For many Indian students, board exams are engraved in their memory as a season rather than a test, a time when entire households rearranged themselves around a teenager’s timetable.
So was the case for Muskan (25), who now works in Pune’s Vigyan Shala and remembers board exams as a collective family project. “I used to live in a joint family. My parents would go shushing others around while I sat in a secluded room to prepare. Earlier what family or the school principal suggested based on evaluation — that used to become the career goal.” she said. Like many students of her cohort, she prepared for the IIT-JEE in Kota while completing Class 12 in the 2016–17 batch.
Now reflecting on the unfounded promise many students built their careers on — ‘After engineering, one can do anything’, she emphasises the importance of individual research in career decisions. “When the one option presented to you closes, you’re left staring at a blank space. Then it feels demoralising.”
Board exams also represent something else for many young women, Muskan adds, citing the example of her cousin, who is preparing diligently this year in the hope of securing admission to a good college and moving out of her hometown for space and a little freedom.
For Pranav Vanikar (25), now working as a geopolitical analyst with a London-based firm, the memory that stands out is a ritual his father unknowingly created. He recalls how a small act his father performed before his first exam happened to coincide with the paper going well, and the ritual continued on every exam day after that. “Everyone feels like there is a lot riding on these exams,” he says. “But a couple of months after they’re done, nobody really looks back. Now when I think about it, I didn’t need to put so much pressure on myself. But hindsight is 20/20, right?”
Varun Sharma, a CBSE 2013 graduate, remembers his board exams for a very different reason. His batch was the first to experience then HRD Minister Kapil Sibal’s Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) system, the batch that had the option to skip Class 10 boards and faced Class 12 boards directly for the first time. His first paper began with a shock. “My exam centre was a government school. I walked in and realised I was on a very wobbly table. The desk surface was uneven.” When he asked the invigilator to change the desk, the response was short.
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At home, however, the atmosphere was completely different. “My parents were super chill. They had zero expectations. They always said one paper would never define my life.” His real competition, he says, came from elsewhere. “My elder sisters were studying abroad and were scholars in their fields. When the exam results came, my parents were on cloud nine, but for me it felt lukewarm.” Today, Varun is an investment banker who completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees in Japan. “Do I remember anything from my board exams? No. However, the atmosphere of the exam centre still haunts me,” he recalls.
Ganesh Kuthwad, now a history researcher, completed his Class 12 exams under the Maharashtra State Board in 2019. For many like him, board exams and engineering entrance tests merged into a single high-pressure ecosystem. Looking back from the perspective of a researcher, he sees a fundamental gap in the system. “All exams felt like a competition for a good college, but we never received training in research or skills. When I look back now at all those exams, it feels like education has turned into a competition. Education should not be a competition. Now that I am a researcher in history, I see how research is done, what skills are important, and how crucial that training is. In all those exams, the pressure builds so much that you lose the process of actual learning.”
For Gorakh Gomase, who appeared for the Maharashtra State Board exams from Nanded, the experience was intensely physical as well as emotional. “12th boards felt like a battle — social pressure, home pressure, relatives’ pressure. It was treated like the last fight of my life.” On one exam day, he was unwell from stress “I walked three kilometres to the exam centre and still gave the paper.” Today, the memory feels distant “Now it feels like we were running endlessly. Basic things became clear later, it wasn’t necessary to take so much pressure.” After completing his postgraduate degree in history, he is currently preparing for the NET.
