Through Woman and Child and Educational Pressures on Children, comprising 30 works, Rama Rawat puts the misery of students fighting exam pressures in physical form. She got the idea of her exhibition watching her son's tiny frame lug his weighty kindergarten bag. ``Children don't even play anymore. And why are people accepting that as the natural order?'' she asks.

In fact, her exhibition - on at the Sans Tache Art Gallery - has a separate series on the school-bag. One of her works displays a headless body with a protruding school bag strapped to it. For some students, their satchels became their cross, like 17 year-old Danish RashidKhan who immolated himself on December 9, or 19-year-old Sarita Mody who recently hung herself because of peer pressure.

Dr Anjali Chbabria who is currently compiling a study on the subject, told Express Newsline, ``What parents don't realise is that each child has different saturation levels and needs. While one students may be able to cope with excessive pressure, another can't. And even if they get through their student life without taking a drastic step, the high stress levels often lead to emotional difficulties later on.''

Added Rawat, ``I made my son take a break after standard 10 before he sat for his engineering exams. At the most, the best years of our lives are till we are 50, but we make our children spend the first 25 with their noses buried in books. There is something fundamentally wrong with that.''

Chhabria concurs. ``With the schedules they have to live up to, the children are ready to retire by standard 10. And now, even extra-curricular activities are tinged with competitivefeelings.''

Rawat's works are a response to a serious social problem which can often be avoided by a little understanding from the family. Said 17 year-old Sandeep Sarkale, who had leapt off his college building after he failed his math exam but who survived the near-fatal fall, ``All you need is a good circle of friends and understanding parents like mine, and you can deal with everything.''