I have to certify journals of all students as complete, even if they are not placed in my unit, and even if their teachers have checked the journals and certified them as complete. The head of the department is expected to do that by the university. I was doing that one day, when I came across a journal with a glossy brown cover. The cover was fine. Unfortunately for the student, I happened to look at from an angle reflecting light off its glossy surface. I saw 12 impressions of signature of one of our unit heads. I could think of no reason why the unit head would practice her signature 12 times on a piece of paper placed on top of this journal. But I could imagine the student doing this before making the signature himself on the journal. So I checked the signature inside the journal. It would not take a bank teller or a handwriting specialist to diagnose the forgery. I asked the unit head, and she confirmed that she had not made that signature. I called the student and asked him to see me with one of his parents or guardian. He came with his mother on the appointed day. They seemed affluent. I explained to the mother the matter of the forged signature. She seemed to have understood the situation. I asked her son why he did this. He said he had not done it. I asked her why he had done this. She had no answer. I asked her that was not likely that he had not done the work recorded in the journal, probably not done the writing himself, and she responded to that immediately. She said he was a very sincere student, and had filled the journal in front of her, and that the handwriting in the journal was his own. So I gave him a sheet of paper and asked him to write down a paragraph that I read out from his journal. He did this while the mother just waited patiently. After he was done, I compared the two hand writings, and it would not take a bank teller or a handwriting specialist to state that they were grossly different. His was childlike and beautiful in a way. The original was slanting and more mature. I held both in front of the mother for her perusal. She probably knew what she would find there. She looked at the papers. Then she put her hands on the edge of my desk and put her head, face down, on the hands. I could see the mother had written the journal for the son, probably copied from someone else's journal. What the son had been doing in the time he should have writing the journal was also probably known to her. She might have tried everything and finally found writing the journal herself was the best solution to the problem. I wonder if she had written his journals for the other subjects too. "Do you know that this is not proper education?" I asked. Neither the son nor the mother answered. "Do you know that forgery is a criminal offense?" I asked. There was no answer. "Do you realize that you are not only promoting him in his deception, but also not preventing him from doing something criminal, which could lead to perhaps greater criminal activity on his part in future? He may believe it is OK to do so." I said to the mother. She did not say anything. I had no intention of calling the police, nor stopping the student from appearing for the university examination. I am not God and I cannot take it upon myself to judge people and punish them. I got the student's teacher to take charge of him, who made him fill up his journal himself, checked it and certified it. I certified it after that and he appeared for his examination and passed it. I wonder what he is doing today. I don't know if he or his mother will thank me for what I did, or will try to put a curse on me for 'troubling' them. I wonder if the mother brings up all her children the same way she brought up this fellow if there are other children. Or perhaps I am wrong, and she did bring up this fellow properly, instilling in him values that he failed to imbibe, and her mother's heart could take it no more when his journal remained blank in face of an approaching final examination. Perhaps he signed it himself without telling her. I don't know how many other students are getting others to write their journals. I know policing is not my job and hence I do not want to make each of them write a paragraph in front of me and compare it to the handwriting in his or her journal.
