I have a dream Not grand but not unlike Martin Luther King, And I can imagine Inspired by John Lennon, Don’t try to colonise my mind: Haven’t you heard of MK Gandhi? You sure know how to stomp the light out of my life, Yes, now I get what Jawaharlal Nehru meant.
I wish there were no exams No nights spent bent over tomes Committing to a flogged memory Words, sentences and paragraphs that suck.
I am hostage to fits of panic attacks And acidity, shivering my days and nights alone, While everyone else’s watching tv Or hanging out on the beach for some young-people fun.
The tension runs electric from mom to mom Compelled to stay ahead of the neighbours, While I am constantly sweating the stuff And feeling like a bloody loser.
In school we come to blows over half-a-mark And drown in answers blanked out of the head. Frankly, I hate winners, their guts, And I never want to get out of bed.
Have you listed the names of capitals Before you had quite turned three? (I did.) Or named the pictures on posters Or was forced to be a performing flea? (Sing, darling, that song about Frere Jacques… Come on, you know it, Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous? Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines! Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.) Come on baby, sing… She usually sings very well, it’s French you know, My child is very clever. Sing, you know it, Sing…. No Chhota Bheem for you if you don’t sing… I don’t know why….. Yup, that’s me.
Why stuff the head with useless matter When there’s so much more to explore? But you say no, no time for all that Focus on your exams, nothing else, nothing more.
But I have ideas and things on my list Because the things you love mean more, For which there are no prizes to live or die for And nobody cares how much you score. When you ask that unaskable question: So, how did it go, your paper today? I honestly don’t know what to answer, Cos I know you don’t hear what I say. (You better score over 99% or else no future for you… it’s your choice. In any case, no cable tv, no eating out, no going out with friends, and certainly no reading books or watching movies… You choose. It’s all up to you. We don’t mind what you decide. But remember, no future…)
Is that what education’s all about? In the end to feel unworthy to be alive? And the only thing that matters Is some numbers between 0 and 9?
I refuse to walk within parallel lines And care about things that mean nothing to me. I’d rather we banned exams, excommunicated them, sent them to the outermost edges of time… What a wonderful world that would be!
Or are you saying what’s life without exams?