Two sides of a coin

Getting into The Doon School, Dehradun, is almost equivalent of trying to make it to one of the Indian Institutes of Technology. A mini coaching industry has sprung up in Delhi and Dehradun for boys trying to clear its entrance test. In Delhi, there is one particular tutor (the priciest and a mini celebrity) and if you are able to rope him in to coach your son, his admission is practically assured.

One of my close friend's son recently sat for this examination. A bright boy, he was among the top few in his class at his Delhi school. He had cracked the rote system and was pretty adept at regurgitation.

For several months, after his regular school hours and work, he was tutored rigorously for this entrance test. His mother - my friend - drove him religiously three times a week from Gurgaon to Delhi for classes with the celebrity tutor. The boy stopped playing tennis and cut out all other extra-curricular stuff in the months that led up to the big day. The entrance test was paramount and even I - outside of it - felt the tension.

When I once asked him how he felt about the upcoming examination, he struck me as almost a bit cocky - he didn't see any reason why he wouldn't make it. Despite his mother's warning that he was underestimating what he was up against, he remained a bit complacent.

Call it bad luck or fate but the boy just missed clearing the examination - he was just a few marks short. The parents, when I met them, were in shock and the boy was in tears - devastated at his failure. It took the child - all of 12 - weeks to get over it. The mother was also very shaken - she had been quite confident that her son would make it after all the effort they had put in.

Why am I recounting this incident in such detail? Only to make one point: success is important but failure, especially in the case of children, is almost equally important. I'm not saying one makes a virtue of it but don't underestimate its power either.

Why do I say this? I'll stick with my example and explain. This one failure in the boy's life taught him so many things that in hindsight it seems almost like a blessing. One, he realised that everything is not available on a platter. Today's children - so accustomed they are to everything being provided to them the moment they open their mouth and demand it - have such a huge sense of entitlement that they can't quite believe there are things out of their reach. Well, here was one.

This is compounded by the fact that resources are indeed available like never before. A large number of children these days - I speak of the more affluent set - grow up with the impression that money can buy them everything. Failing the examination was a hard-hitting wake-up call that it can't. He had the attention of Mister Celebrity and he still didn't make it.

No one said it to his face but he also realised that if you really want something, you do have to work for it. Being brought down a peg or two so early in life is, in fact, an invaluable experience. You will have bigger failures as you move ahead in life and have been lucky enough to learn this earlier than most.

It taught him another lesson. When your parents are advising you, they generally mean well and usually it's a good idea to take them seriously. Yes, they're old and don't know it all like you do but they do have 40-odd years of experience that you don't. He had more than once told his mother that he had it under control. Over-confident, he, at some stage, must have either taken it easy or not taken it as seriously as he needed to.

The Doon School allows students to sit a second year and try their luck. After a lot of thought, the parents, in consultation with the child, decided that he would sit for it again. A courageous decision to my mind as it meant risking a second failure.

Today the boy is in Doon School and turning into a fine young man. And, he has been fortunate enough to learn some invaluable life's lessons early in life.

Success and failure are like two sides of a coin. If every time the coin is tossed, you win, the world would be a rather boring place.

anjulibhargava@gmail.com