Mission 42: Chacha tries to break exam jinx  

Lucknow, March 6: The 62-year-old man waited among a crowd of amused teenagers.

“Chacha, is baar bhi (Uncle, this time, too)?” smirked a 16-year-old as some 20 other boys broke into laughter.

Jabbar Hussain didn’t even bother to reply. He wanted to remain focused on the task ahead — the state board exams, his 42nd try.

Elderly candidates writing board examinations is not unusual. But Jabbar has made history of sorts in Uttar Pradesh by appearing for the tests 41 times.

Last time he cleared his Hindi paper but flunked four other subjects, including English and mathematics.

Of all the subjects, Jabbar finds these two the toughest, and has never cleared them in his 41 previous attempts.

Some local people had suggested that he take the help of “copying agents” to break the jinx.

“I was told I could get through if I paid these agents some money. But I refused. I want to pass on my own effort,” says the vegetable vendor from a village in Fatehpur.

District officials know that Jabbar is obsessed with clearing the board exam. But they also recognise his tenacity.

“He is honest and loves reading though he does not succeed in getting a degree. We encourage him to try over and over again,” says Sanjay Raut, a school officer in Fatehpur.

So at 10 in the morning on March 4, half an hour before the gates of Saraswati Vidyamandir in Fatehpur was to open for the first day of the Uttar Pradesh Board Examination, 2008, the 62-year-old waited among a crowd of amused teenagers.

Does he feel angry at the taunts from his fellow candidates?

“No,” he says, “I take them in my stride. The snide remarks are not worse than my failures. So why should I mind?”

As if to remind himself of his failures, Jabbar has preserved the marksheets of his earlier efforts. Laminated, they adorn the walls of the room where he sleeps. “They are important examples of the efforts that I have made.”

Nur Alam, the eldest of Jabbar’s four sons, isn’t all that bothered about his father’s education mission. “The only problem is he is discussed more for his failures,” the 34-year-old says.

Nur and his three brothers — all of them school dropouts — cultivate the 16 acres Jabbar owns in Bindiki, a semi-urban town about 130km from Lucknow.

Jabbar and his wife Fatima take the produce — potato, cauliflower, ladies finger and onion — to the Fatehpur market in the morning and in the evening.

They return late in the evening, when Jabbar sits down with his books. Sometimes he studies sitting in his stall.

“Even when he sells vegetables, he would keep some books nearby,” says Manish Srivastava, a clerk with the Fatehpur civic body.

Now that his exams are on, Fatima comes to the market alone. Jabbar is busy mugging up at home.

“I will continue to sit for the exams as long as I live,” he says with a smile. “Hope I succeed before my death.”
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