In Kota, students from across India pay steep fees to be tutored for elite-college admission exams — which most of them will fail.
A story close to the heart when one feels deeply for the state of our education, how it’s taught or consumed by children who grasp anything or everything that validates their aspirations, even when compounded by familial or societal pressures to succeed, they are forced to carry on, come, what, may, even at the cost of one’s own mental sanity and precious life.
Education has become a mean business that fractures the core of a child’s fundamental constitution, breaking dreams and building insecurities leading to life long resentments.
I had the opportunity of witnessing firsthand the life that goes behind the pressure or pleasure of studying for these coveted JEE and NEET exams and the sacrifices that lead to any kind of result for the 2.74 million Indians who sat for engineering and medical entrance exams that compete for 64,610 spots with more than 2.6 million failing last year alone.
Story : Mansi Choksi
Photography : Zishaan A Latif
Commissioning Editor : Kristen Geisler