Couple of days back, I called up my mom – like I do every single morning. The mood at home – specially mom and my sister – was despondent, to say the least. My mom jumped straight from “How are you?” to lamenting that my niece lost one mark (got 99 out of 100) in her Computer test by messing up one question.

I know how hyper-competitive India is at school level – but I still tried to reason with my mom. I asked her how come nobody is celebrating the 99 questions my niece did get right. Why all the overwhelming attention to one single question she missed?

Trying to use reason with my mom in this context is like trying to explain calculus to a new born. When I pointed out that she is only 10 and that she can’t possibly know everything that is required of her, my mom’s response was – “So what? Which 10 year old does not know that the national game of India is football (soccer as we call here) and not cricket”. Then she commented on the effect of TV and constant cricket and how that is corrupting students.

But something else struck me. I asked her if it was a Computer test, why were they asking about national game of India? What had that got to do with Computers? My mom summarily dismissed this line of questioning and said for Computer Programming, you have to answer all these questions. I think, she forgets at times that I did Computer Science from IIT. 🙂 She also said that if I had the attitude that I have now when I was studying, I would have never made anything out of my life 🙂 By this time, my sister also came onboard and started talking about why these are standard questions for all Computer tests.

So, finally, I pulled up my last trump card. I asked them why did they feel that the niece should have written football (soccer) instead of cricket. I gently pointed them to the fact that (field) hockey has been the national game for India for a very long time.

Now that did trigger some memory cells in their minds. For the next three minutes I held the phone to my ear on this side and on the other side I could hear all sorts of discussions going on as confusion reigned supreme 🙂 Finally, my mom ended the call abruptly saying “We’ll talk later”. I am sure they were looking up all sorts of reference books 🙂

I did get a call from my niece that evening suggesting I am the best person in the whole wide world 🙂 🙂 Ah! All’s well that ends well 🙂