To all those people out there,
who have made my life,
worth a novel!
Who ain't I?
Mani Prabhu
All rights reserved.
I seldom end up where i wanted to go, but almost always end up where i need to be.
- anonymous.
Prologue
It was not like I hadn’t found myself in a closed room filled with wooden benches before. But this one was different. The only small window on the left corner of this four hundred square feet cubicle was closed by someone just then. The atmosphere was killing. As It always happens when it should, it was poring like never before outside. The aroma of wet mud hung on quite obviously. My bladder felt strangely full in spite of the fact that I had just returned from the rest room. Was it the weather? Or was it sensory hallucinations getting on to me? I turned back to have a glance around. Sober faces, nails being bitten, uncomfortable stares… somehow it was not bliss out there. The consequences of this day loomed large in front of me. I took a sip of water from my bottle, leaned back and closed my eyes. The routine filling of the sheets was done. Was my heart racing against time? I, consciously, tried taking slow deep breath; fill my lungs with oxygen as I remembered reading somewhere that it enhanced performance levels. The taste of chocolate which I had just before entering the room, still lingered over my tongue. Two years of hell to prepare myself for this day and here I was, caught completely off guard by the utmost tension which gripped me tight! And threatened to suffocate me! Relax… relax! I told myself. Another couple of minutes… just try to meditate! Why am I so worked up…? The answers came shooting back… because I don’t know wat failure will mean! Because I haven’t even imagined a world, where I fail to clear this test of my life, and still manage to live! Because there was more than just my life at stake!!! But still, I didn’t want to think of all that; at least now. I had been there- winning till now, and I can’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t, ultimately! But, but… have I let confidence overshadow my efforts in the final few days of my penance.. Hey heyyy stop! May be just a minute more… Think of something positive. Or just don’t think at all… breathe in… hold a second… yeah, breathe out! Again! “Ok guys, you can now tear open your booklets and start. It’s sharp ten A.M now. You have three hours at your disposal. Be cool… everyone out there, and best of luck!” I just can’t express what ran in my mind, right at this moment. It was all very queer. I was perspiring like I had jogged my way to this centre from home. Tearing a seal might have been the easiest thing to do, on a normal day, under the most normal circumstances. But not now! Hell, it wasn’t happening. They say ‘Time flies when you are having fun and creeps when you are getting screwed’. Actually, to be frank, it wasn’t moving at all now. As the seal finally gave way to rather a frantic struggle, the thing which was going to decide my fate for the rest of the days I live, popped out. I made one last mumble to whomsoever it concerned, who had the powers, if any, to save my day. The wooden window shutter was making quite a rattle in the wind… And a few rain drops, tearing at the breeze, did find their way till my desk. As I opened my first page, and started with the first one, a kind of strange new found determination, calmness and confidence settled into me. I suddenly felt the odds strongly favoring me…
Hey man, if I couldn’t do this, who else can!!!
* * * * * * * * * *
What better way could I have thought of spending this night, than reading Paulo Coelho’s ‘The alchemist’. Yes, I could have tried sleeping like last night, but the trial would have lasted till the birds sang, and the milkman arrived- as the routine had become, over the past few days! If you had anytime in your life, happened to sit at home for a couple of days, waiting for your destiny to be decided- your judgment to be pronounced, I think you’ll be able to identify with what I am talking about. No appetite, still hungry! No sleep, still sleepy! The wildest vivid dreams waking you up few minutes into REM sleep! The strangest of thoughts sweeping through your mind… The silliest of doubts eating into your confidence! ... The most complex of conflicts gnawing at your troubled heart! Hell, you must be there to know how it feels. The night had finally come. The torturous wait was expected to be over, any time now. I had no courage to be at the happening end, to get a glimpse of my destiny being stuck for public viewing! I sought solace in the novel within the confines of my locked bedroom. The sight of the phone was scary, as it seemed it might ring any moment. Frankly I couldn’t resist myself staring at it, taking long breaks from the book I was trying to read. Thankfully the novel seemed to be phenomenally inspirational at this time, when my sanity was being seriously put to test! ‘What kind of system is this, when they allow two and half hours of sheer destiny to decide the rest of my life? What is it, which will decide whose of those hundred odd people’s dreams will see the light of the day? Ridiculous! My thoughts made it tough to hold on to the page I was reading. Day in and day out, what the world around me had driven right into my psyche, was that hard work and determination mattered the most. But then why was I having doubts on the judgment day? Maybe because, even Oscar Wilde had once said, “Each man kills the thing he loves!” My wandering thoughts made it impossible to realize what I was reading! I got up from bed and walked aimlessly to the balcony. I could feel a tight knot in my stomach, which was making me feel very uncomfortable. My heart was beating like it had just a few more minutes to work. I felt too heavy for my feet. I dragged myself to the filter to fetch some water. As I returned to my room and opened the second chapter, everything around me turned dark, all of a sudden. At that moment, it actually took me a couple of seconds to realize the power cut, which had just happened. Midnight struck, as music from the digital clock on my table, flooded the room. Was that a good omen and a bad omen at the same time? It wasn’t exactly like me, for getting thoughts like that, but fear of failure spared whom? But what was holding me on, was still my confidence, which was rooted deep in my mind, over the years. ‘Failure wasn’t my stuff’, I used to say, but here I was fighting the real fear of it! Have you ever been in a situation, when you had wanted to black out temporarily, only to wake up after everything is over- back to normalcy? Well, I wanted to fall asleep somehow, get myself cut from this agonizing crucifixion, the wait was subjecting me to… I knew I was lying on bed staring at nothing in particular, for quite a long time that night. The next thing I knew, hell, the phone was ringing….
* * * * * * * * * *
“The truth is I can't be without it. I mean, I know I thought that I could, but now every second its being proved that I can't. I just can't compromise myself like that. I mean I'm an emotional person. I feel things and I need to be able to get upset and talk about how I'm feeling. I want to sit and cry till I died. Not like anything will change even if i do that. Nothing. That’s it. Its all over.. I mean that's just...that's who I am and I can't change it. I don't want to. And the thing is you know that, you knew it and you still pursued me because you want something with me, you just aren't strong enough to have it which...in a way makes you a coward. And the saddest part is that...one day you're gonna wake up and realize the gravity of what you missed and it's gonna be too late…”
this was how my diary read on the fifth day since it happened. It was kind of an egoistic argument between me and my alter ego… knowing very well that they all stemmed from the pent up feelings of insufficiency, desperation and confusion! I wanted to talk with some one, tell them how helpless I felt, how meaningless life seemed to me as of now… but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I hadn’t gone out from home for the past four days… and loneliness was indeed giving me a kind of indecipherable solace! On a couple of occasions in the last two days, I did force myself to think about ‘”Yeah, it’s like that. What next?”. It always had a predictable outcome… me lying awake till early morning, with tears getting my pillows wet. Sometimes I did feel I was taking it all too hard, but the thought of loosing it, after all this inhuman hours of torture for two years, made me, all the more, question the purpose of all this… made me all the more atheistic, dejected and cynical towards life. One simple question was nearly driving me to death… “What kind of arrangement is this? If He had decided I don’t deserve it or I am incapable of doing this, why couldn’t he have influenced my decision two years back? I did have an option, right? Given a choice at an age of fifteen, did I choose the toughest path, only to face a disaster, as big as this? The more I asked, the more I felt vulnerable… the more I felt cheated. Cheated by the power I believed in! Cheated by fate! It seemed like there were no answers at all, for anything in life.
* * * * * * *
Having been forced into yet another painful depressing lonely day, I was there in my room, staring at Zee plus, in a vain attempt to distract myself! Hundreds of things were running in my mind, but none, which could make me sit and say ‘Yeah, I am back!’. The realization that mom would be back from hospital any time now, gave me some solace. Killing the television, I closed my eyes and surrendered to my thoughts. The string was cut off by the ring of the door bell, giving me a jolt! Muttering to myself that it shouldn’t be any of my classmates, I half heartedly walked to the door and opened it. All I could see was an empty door way. I went out and had a quick look around. No one in the near vicinity. Who could it have been? Didn’t I expect it to be mom? I have already had enough questions to answer… not one more! Convincing myself that some one jobless must have played a prank, I returned back and slumped into the sofa. I was now faced with only one decision… but that decision will then decide the rest of my life. Didn’t I think of it before? Hell, I did! How could I have been like this? But however I had to decide now. But how? I couldn’t digest the thought of sitting at home for another twelve months and slogging it out all over again, from the beginning! Did I have it in me, for taking up such an arduous task!? I felt sick thinking of it, but then didn’t I want it? Didn’t I want it that much? Then, should I compromise? How? Aren’t my chances in anything else, if not this, bleak? Even if I decide to compromise, isn’t it just an ignoble truce between the duty of the per severer in me and the terror of the coward, inside me! Whatever, I can’t go through this again! Does more pain guarantee sure success? But... but… there must be some answer to my future then. I dug my head into the pillow on the sofa, and temporarily suspended my thoughts. I felt hungry. I got up and walked to the fridge. As I was about to open it, the door bell rang again. Thankful that mom was back, I rushed to the door. Again, no one! As I stepped down the doorway, I found the roads too almost empty. A strange feeling of suspicion and fear suddenly gripped me. Once, it could be a prank or an accident. The same thing again was serious. I turned back and walked towards the main door. As I entered in, and was about to shut the door, a strong wind blew, and a page from some newspaper came flying to my face from the corridor. I took it in my hands instinctively as I closed the door. A peculiar feeling swept through me, even as my eyes compulsively ran through the letters printed in big letters on the headlines. I read the line aloud, “The future of science”… simultaneously I could hear the music of the clock striking six! Believe me, something from outside seemed like entering my brain and knocking at my heart! New found hopes? Wondering at the strange happenings, and overcome by yet another weird instinctive feel, I took the paper inside to my room and started reading it.
Well, if you have heard of God knocking at your doorsteps with a solution; believe me sometimes, he rings the door bell too…
( to be continued
who have made my life,
worth a novel!
Who ain't I?
Mani Prabhu
All rights reserved.
I seldom end up where i wanted to go, but almost always end up where i need to be.
- anonymous.
Prologue
It was not like I hadn’t found myself in a closed room filled with wooden benches before. But this one was different. The only small window on the left corner of this four hundred square feet cubicle was closed by someone just then. The atmosphere was killing. As It always happens when it should, it was poring like never before outside. The aroma of wet mud hung on quite obviously. My bladder felt strangely full in spite of the fact that I had just returned from the rest room. Was it the weather? Or was it sensory hallucinations getting on to me? I turned back to have a glance around. Sober faces, nails being bitten, uncomfortable stares… somehow it was not bliss out there. The consequences of this day loomed large in front of me. I took a sip of water from my bottle, leaned back and closed my eyes. The routine filling of the sheets was done. Was my heart racing against time? I, consciously, tried taking slow deep breath; fill my lungs with oxygen as I remembered reading somewhere that it enhanced performance levels. The taste of chocolate which I had just before entering the room, still lingered over my tongue. Two years of hell to prepare myself for this day and here I was, caught completely off guard by the utmost tension which gripped me tight! And threatened to suffocate me! Relax… relax! I told myself. Another couple of minutes… just try to meditate! Why am I so worked up…? The answers came shooting back… because I don’t know wat failure will mean! Because I haven’t even imagined a world, where I fail to clear this test of my life, and still manage to live! Because there was more than just my life at stake!!! But still, I didn’t want to think of all that; at least now. I had been there- winning till now, and I can’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t, ultimately! But, but… have I let confidence overshadow my efforts in the final few days of my penance.. Hey heyyy stop! May be just a minute more… Think of something positive. Or just don’t think at all… breathe in… hold a second… yeah, breathe out! Again! “Ok guys, you can now tear open your booklets and start. It’s sharp ten A.M now. You have three hours at your disposal. Be cool… everyone out there, and best of luck!” I just can’t express what ran in my mind, right at this moment. It was all very queer. I was perspiring like I had jogged my way to this centre from home. Tearing a seal might have been the easiest thing to do, on a normal day, under the most normal circumstances. But not now! Hell, it wasn’t happening. They say ‘Time flies when you are having fun and creeps when you are getting screwed’. Actually, to be frank, it wasn’t moving at all now. As the seal finally gave way to rather a frantic struggle, the thing which was going to decide my fate for the rest of the days I live, popped out. I made one last mumble to whomsoever it concerned, who had the powers, if any, to save my day. The wooden window shutter was making quite a rattle in the wind… And a few rain drops, tearing at the breeze, did find their way till my desk. As I opened my first page, and started with the first one, a kind of strange new found determination, calmness and confidence settled into me. I suddenly felt the odds strongly favoring me…
Hey man, if I couldn’t do this, who else can!!!
* * * * * * * * * *
What better way could I have thought of spending this night, than reading Paulo Coelho’s ‘The alchemist’. Yes, I could have tried sleeping like last night, but the trial would have lasted till the birds sang, and the milkman arrived- as the routine had become, over the past few days! If you had anytime in your life, happened to sit at home for a couple of days, waiting for your destiny to be decided- your judgment to be pronounced, I think you’ll be able to identify with what I am talking about. No appetite, still hungry! No sleep, still sleepy! The wildest vivid dreams waking you up few minutes into REM sleep! The strangest of thoughts sweeping through your mind… The silliest of doubts eating into your confidence! ... The most complex of conflicts gnawing at your troubled heart! Hell, you must be there to know how it feels. The night had finally come. The torturous wait was expected to be over, any time now. I had no courage to be at the happening end, to get a glimpse of my destiny being stuck for public viewing! I sought solace in the novel within the confines of my locked bedroom. The sight of the phone was scary, as it seemed it might ring any moment. Frankly I couldn’t resist myself staring at it, taking long breaks from the book I was trying to read. Thankfully the novel seemed to be phenomenally inspirational at this time, when my sanity was being seriously put to test! ‘What kind of system is this, when they allow two and half hours of sheer destiny to decide the rest of my life? What is it, which will decide whose of those hundred odd people’s dreams will see the light of the day? Ridiculous! My thoughts made it tough to hold on to the page I was reading. Day in and day out, what the world around me had driven right into my psyche, was that hard work and determination mattered the most. But then why was I having doubts on the judgment day? Maybe because, even Oscar Wilde had once said, “Each man kills the thing he loves!” My wandering thoughts made it impossible to realize what I was reading! I got up from bed and walked aimlessly to the balcony. I could feel a tight knot in my stomach, which was making me feel very uncomfortable. My heart was beating like it had just a few more minutes to work. I felt too heavy for my feet. I dragged myself to the filter to fetch some water. As I returned to my room and opened the second chapter, everything around me turned dark, all of a sudden. At that moment, it actually took me a couple of seconds to realize the power cut, which had just happened. Midnight struck, as music from the digital clock on my table, flooded the room. Was that a good omen and a bad omen at the same time? It wasn’t exactly like me, for getting thoughts like that, but fear of failure spared whom? But what was holding me on, was still my confidence, which was rooted deep in my mind, over the years. ‘Failure wasn’t my stuff’, I used to say, but here I was fighting the real fear of it! Have you ever been in a situation, when you had wanted to black out temporarily, only to wake up after everything is over- back to normalcy? Well, I wanted to fall asleep somehow, get myself cut from this agonizing crucifixion, the wait was subjecting me to… I knew I was lying on bed staring at nothing in particular, for quite a long time that night. The next thing I knew, hell, the phone was ringing….
* * * * * * * * * *
“The truth is I can't be without it. I mean, I know I thought that I could, but now every second its being proved that I can't. I just can't compromise myself like that. I mean I'm an emotional person. I feel things and I need to be able to get upset and talk about how I'm feeling. I want to sit and cry till I died. Not like anything will change even if i do that. Nothing. That’s it. Its all over.. I mean that's just...that's who I am and I can't change it. I don't want to. And the thing is you know that, you knew it and you still pursued me because you want something with me, you just aren't strong enough to have it which...in a way makes you a coward. And the saddest part is that...one day you're gonna wake up and realize the gravity of what you missed and it's gonna be too late…”
this was how my diary read on the fifth day since it happened. It was kind of an egoistic argument between me and my alter ego… knowing very well that they all stemmed from the pent up feelings of insufficiency, desperation and confusion! I wanted to talk with some one, tell them how helpless I felt, how meaningless life seemed to me as of now… but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I hadn’t gone out from home for the past four days… and loneliness was indeed giving me a kind of indecipherable solace! On a couple of occasions in the last two days, I did force myself to think about ‘”Yeah, it’s like that. What next?”. It always had a predictable outcome… me lying awake till early morning, with tears getting my pillows wet. Sometimes I did feel I was taking it all too hard, but the thought of loosing it, after all this inhuman hours of torture for two years, made me, all the more, question the purpose of all this… made me all the more atheistic, dejected and cynical towards life. One simple question was nearly driving me to death… “What kind of arrangement is this? If He had decided I don’t deserve it or I am incapable of doing this, why couldn’t he have influenced my decision two years back? I did have an option, right? Given a choice at an age of fifteen, did I choose the toughest path, only to face a disaster, as big as this? The more I asked, the more I felt vulnerable… the more I felt cheated. Cheated by the power I believed in! Cheated by fate! It seemed like there were no answers at all, for anything in life.
* * * * * * *
Having been forced into yet another painful depressing lonely day, I was there in my room, staring at Zee plus, in a vain attempt to distract myself! Hundreds of things were running in my mind, but none, which could make me sit and say ‘Yeah, I am back!’. The realization that mom would be back from hospital any time now, gave me some solace. Killing the television, I closed my eyes and surrendered to my thoughts. The string was cut off by the ring of the door bell, giving me a jolt! Muttering to myself that it shouldn’t be any of my classmates, I half heartedly walked to the door and opened it. All I could see was an empty door way. I went out and had a quick look around. No one in the near vicinity. Who could it have been? Didn’t I expect it to be mom? I have already had enough questions to answer… not one more! Convincing myself that some one jobless must have played a prank, I returned back and slumped into the sofa. I was now faced with only one decision… but that decision will then decide the rest of my life. Didn’t I think of it before? Hell, I did! How could I have been like this? But however I had to decide now. But how? I couldn’t digest the thought of sitting at home for another twelve months and slogging it out all over again, from the beginning! Did I have it in me, for taking up such an arduous task!? I felt sick thinking of it, but then didn’t I want it? Didn’t I want it that much? Then, should I compromise? How? Aren’t my chances in anything else, if not this, bleak? Even if I decide to compromise, isn’t it just an ignoble truce between the duty of the per severer in me and the terror of the coward, inside me! Whatever, I can’t go through this again! Does more pain guarantee sure success? But... but… there must be some answer to my future then. I dug my head into the pillow on the sofa, and temporarily suspended my thoughts. I felt hungry. I got up and walked to the fridge. As I was about to open it, the door bell rang again. Thankful that mom was back, I rushed to the door. Again, no one! As I stepped down the doorway, I found the roads too almost empty. A strange feeling of suspicion and fear suddenly gripped me. Once, it could be a prank or an accident. The same thing again was serious. I turned back and walked towards the main door. As I entered in, and was about to shut the door, a strong wind blew, and a page from some newspaper came flying to my face from the corridor. I took it in my hands instinctively as I closed the door. A peculiar feeling swept through me, even as my eyes compulsively ran through the letters printed in big letters on the headlines. I read the line aloud, “The future of science”… simultaneously I could hear the music of the clock striking six! Believe me, something from outside seemed like entering my brain and knocking at my heart! New found hopes? Wondering at the strange happenings, and overcome by yet another weird instinctive feel, I took the paper inside to my room and started reading it.
Well, if you have heard of God knocking at your doorsteps with a solution; believe me sometimes, he rings the door bell too…
( to be continued
1 comment:
glad that you are back! :)
"..if you have heard of God knocking at your doorsteps with a solution; believe me sometimes, he rings the door bell too..."
the perfect line to end this episode! very very well written!
i guess i'm sort of able to relate all this to whatever happened to me some five years back! :)
waiting for more! :)
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