Mr Joshi · The Quiet Exam · Pulse Beat
Mr Joshi's coaching centre occupied the third floor of a building near Karve Road, and it smelled exactly like Kota. Rows of plastic chairs. A whiteboard crammed with formulas. A banner reading RANK…
Mr Joshi's coaching centre occupied the third floor of a building near Karve Road, and it smelled exactly like Kota.
Rows of plastic chairs. A whiteboard crammed with formulas. A banner reading RANK IS EVERYTHING above the door. The man himself was short and genial, with a grey moustache and a laugh that did not reach his eyes. He leafed through Dev's mock-test records with obvious relish.
"Eleven marks," he said. "Eleven! Just a little more work in the last hundred days."
"I did the work, sir."
"Of course. Of course you did." Mr Joshi beamed. "But the exam is a game. We learn the game. My boys have an average improvement of four thousand ranks in the drop year." He tapped a folder. "Fourteen hours a day, Dev. No phone. No films. No distractions."
On the way out, Dev's father shook the man's hand, reassured. In the lift, Dev leaned his forehead on the cold metal wall and found that he was counting. Fourteen hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days. He did the arithmetic, and a feeling began in his stomach, like a stone dropped slowly into water.
"Papa," he said. "I don't think I can."