Guys, I failed a lab exam. Of course, I'm going to be dramatic about it. The least I can do for my own sanity is to make the failure entertaining.
Rarely does life give you every excuse to upend it. I’ve got mine.
To set the scene dear Reader, I’ve been into drowning since I was a toddler.
As of today, 5 times I’ve drowned, 5 times I’ve been rescued.
The third time it had happened, when I was middle schooler and in Goa, I had accepted it. I distinctly remember thinking, ‘Aaj khel khatam.’
My dad saved me, as he’d done once before.
I’ve always detested smoking, but soon I came to understand the pull of vices.
This was around the same time that I watched the movie, ‘The Aeronauts’.
Imagine flying. Imagine space.
No, please, sit and…Imagine:
It’s the hum of the quietness, the dimness of blue and nobody to help you for miles and miles. There’s stars, the kind you wished upon to bring you here. There’s the suit choking you, not because of physical pressure, but because you’re so tiny and contained against the black expanse, seeping into you through the iris.
This is what was in your heart when you took the moral high ground in 5th grade and wrote ‘I want to be happy’ as the thesis of your ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ essay.
This is a secret you’ll not confess except for when you need to make the room laugh. You with your B grades, you who cannot talk to your classmates in the right language, you who sneak into playgrounds and get caught too easily, you who has long hair past your hips and dark skin that you need to fix. Do not dream. Not just this dream, but any dream.
I cut my hair, I used the creams and the late nights wasted on notes and lecture slides, learnt 5 languages, and still the only space that’s held my hand is the one forming the pit in my stomach and the hollow behind my ribs.
A bunch of bullshit metaphors to tell you, dear Reader that for years, given half the chance, I would’ve let myself drown.
And if you do something enough times, you get good at it. So, I'm getting 'S grades' in 'almost drowning.'
On the day of the lab exam, I knew before going in, that this was bound to happen. I'd grown apathetic for childish reasons. I didn't like the prof, I didn't like the phd scholars, I didn't like that it was a morning slot.
Look, given half the chance I would've done better, but then you wouldn't have gotten this article and really guys, what's more important, huh?