Principal names Hamid Karzai as Vice-President of India

In a development reminiscent of last year’s topper Ruby Rai pronouncing political science as ‘prodikal science’, Bihar’s Humanities topper this year, Ganesh Kumar, who scored 83% in music, struggled to explain the meaning of sur and taal and could not hold a note when asked to sing a song.

Mr. Kumar was a student of Ramnandan Singh Jagdeep Narayan (higher secondary school) in Samastipur’s Chhakhabib village, around 120 km from Patna. He studied here for two years before emerging as the State topper.

Mr. Kumar, who hails from Giridih in neighbouring Jharkhand some 250km from Samastipur, was caught on camera defining sur and taal in his own way. “Sur woh hota hai jise gana gaate samay jor se khicha jata hai…aur taal jo sur me milake gaya jaata hai” (Sur is what we drag forcefully while singing and taal is what we mix in sur to sing a song), explained Mr. Kumar to a local TV journalist on Thursday, three days after the publication of the Intermediate results.

When asked to sing a song, Mr. Kumar sang two lines of a popular Bollywood number from the film Coolie No: 1: Jab dil na laage dildar humari gali aa jana. He was unable to name a popular singer from Bihar or any of the musical gharanas. Though he had scored 92 out of 100 in Hindi, Mr. Kumar could not explain the terms ‘Gadya’ (prose) and ‘Padya’ (poem).

Mr. Kumar’s date of birth as per the Intermediate records is June 2, 1993. But a school mate of his from Giridih said he and Mr. Kumar had cleared the Class 10 board exams from a school in Giridih in 1990. Mr Kumar has the appearance of a middle-aged man, with a paunch, and a weathered but clean-shaven face. He said that he was belonged to Giridih but came to Samastipur and worked hard as a hawker before deciding to study in order to be able to apply for a government job.

Asked if he expected to top the State in the Humanities stream, Mr Kumar said, “No, but I answered the questions in a neat and clear hand writing. I think that helped me in becoming the state topper.”

No electricity

The principal of Mr Kumar’s school, Abhitendra Kumar, who claimed to hold a Masters in Commerce, also had trouble answering basic questions from local journalists. Mr. Abhitendra did not know who the Bihar governor was, and named Hamid Karzai as the vice-president of India.

The school, with unplastered walls and an asbestos roof, had six classrooms but no electricity. According to the principal, of the 155 students who gave the intermediate exam in the humanities stream this year, only 53 passed.