A taste of life .... "Struggle for existance"

I am 22 and like every normal human I have a wish to experience everything in this one life I have …. Getting a chance to live a life in this beautiful world reminds me of the saying, “very few people get a second chance in life”…but it seems that there are many people around me who keep on getting more and more chances in this single life to do the same thing again and again…whether they want it or not…..

Education the most indispensable part of our life now seems to be a gambling in this university I studied…So!! Wondering where did I study?? Well luckily I was a part of the well known – Calcutta University….which has been famous all over the world since the day it was formed….I have heard from my teachers who are in their 80s now, that in their era CU happened to be the university with the toughest syllabus … it still continues with its own legacy but in addition it has become the toughest University to graduate from, not because of the question papers or syllabus ,but because of their process of checking papers and publishing results…

When I was a kid I used to hear stories about how much effort the students of that era used to put just to graduate …. And how their hard work paid-off ….. but these days hard work seems to have lost its significance….and the students seem to register their names unknowingly in this university forever relinquishing their right to get what they deserve….

We, the students of Calcutta University very proudly claim ourselves as “honours” students … though many of us keep failing in our pass papers. Now the concept of “pass” might be a foreign term for many of you reader out there.. but what it means is that behind studying your subject of interest a student has to study two other subjects categorized as “pass” , which is actually more important than your honous subject because to be a graduate you have to keep your pass papers clear and trust me it might have the name “pass” but its not easy to pass. Not because the students don’t study (with few exceptions) but may be because of some hidden mystery which is still unsolved….

I have seen many of my seniors who are still stuck in this university to clear their pass papers and be a graduate …. While their batch mates are now having a well-paid job or are going for higher studies or PhD …. A dear friend of mine has suffered a lot and has appeared in her pass papers “AGAIN” this year and may be if god is great she will graduate from this university sooner….The 1st shock she got in her student life, when she failed in both her pass papers in her part II examination. She reappeared next year and guess what?? She failed again but she was brave enough to fight back and prove that no one can take away her right to be a graduate….it was a challenge for her to show what she has got… This year she again reappeared in the same examination along with a state level entrance for MCA.The news is – she is the entrance topper this year. While everyone is celebrating her achievement, deep down she knows she is yet to cross a fence to rejoice at her biggest achievement. Undoubtedly she deserves to enroll herself in the best College but she failed to satisfy the criteria of many institutes due to low percentage. But topping an entrance proves her abilities and intelligence. Leaving the topper there are many candidates in the top 100 who belong to the same club. There are thousands and thousands of students who suffer like this every year. And are still slogging for their degree…Many of them are really intelligent and deserving candidates like this friend of mine. But destiny takes their somewhere else without their involvement in any of these mishaps that takes place in their lives. A major part of their lives are spent continuing their fight for a degree in this infinite loop of failing and reappearing in exams which has no break-point.

Every day we find in the newspaper that a student has chosen to die and committed suicide because she/he continues to fail in the exam … It seems easy for them to die rather than shatter their dreams ….

Every year after the results are published and the VC of the university is attacked by the questions of media , we hear him saying how many students have their results incomplete and a “F” in their mark sheets…(last year it was 95%) !! So shall I say that 95% of the students are dumb? Something is really terribly wrong somewhere and a mass of people are responsible for it…..

These students have no place to go for a justice….not that there isn’t any other way left but not everyone among them have that financial support to fight for it…Who will help them come out of this dirty place where education is only a means of frustration and depression…What is the future of these students??Do you all expect them to find good jobs in life with a repeated “F” in their marksheets??We have a long life but is this long life predestined to be wasted like this fighting against something which was not supposed to happen??


You people might be wondering why I am writing about this all of a sudden!! What is my motto behind this? I can only say that no one bothers to think about these students who are unnecessarily suffering …. But someone has to raise the voice. And that too from the mob of the “losers” moving around here and their aimlessly for a justice…and I too fall among the mass of the “losers”….. Like the friend of mine I have experienced the same thing except that now I am a graduate and she is not.

After all this, many students like us fight for what they deserve and emerge in triumph…they keep on fighting with destiny whose remote is on someone else’s hands with the hope that someday they might be a graduate ….. I stood strong with my head held high because I have been blessed with a supportive family , friends and teachers…who believed in me….and my abilities….and helped me come out of all this with great courage and will power….. They have been by my side through thick and thin….Its not that I was not shattered, but I regained my strength because the fight was not over and I was not here to lose… It’s my firm request to my fellow mates that please don’t lose hope, be strong. and confident….and to the parents I have only one prayer – please trust your child and don’t let him/her choose a ROPE or a DOPE over HOPE…!!

But my motto behind writing this blog is not only letting the world know about our condition, but to let others who are suffering like we did know that nothing is impossible. If you really are a good climber you’ll climb the stiffest mountain even after slipping thousand times…

This might not be the world which we know. This might not be a better place to live. But somehow this proves Darwin’s theory of “struggle for existence” and “survival of the fittest”. But what ever is happening is wrong at some point. Playing with someone’s future is not lucrative for anyone. It’s become like some dangerous virus which is spreading too fast affecting the future of many students. If we don’t discover a vaccine for it or at least an anti-biotic, the future will never become “present” for anyone …. !!