Ta-ta's test

THIS terrible tale is about a terrible aspect of social injustice, called caste-discrimination, which has become such a shameful feature of our country's history, thanks to the doings of two nasty old men called

B. P. Mandal and V. P. Singh. We shall, in what follows, tell the sad and true story of Ta-ta, Ta-ta being a kid brother of those two adorable children Ata and Fata, whom we've had occasion to meet and get to know and love. We shall learn, among other things, of why Ta-ta was called Ta-ta.

Ata and Fata went to the best school in city - the NCP School, which stood, in English, for the National Cultural Premier School and, in Tamil, for the Nallathur Chakrapani and Parvathiammal School (after its Founder's parents). Even as you enter the great front portal of the NCP School, you will encounter a huge and life-like image, from the facing wall, of Sir Nallathur Chakrapani Iyer (in a turban) scowling hideously at you: if you can survive that, you can deal with virtually anything else in later life. This is why the students that passed out of NCP School were among the toughest eggs that ever entered the Indian Administrative Service, or ended up cutting other people's throats, the two being pretty much one and the same thing. But let's get on with the story, for I can see that you are itching to learn of what happened to Ta-ta, and that your inquisitive little minds are bursting with notions of how, and why, and where, and all those eternally endearing questions which make your mummy and daddy want to strangle you (and they would, too, take it from me, if they were sure no-one was looking).

Well, then. Since Ata and Fata went to the best school in town, it was only natural that Ta-ta's mummy and daddy should be as terribly anxious as they were that Ta-ta, too, should go to the same school. Only, getting admission into NCP School was as tough as tough could be. It had been hard enough for Fata and Ata, but as the yeas went by and Ta-ta appeared on the scene things had got infinitely harder. Indeed, Ta-ta was registered at NCP School just as soon as his conception was confirmed (and his sex determined). But registration at conception was only a necessary, not sufficient, condition for admission. The candidate, at age three, had to pass a written test on the subject of "Our Country". To have a half-way decent chance of passing the test, the child had to be made over, at birth, to the charge of the National Cultural Premier Tutorial Coaching Centre for a period of three years (the Founder of the NCP School), you see, had discovered all about interlocking factor markets long before that economist Uncle, Amit Bhaduri, wrote on the subject in the Cambridge Journal of Economics). Upfront, you had to pay

Rs. 15 lakhs for the coaching classes, Rs. 15 lakhs for sitting the entrance test, and - if you should pass the test - a further Rs. 15 lakhs for admission, by way of a decapitation fee (no cheques accepted).

As soon as the child was born, the NCP Tutorial Coaching Centre's Principal was at the hospital gate, and mummy and daddy and Fata and Ata had to bid the child a tearful farewell - which is why he came to be called Ta-ta. At the Coaching Centre, Ta-ta had a whale of a time for three years. Things were, of course, a little different from what you might have expected from reading about "Plumfield" in Louisa Alcott's Little Men. But at the Centre, they had their own national and cultural schemes for merriment and jollification. The wards were put on a starvation diet for the refinement of their minds, they were treated to the joys of continuous Vedic chanting for the refinement of their spirit, they were ducked several times a day in the cold water of the community well to cure them of lust, and additionally, there was a fair amount of hectic corporal punishment to make it all not just bearable but worthwhile and indeed genuinely amusing for the tutors. But most of all, the infants had to be taught and coached and drilled for the school entrance test. The tutors were thorough in their instruction, for which they employed a set of books written by experts who had been specially commissioned for the purpose by the NCERT (National council for Extreme Rote- learning through Textualtraumatisation). Indeed, the NCERT had a comprehensive coaching kit for each pupil, complete with text- books, thumb-screws and dental drills. Ta-ta's mummy and daddy couldn't possibly have been expected to do better by Ta-ta.

Eventually, Ta-ta's third birthday arrived. It was also the day of the entrance test. Here's reproduction of the question paper on the subject of "Our Country" and the answers our little scholar wrote on that fateful day:

Q. Who discovered our country?

A. Vasco Da Rama.

Q. Where was He born?

A. At the Janmasthan.

Q. Why?

A. So as to justify the subsequent demolition of the other community's place of worship built on it.

Q. Who is a member of the other community?

A. A person who does not observe national mourning when a Pakistani batsman scores a boundary.

Q. What is the sex-ratio of the other community?

A. 4000 females for every 1000 males.

Q. Why?

A. Because every man in the other community marries four women.

Q. Which is the only minority community in our country?

A. Mine. It accounts for five per cent of the population, but only 50 per cent of all the Prime Ministers we have had, 52 per cent of all Secretarial positions in Government, and 55 per cent of all executive posts in Public Sector Corporations.

Q. Why is our Prime Minister so sweet?

A. Because he lithpth.

Q. Write a patriotic essay, derived from media-appreciation, on "My Country" in two sentences.

A. My Country - A Patriotic Essay in Two Sentences: Sentence 1: I love my India. Sentence 2: Come on, India.

Q. What is our National Colour?

A. Saphron.

Alas! Alas! It was a near-perfect ten, but Ta-ta, as you can see, slipped up fearfully on the last question, by being over-subtle when it came to spelling "saffron". For this brilliant little boy, nine on ten wasn't enough to make the grade: thanks to horrid men like the B. P. Mandal and V. P. Singh I've mentioned earlier, there was an iniquitous thing called Reservation whereby a child like Ta-ta belonging to the "Forward Community" had to score ten on ten in order to qualify, whereas "Backwards" only had to score nine on ten, which explains why there's no respect for merit in our country and there's so much inefficiency and we have to be so ashamed when President Clinton visits us.

Ta-ta's mummy and daddy and their entire community deplored the caste-system in our country bitterly, and wrote many passionate letters to that effect to the Editor of The Hindu. Naturally, mummy and daddy couldn't bear the shame of their child's failure, and they threw him out of the house, to be brought up in a reform school. In course of time Ta-ta learnt to accept his inferior position in the scheme of things, though, having got it wrong the first time he continued to get it wrong: he always maintained that mummy's and daddy's discriminatory attitude had left him feeling "offraned", by which he meant "orphaned".

Children, I hope you've learnt what a terrible thing is caste- discrimination. Though, if things should get too bad here, there's always the prospect of Silicon Valley, where they don't have silly things like Reservation. But in any event, dimwits, there's no harm in using Spellcheck.

S. SUBRAMANIAN

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