Vive la foetus foetal future

Mrs. Anjali hurriedly readied herself amidst her husband’s protestations. “Careful dear, you are in the seventh month of pregnancy.” Anjali gave a wry smile and sat in the auto to reach the Raibanya Coaching Centre. The year is 2050 in one Indian state.

We live in an era where pursuing engineering from IITs has become vital for a student. Parents, unknowingly, pressurise their wards from a young age to crack IIT exam and in pursuit of that they enroll them in coaching centres, which squeezes happiness from the child. Dr Pingali Gopal pens a short story, which is set in future where the craze for IITs has reached new echelon

Raibanya coaching institute has been set up to take classes to the foetus for the IITs. Cutting edge research has shown that the foetus can be actually taught the various sciences. The original celebrity foetus Mr. Abhimanyu actually learnt the intricacies of war while inside his mother, Srimati Shubadra.

It has been clearly proved by experiments in the late 20th century that the foetus responds very well to soothing music and other positive messages while inside the mother.

Taking a cue from the above research a very prominent educationist, Mr. Raibanya funded some research in the early part of the 21st century. He was the key person who had initially started IIT coaching from 1st class onwards. The project was a grand success, and there was a huge rush to enroll students’ right after the kindergarten to join the coaching centres.

The fee, of course was quite fat, but it was quite worth the effort. But now, a new revolution has been ushered. IIT classes start from inside the womb and the delivery charges is actually done free in the campus itself, so as not to waste any time in the preparation of the exams.

Taking inspiration from Mr. Raibanya, Mr. Sairanya had started the antenatal courses for medical entrance exams. A distinct advantage of this institute is that the specialist Obstetricians and the Neonatologists involved in the care of the mother and child start preparing the neonate for the post-graduate courses right from day 1 of life.

The undergraduate entrance preparation would be aimed to be finished by the end of pregnancy as per the latest plans of the institute.

The prescribed curriculum today in 2050 has a great blurring of lines. In the first two decades of the 21st century, the curriculum of 8th, 9th, 10th and intermediate classes were generally merged, so one could never guess the class in which a student is from the textbooks studied by the student. But in 2050, things have evolved.

The curriculum up to intermediate is actually finished before 2nd standard. The remaining years is spent in solving examples after examples from the 100,000 books published by different authors of different states so that by the actual exam, every single problem is ingrained in the memory cells.

The first word of the problem gives out a reflex expulsion of the solution. Of course, annual days, prayers in the morning, arts, crafts, sports have been completely eliminated. The food hour has been reduced to a bare minimum.

Food capsules have been now developed, which can be popped in between the classes which run from 5 am in the morning to 11 pm continuously. Sundays are meant for only exams. Parents can see their children during the 15-minute evening break on Sundays through web camera.

This fantastic scheme has allowed the complete non requirement of toilets due the heavily concentrated form of diet. Of course, the body needs to be bathed and for that a 15-minute break has been given once a week depending on the choice of the parents and students.

Recently, due to the picking of competition of other similar schools, Raibanya and Sairanya decided to gather their forces and start the SaiRai batches for the extremely creamy layer of the students. The plan in the next 5 years is actually to get hold of the most qualified young parents, who have still not started their family.

Based on the educational qualifications and of course the paying capacity of the parents, there would be an advance booking of to be fetuses to join in the classes. The parents who get the best marks in the competitive exams would qualify for a discount.

After the upper limit of 1000 IITs in the country and 500 AIIMS, all the degree colleges have actually been converted to engineering colleges and medical colleges, so that if people cannot make it into the above, they can still become engineers and doctors. They however, are the secondary citizens of the country.

The government is also happy because now in 2050 the entire population of the country is neatly divided into engineers and doctors, so the statistics department, full of engineers again, is having it easy to chart the demographics.

“A happy 2050 to me”, thought Anjali, as it was her birthday today.