ARIYALUR: A hall which serves as a kitchen with a smoke chula stove, couple of bedrooms without cots, a veranda with a broken floor and at the end, a small room where she tied a saree at a wooden beam to hang herself. This is the tile-roofed house where Anitha lived without a toilet and the one that welcomed mourners the day after she died. A house, which barely attracted her own villagers until Thursday, saw a footfall of thousands. Half a dozen OB vans stood outside her house, and cameras flashed non-stop.
The ice casket kept for public display under a tent was surrounded by people who knew her and strangers willing to consider her as their daughter and sister for the remainder of their lives. Anitha was lying in that casket, clad in a saree with sandal over her face, her toes tied and unable to welcome visitors.
She was a medical aspirant for most part of her life and the seeds were sown by the family. Her father, T Shanmugham, 55, is working as a loadman in Gandhi market in Tiruchy. He travels five hours up and down daily from Kuzhumur through Sendurai in town buses and route buses. Anitha has four elder brothers. Manirathnam, aged 28 is an MBA graduate, waiting for UPSC exams. Satheesh Kumar, 25, is an MA, who works in a micro-finance company.
Her third and fourth brothers, 23-year-old Pandiyan and 21-year-old Arun, are studying civil engineering in Tiruchy and mechanical engineering in Ariyalur, respectively. Anitha is also survived by her stepmother, Vasuki, aged 37, whom Shanmugham married seven years ago to offer Anitha a female companion in a house where only men lived. Anitha’s mother, Anandhammal died at the age of 37, when Anitha was just five years old.
The family does not own any agricultural land like most in the village. “Anitha was very reserved but also very intelligent in class. She was close friends with me, Sneha and Inbanila,” said M Sheela, her classmate till Class 10 in St Philomina’s Higher Secondary School, which is a kilometre away from Anitha’s house. “We used to eat mid-day meals together until a few years ago as she did not have a mother to cook and feed her. She later learned to cook. Her favourite subject was mathematics. English was not her favourite, bet she was excellent in that as well. She did not interact with boys in her classroom and she was not talkative with girls either.”
“Anitha moved to Rajavignesh HSS in Melamathur. She was admitted on basis of mercy as she scored 476 and was a Scheduled Caste student. She was passionate about getting an MBBS seat. So, she moved to a hostel to study,” said M Bharathi who works in a cement factory in Ariyalur. He added, “Anitha was very timid and innocent in nature. Yet, she was like a phoenix bird for us, who never gave up. She used to walk alone to school till Class 10 as she was dear to her entire village.”
“We used to whistle and sing songs as a funny gesture. She never turned her head more than a few degrees. She used to give monosyllabic answers with a smile for the sake of respect,” said S Anbuvel, one of Manirathnam’s best friends. He added: “She was very dear to her brothers. So, we also treated her as our own”.
Anitha did not have more than three colours in her wardrobe in her house, which easily conveyed her conservative lifestyle “Anitha looked dull, but when she started to open up, she was brimming with energy, especially when she accompanied us as a respondent to Supreme Court. Her brother and her father, often tried to keep her cheerful, yet she displayed a look of self-confidence in her eyes. When she started towards her home from New Delhi, she was confident of getting justice which floored the defence counsel against the petition of pro-NEET students. Yet, we never thought, that would be the last we would see her innocent smile,” said Prince Gajendra Babu, a fellow respondent in Supreme Court and an educationist.
“She is quite depressed at the moment. Hope, she would overcome this,” Manirathnam, her eldest and dearest brother, said the day the State government and the Supreme Court washed their hands off Anitha and all the students who were against NEET. It was quite an anti-climax that it was Manirathnam who discovered her hanging inside the innermost hall as he was fed up knocking, and tried to sneak through an opening.
Today, he looks shattered like the rest of his family, and often trying to slap himself, apparently to check if things that were unfolding were indeed real. “Had she been given enough time, she would have usurped even the best in NEET. She liked challenges, but they should have been fair,” said her other female friends who used to play with her. They recollected the times Anitha used to play kho-kho with them and shared her stepmother’s food with them in school.
“This injustice should not happen to anymore ‘Anithas’ in this world. Anitha is sufficient enough to be remembered this way. A brave, intelligent, resilient girl who was unfairly defeated by the flaws in the system,” concluded Gajendra Babu. As the people refused to move from the spot, her name was echoing in everyone’s minds.
*************
Fight lost, her friend willing to sacrifice a year
Chennai | BY SAMUEL MERIGALA
Aishwarya
Plus 2 marks 1147/1200
On July 17, Aishwarya, a medical aspirant from Tiruchy, came to Chennai with a poster written with her blood. The letter addressed to the President of India asked for the cancellation of NEET. At that time, the two bills unanimously adopted by the State Assembly were awaiting the President’s nod and the 85% sub-quota for State board students was caught in a legal tangle.
No one would have guessed then that the NEET narrative in Tamil Nadu would take such a sour turn in the coming months.
In the protests that followed, Aishwarya became friends with Anitha, the girl whose suicide has triggered an outcry. Both the girls were from the districts. Both of them had high totals in the Board exam — Aishwarya scored 1147 while Anitha scored 1176 — and both found NEET tough.
“We spoke to Anitha a few weeks ago and we came to Chennai for counselling,” says a distraught Aishwarya. “Anitha had filed a case separately while we had filed the petition with four others,” said Aishwarya’s father, a doctor, who declined to be identified. “She was such a shy girl,” he recalled.
Despite the numerous similarities, one girl lives in hope of bettering her NEET score in the next attempt while the other lies dead, perhaps knowing her next attempt would be no different. “There is no Tamil translation of the 12th standard CBSE textbooks.
How can the government expect Tamil medium students like Anitha to prepare for NEET,” asked Aishwarya’s father. While the NEET controversy in Chennai was pitched as CBSE vs State Board, after Anitha’s suicide, it has become clear it was much more than syllabus. While students like Aishwarya have the option of attending coaching classes to do better next time, those like Anitha have nothing to look forward to with no resources at their disposal.
*************
Coimbatore
No funds, but determination to become doctor keeps him going
S Dharanitharan
Plus 2 marks 1180/1200
“State board or CBSE syllabus, with or without NEET, I would have definitely secured a medical seat if only the State government had paved a clear path for us to reach medical colleges,” says a 17-year-old medical aspirant from Coimbatore.
Having shelled out a hefty amount to the school management and stayed away from his parents, the student, S Dharanitharan, studied harder at a private boarding school in Namakkal with an aspiration to become a doctor, only to miss the opportunity this year.
With a centum in biology, the student had scored 1180 out of 1200 in the Class XII examination. Even as his medical cut-off stood as high as 198, the student managed to score only 204 out of 720 in the NEET examination.
He says he would have scored less than 100 had the school management not given him training for about 25 days after the public examination. Dharanitharan said, explaining that training was being given to the medical aspirants at the school with specially prepared materials and NCERT books.
“I had teachers to teach and materials to study, but I hardly had sufficient time,” the aspirant says, adding that he had managed only to study the portions related to Biology and a few chapters related to Chemistry.
Saying that he had managed to answer almost all the questions in the biology section, Dharanitharan said there is a vast difference between both the syllabus, even though the concepts are same. While just a paragraph is being allotted to explain many topics in state board books, an entire chapter is designed to explain a single topic in NCERT books, he added.
“Now, the opportunity is lost,” says the medical aspirant, who hasn’t applied for any other courses even after holding an engineering cut-off of 196.5. “I was so confident that the state government would manage to get exemption from examination.”
“I had wanted to become a doctor ever since I was in Class IV and I will become only a doctor,” the student said, explaining that he hasn’t even applied for BDS counseling, even after knowing that he would secure a seat with his marks.
“I would definitely crack the examination next time,” Dharanitharan said. Rejecting the option of joining in the private engineering colleges because of the huge fees, his father, S Senthil Kumar, an accountant said that it would become difficult to manage, financially, if his son is enrolled in a private engineering college. “May be I could manage to admit my son in a coaching centre,” he added.
*************
Madurai
Went to pvt engg college, came back in two days
N Tharani
Plus 2 marks 1170/1200
N Tharani, from Krishnapuram in Madurai, scored 1170 in Plus Two exams. Her cut-off marks stood 198. 25, but a NEET score of 172 proved to be the final hurdle. Tharani could not get medical admission, and is now preparing again for NEET sacrificing a year. “Being a state board student, I could not answer many questions which were asked from CBSE syllabus. If the questions were asked from State board, I would have performed my best and got medical admission in a leading government college,” she added.
“We had been already hurt enough by unsteady governments, when Minister of Commerce Nirmala Sitharaman said that Central government would help get one year exemption to TN from NEET. But the u-turn of the Central government made us depressed.” In the meantime, she went to a private engineering college and returned back in two days to pursue her dream to become a doctor.
*************
Chennai
V Anuja
Plus 2 marks 1169/1200
Couldn’t afford coaching, has chosen agriculture
They stay only 50 km away from each other and their stories are almost same. S Anitha and V Anuja, both the girls from rural village who did extremely well in Class 12, but couldn’t fare well in NEET. One killed herself in despair, and the other gave up on her dream of becoming a doctor and taken up agriculture.
Anuja, daughter of a farmer in T Pudukottai village in Sivagangai district, secured 1169 marks in Class XII exam. But she could secure only 100 marks in NEET. “My parents couldn’t afford coaching classes. With the help of our teachers in Ramanathapuram government school, I took one-month free crash course offered by an NGO in Chennai.
Though it was in Tamil, it seemed unfamiliar,” said Anuja, who is pursuing her B.Sc Agriculture in Tiruvannamalai government college now. “My medical cut-off with State board marks is 197.25. I did aspire to become a doctor. But I gave up on my dream. People like me cannot afford coaching,” added Anuja, who finished her education through Tamil medium at a government school. - SINDUJA JANE
*************
Tiruvannamalai
Nila Barathi: 1,169/1200
Anbu Barathi: 1,155/1200
Twins topped district, but fail to get med entry
They topped in the district in Plus Two examinations, but could not qualify for the medical counselling, thanks to NEET. Nila Barathi and Anbu Barathi of Government Girl HSS in Vandavasi secured 1,169 and 1,155. The twins told Express that they got only 30 days to prepare for NEET.
“We studied at home. We tried to crack the exam by practising the NEET question papers of the last 10 years,” said Anbu. While their State board cut-off marks for medical entrance examination were 197.25 and 195.5 marks, the duo secured only 146 and 151 in NEET. The girls, belonging to MBC, could have secured MBBS, if medical counselling was conducted based on Plus Two marks. Their mother, A Vennila, is a teacher, while father Murugesh works in a private company. - B Anbuselvan
*************
Tiruchy
M Suresh Kumar
Plus 2 marks 1163/1200
Got into top govt college, but will write NEET again
After completing his Class XII board examination in Tamil medium syllabus, an 18-year-old M Suresh Kumar wasted no time in getting admitted to a coaching centre in the city in view of NEET. The problem which Suresh faced was the lack of NEET books in Tamil at his centre and this was not only with his centre but across the State. As a literal translation was done, it was not enough. Suresh had scored 1,163 out of 1,200 in Class XII exams, but the high scores were not produced in NEET.
He got 127 out of 720. “Though one can appear for medical entrance five times, the examination materials unavailable for Tamil medium students made me think twice that whether I should wait or to move on,” said Suresh. With his Class XII marks, Suresh got an engineering seat in Government College of Technology (GCT) in Coimbatore. Hailing from a middle-class family, he could not stay home for one more year. Suresh has plans to appear for NEET next year, after enrolling in a coaching centre, apart from his engineering studies.
*************
Erode
Kruthiga
Plus 2 marks 1,173/1200
Ambitions curtailed, opts for veterinary studies
Though Kruthiga, daughter of casual labourer Mahesh of Sathy, secured 199 as cut-off mark for MBBS admission on the basis of her Plus Two marks, she lost her chance to become a doctor due to the NEET exam. She got 1,173 marks in Plus Two by studying in a private school at Sathy. Her father, who makes his living stitching jute bags, ensured good education for his daughter with a meagre revenue.
In the NEET exam, she could get just 115 marks (out of 720), and did not get medical admission. Had the selection been done on the basis of cut-off marks in Plus Two, she could have got her MBBS admission, her father said. “Due to improper planning and approach of the State government, she lost the chance. However, she got admission in TANUVAS (veterinary varsity in Chennai). She did not aspire much for MBBS.” In fact, she had not nurtured ambitions of becoming a doctor since her young days.