IIT’s a dream

These days getting a seat in any of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) has become a status symbol for students, more for the parents, writes Vanita Srivastav.

These days getting a seat in any of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) has become a status symbol for students, more for the parents. The two years after the Class X becomes a rigorous journey not just for the aspirants but also their parents and sometimes even grandparents. We find most parents over-indulging in their child’s IIT ambitions, right from selecting the coaching class, the reference material, mapping a proper time schedule to counselling them for tackling stress.

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Being an IIT alumnus, I like other ‘IIT frenzied’ mothers decided to chart a path that could hone my status symbol. I withdrew my daughter from Welham, only for ‘grooming’ her for the Joint Entrance Engineering exam. I would, sometimes, dream of my daughter going for her counselling to one of the IITs and me bragging about it to friends and relatives.

For two years, the IIT fever soared high in my house. My husband and my father, also IITians, were roped in. I would sometimes take one of her books and try to understand her notes, so that I could help her. I would keep awake till late night to ‘slyly’ watch her academic movements. But despite the genetic leanings, my daughter was never serious about IIT. She was confused, see-sawing from school to coaching to school. I could see the mistake I had made by thrusting my own desires on her.

Back home from the airport, I started yelling at my son who is in Class IX: “If this is the way you study, you will never be selected in IIT.” Some dreams just don’t go away.