peers. Not winning is the end for them. Well, obviously, when you put all your energies on a single task and still are unable to win over that, a certain amount of misery is warranted. But, when you develop your entire personality around a single thing as if no diversification of that could satiate, then the misery transforms to the "D" word long before you are capable of knowing what it is that you are feeling.

(Well, you see, as much as I am a suffragette for trying things in life, of course the social mobility factor, I am for moving on.) 

This, "unexplainable laziness" is the forte of the average Indian student community. It is quite surprising but those students who have not let down their parents, also suffer from this even when they are "socially enrolled" in the institutions/academies everyone desires of them. And, apparently, this desire pulls lakhs of students in India to cramped spaces where the price of a mere square foot is skyrocketing let alone the disruption in drainage and transportation facilities that find their way abutting these narrow alleys. Further state of affairs that saddens are the ones left, who had to fight for a few grains of sunlight and a patch of grass beneath their feet. But, as I said before, and I believe I need not repeat, my ideas are elitist and do not at all fit in the paradigm of a developing country like ours. 

Raptured by all these bigger affairs, I hesitate to even ask what the purpose of a "good" education is. And, sadly competitive examinations where not everyone is bound to pass, unfortunately, most do not, set extremely bad parameters to seek out students who are really fit to pursue streams they truly would want to study. Here, in Indian layman terms, those who fit, are filled with pride so huge that when the bubble bursts there is so much incongruence between their inner and outer self while others who do not, languish with the lack till perpetuity. So, we are basically passing off cocooned babies as normal, functional adults. 

I seriously do not think education is supposed to give that amount of fatigue because the belief that life is going to get better after a certain goal post is a gigantic myth, the goal post just keeps on shifting. That is why, it is not in vain that academic intellectuals and policy researchers are crying over the lack of research outcomes that are coming out of our prestigious institutes, which is the very cause of their inception. 

The kind of knowledge seeking that demands a love for the subject being studied is a rarity, with one of the most ingenious minds settling for a job entirely unrelated to their course outcomes because they didn't even sign up for it, in the first place, they only wanted a tag which boasts of infrastructural affluence and obviously a steady income which is just right, mind you, a lot higher than the average Indian salary. But, with time, everything is bound to saturate if nothing new is experimented. The incongruence between the past symbolic glory and the present demands moving ahead, a realization of the system you are trapped in. Else mediocrity is just around the corner which I don't think is easily digestable here (barring the median Indian mentality) and hence the debated incongruence.

Education might be based on parameters of merit but one's class, caste, gender, ability to counter the demanding aspects of an examination that calls for a mental toll, affects the overall outcomes or the so-called success rates. 

I have closely witnessed circumstances where the inability to stay alone because of poor emotional support and consequential isolation results in dysfunctional and lonely scenarios where you are unable to function in tune with the daily chores of life, let alone go all in for an examination that is extremely demanding. Because no matter how many stereotypical reasons we give for one gender outperforming the other in terms of technical subjects or the upper echelons of society in terms of caste and class, taking away all the top seats, there is a serious structural problem that really exists. 

Especially in the case of gender, if you are too wary that your gullible daughter is going to be swayed away by things that are sinful or rather that there is a steady sense of control she should be disciplined with lest she indulges in anything beyond her books, I am afraid you are yourself destroying her path to succeed or rather a path to success where she finds some real fulfillment aka balance. 

The monotonous routine of 'programmed' students pushing each other like herds up and down the stairs not knowing if they really want to be pushed that way, leads to extreme lethargy where the only sense of pleasure is eked out in thoughts that manifest the wrong ideas. The prevalent sexism and discrimination against quota students in elite institutes is a telling example.

After all, what is this grand showcase of toppers on the streets which is so unique to the Indian temperament? It is questionable how these students who are put high up the pedestal at such a young age are going to understand the traffic congestions they are contributing to, on the oh-so-narrow Indian roads. 

I wonder how this obsession for labels is going to pan out in places that are so socially orthodox that the only means to secure some amount of validation for them is to wear some sort of a medal. This symbolic nature of peripheral things that valorises certain aspects of life always have something really dark brewing under them that strangles the throats of thousands of students who do not even desire to be part of the mad race. Sadly, no one really asked them what they think they are good at, for real. A hard push with zero support is being fed as a necessity of being an adult. On the contrary, a little push with someone extending a mere hand in support could have saved it all. 

Footnotes:

1. I use the "D" word for depression and drugs interchangeably. 

2. Diversification is doomed for lack of good employment opportunities in other sectors that is basically the structural cause and effect of the bias towards certain spheres of learning.