My Hindi Examination Dilemma What would you have Done ?
May 9 2008 | Views 387 |
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Tags: Hindi Exam Govind Copied my Paper Question To Report or not Report
Tags: Hindi Exam Govind Copied my Paper Question To Report or not Report
I was in the Intermediate Class in College. In the main subjects I was considered a good students, not a great one: essentially because I had other fish to fry: I was active in cricket, playing initially for the College B team and then captaining it: I was not good enough to be in the first eleven at Loyola, which had one test player and three Ranji Trophy players and I did not wish to be the perennial 12th man and so I chose to be in the second eleven. I also was in the NCC on the way to becoming a pilot. in the Air Wing. However, I was known to be excellent in Hindi as this was Madras and the first language I had learned in UP where I was born, was hindi. So it might have been a case to quote Desidarious Erasmus""In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king". However, most of the English medium types took Hindi as the second language, as Tamil was too difficult and Sanskrit too esoteric.
This was the final examination, a University examination with two invigilators and the whole nine yards of supervision. I had completed my Hindi examination within the time allotted with about half an hour to spare. I was sitting there twiddling my thumbs, when my friend(since school) Govind, casually reached over and picked up my answer paper and busily started copying. I was in a quandry: Govind was a friend of ten years standing, and that at 17 is a major portion of your life. I decided I could not report him, as my friendship was more important to me than the ethics of the situation. For about half an hour while Govind was busy copying, I died several deaths. If Govind were caught. not only would he be failed or worse, but so would I as a party to the copying. If I was not caught during the examination I would surely be caught if they compared our two answer papers after the fact. In that case they would not be able to establish as to who was the copier and who the copied. However, Govind was not caught and I went on to win the Hindi Prize that year, a Prize that was given to me by the then Chief Minister and Congress leader Kamaraj Nadar.
This was an interesting dilemma that I faced fifty years ago: I handled it in a certain way. How would you have done it ???
This was the final examination, a University examination with two invigilators and the whole nine yards of supervision. I had completed my Hindi examination within the time allotted with about half an hour to spare. I was sitting there twiddling my thumbs, when my friend(since school) Govind, casually reached over and picked up my answer paper and busily started copying. I was in a quandry: Govind was a friend of ten years standing, and that at 17 is a major portion of your life. I decided I could not report him, as my friendship was more important to me than the ethics of the situation. For about half an hour while Govind was busy copying, I died several deaths. If Govind were caught. not only would he be failed or worse, but so would I as a party to the copying. If I was not caught during the examination I would surely be caught if they compared our two answer papers after the fact. In that case they would not be able to establish as to who was the copier and who the copied. However, Govind was not caught and I went on to win the Hindi Prize that year, a Prize that was given to me by the then Chief Minister and Congress leader Kamaraj Nadar.
This was an interesting dilemma that I faced fifty years ago: I handled it in a certain way. How would you have done it ???
© Girdhar Gopal., all rights reserved.
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