When my daughter was four I decided to put her in a school. Galaxy Public School had just been established near my place in the Gyaneswar area so I enrolled her there in the nursery class. But even as I was putting her in Galaxy, my mind was already thinking of ways to get her admitted into the more renowned St. Mary's High School in Jawalakhel. Two years later, we did just that. I remember waiting on the school's grounds as the entrance exams were being conducted in a hall at St. Mary's. My daughter was the first to come out and I asked her as to how she had done. "It was easy Papa," she said. "Only how do you spell ‘musa' (mouse in Nepali)?" When I told her, her response was, "I think I got it wrong."
The question on my mind was how the students would be selected since I couldn't fathom what difference in intelligence there would be among six-year-old children sitting for an entrance exam in which the questions could not be but simple. The school authorities no doubt had a huge task on their hands as typically, more than 2000 apply every year for 200 seats in this premier school. Anyway, the long and the short of it was that my daughter gained the coveted admission to the prestigious school and 11 years later passed out from Class 12. The fact that she is a St. Mary's alumni will undoubtedly be one of her greatest assets in life just as my being a St. Joseph's (Darjeeling) alumni is a big asset for me. I confess that when I went for my first job interview, this fact alone gave me quite an unfair advantage over the other candidates. A good basic school background is certainly as important as is a good college degree.
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