“It is absurd! I got a 96%ile in CAT and still did not get a seat. It is stupid. What is merit in this country, no wonder the country is like this.” Ms. Garg exclaimed, irritated that someone approved of the system, especially someone who had also suffered the stupidity of it.
She was staring at the fair young man, who was holding his folded hands to his chest, suddenly feeling all their eyes on him.
“I agree, it has been almost 60 years of this freebie. It is time merit won and the country progressed. This system is a poison that is suffocating us. How long are we going to dole this out, for the mistakes of some great great grandfather of mine? Get it over with yaar, times have changed, who sees caste and all nowadays.” Mr. Gupta remarked, looking around for approval from the other five.
“I do agree, I do understand that it was wrong, all that was done, all those years ago, but then it is not right to punish us now, is it?” Ms. Sharma added, looking a bit flustered at all this serious talk.
“What do you have to say now, Mister?” Ms. Garg asked Mr. Raghavan, looking at him intently to see, if he accepted their arguments. Everyone else were also turned towards him, to see what he would say.
Mr. Raghavan was flustered, not knowing how to react. How could he explain it to them? This was not the first time, they were having this conversation and whatever he told them, they kept rowing around to this concept of merit and he could not quite break it. He did not know, how to.
“He is caught! He does not have an answer. No one can counter this, how can they!” Ms. Jain exclaimed triumphantly.
“Well, let us go back upstairs, I shall show you the demographic data and then we shall actually see where we stand! Before that there is no point in talking, let us take out the stats!” Mr. Raghavan remarked and acting true to his MBA degree, he side stepped the question and they all went back to their summer project work.
But something had changed that day…
From that day, till a long time later, that question kept popping back to him…
“What is Merit?”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
A year and a half later, he stumbled upon an answer. It was more a realization, than anything else.
Everything in a human’s life, is determined and if you believe in destiny, destined by just one factor. Everything anyone ever does and will ever do, is a function of just one thing.
THE PRIVILEGE OF ONE’s BIRTH!
Note: What is Privilege here?
1) Economic Privilege (The Wealth of the Family),
2) Social Privilege (The Societal Status of the Family),
3) Cultural Privilege (The Cultural Inheritance – Education, Community Benefits, etc)
My Discovery of India 