:) :)

God has been extremely merciful. Praise be upon Him.

English, Lookin Back: Part-I

“Here…open your mouth wider…bas, that’s it…there you go!”, his mother cooed, as she fed the last morsel from the plate into his mouth. The morning had dawned, finally, and he had bathed, and now, even finished his breakfast. He looked up at the wall clock. 20 minutes to 7, it read. His mouth was dry, and he swallowed down the morsel somehow. His mother passed him the glass of water. “Finish it, dear, and wait. I will just be ready in a while”, she smiled, and disappeared into the other room. 

10 minutes later, with his spirits as glum as the overcast sky above, he walked down the road with his mother. The brand new, navy-blue school bag didn’t contain more than three books and perhaps a couple of notebooks, yet the bag appeared to be weighing down his shoulders. With reluctant steps he strode, keeping his gaze on the road, watching as his new, black shoes picked up specs of dust on their shiny texture. It was going to be his first day at his new school – the prestigious St. Paul’s.

Before story may move ahead, a slight digression would perhaps be suitable.  The school had earned a reputation throughout the district for discipline and its seasoned ICSE curriculum, but what established St. Paul’s School as a coveted brand was the fact that unlike most English Medium schools, it took its medium of instruction too seriously. Teachers were mostly from Kerala, although there did exist a local minority; but every teacher, be it a Keralite or a localite, talked to you in English when they explained the lesson, they directed you in English when you went for them in the Staff Room, they scolded you in English when you earned their wrath (even that plump lady, Mrs. Jha, who spoke Maithili at her home, screamed, the speech garbled by her overtly shrill voice, in English). If this didn’t appear to be enough, even the Hindi and Sanskrit teachers spoke in English when they weren’t explaining a lesson! You came across a plethora of accents, ranging from Malyali ( ayi! Aa sed, appanda buk – Hey! I said, open the book!) to blatant Bihari ( ae phellow, don talk or I bill send u aaut!). Even the students laughed in English, wept in English, fought in English, ate their tiffins in English and went home in English. Of course, a private conversation would have its share of exchanges in Hindi, but this usually was limited to very close buddies talking over matters which were best discussed in Hindi. But if you decided to throw caution to the winds and were caught ‘doing something’ in Hindi by a teacher, you will be rushed to the Section Incharge, who will, again in English, demand explanations of your Hindi misdeeds – a futile exercise, for you will be caned no matter what you say, if you say at all, in defense.

By the rustics of Bihar, English was perceived as a ticket to success in the modern world – something that could earn you a job even if you had no good degree, something that could earn you respect and awe. English, especially in the spoken form, was a status symbol – on few evenings of the summer that I annually spent in my village, my uncles would make me stand in the porch on that large wooden log, and I would be asked to deliver an English speech on topics which were both important and popular those days, like “Cow”, “My Country”, “Holi”, to name a few. My audience would include my cousins, kids from the neighborhood, middle-aged friends of my uncles, and often the village priest. In middle of my speech, often my uncle would interrupt. "Hey, why are you speaking so fast, boy? Do you think anybody is following you? Go slow!" he'd bark, and I would flush deeply. As I went ahead with the declamation, my audience would gaze at me in rapt attention, dazzled by things which made no sense to them; the house lad would turn from milking the cow to listen to me, his hands still clinging to her udders; and my uncle, who used to serve as the moderator, would swell with pride and look around the audience, returning their awestruck glances with a smug chuckle. After I would finish, elders would quietly talk among themselves. ‘ The boy is smart’, one would concede. Another would join in, ‘Indeed! Did you see how fluently he spoke? He will surely be an IAS officer one day!” My cousins would sit with their arms around me, while the kids from the neighborhood would keep staring at me, as if I was a demigod. Men would come and pat my back, encouraging me to study harder and harder and become a great man. Such sessions used to cause a great deal of embarrassment to me, but brought my uncle a great sense of superiority and pride. To the villagers, English was synonymous to sophistication. Perhaps it has been conducive to understand how St. Paul’s School, with all that it stood for and all those it stood among, stood as an iconic institution.

Random

I am often led to wonder if my life is anything but a farrago of dreams, not all of which can be realized. As much as I yearn to gorge life even through every single one of them, reason enjoins me to turn my back on impossible reveries that I come to have woven, no matter how painstaking this gesture might be; and turn instead to the ones where an effort by me has chances of reciprocation as success, or an output in a corresponding proportion.
All in a hope that the abnegation that I shall subject myself to, if I shall, vindicates itself in the end.

The Slut Phenomenon

Given my inveterate tendency to classify and categorize people, phenomenon and things into general divisions; I couldn't help but classify the girls around us into two categories. One, who stand up to our expectations. They can be further classified into friends, 'good girls', 'oh-that-girl's and girlfriends (Though this may go further, but by my experience I know only as much).
And second, who don't stand up to our expectations. No sub-classification is needed, as by consensus, gentlemen have settled over putting them all under a single collective noun: Sluts.
Its worth a mention here that there are no sharply defined boundaries between the two classes. She is your friend today, you have a nasty quarrel and she is declared a slut with immediate effect. In contrast to other social divisions formed by mankind, class permeability is exemplary in this case.

Every human has the desire to feel good and comfortable. I have seen boys spending a large chunk of their monthly allowances into clothes and accessories which would make them feel good about themselves. Ripped jeans, t-shirts would flashy slogans, spikes, colored hairs, name it. No 'cool' guy would like to move around in 1920's plain shirt on a trouser with its ends worn out. Yet, the salwar-kameez-dupatta remains the only acceptable form of attire for a girl to be considered well mannered, cultured and most importantly, un-slutty. In many societies to this date, if a girl chooses to go for trendy dresses, she is a slut. We watch this actor on television doing this hairdo, tucking his shirts this particular way; and next day we arrive at college with our hairs cut without a sense of proportion, top couple of buttons on the shirt undone and more than a hint of a Jockey red strap visible below the waist line. That doesn't earn us names like 'monkey' or 'loafer', but a 'hero'. On the other hand, if this girl comes to a party wearing a nice makeup with stilettos, skirts and a trendy top, she is a slut. Not as much in the metros, but in lesser urban parts of India, definitely.

This isn't the end of the story. Even if a girl agrees to settle for salwar-kameez-dupatta 365x24x7, she still has miles to dash before she can finally outrun this 'slut' tag which chases her constantly. For example, she has to be a lesbian when it comes to making friends. If she laughs, parties and hangs out with her gang, which happens to have some male members, she is an 'absolute slut' as she is supposed to be allowing 'intimate rights' to every member of the gang. More the number of female friends a boy has, the more uber-cool, sophisticated, chique is he; although by analogy, he should be considered nothing less than a pimp.

We meet people, we fall in love, we get into relationships. Sometimes it works and lasts long, sometimes it doesn't. So we break up. Again, we meet somebody else, the ashes are set to fire again, and the things repeat. The philosophy of "one-love-in-one-life" is perfect, but its not engraved on the face of the other person if he's your One Love. We may discover him in one go, or we may discover him eventually, or never at all. This seems to work very well with the male gender. They break up with a girl, add a tally mark in the list, and move to another. When guys would meet, often they'd proudly discuss who got more tally marks.
However, girls, foolish, impractical though we tag them, are somehow expected to find the love of their lives in just one go! If she has moved on to another person after a breakup, she is a slut!

From where I see it, girls who care about this tag don't really have choices apart from running on the whims of the chauvinist. But gradually they are growing to be indifferent to it. A couple of decades back, girls couldn't dare sport a low waist; very few of them had male friends; and falling in love was an affair confided only to one's heart. As globalization percolated, they moved on to jeans and skirts and more outfits I do not know the names of (tube top, tank top appear familiar and heard of, but I am not sure how they look!), they began to hang out with guys, they became more and more vocal and bold. But the roots, they are the same as of our mothers, our grandmothers. Being involved in male company doesn't make them promiscuous like their counterparts in the West. Being bold doesn't make them as haughty as to shed the responsibilities entrusted by their mothers. She continues to be somebody's World's Best Sister, somebody's beloved daughter, playing all roles the same way as her mother did. She is independent, earning more than enough for her family, yet divorce is still a taboo to her, a resort next to death. She is a sweet little bird, longing to fly out into the open. Chauvinists fear that she'll no more be a slave of theirs to be kept in a cage. Set her free, let her fly! For this cage of chauvinism, anyway, isn't strong enough to immure her for long.


P.S.- I am NOT a feminist.

Are You Afraid To Fail?

All the people I have met as a student and a classmate, I may classify them into three categories. One, by far the largest: the bourgeoisie: they are neither too optimistic about performing too high, neither having any reasons to be apprehensive about a possible disastrous performance. They are the middle class of the classroom, cocooned away from the extreme ends. Well, I always despised them for the characteristic indolence that they had inculcated in their nature over the times. But today, I write this blog with envy.

During my school days, I vividly recall the times, when one week or so after the examinations, one ominous period the teacher would enter with a bundle of white, threaded sheets rolled into an oblate cylinder; and welcomed with a collective gasp of nervous excitement from the class! Although I used to be the topper, I must confess that I silently uttered my prayers as the teacher undid the bundle and began calling our the names, one by one, glance by glance on that particular corner of the sheets as they appeared.
One particular event was common to all such sessions: tears would roll. Somebody or the other, girls especially, would burst into tears hearing her marks. A little crowd of her friends, who no doubt would have scored better, would form, collective in their generosity in consolation which often comes with happiness. What I failed to understand was, what made this news such a shock to her? This event lacked the element of  unexpectedness, for example, in a stock market crash or a news of associated with some death; which might deliver such a shock! Deep down, she must be aware of the writing on the wall. Perhaps it was only her denial to face the state of reality as it hurled down; and hence the shock when it finally shattered in her face.

In past few years, I have had the opportunity to come across Failure rather on a regular basis, and as it happens with humans, I gathered more about it as we spent more time together. Here, I must remark that realists find it the easiest to greet Failure when they meet her. Realism is nothing but optimism kept in check. Failures won't be as hard to swallow if you know that you've screwed something up and thus are prepared for the outcome; than waiting and praying for a miracle!

For somebody accustomed to a long trail of successes down his professional ladder, a spell of failures usually takes a hard toll. Why?
I think, the very first cause, the biggest cause of all, is the social factor. It may be the parents, or the peers, or the society at large. When I had got 85/100 in Sanskrit once in 9th Std., I wasn't shocked but almost dead with anxiety as to how was I supposed to go home with these! I was embarrassed to return the smile of the guy who got 100, and couldn't face the teacher eye-to-eye for a few days! And later at home, it was a scene! For most people at college, CPI follows the same analogy. The toppers want to keep the respectable pedestal with them, the 'nobles' want to be consistent in fulfilling the CPI demands from the home. The social significance of success has begun to outweigh its spirit.

People are people, after all. It is common for them to underrate you after a series of miserable failures. This is a lesson I have learned in my life: never let yourself be flattered by applause, never let yourself be discouraged by criticism. In fact, the best one can do, if one can, is to remain indifferent to the general opinion and selectively picking and working upon the elements exposed by positive criticism. I got poor marks in 12th Std, failed to qualify JEE, got a modest rank in AIEEE, and so far have been unable to fetch laurels at college too, although the latter is a completely different ball game. My dreams appear incongruous to the dreams of the people around me, and I am rather sure that they'd laugh out aloud were I to confide it to them. But that has never dissuaded me from dreaming big.

The worst thing about a long, dry spell is that it begins to suck dry your self belief. Somewhere, that faith that you had in your abilities begins to go slack. Most of the times, without you realizing it, until its too late! I have been through this phase. The most conclusive symptom is, you begin to look at successful people around you as demigods, and success as a miraculous phenomenon! If you happen to think this way, it is sufficient for you to conclude that you have lost that strong self-belief, that confidence that used to be your propeller to success. You need to find it back. Unless you do, you shall only sink deeper with time.

Indolence nourishes failure, vice-versa. They prosper over a symbiotic relationship. I lost my ability to work hard during +2 years, and even today I find it an ordeal. Indolence makes the thorns which lay scattered on your way to success, and you have to pick them up by your heels. They'll bleed, but unless you remove all those thorns, the road is never going to be easy. Did anybody say success and limelight comes easy?

Life is often like a cricket game. Despite a lot of hard work, often it happens that something or the other goes wrong all the time. One breakthrough is all that a seasoned bowler needs to set those slinging yorkers back into effect. One breakthrough is all that you need to trample the long, exhaustive line up of failures. Just the breakthrough. No matter how much people motivate you or tell you stuff from Plato or Aristotle, this would get you back in your old spirits faster than anything. It gets you buzzing quicker than a shot of vodka with fruit juice. Work for the breakthrough. Seek for it. Madly. It shall come, and when it does, just grab the line that hangs there. Its your ticket to fairyland.
Till then, keep your eyes open, your ears closed, and spirits ablaze. The society is such a tiny speck! The peers, the commentators, how do they matter! If success were to be determined by popular opinion, ah!

I just noticed that I drifted to the use of second person in my writing! It might be due to the fact that I was trying to talk to myself. A long session of struggle with Structural Design had left me weary, and I needed a little self motivation. What could be better than the long lost glory!

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?