The message: Don’t pass or fail life, live it

As Student Suicides Continue, Concerned Parents, Teachers, Psychiatrists And Police Focus On Woes Of Worried Youth

Anahita Mukherji | TNN

What’s common between a well-known actor and theatre personality, an IIMBangalore alumnus and a Mumbaibased journalist? As students, all of them had a taste of failure. Yet, they have all done well in their careers. Their motto: Don’t give up on life.

Take, for instance, Juhi Babbar, a well-known theatre personality, and the daughter of actors Raj and Nadira Babbar. Juhi never fared too well at school and was on the verge of failing Class VI. “It was a terrible feeling. The thought of losing my friends and putting my parents through a great deal of embarrassment just added to the pain,’’ she says. While she had a great set of friends, it sometimes bothered her that she fared the worst in studies amongst all of them. For Juhi, it was the people around her, like a supportive mother and a bunch of friends who didn’t judge her by her marksheet, that helped her through that period in her life.

Bhisham Mansukhani, a Mumbai-based journalist who has worked for some of the country’s leading publications, knows what it’s like to flunk exams. He failed five out of seven subjects in Class IX. Initially, he withheld his marksheet and lied to his parents about having passed in all subjects. “While I was too naive to actually know what suicide meant, I did consider it as a means of escaping having to show my parents my marksheet,’’ he says.

It was only after a few counselling sessions with psychologist Maya Kriplani, a consultant at his school, that he had the guts to face his parents over his marks. “I confided in my mother over my score. To my surprise, she took it far better than I had imagined,’’ he adds. Then, there’s Satya Narayanan R, an IIM-Bangalore alumnus who is the founder and chairman of Career Launcher, an education company that provides coaching for competitive exams and has set up 20 schools across the country as well as a university in Rajasthan.

Satya flunked his physics practicals as a Delhi schoolboy and didn’t appear for the Class XII board exams the first time around as he was too busy concentrating on cricket instead of studies. He has scant respect for an education system that lays more than a fair share of emphasis on marks. “I feel that educationists need to accept the fact that education is a framework for learning and nothing more. I’m not saying that excellence should not be craved. I’m just saying that excellence is not equivalent to 100% in mathematics,’’ he adds.

Jahan Peston Jamas, an SYBCom student at HR College, echoes these sentiments. “After working really hard in Class X, I was very disappointed when my score was only 75%,’’ he said. Over the years, his marks kept dipping. He scored 67% in Class XII and 57% in FYBCom. “There were times when I felt like a failure in life. But now, I have realised that there is so much more I can learn beyond studies,’’ he says. “While poor scores can be very demoralising, it’s important to pick yourself up and get on with life.’’

Jamas should know. He and five other students with poor scores successfully completed the mammoth task of compiling the data of 46,800 college alumni so they could be invited for the golden jubilee celebrations of the college. “Of the six of us, three were dyslexic, one had dyscalculia and I was just an average student,’’ he says.

TENSE TIME: Police outside the Juhu school, a student of which killed himself at his chawl (right) on Monday