For the last couple of days, I have been watching disturbing scenes on television and social media. Young students are standing on the roads of New Delhi, raising their voices, asking questions, and demanding fairness after reports of examination paper leaks and irregularities.
Their faces show anger, fear, tiredness, and helplessness. Behind every student standing in a protest, I can also imagine a mother waiting anxiously at home, a father following every update, and a family wondering what will happen next.
When I first heard about the paper leak nearly two months ago, I felt deeply sad. An examination is not only a printed question paper. It carries the preparation, sacrifice, sleep, money, hope, and future of countless students and their families.
As the days passed, the news became more painful. There were protests, arguments, police arrangements, political speeches, television debates, and endless messages on social media. In all this noise, I kept looking at the faces of the students.
I could not simply change the channel and forget them. Their pain began to touch something very old within me.
Slowly, while watching those young people, my mind travelled back nearly forty-six years. The television was still playing in front of me, but another scene had quietly appeared in my memory.
I was once again a school student at Ramjas No. 4 in Delhi. At that time, choosing subjects in Class 11 was not merely an academic decision. It was the beginning of choosing a direction for life.
Our school had only one science section. Half the students chose Biology, while the other half chose the non-Biology group with Engineering Drawing.
Four subjects were common to all of us: Physics, Chemistry, English, and Mathematics. During the Biology period, half of us would leave the classroom and go to the biology laboratory.
The other half would remain in the class with their drawing boards, sheets of paper, scales, pencils, and engineering instruments. They would sit carefully, measuring lines and making drawings, while we walked towards the laboratory to study plants, animals, organs, and life.
At that age, perhaps we did not fully understand the importance of that small daily movement. Yet when I walked towards the biology laboratory, I was also walking towards a dream.
Medicine was already in my mind. I had chosen Biology because I hoped that one day I would enter a medical college and become a doctor.
The dream slowly grew with me. It was not a thought that appeared suddenly after school. It had become part of my identity as a young student.
Then came the medical admission process.
Those were the years 1981 and 1982. There were no mobile phones, no smartphones, no internet, no websites, no WhatsApp groups, and no social media.
We could not sit at home and enter a roll number on a screen. We could not refresh a webpage every few minutes. No notification informed us that a result had been declared or changed.
We had to go physically to the college and stand before a notice board.
I still remember the admission situation connected with Maulana Azad Medical College, MAMC. As I remember it, the marks were re-evaluated two or three times, and every time the marks changed.
Each change created fresh hope. Perhaps the new evaluation would make a difference. Perhaps my name or roll number would now appear.
I stood before the notice board with other students. My eyes moved carefully from one line to another, searching for the number that mattered so much to me.
Sometimes I felt that perhaps I had missed it. I would begin again from the top and look more carefully. I searched once, then again. I moved closer to the board, checked each line, and tried to remain hopeful.
But my name was not there where I had wished to see it. It was painful then, and even today I can feel something of that pain. I returned home disappointed, disheartened, and almost broken.
The journey back home felt much longer than the distance on the road. My mind was filled with only one question: what should I do now?
I had selected Biology because medicine was in my mind. I had studied with that direction before me. Now it seemed that the road had suddenly ended.
At that age, it was difficult to imagine another road. People may say that one door closes and another opens, but such words do not immediately comfort a young person whose dream has just been shaken.
On that day, one can see only the closed door. One cannot see what may be waiting beyond the next turn.
I had to think again from zero.
Finally, I chose homeopathy and took admission to Nehru Homoeopathic Medical College, NHMC. At that time, I did not know what this new path would become.
Perhaps I entered homeopathy because the road I had first imagined did not open. Yet slowly, this new road became my own.
I continued studying, completed my education, began treating patients, and built my life around homeopathic medicine. Over the years, I also taught students, shared clinical experiences, wrote articles, and authored books.
For the last forty-two years, homeopathy has remained at the centre of my professional life. What had once appeared to be another available path gradually became a long and meaningful journey.
Today, I can look back and see patients, clinics, classrooms, lectures, books, friendships, learning, and many years of service. None of these things were visible to the young student standing before the MAMC notice board.
That student could see only a missing name.
My later journey does not mean that the pain of those days was unimportant. A good life on another road does not make an unfair or confusing experience acceptable.
It only teaches me that a young person cannot always see the whole future from one disappointing day. A result may close one path, but it cannot contain the full judgment of an entire life.
Perhaps this is why the present news disturbed me so deeply.
When I watch today’s students, I feel their pain as the student I once was. I remember uncertainty, changing marks, renewed hope, another disappointment, and the lonely journey home.
But now I also feel their pain as a parent.
Behind every serious student, there is usually a family quietly sharing the preparation. A mother may remain awake while the child studies late into the night. A father may arrange coaching fees, books, travel expenses, and forms, even when the family budget is already tight.
Parents may reduce their own needs. Holidays may be postponed, celebrations may become smaller, and the routine of the whole house may begin to move around one examination.
The student also sacrifices much. Friends are met less often, games are left behind, sleep becomes shorter, and every day becomes filled with books, coaching classes, tests, ranks, and fear.
Then, when the examination system itself becomes doubtful, the student feels punished without having done anything wrong.
An examination can be held again. A fresh paper can be printed, another date can be announced, and a revised result can be declared.
But can lost confidence be printed again?
Can the system return the sleepless nights, fear, emotional pressure, and broken trust? Can a tired young student gather the same courage simply because another date has been announced?
This is why I feel that such a leak should never happen. Our examination system must be strong, honest, secure, and transparent.
Protecting an examination paper is not merely an office duty. It means protecting the trust of millions of young people and their families.
I also feel that the government should handle the students and their protests with patience and sensitivity. Public order is certainly important, but these young people should not be seen only as a crowd standing on the road.
Before they became protesters, they were students sitting quietly with books and dreams. Their questions deserve clear answers, and their pain deserves to be heard before it turns into greater anger and helplessness.
At the same time, protests should remain peaceful. Anger is natural, but violence or damage can take attention away from the real issue and may create more suffering.
While watching political speeches and television arguments, another concern comes to my mind. Political parties may have their own responsibilities and their own views, but the pain of students should not become an opportunity for political gain.
Flags, accusations, slogans, and counter-accusations can easily become louder than the voice of the student. In that noise, the young person for whom the whole issue began may again be left unheard.
A grieving student is not a political platform. A worried parent is not a slogan.
Political leaders should not stand upon the shoulders of wounded students to raise their own flags. They should stand beside the students, listen to them, and help them rise.
I do not know how long these protests and arguments will continue. I do not know how many more meetings, investigations, statements, and debates will take place.
But I know that no examination, rank, medical seat, or career is greater than the life of a child.
To every student facing disappointment, I do not wish to say that your pain is small. I have stood before a notice board with hope, and I know how heavily a missing name can fall upon a young heart.
I only wish to tell you that the list before you today is not the final list of your life. One result may change your immediate road, but it cannot decide the complete story waiting ahead.
To every parent, I wish to say that before asking the child, “What will you do now?” first bring the child close. Let the first words be, “Come home. Sit with us. You are more important than this examination. We will think about the next road together.”
A career can be reconsidered tomorrow. A wounded heart needs love today.
Forty-four years ago, I returned home unable to see the road ahead. Today, after more than four decades in homeopathy, I know that one missing name cannot decide the meaning of a whole life.
Still, no child should be forced to search for another road because the system failed to protect the first one.
Perhaps that is why these scenes on television and social media do not leave me easily. I am not merely watching today’s students from a distance. Somewhere among those anxious young faces, I quietly see the student I once was.