I sit here in a sea of numbers, for once they please me and almost everyone else. I sit in class, breaking rules, as I message the fractals, the grades. 26/30, three A+’s.
I’m not ashamed to admit these are new, novelty. This wasn’t the case always. I’m happy now, but I wasn’t unhappy then. Call it callousness, call it suppression, call it whatever the hell you want. I curse now, I cursed then. I eat chaat from the roadside, and I survived typhoid. I ate at an expensive restaurant, and I recovered from gastroentitis.
I fight with my boyfriend, my father, my mother, my dogs and even my cat. I fight, I insult, I abuse. I throw words, harsh and unforgivable, and in turn I get them thrown back at me. And I learn to live, to sustain, to rebuild. Physics runs through me as I traverse through being malleable, brittle, transparent and opaque all at the same time. I know I’m living, as I jostle through the sweaty armpit women in the front of the bus as they glare at me. I glare back.
I know I’m living when I see you. With your obsession for marks, your refusal to bunk class, clinging on to every definition of ‘a good girl’ that you can find. Lets go for a movie. No. Lets go out. No. Lets – No no no no.
I want to shake you. Rattle you, pull you out of the haze that surrounds you, that makes you think your marks card will get you everywhere. It wont. Even if it does, I wouldn’t want to be there, if all it means is go to college, attend class, go home. You look at me strangely when I ask you what you’re going to tell your children when they ask you about college. Did you bunk class, Mom? No. Did you see that movie, Mom? No. Did you – No no no no.
And you sigh and shake your head.
”We wont get attendance”
The 11th Commandment – “Thou shalt never get caught”!
For the longest time, I was facing the constant struggle between scoring well and spending time discovering new things, experimenting with whatever life has to offer. My folks wanted a safe and secure life for myself, an easy life. I on the other hand, kept thinking, what’s the point of living an easy life, a life I’m living already!!! So my quest, had me become a very different person. I fought with them, argued with them and eventually got what I wanted, sometimes forcefully. I realize now that I was selfish. I denied them love. By invalidating them, I denied them their son. It’s unimaginable.
When I got the difference between them agreeing to me because a) they don’t have a choice vs. b) they choose to, I left everything and packed my bags for Delhi to be with them and support them. Today, my folks are completely enrolled in whatever I do. They see me as a responsible loving son now.
It took me 8 bloody years to go from “something must be wrong with me to think of my folks as just some people I live with” to “I’m perfect the way I am, and they’re perfect the way they are, they have been and haven’t been”.
Point is, it’s a long walk. But it’s worth taking. Trust yourself. You know it better than anyone.
Loved the post. Actually we suck. We went for only ONE movie in TWO semesters.
Wait, we’re not too bad either: we go by the streotyped compulsion that girls-college’s cause as well; we bunk to meet boys
Attendance: 96%