Sunrise and Sunset would always remain as one of the most beautiful things of our nature. I believe there are so many little things that happen in between these two wonderful moments, which are not as beautiful, but we just cannot forget them. The little things that happen in our day to day life.
There are days, we don’t want to remember. There are days, we want to forget. There are days, which stay with us all our life time so that we can cherish it some other day. Day’s we spent in hostel, school, and colleges are simply unforgettable. Good or bad, they just stay with us.
I remember those words of our school principal on our last day at school. “Your life is like a freshly laid concrete mixture. Put your best foot forward, because once you get an impression on this concrete, it will harden in no time and would remain with you, life long.” I guess these are words which remain with you somewhere at the back of your mind and would lead you through the testing times towards light.
I had always maintained in my heart that I am not the brightest student, nor am I gifted like my cousin who can write an exam and score well by just going through the book once. I guess I belong to that group of people whose mind works backwards. For example, we start with what we want to achieve and then work backwards to find what exactly is sufficient enough to attain these results. Most of us are always told and programmed to believe that your 10th and +2 is the most important because this part of your academic life shapes your career in a great way. So, I too was brain washed to believe the same.
That makes my life easy. If 10th and +2 is important then why should one break our head at 1st, 2nd, 3rd ,4rth,5th,6th,7th,8th,9th and +1 ? Just enjoy life and make sure you get minimum marks to get to next gradeJ. So that’s my backward theory. You folks would have got me by now. I just created this theory because I simply couldn’t answer people when I had to face this weird questions like, “How on earth could you get good marks when it mattered?” If I said, “I worked hard.” I got this rolling of eyes meaning,”Yeah sure.”
Sometimes I would just blabber something like, “the examiner was the father of my girl friend. We made a deal. I had to forget his daughter and he would help me to answer. Now, since you know that I don’t even have a micro gram of grey cell in me to pass on my own, I agreed. Oh yes, I am now heart less as well. So, stop rolling those eyes.”
Ok, I will stop all this non sense. Frankly, I just worked hard, like donkey, dog or whichever hardworking animal comes to your mind. I worked so hard that, during my+2 exams, I knew all the reactions and equations in chemistry including the page number of the text book where you could find that equation. That’s photographic memory :-). However, believe me; I lost sleep resulting in mild insomnia, so I just didn’t try this kind of studying in my engineering. I guess it’s the kind of memory that you can use for a short burst, like 100 mts race. Cool, that’s enough of blowing my own trumpetJ. The actual reason for writing this post is that, there is no real reason. Well, If you have enjoyed it till here, you may want to continue because I promise, it doesn’t get any worst
One of my cousins’ friends wanted to get her daughter into my school. So my cousin informed his wife to take my help because he quoted, “……… you can take Raj’s help because he was one of the ‘BRIGHTEST’ student in the school……”
I couldn’t stop thinking, laughing. “Yella OK, ‘BRIGHTEST’ yake?” (Everything is OK, ‘Brightest’ Why?). Doesn’t translate well in English, but sounds good in kannada when our Uppi dada gives the pose for KF.
Now, I felt I have been so successful in building and maintaining this image of brightest student in my family circle, whereas the reality was not even half brightest :-). Oh yeah, I worked hard, but I wasn’t consistent. Also, there were students in the school, who set new benchmarks every year. I just couldn’t keep up. To be honest, I had no motivation to read. I just kept in mind whatever was taught in class and vomited it in exam. It is true that, I studied in village, so I didn’t enjoy the luxury of studying in a city. However, I believed that this was good for me because my thinking was crystal clear and that’s what helped me to get those marks when it mattered.
However, my attempt to tell my relatives, that I am not the ‘BRIGHTEST’ that you think, has failed every time. I am not the brightest, but I would die trying to get what I want when it mattered. I would forget food, water, sleep to get what I really wanted. That’s how hard I need to try to reach the benchmark set by these ‘BRIGHTEST’ students
So I told my cousin. “You might have to change your plans of taking me to my school because, If it is the same watchman then he would not allow me into the campus, considering the fact that I have tricked him many times to sneak out of the campus to buy Ice cream. I was so bright that, we would play football with a stone in public bus stop after school and complain at home about frequent bus strikes. I would walk all the way to home to save the bus ticket amount and buy a candy with that, though it was just Rs1.50. The sweetest of all candies.
My brightness never escaped the teacher’s eye as well. Almost every teacher, head teacher had got me kneeled down at various locations of school. Sometimes, my juniors used to look at me and say, “hey, isn’t this the guy who was outside so and so class on his knees, and yet head held high, as if the national anthem is being played.”
I usually would come to school very early in public bus, so few of us would make a team and throw ball from one end to the other end of class and count who takes the maximum catches. Some played to impress girls, some for fun. Sometimes the girls giggled and those boys, who never joined us, would envy us. Once when we were playing this, the ball bounced of the window and hit our vice principle who was talking a walk on the veranda. She just walked off. I didn’t understand this. Usually a teacher would blast out and end our life with words. But here, she walked off and she is a vice principal.
So the owner of the ball, that’s undoubtedly me, my daring 3 friends walked to head mistress. She was angry but not very much angry considering the magnitude of the event. She asked us to go to vice principal and apologies. We followed her to the vice principal’s room like the ducks following the leader in the water, in line.
My memory jogged back and forth. Few years ago, my uncle had literally dragged me to vice principal’s room for admission interview. I didn’t answer anything right. Most of the effort to get the right answer out of my little mouth went futile. However, she gave me an admission. Little did she know that, I would be standing in front of her after few years apologizing for playing inside class.
Our vice principal listened to our broken apology statement and said, “Do not repeat again. You may leave.”
We looked at each other confirming that what we have heard is right. We never repeated the mistake again. In fact, I don’t repeat my mistakes. That’s one good quality in me. We recruited two classmates as security guards to check for anyone coming towards class. We would take turns to stand as guards. We never accidently hurt any teacher again. As I said, we don’t repeat the same mistake.
However, my BRIGHTNESS never made it to headlines, because there were brighter people in my school . So what happened in campus remained within the campus. I stayed on the boundary, never crossed it. It is fun to be on the boundary and see both the worlds. It’s exciting to be on the boundary.
I believe what happened in my academics has repeated all through my career as well. I didn’t get a placement in campus. As usual I was not the brightest. However, once outside the college, I worked double hard to do WHATEVER to get the job. Once I got a job I worked, triple hard to get what I wanted. I still do that. Because, we are not the BRIGHTEST stars who shine all the night, we are the SHOOTING stars, who shine so bright that you can’t see the other stars, but hey, we fade away, leaving you with the memory to cherish.
R U A SHOOTING ****STAR****?
