The CBSE 12th results are out and there are already sharks in the water waiting to swoop in on children bleeding marks. The sharks here being your relatives who only seem to care about you in the result season, some even managing to perfectly show concern on their uncaring faces. You know the kind of people, they always ask you about your marks as if that's the only thing in life that matters, they'll never ask you about your hopes and dreams, you passions, what makes you tick, what annoys you, what your views on important issues are. It's always about the marks. 

I'm sure some of all our relatives are well-meaning, and ask out of concern rather than to rub your marks in your face, but even then, your marks are nobody else's business except your own, and it should remain that way until a time when you have to use your marks to get ahead in life or admission into that college you've been eyeing. Of course, there are entrance tests and stuff after 12th, an extra hoop to jump through to prove your worth and get into prestigious colleges across the country, but that's a story for another time. 

There's a fundamental problem with Indian relatives, personally, except a few notable exceptions I've found that they range from exceptionally mediocre to exceptionally annoying, and I'm not even married yet! Of course, this is just a part of a bigger problem: Privacy, or lack of privacy and lack of understanding why we need it. 

There's a fundamental problem with how Indians precieve privacy of an individual, and this problem starts right from home. You aren't encouraged to have your own private room as a child due to various reasons, and that keeps carrying forward until we do not understand the concept of privacy. I've often found people stamping their feet with indignation when they didn't get the information they wanted from a person that has zero obligation to give it to them, a microcosm of the culture around privacy in the country, you either have nothing to hide or you have something disgusting to hide, there can be no middle ground. 

The argument that one should not fear if they have nothing to hide is a logically weak argument that completely disregards that various complex aspects of a human's life. The same people who say they have nothing to hide will never give you their online banking passwords or their ATM pins and still continue to parrot a logical hole as a smart argument against privacy advocates. As Edward Snowden says, "Saying you don't need privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't need free speech because you have nothing to say."

So the next time someone asks you for your marks, tell them it's none of their business because it really isn't. Your marks should matter only to you, to your parents and your siblings, and nobody else, sometimes not even them. We will progress as a nation when the culture of glorifying numbers on the sheet goes away and instead students are praised for their ability, whether it is academic or otherwise. Do note that this doesn't mean I'm in favour of abolishing a marks system for rating examination papers, I'm in favour of schools and colleges not making this information publicly available so students don't have to face a situation where their marks are seen by people without their consent.

Because privacy matters, your personal right over your own marks matter, and consent matters.