Monday morning, 9th January, at sharp 9:30 am

I heard someone’s mobile conversation. That “SOMEONE” was standing just 10 steps behind me in a long queue

“Bro- DO cover each and every school in Dwarka-especially Bal Bharti, Maxfort and don’t miss Mt. carmel school for sure, meanwhile I have send Preety to cover all schools in Pashim Vihar area. Hopefully, we would be able to cover all schools in these two hours” he exclaimed.

By now you must have got an idea where I was standing on that chilly Monday morning.

Yes, I was standing amidst the queue to get the nursery admission form for my three years old son.

I got so astonished to see the level of enthusiasm and vigor in parents to collect the forms of as many schools as possible as if some sort of competition is going on!
In just couple of minutes I heard another lady saying that she had covered 23 schools in west Delhi and amazingly she was so proud of it!

I could see the spark in her eyes! As if she stood first in a marathon!

Covering more and more schools seems to add a sense of security in the minds of parents.

Surprisingly, everyone seemed to me like rushing to get their child admitted in the best school available. I was took aback when I came to know that nowadays parents “are ready” to send their kids to even far away “good schools” instead of sending them to nearby “Average schools”. Even if their child has to get up so early in the morning and catch school bus even before 6 o’clock in the morning for ‘Delhi Darshan’ every day, parents don’t mind.
Undoubtedly, this mad scramble for getting seats in nursery is because of limited number of general category seats in every school. With so many reservations for SC/ST/EWS quota, the general category is appearing like another “MINORITY CLASS” these days.

Sometimes I do wonder what will happen when our kids will be facing similar situation some 25-30 years from now!

I think “Quotas” will increase and General category will fall between 0.5% and 1%.

PHEW!