KOTA: The New Indian team reached the heart of Kota city, the hub of coaching centres in India, to understand whether residents want the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party to come to power in Rajasthan to gauge the electoral nerve of the city.
Among the residents was a Master of Arts in Hindi, Anita Meena, who owns a tea stall catering to the students from coaching centres. Fashioned after the trailblazer MBA Chaiwala, Meena has named her stall MA Chaiwali and she has prepared herself for Rajasthan following its trend of anti-incumbency and getting the BJP to power.
“I want Modi and of course BJP in Rajasthan. A good candidate from BJP who can work very well for Rajasthan and especially students. Consequently, the BJP coming to power will also stop suicides among students here. and so suicides can stop here,” Anita said.
The MA Chaiwali’s sister, Muskan, had been a student in one of the centres in Kota, witnessing the regime change from the BJP to the Congress. However, the district has been the stronghold of Congress’ Shanti Dhariwal for the longest of time, becoming the member of the state legislature since 2018.
She said that the issue concerning student suicides was not new but one that had been brewing since the time the coaching boom arrived in the town. “They are suffocating within oneself,” she said with nonchalant grace while helping her sister prepare tea. “Students don’t want to share their feelings with anybody. This doesn’t help anybody and only makes them lonely and they are suffering. Nobody makes friends here. These students come alone to our stall, take their tea and leave,” she added.
However, Anita still remained hopeful of helping the students out of their spiral of loneliness and depression. “These students talk to me very freely and often share their problems with me. Once a boy had come to me and asked me, ‘I am unable to study properly, what should I do?’ I talked to him like my own brother and told him very calmly that he should at least try once and if that does not work out, inform your parents,” she said.
Yet, her efforts to take the students out of the spiral has come in the middle of earning a livelihood, as she has taken to selling cigarettes to the students. “Kota is adopting the culture of metro cities in terms of student life with 17-18 year old students adopting the bad habit of smoking here,” she said while handing a cigarette stick to another student. “I was not selling cigarettes in the beginning but then I saw students buying it from another shop and then come here to have tea so I also started to sell it.”
There are 272 government MBBS colleges which will offer a total of 41,388 medical seats through NEET 2023 while 76,928 seats will be allotted through NEET in 532 government and private colleges and there are a total of 17,485 seats up for grabs in all 23- Indian Institute of Technology (IITs).
Presently, Rajasthan is going for its elections on November 25 where we will get to know where the buck will fall in the state.