To learn to cheat in India - in exams or real estate, by overcharging in hospitals or fleecing foreign tourists - is to learn how to survive, because if you don't, society will treat you as an imbecile who never grew up.
Synopsis
To learn to cheat in India - in exams or real estate, by overcharging in hospitals or fleecing foreign tourists - is to learn how to survive, because if you don't, society will treat you as an imbecile who never grew up.
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It's been a strange kind of month, when millions of Indians transformed into virtual cockroaches, a toffee hogged diplomatic limelight, and even Trump found himself transmuting into a buffalo somewhere in Bangladesh. While I'm all for cockroach rights, fact remains that the newly minted human cockroaches will reach for a hawai chappal the moment they see the real thing. So much for empathy. The good part: at least we have rediscovered Kafka.
The cockroach umbrella includes a range of issues, one of the most important being NEET paper leaks, student suicides, and umemployed youth. Like where there is money, there is corruption, cheating and exams are chuddy-buddies. Every time a NEET leak happens, I'm reminded of my own big paper leak moment, which happened in Standard 7.
We had two exams that fateful day - chemistry in the morning and biology post-recess. When I got my copy of the chem paper, I discovered that the bio paper had erroneously been printed on the back. I had the questions!
I was faced with a moral dilemma. I could keep this information to myself and max it. Or I could share it with friends in the break and score some street cred. Eventually, my moral compass led me to the class teacher. I came clean. He held me up as a perfect example of an adarsh baalak in front of the class, and set about changing the biology test questions. I felt let down. I deserved at least a Melody Chocolaty in reward. Honesty needs to be felicitated.
What happened next was revealing. My class mobbed me during the break. The general tenor of criticism was: what an idiot! Only one boy came and said: you did the right thing.
Back then in gentler times, cheating also took gentler forms. People made chits, which required the painstaking skills of a miniaturist, like writing couplets on a grain of rice. You could write stuff on your palm, or your clipboard. There were those who hid text books in the loo. You pee-ed, you learnt.
Then there was the plain old khusur-phusur. When the invigilator turned her back, you asked your friend to turn the answer sheet in your direction. You had a few seconds to get some leads. I've thus taken help myself, offered help, and years later when I briefly became a teacher, allowed some whispering and hissing to take place, within reason.
The unwritten code among boys in my school was that you had to help your fellow convicts out, especially if you were the bright one. Otherwise you were labelled 'proudy' and shunned. The super cockroach had to save the regular cockroach.
Like redistribution of wealth, redistribution of knowledge was a thing. If a rich kid bought samosas and Pepsi in the canteen, then everyone had a right to take a bite and a sip. The irony was that if you got caught, the same kids would label you a 'cheatercock!'.
Cheating requires brains, too. When you go to the toilet, you should know where to look for the correct answer in the concealed guidebook. Can't be blank. In this year's NEET fiasco, a Dinesh Biwal allegedly bought the paper for ₹15 lakh and sold it for ₹30 lakh. Yet his own son Rishi reportedly scored 107/720. What a doofus.
Moving beyond NEET, it's also true that everyone in India is part of a cycle of cheating - from property (black and white transactions), hospitals and computer repair shops overcharging, to fleecing foreign tourists. If you don't exploit, then you will automatically become the exploited. What happens then is that since everyone is cheating everybody else, all this cheating cancels each other out in the final sum. No one really gains.
To learn to cheat in India is to learn how to survive. If you don't, society will treat you as an imbecile who never grew up. Like the freelance writer.
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com.)
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