Subir Roy: Boy wonders

OFFBEAT

Shoikat and Satyaki are distant cousins but their families are much closer than that. They have been to the same school and if they got to choose their school again they would go back there because it has a rich life that goes beyond academics. The rough and tumble of jockeying for positions, be it to become a prefect or get into the dramatics team, so part of the old public school ambience, prepares you well for life.

The two boys both loved the extra curriculars and cared little for their teachers. Satyaki mostly looked out of the window during class and Shoikat, when he was not indiscreetly cracking jokes about the teachers, managed to pay a bit of attention. That, plus a superb IQ and spending a bare minimum with textbooks has secured him a 90 per cent plus score in his school leaving exams.

If you saw the near trauma that his mother was going through getting him to spend at least some time with his textbooks you would have thought that he was going to just scrape through. But aren't mothers mostly like that? Satyaki, on the other hand, chose to simply daydream and secured grades that were closer to scraping through.

Satyaki's father, who was himself never a great student, made the mistake of letting his son feel that results were not everything, the same way some say money is not everything. In Shoikat's family, however, academic excellence is a given. Your future is doomed and your life will have no meaning if you don't get at least a high first division.

The compulsion to study and fit into a lot of other routine things like enrolling for coaching to prepare for the IIT entrance test, made Shoikat rebel after a time. He would come home late from coaching class, you could see he was bunking some of them and his mother and dadi were convinced they had a problem child on their hands.

Shoikat had one or maybe two serious aims in life, to play football and root for Manchester United. He cared little for conventional streams like engineering and medicine because you would have to slog too hard in them over boring stuff. Satyaki, for his part, had from high school decided to seek a life in the world of theatre and cinema and his parents consider themselves lucky that they have been able to persuade him to get at least a bachelor's degree and then "do what you like".

Between having a good time and being a popular allrounder Shoikat became a topper, almost on a lark. Satyaki could not be bothered about such distractions. He was happy to use his natural histrionics and clever arguments to win debating competitions and wait for the day when he would wow those across the footlights every evening.

What is fascinating is that though the two boys are a world apart in their achievements till now, there is an overriding similarity between them. In a country where most achievers learn by rote and the system is supposed to discourage independent thinking and problem solving, they are determinedly independent in thought.

Shoikat's father loves to go on treks and so does Shoikat. The games he has played and the regular treks have given him a wiry physique. Satyaki's father loves to talk about books and public issues and the boy has achieved a degree of articulation that is enviable for his years. But neither parents can seriously tell the boys what to do.

Shoikat is casually looking for a top institution where he will join a basic science stream, Satyaki is waiting to get a BA degree that he didn't care for and start the cosmic slog to one day direct a play or film. When Shoikat will get serious and really slog, his parents do not know. When Satyaki will arrive, his parent do not have a clue. What would we do without boys like these?

subir.roy@bsmail.in