Imagine you open a portal that's a gateway to electric pink,blue and cyan neon, chrome letters and laser flashing all over, with an endless horizon beyond grids of shimmering asphalt. What would you do? Maybe hop on that DeLorean and cruise down the retro futureverse. Well, well, the mercenaries from TNAU, GCE Salem, PSGR, BIT, and more did exactly that, with their stakes high on winning every battle for it brings them glory.

Wondering what this whole thing is about? It's that time of the year for GCT ladies and gentlemen - BRAINSTRAIN’26.

So, how was this futureverse built, you may ask? Oh boy, with blood, sweat, and tears! We got the Cops of the Grids, the Debugs for the masonry – because you never know when it might glitch, and the Missions ready.

The motion is set, you might think; that's what we thought too. The solidified arena meant to transcend us to a world of halos was hijacked at the last moment. We had to look for a fortress that wouldn't  glitch our spectrum and would still yield to our combatants. And we did, at the last moment.

Now the portal – ahem, the oval brandished with sigils of Brainstrain endowed with powers to harbor the metropolis was opened. And so, on September 19th, the ground hummed as the Gridwalkers and Neonatives converged to conquer the horizon and claim the verse as their own.

The Ignition sequence was complete as the club advisor of LDS, Dr. J. Anbazhagan Vijay and the chief guest, Ms. Jayashree Murthy ascended the throne. The President of LDS, Mr. Saravanavel and The  Secretary of LDS, Ms. Janani hit the flare on the grid and the verse went live.

The missions assigned to the Gridwalkers were both mono and bi coded. The mono protocol – Drama, Poem, Microtale, Adzap, Puzzle; and Phase-I of the bi-code – JAM, Shipwreck, Debate, Unominuto, Quiz – were to be executed before the horizon set. Clocks ticking and skirmishes on every block, the mercenaries fanned out into the arena. The Enforcers of LDS stood poised across the grid, guiding the runners through.

The battles were fierce with the outrunners wielding their wits and words across the arena. Strategies and creativity, packed like lexical nukes and missiles were dropped – fogging the already vapor filled grids. Amidst the chaos, bonds of recognition and acquaintance grew between the natives and runners who once entered the arena as wizards. To the pioneers of Brainstrain, this is what they would call its spacetime fabric – the frame that holds it all together.

No battle is endless; nor are there combat without moments of rest. So the refuel window was booted, with flavor portals opened for the nobles to re-energize. Natives and runners alike indulged in a scrumptious feast of mouth-watering delicacies. MUFX, the band of the verse, set the stage ablaze with their beats and vocals.

The horizon had set, which meant it was time for the final battle. Checking their literary artillery and gear, the runners who advanced stepped back into the grid. Pushing back enemies, raising their armor, they fought for The Apex Honor. With cops holding the line, the showdown came to a final log-off.

No battle is complete without glory. And so came the moment to honor the victors. With PSGR, BIT, GCE and TNAU emerging victorious back to back, the race for overall champion was closer than ever. The title, Overlord of the verse, was bagged by GCE Salem this year. They stormed the stage and turned it chaotic with their victory dance.

From being a Keeper guarding the spell of Brainstrain’25 to a Cop patrolling this retro futuristic Brainstrain’26, the ride had my heart racing at every turn. As a proud wordsmith from this wonderful society, I am utterly honoured to have been among its architects. Perhaps, the most beautiful part about the BRAINSTRAIN is how friendships once forged here never really fade.

Stay tuned to know which verse the next BRAINSTRAIN takes over.

Patron: Dr. T.Purshothaman M.E.,Ph.D, Principal of GCT

Article prepared by: Sujithasri (CIVIL 24-28)

BRAINSTRAIN'26  - Grids of lexical warfare

There is a particular kind of door we leave open when someone is struggling."I'm here if you need me. You can call or text anytime."

The door is technically open. The invitation is genuine. Most people who say it mean it completely. But there is still someone standing on the other side, expected to decide when to enter, push the door further open, explain why they're there and ask to be let in.For someone carrying severe emotional distress, even that small sequence can feel impossible.This is not because people don't care. The problem is that care alone does not always tell us what to understand, what to notice, or what to do next. There is a distance between “I'm here” and “being there.”

That distance becomes especially important when we talk about suicide. Suicide prevention is often reduced to awareness, warning signs and asking someone if they are okay. Those things matter, but prevention also requires us to understand the experiences we are often uncomfortable talking about: suicidal thoughts, self-harm, emotional distress, stigma and the reasons someone may struggle to ask for help in the first place.

This article is an attempt to look more closely at that space. Not to reduce suicide to a single cause or a single conversation, but to ask what we might understand differently if we were willing to have the conversation more honestly.

CARING IS NOT THE SAME AS KNOWING HOW TO HELP

Most people who say "I'm here" mean it. That's worth stating plainly, because this isn't an argument about who cares and who doesn't. It's an argument about a gap that exists even where care is real: someone can know a friend is struggling. They can love them. They can say the right sentence at the right moment. And the person on the other end can still receive very little that actually helps, because caring about someone and knowing what to do with that care are two different skills, and only one of them gets taught.

We are told, constantly, to check on our friends. We are rarely told what checking on someone should involve once they say something is actually wrong. So the conversation stalls at the sentence. Compassion is there. It just has nowhere to go.

Part of why compassion stalls is that the words involved get used as if they all mean the same thing, and they don't. Mental health is something everyone has, and it can be steady, strained or in crisis. Mental illness refers to diagnosable health conditions that affect a person's thoughts, emotions or behaviour. Emotional distress can exist with or without a mental illness.

Self-harm is different from a suicide attempt. A person may hurt themselves without intending to die, sometimes as a way of coping with overwhelming emotions or getting through something they do not yet know how to put into words. That does not make self-harm harmless or insignificant. It deserves to be taken seriously without automatically assuming that the person wants to die. It rarely comes out of nowhere. Usually there is a build-up first: racing thoughts, exhaustion that sleep doesn't touch, a loneliness that feels total even in a room full of people, pain that has stopped feeling like it has an edge or an end. And when self-harm happens, it is not necessarily thoughtless or simple. A person may know it will not solve what is hurting them, argue with themselves about it, want to stop, and still reach for it because, in that moment, relief from unbearable emotional pain can feel more immediate than any other option they can see.

That conflict, knowing that it will not fix what is underneath while still reaching for it because the pain has become too much to sit with, is part of what can make self-harm so difficult to stop and so difficult to explain to someone who has never experienced that kind of distress. It is also why reducing it to attention-seeking, weakness or a desire to die misses what may actually be happening.

Suicidal thoughts are also not one uniform experience. They can range from wishing things could stop or feeling that it would be easier not to exist to thoughts about suicide that may be more persistent or specific. Having suicidal thoughts does not, by itself, tell us exactly what level of immediate danger someone is in. A suicide attempt involves behaviour carried out with some degree of intent to die, while suicide refers to a death resulting from such behaviour.

These distinctions matter because collapsing everything into one category can cause harm in both directions. Someone who is self-harming may be dismissed because people assume it is "just attention-seeking," while someone experiencing suicidal thoughts may be treated as though they are incapable of making sense of their own experience. Someone having a difficult month can also be made to feel as though they are being treated as a crisis when what they first need is to be heard. None of this is about treating suicide as an acceptable answer to pain. It is about being accurate enough that the right kind of help reaches the right situation, while paying attention to what may be contributing to the distress in the first place.

None of this happens in a vacuum. Academic pressure, financial insecurity, family conflict, loneliness, exhaustion, unstable living conditions, a relationship ending, uncertainty about the future or a sense of not belonging can all weigh heavily on someone. Rarely does just one thing do all the work, and none of these circumstances, by themselves, determines whether someone will become suicidal. But prevention cannot treat distress as though it exists separately from the life a person is actually living. Telling someone to "think positively" does very little when what they need may include stability, support, treatment, rest, connection or simply someone willing to take what they are saying seriously.

Suicidal thoughts can be extremely difficult to disclose, and it's worth asking why rather than treating silence as evidence that nothing is wrong. Shame is part of it. So is the fear of being treated differently afterward, watched, managed, or handled like a problem rather than a person. So is not wanting to become a burden to people who already have their own lives.

None of that makes suicidal thoughts rare. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 720,000 people die by suicide every year worldwide. Suicide was the third leading cause of death among people aged 15 to 29 globally in 2021. What the numbers cannot show is the shape of the experience itself. Suicidal crises can intensify during acute periods of distress, which is part of why prevention cannot rely only on recognising a perfectly visible, fully formed crisis in advance. Sometimes someone can be struggling without looking like they are struggling at all.

Understanding these distinctions matters because misunderstanding them is exactly what stigma runs on. Mental illness still isn't treated the way physical illness is. Someone with chest pain is likely to be taken seriously. Someone who has been struggling for months is more likely to hear "be strong," "everyone has problems," "think about your family," or "you have everything, so what could possibly be wrong."

Most people saying these things are not trying to be cruel. They think they're being encouraging, or they simply don't know what else to say. But each one can quietly tell the listener that their pain is disproportionate, ungrateful or temporary, making the next disclosure harder. In a culture where pain has to be proven before it's believed, prevention becomes harder, not because anyone intends it to, but because disbelief is exhausting to keep pushing against.

This is where validation matters, and where it gets misunderstood. Validating someone's pain is not the same as agreeing with a suicidal conclusion. If someone says, "I don't think I can do this anymore," the reflex is often to argue: you have so much to live for, don't say that, you'll be fine. These responses are meant to help, but they can tell the person that their experience is something to be corrected rather than understood.

Validation looks different. It means acknowledging that what someone is feeling is real and serious, listening without immediately trying to argue them out of it, and then moving toward what happens next. Validation is not agreement that things are hopeless. It is closer to the difference between "you're wrong to feel that" and "I hear that this is real, and I'm taking you seriously." On its own, it isn't a treatment or a guarantee of safety. It can, however, make an honest conversation and the next practical step more possible.

That next step is often where good intentions run out, because support gets imagined as a single emotional conversation rather than something ongoing and practical. Severe distress can make ordinary life difficult in ways that are easy to underestimate: getting out of bed, eating regularly, attending class, making a phone call or arranging an appointment.

Meaningful support can mean helping someone find a counsellor rather than simply telling them to see one. Going with them the first time, if that's what makes it possible. Helping them put into words what they're experiencing when they can't quite do it themselves. Reducing pressure where that's realistic, an extension, a lighter week, a conversation with a professor. Staying in contact after the immediate crisis has passed, since distress doesn't end the moment someone gets an appointment, and recovery rarely moves in a straight line.

A harder week later on doesn't erase whatever progress came before it. None of this requires a friend to become a counsellor, or to solve someone's academic, financial or family problems for them. It requires treating support as something that continues past the first conversation, not something that ends there.

WHERE FRIENDSHIP ENDS AND PROFESSIONAL CARE BEGINS

Friends can support. They cannot diagnose, treat or manage a mental health crisis on their own, and it helps everyone involved to say that plainly rather than let it go unspoken until someone is exhausted or in over their head.

A friend can notice a change, ask directly and calmly, listen without flinching and stay present. A friend can also help someone reach Tele-MANAS, a campus counsellor, a doctor or another appropriate professional service. Getting professional help is not a failure of friendship. Helping someone reach it can itself be one of the most important things a friend does, because it means the burden is not being carried by one person who was never expected to carry it alone.

We cannot prevent what we refuse to understand.

Most of what's described here isn't crisis response. It is the ordinary work that happens before a crisis: knowing the difference between the words we use, recognising that stigma is often unintentional rather than cruel, making disclosure feel possible rather than shameful, and building environments where asking for help isn't read as weakness.

Prevention is also about making life more supportable in the broader sense: relationships, stability, treatment, a sense of belonging and practical security. The point isn't to suggest that someone has to become happy or productive to deserve support, or that finding a purpose resolves distress on its own. It is to recognise that the conditions someone is living inside can affect whether they can imagine more than one way forward. It's also worth remembering that a person can be attending every class, submitting every assignment and laughing with friends, and still be carrying something serious underneath all of it.

Functioning is not proof that someone is okay. Prevention that only looks for visible signs of struggle will keep missing the people who have gotten very good at not showing it.

"I'm here if you need me" asks the other person to do the work of reaching.

A different sentence does something else: I noticed you haven't been yourself. You don't have to explain everything right now. Can I sit with you? It doesn't wait to be summoned. It doesn't demand an explanation before it shows up. And it doesn't pretend that sitting there is the whole answer, only the beginning of one.

Care matters. But care without somewhere to go stays passive. If someone tells us they are not okay, the harder question isn't whether we care. It's whether we actually know what being there for them requires.

SEPTEMBER | WORLD SUICIDE PREVENTION MONTH

September is observed as World Suicide Prevention Month, a time to move the conversation beyond awareness and towards understanding, prevention and meaningful support.

Prevention does not begin only when someone reaches a crisis. It begins much earlier: in the conversations we are willing to have, the pain we are willing to take seriously, the stigma we are willing to challenge, and the support we are willing to offer before someone has to ask for it.

Sometimes being there begins with simply noticing.And sometimes, it means doing more than saying, "I'm here."

Because prevention is not only about keeping someone alive through a crisis. It is about helping build a world in which they do not have to carry their pain alone.

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Tele-MANAS
Government of India's national tele-mental health service
14416 or 1800-89-14416
Available 24/7.

If someone is in immediate danger, seek emergency medical care or contact local emergency services.

Article prepared by: Mathimalar V (IT 23-27)

We Cannot Prevent What We Refuse to Understand - World Suicide Prevention Month | September

Prof. Jayashree, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Government College of Technology, Coimbatore. Serving as a lecturer for more than a decade, she is known for her kind, friendly and inclusive approach to students. As a teacher, she believes in inspiring students through building meaningful connections rather than just taking classes. A poet at heart, a feminist in mind, Prof. Jayashree continues to empower and inspire more and more students.

As someone who has been inspiring and empowering students for a decade now, what made you choose this path, Ma’am?

Should I say it was my teachers who inspired me, or should I say it was my passion for meeting people, building connections, and guiding them if I could. I was more interested in inspiring people with the inspirations I had received. I think of myself as a medium to transfer both knowledge and goodness to others.

I have heard from my friends in the mechanical department of how wonderful a lecturer you are, and how you always emphasize teaching should reach all kinds of students in a classroom and that it shouldn’t be limited. So, how do you approach this and what made you  do that, Ma’am? It is actually inspiring to see a faculty focus on this beyond just completing the syllabus.

If my memory serves right, I once was handling a laboratory session where we got feedback from students. One student’s feedback about how a classroom should be designed in such a way that even the most quiet student should have the loudest voice, struck me. I was taken back and I had to take time to reflect, what he would have meant by that. This made me realise how a classroom might consist of 20% of students; who are too brilliant and see their lecturers just as a source of information. And there are another 20% of students, who are interested in academics, only if they like the person teaching it. The rest 60% are intermediate between the two and are in the hands of a teacher to make them side with one. I was one of the 60% students during my college days. I needed the right approach and that made me think they needed too.

Has there ever been an instance that changed your perspective on things, and they have been unforgettable to you since then?

As you had mentioned it right, it has been ten years and this is my tenth year in the field of teaching. I have come across many students who were very kind and loving towards me. More than their academic excellence, I was fascinated with their profound love and affection towards me. I consider myself blessed to have received so much love from the students. So I cannot mention one student or the other, there are many.

Have you ever wondered about the other choices you could have made in your life?

Talking about my career path, I started off as an Industrial Development Officer in Indian bank. My job was to check the techno-economical viability of engineering projects and sanction loans based on their technical strengths. Over time I observed how I was only helping the empowered to get more empowered and not the under-equipped folks. So, I thought this could be the right profession and eventually I made the shift. In my mind, I have always been a teacher.

I noticed a quote outside that read, “Do not leave your footwear outside; leave your dirt.” It made me realise how you uphold values and principles. And in the current generation, how do you think holding on to strong morals matters the most, Ma’am?

As I mentioned earlier, I look forward to passing on principles and ideals across generations rather than just academic knowledge. Now that I have completed a decade of teaching and I am in my mid 30s, I have yet another 25 years of active service. I think I have to hold onto these principles until the end of my service so that I can pass on to the upcoming generations. I could see even when the way of carrying forward the ideals and principles has changed, the core values haven't. We did the same for teacher’s day 10 0r 15 years ago what you are doing now. So I believe the core ideals remain the same, only the way of it being expressed has changed.

This is a hypothetical question, Ma’am. Let’s say you were given the power to change policy or make amendments in the education system. What would you do and why? 

I think any measure if it is quantifiable, then it ceases to be a good measure. When we start quantifying, say the quality of the student; they will start gaming it up. The students will find means to acquire good marks than actual practical knowledge. I think that can be changed and quality should not be quantifiable.

We know how hard it is to choose a non-circuital branch as a woman. And you did it back in 2009, a time when IT and network was taking over. So, why mechanical engineering, Ma’am?

Actually, my father was a metallurgical engineer. He served Southern Railways for more than three decades. And he used to take me to his workshop whenever possible. I was very fascinated with the engines, the wheels then. Since childhood, I wanted to be an engineer and more specifically a mechanical engineer. I didn't find it hard being a woman in the department of mechanical engineering. One of the reasons is my fellow male colleagues who made me feel at ease.

We got to know that you love writing poetry. So, can you share a couple of lines with us, Ma’am?

I started writing only because I got to stay alone most of the time. So, I had time to introspect, look back and reflect, or feel an emotion deeply. I think naming my emotion was necessary for me to respond properly; whether it was to my student, or to my superior. Most of my emotions when I look back on what I have written were all about feminism, equality or social justice. To share a couple of lines, I have woven my desires into a tamil poem, when I was around 24 and just entered teaching. I love that and it goes:

நிலவொளியில் நடைபயில ஆசை

காலையில் அடைமழையில் நில்லாமல் அரசியல் பேச ஆசை

வயல் சூழ்ந்த ஊர்தனிலே தனியே வண்டி செலுத்த ஆசை

திருமணத்திற்குப் புன்னகை மட்டுமே சேர்த்து வைக்க ஆசை

தாய் வீட்டிலேயே தங்கிவிட ஆசை

உருவால் மெல்லினம் ஆனாலும் வல்லமை படைக்கவே ஆசை

ஆம், எனக்குச் சண்டையிடத் தேவையில்லாத சம உரிமை ஆசை

As the final question, is there anything you would like to share with the people who are watching this interview, Ma’am?

What I would like to convey is that Times have gone by, but as teachers, we are trying to catch-up with your vibe. We are trying it hard and I know sometimes we fail. When I crack jokes in a classroom and I know it doesn’t work sometimes because I am at least a decade older than you. But we are trying to catch-up and making efforts to connect with you. As I told you earlier, we are not the only source of information like they were for us when we were students. We desire to connect with you, touch your lives but we don’t know how. We are still figuring it out. Students should be open enough to approach teachers. For example, let’s say I am getting paid around Rs.5000 per working day, but the student interactions I make everyday is only for about 15 mins and that is not one-on-one too. I look forward to more students  approaching and having discussions with us - the teachers. It will help us understand you better and if possible inspire you better.

Thank you Ma’am. It was great talking to you and learning from your journey.

Beyond the Classroom: An Exclusive Interview with Prof. Jayashree R

Prof. Bradeesh Moorthy, a teaching faculty member of Government College of Technology, mechanical engineering. He is known for his student friendly approach. More than a teacher, many students regard him as a good mentor for their life. With his knowledge,he inspires many students. In addition to teaching, he has footprints in many diverse leagues. He is a good bowler in cricket and a badminton player. He always looks after his students and takes part in each and every student's life. When his students are reaching a high stage, it makes him cherish those moments and that keeps him moving forward. He also emphasizes the importance of physical activity, in the tightest academic schedule.

A new gate opened to me after entering into GCT. I had completed my bachelor's degree at a private college. After that I was seeking a good job for 3-4 years. I always hustle for what’s next in my life. That led me into the teaching profession. After that I worked at ISRO as an apprentice. Then to continue my teaching journey, I had to do a Master's. That gave me GCT. 2 years here, gave me a good exposure as well as good connection. After GCT, I got a job at railways as senior section engineer. This is my story before and after GCT.

Sir, could you tell us your transition from Railways to GCT? 

I was super excited when I got the posting at GCT. I had remembered my nostalgic moments during my college days, very eager to come back to the place where I studied. It was mesmerizing. Still I feel the same now.

Sir, you are the sports director of this college. We heard from all that you're a very good bowler in cricket and also a good badminton player. Please tell us more. 

Actually, I played volleyball and football in my school days. I play kabaddi and all other sports too. But I am particularly interested in cricket. While I was studying 10th, I had a desire to take cricket as my career. But my family said, choose it after 12th. After entering college, as a river flows, my life drove me into the teaching field. During my college days, I explored playing badminton. That is my sports history. Basically, I like all sports.

Sir, can you say who is your inspiring person in sports?

I like cricket. One of the inspiring sportspersons is Azaruddin(Former Indian cricket team captain). The other one is Sachin Tendulkar. After sports, there are two other persons who inspired me in my academics as well as in my life. One person is my physics teacher. I remember a moment which touched my heart. His name is Stephen. He is also very much interested in sports. During sports day at my school, he was umpiring and he made a decision against me. Even though I don't fight with anyone, I was sitting very quietly in my class, a bit disappointed. When he came towards me, he said these words, “Study first, we will keep our fight next”. These words guided me how to behave even though we have some disagreements towards someone. Next is my mechanical professor, Dr. K.S. Amarthaganeshwaran. Every action of him from teaching till how he behaves to each and every student inspired me and shaped my life.

According to you, why should students prioritize sports also?

It is my belief that for peace, for smooth flow of work there should be an entertainment media. Here in our college, we have many clubs to refresh, entertain and learn. Sports is also an activity, a physical one, which can both train you physically and mentally. When a student picks up sports, it will lead him to be a disciplined individual. There are less chances for a student to go in a wrong way. Nowadays, the interaction among inter department students is also not good. So, these kinds of clubs and sports will give them friends across the department.

Now, the current generations are all addicted to the mobile phone, scrolling instagram for long hours. What's your perspective on this? What can we do to stop this? 

This is not only for the students, even when I take a phone to watch a video, the video goes on so long that after watching, we start to regret it. Especially after reels, students are spending time endlessly on it. So, students should come out of the addiction, this is the need of an hour. I regularly watch Dr. Sivaraman(siddha doctor) videos. He says that my generation is a very difficult one. Because our generation can see that our younger generations are suffering both physically and mentally in front of us.  To stop this habit among our students, maybe we can close the hostel gate till 6.30 pm and direct them to come to the ground and play. I think this might be the solution.

Sir, I have asked about you to mechanical senior students, they all said more than a good teacher, you're a good mentor. How do you make connections with the students?

As said earlier, my professor Dr. Amarthaganeshwaran, I have been inspired by him. In his cabin, there will be 5-6 chairs kept. Whenever a student goes to his cabin, they should sit first. That's how sir treats us. I think it is very easy to connect with the students. First ask about what you're doing and what's your 12th mark. That's more than enough to make connections. Whenever I see him, I will ask how are your parents? Because students at GCT are mostly from very financially less versed families. If a student performs low in his/her academics, speak to them. Make them understand their situation. That's how I make connections

13 long years as a professor. Which batch do you feel is the best?

For me no batch is the best or worst. But 2022-26 batch is very close for me. I was a Faculty Advisor for them for a full term. I know each and every student's family situation and I have seen them working really hard. All batches are close to my heart.

Sir, throughout your journey, you would have seen many students. Has any character of your students inspired you? 

Definitely yes. I won't take their name now. There was a function going on in the auditorium. The system operator went for lunch and didn't come. The event has to start. We were calling him but he didn't pick the call. So, the students themselves came forward and handled it. When he came, he was very tense, he was very furious with the students. There was a lot of chaos. But suddenly a student came forward, took the accountability on their and sought out the problem. Still there are lots and lots of students in our college who inspire me. I am truly blessed to be here.

In addition to professor, you're our college alumni, you’re one among them in our alumni association, what's your take on networking? How important is it for the students?

For every individual, networking is a must. In my early days, when I was in a job, I needed a house to stay in and my friend shared his room with me. So that network has helped me and now I’m here. Anywhere you go, make a meaningful connection.

Sir, what do we need to change in our college to improve our college standards to new highs?

Hostel facilities, that is the main thing. With the alumni support, we have improved some first year hostels. We should improve more. Due to the hostels, many of the top students are rejecting GCT, preferring other colleges.

I see the club activities as a strong advantage in our college. All colleges have that, but here f each and every student comes forward and carries the event. Still many more to improve. We will improve it step by step.

This is a hypothetical one, what would you feel as an advantage and disadvantage of the technology?

I feel that nowadays resources are very easy to get. Even before the semester exam, just using chatgpt I can cover a syllabus. But disadvantage is, the same chatgpt can also be used by the professors too. This will give the professor a variety of questions to make harder the exam.

In one word, “Everything”. Good study space, good family, peaceful life and good students.

Beyond the Classroom: An Exclusive Interview with Dr. S. Bradeesh Moorthy

There was a little ball of sunshine in a village in Ariyalur, Tamil Nadu. Her name was S. Anitha. She lost her mother when she was young. Her father was a daily-wage laborer, the sole breadwinner of the family. She came from a world where becoming a doctor was not an inherited expectation but an almost audacious dream. Yet she. She scored 1,176 out of 1,200 in her Class XII Tamil Nadu State Board examination, securing a medical cut-off of 196.75 out of 200. She wanted to become a doctor because she knew what the absence of one could mean to a village like hers. She wanted to become a first-generation doctor and return to the people she came from. Then came NEET.

In 2017, Anitha scored 86 out of 720 in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test. The girl who had excelled in her school examination suddenly appeared, through the arithmetic of one national test, to be nowhere near good enough for medicine. She had fought against the implementation of NEET and had even approached the Supreme Court. On September 1, 2017, she died by suicide. Her death cannot responsibly be explained by an examination alone; a human life is never reducible to a score. But neither can we erase the fact that the medical seat she had spent years dreaming about had become dependent on a system she believed was stacked against students like her. And that is where the uncomfortable question begins.

What exactly do we mean when we say merit?

We speak about merit as if it were something pure, something that exists independently inside a student and can be extracted neatly through an examination. We put a number beside a name and call it ability. We put another number beside another name and call it failure. But a mark sheet cannot tell the story behind the number. It cannot tell us what kind of educational world produced it. The number is visible. The privilege behind the number is not.

NEET was built around an idea that sounds almost impossible to oppose: uniformity. One country, one examination, one standard. The argument was that a common entrance test could replace a fragmented system and make medical admissions more transparent and comparable. But there is a difference between making the examination uniform and making the opportunity uniform.

India is not a uniform educational landscape. A student from an affluent urban school and a student from a rural government school may sit for the same examination, but they do not necessarily arrive there carrying the same preparation. One may have spent two years inside a specialized coaching ecosystem. Another may have spent those two years trying to master a state-board syllabus that does not map perfectly onto the competitive examination. The question paper cannot see that difference.

Should the system be allowed to ignore it?

The National Medical Journal of India itself questioned whether NEET had actually delivered the uniformity promised by its introduction. It pointed to differences between state-board syllabi and the NEET syllabus and questioned whether merely translating a common question paper into different languages could create genuine equivalence between students educated in very different systems. This is the first crack in the mythology of merit. A child who has never had access to the same educational resources as another child is asked to compete with that child, and when the results arrive, we call the difference in their scores a difference in merit.

But what if it is partly a difference in opportunity?

This is where coaching enters the story. NEET was supposed to be an examination. It has increasingly become an ecosystem. Coaching centres have built an enormous industry around teaching students not simply biology, physics and chemistry, but how to beat the examination itself. The longer the competition becomes, the more valuable specialized preparation becomes. And the more valuable specialized preparation becomes, the more it becomes something families with money can purchase. The rich do not buy intelligence. They buy preparation. They buy test series. They buy specialized study material. They buy private teachers. They buy repeated mock examinations. They buy a quiet room. They buy time. They can sometimes buy another year of preparation without worrying about whether the family can survive it financially. A poor student cannot necessarily buy any of those things. And yet both answer sheets eventually arrive at the same evaluator.

The irony is brutal: the examination does not charge different prices for its question paper, but the preparation required to compete successfully against it is not equally affordable. The NMJI has also raised concerns about the growing dependence on coaching and the way competitive examinations can shift the centre of education away from schools themselves. That creates another casualty: school education itself.

When a student's medical future depends overwhelmingly on NEET, Class XI and XII can stop being years of education and become years of preparation. The classroom becomes the place where attendance happens. The coaching centre becomes the place where the real examination is supposedly taught.

What happens to a system when children begin believing that school is secondary and the coaching institute is their actual education? We tell students to understand concepts, to explore science, to learn because knowledge matters. Then we give them an examination in which a fraction of a mark can change their medical college, their rank, their year, sometimes the entire direction of their life. We have turned learning into a race against the clock and then wondered why students are exhausted. There is also a deeper problem with the argument that NEET necessarily produces better medical students.

A common examination can rank students very efficiently. But ranking efficiently is not the same as measuring everything that makes a good doctor. Medicine requires scientific knowledge, certainly. It requires discipline, memory, reasoning and the ability to learn enormous amounts of information. But it also requires communication, empathy, judgment, resilience and an ability to understand human beings. A three-hour examination cannot measure all of that. And even within academic ability, a score tells us how someone performed on that examination not the complete extent of what that person is capable of becoming.

The NMJI article goes further, questioning whether NEET actually delivered the improvement in quality that was used to justify its introduction. It pointed out the striking disconnect between very high school-board performance and very low NEET performance among some state-board students, raising questions about whether the examination was testing knowledge or, in part, familiarity with a particular curriculum and examination structure. That brings us to language. India likes to say that NEET is available in multiple Indian languages, as though translation itself solves the problem. It does not. Translating a question is not the same as translating an educational ecosystem. A Tamil-medium student does not suddenly receive the same preparation as a CBSE student because the English question has been translated into Tamil. The textbook, the sequence in which concepts are taught, the depth, the examination culture, the teacher training and the resources may differ. And yet, at the end, we place both students beneath the same national measuring scale.

The NMJI made precisely this point: language availability alone does not establish equivalence when the underlying syllabi and educational experiences are different. This is why Anitha's story still matters. Not because her 1,176 marks automatically meant she deserved an MBBS seat. That would be too simplistic.  It matters because her results exposed a contradiction we still struggle to confront: how can a student perform exceptionally within the education system she was given and then be judged as though that education never existed?

Her board marks were not proof that she would necessarily have become a brilliant doctor. Her NEET score was not proof that she could never have become one. Both were measurements. The mistake was treating one measurement as though it contained the entire truth about her ability. And then there is the issue of trust. An examination as consequential as NEET requires more than a secure question paper. It requires public faith that the rules are stable, the process is transparent, the paper is protected, mistakes are acknowledged and corrected, and every student is competing under genuinely comparable conditions. The controversies surrounding NEET in recent years—including allegations of paper leaks, irregularities, grace marks and disputes over results—have damaged that trust. The problem with an examination scandal is not merely that some students may have received an unfair advantage. It is that every honest student's achievement becomes surrounded by suspicion.

The student who spent two years studying cannot know whether the person above her studied harder or had access to something she did not. And when that uncertainty enters an examination, merit itself begins to lose its authority. A national examination asks students to trust the institution behind it with their futures. That trust is not a luxury. It is the foundation of the examination. And perhaps nowhere is the cost of this system more visible than in the mental health crisis surrounding high-stakes entrance examinations.

Every year, teenagers are asked to compress an enormous amount of science into a few hours and then attach their entire future to the result. Students take drop years. Some take multiple attempts. Families invest their savings. Friendships disappear into study schedules. Sleep becomes negotiable. Failure becomes shame. The frightening part is not simply that students are stressed. It is that we have normalized the stress. We call sleeplessness dedication. We call burnout discipline. We call anxiety competition. We tell an eighteen-year-old that another year of life is nothing compared with a medical seat. And when the student break under the pressure, we ask why they were not strong enough. Perhaps the question should sometimes be why the system demanded so much strength from a child in the first place. I know what that number feels like. I was a NEET aspirant too. I scored 586 out of 720. I missed the seat I wanted by four marks. Four. To someone outside the system, 586 may sound like an excellent score. But NEET does not ask whether your score is good in isolation. It asks where your score places you in an enormous queue for a limited number of seats. Four marks can separate a government medical seat from another year of preparation. Four marks can separate a dream from a compromise. And when the alternative is private medical education costing around ₹1 crore, the question stops being purely academic. A crore is not just a number. For an ordinary family, it can represent decades of savings. It can represent a house. It can represent parents' retirement. It can represent another child's education. It can represent financial security. I could not look at that price and call it an opportunity. I could not ask my family to mortgage its future so that I could pursue mine. So I walked away. And that experience changed the way I look at the word merit.

Because if two students are equally capable but only one can afford another attempt, another year of coaching or another route through private education, are we really measuring merit or are we measuring who can remain in the race for the longest? This is where we need to distinguish between equality and equity. Equality says: give everyone the same examination. Equity asks: what did everyone have to overcome to reach that examination? Those are not the same question. Giving a rural student the same question paper as an urban student is equality. Giving that rural student access to good teachers, laboratories, reliable electricity, digital resources, quality textbooks, mentoring and affordable preparation is equity. We have become very proud of the first. We have not done nearly enough of the second. And this is not an argument for lowering medical standards.

India needs competent doctors. It needs rigorous medical education. It needs students who genuinely understand science. It needs a system capable of identifying academic ability. But a rigorous standard does not require us to pretend that the country is socially and educationally uniform. India is diverse. Our examination system should be capable of recognising that diversity rather than erasing it. The tragedy is that we often talk about NEET as though there are only two camps: people who believe in merit and people who oppose merit. That is a false choice. I believe in merit. I believe students should work hard. I believe medical education should be demanding. I believe doctors should meet high academic standards. What I do not believe is that a single score, produced after years of unequal educational opportunity, should be treated as a perfect and unquestionable representation of human potential.

Because merit does not grow in empty soil. It needs teachers, books, time, electricity, nutrition, language access, money—or, at the very least, a system capable of compensating for its absence. We cannot plant two seeds in completely different soil, give one water every day and leave the other fighting the heat, then point at the taller plant and declare: “This one had more potential.” That is not how potential works. And that is why Anitha's story should not be remembered merely as the story of a girl who scored 86. It should be remembered as the story of a girl who scored 1,176 in the education system available to her, who came from a family that could not purchase the preparation others could, who challenged a national examination because she believed it disadvantaged students like her, and who became a symbol of the enormous distance between equality on paper and fairness in real life. Her death should not become a political slogan. It should become a question. A question we should ask every time we celebrate a rank and dismiss a failure: Did we measure merit or did we measure the resources that made merit easier to display? Because a country does not become fair merely by putting everyone in the same examination hall.

A country becomes fair when a child's birthplace does not quietly decide how much of her potential the examination is capable of seeing. NEET promised one standard. But India has never had one starting line. And until we fix that, calling the race fair is simply another way of refusing to look at who was allowed to run.

Patron: Dr. K. Manonmani, Principal of GCT

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