Dear Fucchas-To-Be, Stop Taking DU So Seriously!
Bringing the smelly reality of Delhi University admissions to little aspirants.
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Dear Miserable Little DU Aspirant,
First of all, congratulations. The Indian education system is twisted, unfair and massively ridiculous. You have so far successfully managed to contort your mind, body and soul in ways that have allowed you to fit into the system. You have mastered the art of cramming what you do not understand, produced information on topics you really know nothing about – with fierce conviction, learned how to write in a beautiful font on flimsy sheets of paper even though your little finger hurts and the pen keeps slipping off your clammy grip, and competed with Sharma ji, Gupta ji, Saxena ji ka betas with ruthless aggression. You mom must be proud.
What? She isn’t?
Damn, your best friend got into Hindu after all, didn’t she? That too in the first cut-off? That horrible wretch. Cheat kiya hoga ussne exam mei! How is it your fault if the boy sitting before you was duffer Humpty? If your desk partner in the board exam was half as smart as hers was, you too would have sailed through Hindu, wouldn’t you? *Sigh* How unfair can life get sometimes!
So now you’re waiting anxiously for the second cut-off list. You need a magical drop of two point five percent to get into North Campus. You’re hoping, praying, begging. Your parents haven’t said much to you since your results came out. What could they say? Your neighbour got exactly three percent more than you! Duuude! What-ae-diss-ae-pointment you are!
You are well aware of the fact that all great colleges in Delhi University – the ones which expect you to get a 99.25% in order to secure a place within their prestigious, shamefully dilapidated, kaai-laden, drenched in dog-ki-sussu walls – have established a monopoly in Delhi University. Every year, you and I only make their game stronger. But you still don’t care. You still want to be a part of them, don’t you? Well, I hope you do. You need a full blast of dog-sussu-reeking reality. Just as much as I did.
Look, little aspirant, I am not discouraging you from joining these big colleges. Delhi University really has beautiful teachers, the best societies and countless opportunities. I am simply asking you to stop making these colleges bigger than they actually are.
Stop feeling so anxious about admission, stop letting these insane cut-offs upset you, stop letting your own marks depress you. There is only an extent to which your marks can carry you, and if your marks, in 2016, are not anywhere above ninety-five, I am afraid you will have to use your own two legs to reach whatever point you want to in life. I am sorry, little aspirant, but you will have to do exactly what you should ideally be doing anyway. Use your own two legs.
Your marks account for zilch. We all know how distorted the board is and how unfair the marking pattern can get.
Have faith, work smart, be positive, inspire. Also, PLEASE have a sense of humour (basically laugh at your own annoying little self!) You may never get to be an LSR graduate, but listen to me, you will get to live a life you love. And that is more important than graduating from any high ranking college.
Also you must pay attention to what I am saying because Sports Quota, ECA Quota aren’t that likely to save you, anyway. Remember how you thought you could dance beautifully and you had ten certificates, and if you ever missed the DU cut-off, you could still apply through Extra Curricular Activities Quota in many colleges and at least get through one or two? Well, now you can only give one centralised, standardised trial. Which means more competition and only one chance to get through ECA!
This new ECA reform also sounds like the artists, regardless of how different their styles are and their approach is, will be crammed together under one umbrella and judged by one uniform standard. While earlier, one college could really not want your style and another could completely love you for it, now you won’t get so many chances. And God forbid, if you’re somehow not in form on the day of the trial, be prepared to kiss your DU dreams goodbye.
Oh I shouldn’t hold you back any longer. Your second cut-off list must be out. And if you did manage to get through one of those fancy North Campus colleges... well, it really is no big deal! The euphoria won’t last longer than two weeks, and a couple of stinky, sweaty, cranky summers later, you’ll realise you’re done with college already.
In these three years, you can either choose to find yourself or learn new things or get better at what you already know or prepare yourself for the outer world or make yourself job worthy or get fit or travel or love yourself or hate yourself or smoke your lungs dry or drown yourselves in alcohol-induced illusions and pass out of college looking thirty six years old or do all of these together or choose something completely different.
The choice will always be yours. But that choice you will get to make, regardless of which college you get into after school, regardless of what your marks may have been.
If you really want to become something, and you set your heart to it, you’re going to grow into that anyway. DU is no big deal, little aspirant.
Love, Mekhala
(This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
(The author is a third year undergraduate student at Ramjas College, Delhi University).
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