It's undeniable that the role of parents is pivotal in encouraging their children for examinations. But, it would be strange if a father appears for the examination in his bid to coach his daughter and such a weird incident has happened in Chennai. A 47-year-old father in the city, who is the owner of a gym, has on Sunday come to the exam centre with a hall ticket to write the NEET exam to allay his daughter's fear and to support her in her dreams of becoming a doctor. 

47-year-old Mohan from Vadapalani appear for the NEET exam at the centre in Anna Nagar and it would be first-of-its-kind that a father has appeared for the NEET exam for the sake of helping his daughter to become a doctor. He carried a hall ticket and when entered the examination centre, the police personnel and exam staff were stunned to see him. Initially, they had thought that Mohan could have arrived to drop his daughter. However, he had shown his hall ticket that he is going to write the exam. After checking him, the authorities had allowed him. 

The incident has become the talk of the town and speaking to the Times of India, Mohan said that the young students looked at him differently when he entered the exam hall but he focused on writing the exam. He said that he was nervous about whether familiar questions will appear. He stated, "I have developed the interest (in writing NEET) while helping my sister's daughter for appearing for NEET last year and after coming to know that there is no age limit for professional courses, I have decided to write to help my daughter's preparation." 

By citing that the physics questions were tough, Mohan affirmed that he would score more than 550 out of 720 in the national exam. However, he was not planning to join the medicine course and want to coach his daughter for the examination. Though his family members didn't back the idea of appearing for NEET, Mohan has said that his daughter and son were supportive and helped in the preparations. 

Besides running a gym, Mohan is also a customs consultant for those in the export-import business and he has earned an MA and a law degree, but stayed off from practising law. He had completed his class 12 three decades ago and wanted to pursue medical education. However, he couldn't make it. Now, he has written the national exam to coach his daughter. According to the National Testing Agency's bulletin for NEET 2021, the upper age is 25 years as of the date of examination with a relaxation of five years for those into SC/ST/OBC categories. 

On Sunday, nearly 16 lakh students in India had written the NEET exam to secure admission to undergraduate medical and dental programmes across the country. The examination was held at more than 3,800 centres in 202 cities in India and overseas, with Covid-19 safety protocols to curb the spread of the viral infection. The exam was held in 13 languages and in Tamil Nadu, more than 1.10 lakh students had registered themselves for the NEET and the state had installed 224 centres. The School Education Department has said that nearly 7,000 students had taken the exam in Tamil.