ডাকবাংলা

No Farewells This Year!

Farewells, in my opinion, are an important rite of passage. Every time we reach the end of a stage in our lives, it requires acknowledgement. The manner of closing that chapter deeply affects the moving on to the next stage. One of the most drastic changes in our lives, occurs as we leave school and step out into the real world. It is a crucial time in terms of mental and emotional growth, and we are slowly made to prepare for it from the very beginning of class XI. The looming Board Examinations, deadlines for projects, sending applications to colleges, being the senior-most batch in one’s school where one is expected to set an example for all juniors; all of these things set the stage for the considerable leap that we must take while entering into adulthood. As daunting as that may sound, my memories also paint this time as incredibly exciting. The rich cocktail of feelings; the hope, the ambition, the curiosity juxtaposed with the fear and the heart-breaking reality of having to forever leave what we come to recognise as our second home. The memory of that anticipation for a new beginning, for that first taste of independence is a feeling I truly treasure. It makes me think of the very first stretch of a butterfly’s wings as it tentatively breaks out of its cocoon. Our joy at that first encounter with adulthood remains quite, well, unadulterated but isn’t that its beauty? The illusion shatters soon enough, however, but that initial feeling is something we all deserve to experience. This is where my rose-tinted nostalgic trip gives way to today’s toxic reality. The pandemic has sucked all the joy out of this life-changing endeavour and doused it in gallons of uncertainty. Being a college student myself, I can relate to the disillusionment and frustration that have become a part of our lives thanks to the pandemic. This is not what we signed up for. I miss the energy of a real physical classroom full of people.

But I can miss it because I have had the luxury of experiencing it throughout my undergraduate years. I can still fondly look back on my very first semester, the new people I met and became friends with. I actually felt the shift in energy, in terms of teaching and learning processes, in terms of changing routines, in terms of watching myself react to and adjust within a completely new environment. The last school-leaving batch, however, have hardly received a taste of it. They have no idea what kind of a transformative experience they are missing out on, and with no fault of their own. I honestly feel terrible for them.

I feel even worse for the current batch however. All coming-of-age-emotional experience aside, it is just plain exhausting to be stuck in such a limbo. Examination dates constantly being shuffled back and forth; studying the same material over and over with anxiety-ridden, fraying concentration; confusion over online or offline methods of assessment. It all seems like a pretty accurate description of torture to me. Especially considering the importance this country gives to Board examinations and competitive examinations. It heavily relies on these exams for recruitment, especially for engineering and medical streams.

It has just been announced that all Board examinations are to be cancelled. The implications of this are also something the students are having to wrap their minds around. Personally speaking, my Board results didn’t alter or affect my further studies very much. I was lucky enough to be able to crack the entrance examination for Jadavpur University Department of English. At the time, all one needed to be eligible to take the test was an overall 60% average in their Boards. Although this thought stems from the fact that we are amidst a great crisis, it would be interesting to see schools try and adopt a semester system. I can personally vouch for the fact that even though doing my Masters’ from home was in no way ideal, a semester system is far easier to deal with, for both teachers and students as opposed to the current system in schools. The system currently present is falling apart completely. Students are losing their minds fretting about their immediate future. The government has been constantly changing its mind and it is only expected that students’ mental health is being severely affected. The government should really have had a better crisis protocol in place for the education system. While online classes and assessments are taking place, not everyone has that kind of constant access to the internet. It really is a serious obstacle for students from semi-urban and rural areas as well as from disadvantaged backgrounds.

On speaking to some students, these specific concerns were especially highlighted. One thing that is common in all their statements, however, is as I mentioned earlier, an unbearable sense of exhaustion. 

“We are mentally tired and really frustrated to have to revise the same things over and over again. The uncertainty also prevents many people like me from studying with proper intent. We would prefer a concrete decision to be made before starting our studies, so we have an understanding regarding what to study and then we can focus properly. A definite deadline is what keeps us going and in the absence of this, we’re left frustrated and mentally drained,” writes Jignesh Patel, on being asked about how this situation has affected their mind-set towards preparation for the examinations. His school follows the ISC board.

At this juncture, I must add however, that it is absolutely remarkable how well teachers have adjusted to this new protocol. Teachers, regardless of age and how technically proficient they were previously, have promptly learned and adapted to the new ways. Having said that, it hasn’t been easy at all. I’ve watched my mother struggle with taking her classes. Classes getting stalled because of internet glitches, interactive classes even more so. The teaching and learning experience remains far from immersive and as a result it is far too easy to get distracted. I, too, have faced similar problems while being on the other side and this is despite the fact that we are very privileged and live in the centre of town. I can only wonder how much worse it is for people who aren’t as lucky.

I remember my last week in school. In fact my friends and I were (I still am) cheesy enough to count all the lasts. The last assembly, the last 6^th period, the last P.T. class and so on and so forth. My entire batch individually cried a river. I would cross a hallway and some memory would crop up and the waterworks would commence yet again. I said goodbye to all my favourite hiding spots. We all wrote messages for one another on the back of our school uniforms with a marker. We shyly stood in front of the staff room to meet our favourite teachers, to thank them and tell them how much we would miss them. On our last official day as students, we sang the school song together one last time. Just thinking about this whole experience gives me the chills. I bring this up because I cannot stress enough just how important a goodbye these students are being robbed of. I hope all schools are organising some sort of a farewell. Something to mark the end of an era for all these students. They need to truly understand that the training wheels are finally off. Whatever little they can organise via Zoom or Google meet will still be better than not addressing the monumental nature of this event. All I can do is send out my best wishes to them all. The world may seem like it is actually falling apart but we must hold tight, together, for this too shall pass. It has to.

Illustration by Suvamoy Mitra

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