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Currently most families with young children in India are under the grip of a serious malaise called examination fever. Its annual exam time in most schools, and all stake holders are severly affected. Students, teachers, parents, private tutors, evaluators, everybody is gripped by exam performance anxiety. Its no longer confined to the examinee alone, it spreads to all those who come in touch with him/her, including relatives and neighbours. Its no laughing matter, this. I am sure no where in the world is this malaise so powerful and pronounced as in our country. We are a studies obsessed nation . Here a child's worth is evaluated by his/her last exam result, not by what he/she is capable of. No matter what the child's other talents may be, if he/she fails (God forbid!) to secure at least "pass" marks in all subjects , which are as varied as Geography to Geometry, he/she becomes a social outcast. No one wants to be associated with the child anymore, not friends

I am watching a kitten frolicking on the ground and pausing from time to time to look beseechingly into my eyes. Can anything be more pleasurable than watching a playful kitten? Or, for that matter, a baby playing and gurgling with delight? The sheer innocence, the wonder in the eyes, the energy in the limbs, the joyous spirit, nothing compares to these. And what happens when the human child grows up? Burdened under parental and teachers' expectations, and the pressures of performing in a rigid school environment, the child forgets its natural vivacity and innocence. The playfulness soon gets buried under tomes of books, worksheets, exam papers, project workbooks et al. Everybody gets busy in grooming and moulding the child into becoming something of a genius in all activities. What happens to the natural child? Does he/she get the time and space to be on his/her own? Coming back to the kitten, it will soon become a strapping cat, full of survival skills and boundless