S o Delhi University ‘eclipsed’ what was supposed to be the greatest event of the ‘century’. In their latest tantrum, adamant on being the “benchmark of elitism”, they have eliminated all mortals lesser than the level of perfection itself, in the field of academics, blatantly disregarding aptitude, which to them is as insignificant as an in-flight souvenir auction. Theirs is a numbers’ game-of-sorts, and one of tremendous audacity, to claim 100% as the cutoff marks to their University. It’s a wee bit ironic, for a cutoff means marks above which admissions are considered. Having eliminated the “above” itself, the task demands the divine to intervene, and can be translated to a desperate call of help to God, in helping them out with a mortal procedure.Well, a 100% aggregate in class 12th is not so much a matter of talent, but of generous fate on part of the students, a function of the examiner’s mood swings, even his calculative perfection in totalling, efficient functioning of the hordes of middlemen (which by standards India boasts of, is NOT an asset it is made to sound like), and probably a million minute factors we cannot even account for. DU is demonstrating the power of Chaos. So, if the examiner has unresolved issues with his dead old daddy (perhaps just one innocent ice cream denied at a family outing at a time before you were even born), you might consider your admission to DUs as unlikely as the morning sunrise is not.
Cut-offs next year: 100% marks and a height of over 6 feet?
So, those of you who approximated the value of Pi, and did not consider the 10th decimal place, well, you are not perfect. And you ergo, shall not be a DU-ite. You may score a 140 on the Mensa IQ test but do NOT pride in it. Yes, you are among the top 3% of the human civilization after millions of years of evolution, which is cool and all, but hey! DU does not want that. DU doesn’t want YOU. It’s what Douglas Adams called perhaps the “Total Perspective Vortex”. You will realise how small you are. Theirs is an attempt to bring back mankind with wings to the ground, and not only that, to make you undertake a contortionist act at a mental level, where you CANNOT afford to learn, but remember; not understand, but reproduce; not create, but accept.
How the Spartans rejected every newborn they found was flawed, and came up to a meagre 300, owing ONLY to the mathematical impossibility in scoring, DU’s army stands at a still mighty 100. So, aspirants, tonight, and every night, if I daresay, you dine in living hell. You die a hundred deaths in the fear, in the anguish of knowing your abilities, yet doubting their perfection. I am not trying to invoke the fear that shall dawn upon you as you wait biting whatever remains of your nails, watching your results appear on the fateful screen, fearing that a 100-100-100-99 is not the figure they are looking for. That one mark shall haunt you, although immensely insignificant at ground level, for the rest of your life. That one mark, will downcast your eyes to the dirt of the road, and never shall you look into that apparent horizon of excellence. This although does open avenues for Chuck Norris. To teach you to roundhouse kick the board exams to a 100% result.
Congratulations DU, for now getting to select students based on probability. Might as well on the basis of the flip of a coin. Or a dodecahedron, for you are so in love with large numbers. The irony is, there WILL be a long line of students STILL contending to get into DU, with 100% results, apiece. How do you plan to raise the bars next year? 100% marks and a height over 6 feet? You might as well keep a single score, say a random 94.62% as the selection marks, and one would have to get exactly that, to get in. Aiming at something less than 100 “precisely” is infinitely more difficult, and definitely the next step. Or, perhaps select students based upon the number of funny pictures they have in their Flickr accounts. At least THAT, they can practically work on. And will involve more wits than any board paper ever can.
By Siddhartha Mukherjee
Luck beats Talent: Delhi University and its 100% mischief
– June 18, 2011Posted in: Editor's Picks: Classics, Education, Opinion
that was very well written. it had great wit, ethos, pathos and also hit the nail bang on regards Univ. admissions not only in DU but in many other highly recommended, prestigious, n haloed institutions…
terribly pity the modern youth. we sure had it going a bit too well for us… sure we didnt have such a wide variety of choices of subjects nor a too many careers but we did pretty well inside of that…
the youth today are challenged to point of doom…
is this perhaps paving a way for super humans??? the next rung on the evolutionary ladder…!!!
ALL THE BEST!!!
VIVE LA STRINGENT N IMPOSSIBLE SCREENING LEVELS N CUT OFFS….
Thank you!
As far as the next rung to the evolutionary ladder is considered, well, lets just hope they don’t raise the support so high you cannot even incline the proverbial ladder against it…
Its no use blaming the university or even the college. The article should have been about the in ability of he government to come up with new educational institutions and develop the lesser ranked ones. Every year we are increasing the IITs and the IIMs but no one wants to develop pure science, commerce or social science colleges. On top of this we have an ignorant and foolish education ministry where Mr Sibal says “we have demanded an explanation from the University and the College authorities.” Mr. Sibal it is you who should provide an explanation for this fiasco, not the university and certainly not the college head.
Dhruv,
This article is just pointing out the irony of the situation, with no blaming anyone involved. It does center DU, because that for the situation is inevitable.
And its agreeable, totally, that Mr Sibal has some answering to do.
This is so well written! Very witty and captures the issue fully! Kudos to the author for a humorous yet meaningful post.
Thanks a lot Nitish. Glad you like it.
extremely well-written and addresses the issues rightly. I wish someone writes a satirical piece on the atrocities of the University of Calcutta, where even a row with a non-teaching staff can leave you majorly effed up with a 40% in your grade card.