Mr and Mrs Moolchandani are upset. Their son has been found wanting. Short of something. As parents that set high standards they feel they have failed, though they cannot put a finger on what they may have done wrong. They have missed a step somewhere. (In thinking that thought — about missing a step — both are completely unaware of how close they are to the truth.)

Like parents, in private they blame themselves. Mr M. revisits the ‘system’ both he and his wife created — the one labelled ‘a happy married life’. A once-ebullient man he has, of late, been caught sitting in quiet contemplation behind a newspaper. Not reading but re-examining his decisions. Exhuming the recent past like a forensic scientist, searching for a clue. Does it lie in the decision to have one child? Was that the mistake?

Would things have been different if Anil had a sibling? A single child, after all, grows at a different pace compared to one with a sibling. To add to it, Anil’s was a somewhat arduous birth; a few worries had presented themselves along the nine-month journey. At one point, Anil-in-the-womb had stopped practicing football; young Mrs M. did not ‘get her kicks’, as it were, for days. Then, the kicking began again as suddenly as it had ceased. But like a pair of traffic cops, both husband and wife had — after little Anil had negotiated every road bump and finally slid down the maternal chute — held up a hand and cried, “Stop! Enough!” Also, they reasoned, this crowded, overpopulated age loudly proclaimed the merits of a ‘one child family’.

Thus a system was created. Efficient, fine-tuned. Until now. To be honest, Mr and Mrs M. are not upset with Anil, who has reached that first important milestone in a pupil’s journey: Year Ten. They are totally annoyed with the school. For ten years, as parents in an Indian city, they have refused to allow competition to overwhelm them. Anil has been given every opportunity. Violin classes from Kindergarten. Piano lessons from Year 4. Anil struggles in both but keeps going. Just so it all didn’t get too arty, cricket coaching from Year 4. Tennis, a year later. A struggle here, too. A full schedule of extracurricular activities. All that, to go with compulsory library reading every day for at least 30 minutes, which Anil effortlessly stretched to a whole 60 because of his passion for the written word. And now, in the home stretch…..this!

“I am not chosen to be a prefect.”

Why?

“I don’t know, dad. I tried my best in everything.”

A quick call to the school.

“Could we ask why our son hasn’t been chosen?”

Sense of timing is off

A brief, hastily-arranged meeting with school officials.

“Anil meets every requirement. We have absolutely high regard for him. The only thing is, he cannot march. His sense of timing is off. He simply cannot keep step. As a prefect and leader of his ‘house’ he must be able to do this above all else. That is why!” Remedy for instant brooding. A week later the principal calls Anil in. “We all cannot be leaders, and there will be ups and downs in life. This is one of the downs. But instead of being negative, use it to prove yourself in other fields,” is the advice.

“I have got over it, sir,” says Anil, “It’s my parents I’m worried about.”

Sixty days pass. The inter-school debate arrives. Anil’s sense of delivery, his timing, his punch lines are so far ahead of the competition there can only be one winner. When he arrives home he is dwarfed behind the huge trophy. For the first time in months Mr and Mrs Moolchandani smile. And with that they all find their sense of equanimity once more. They realise parenting is a gamble, that they have done right, that in the range of things they have exposed their son to, one of them helped him find his niche.

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.