“Oft expectation fails, and most oft where most it promises;
And oft it hits where hope is coldest; and despair most sits.”
- William Shakespeare
I have always had a nagging feeling that I am still not doing all that I can. I am still not using the whole of my potential. It sure seems like that sometimes. People seem to expect a lot from me. And I am very much sure that people are disappointed when I don’t come through. I might have been the same if I were in their place. After they see this guy in front of him as a confident, funny and outgoing person who is smarter the average bear and not without some stuff between his ears. But mostly they just stay within that outside appearance itself and in their own irritatingly stubborn way demand excellence from you. As if you are born on this planet to do this and this alone. To shoot for the stars, be on the top of the heap and be like those uptight pompous pricks who are there already and gloat about it. I am sure there are many others out there like me. Who have at some point or other felt this immense pressure on themselves. Not being able to be who they want to be and to do what they enjoy doing!
I knew someone like that. A very good decent kid who had never done anything wrong or every wronged anybody. The kind of kid who doesn’t sit on the first benches among the toppers who have the answers for every question the teacher asks and shameless kiss their asses and are proud about. These toppers are the ones who in future take the place of these highly knowledgeable teachers as they rarely are the ones that have the guts or the talent to make it out there. My friend never sat in the last benches either. That was the place for the sleepers and mockers and the jocks of the class. The kids who are funny, naughty and rarely are very good in the marks department. These are ones that become politicians or actors or some big entrepreneur. These are the ones that do something in their life. Then there is the middle benches, that’s where our friend sat. This is the place where those kids usually sit who never were very smart but are very hard working. They never were very uptight or selfish, but were very good hearted. The followed around the smart kids but secretly were jealous of them. They stayed away from the back benchers but secretly wanted to be like them, wanted to enjoy their life a little more they were. He sat among such sad confused souls.
This kid always was the target many jokes around the class. He was from a remote village in Gujarat. He had this weird funny accent when he spoke in any language other than his mother tongue. Especially when he spoke in English he used to goof up in a lot of words and put a lot of ‘d’s and ‘t’s around the words he spoke. We made a lot of fun of him. And he never really took any of to heart. He also laughed along. I liked him for that. It takes guts to own up to your drawbacks and still be able to laugh about it. He did not have a bad bone in his body. He used to help me in math (I never too good at it!). He used stay after class to help me with it, though he never really had to. He always brought a lot of snacks when we went to the playground on weekends to play cricket. He never got pissed at anyone, never had a grudge with anybody in his life. I was always amazed how anybody could be so calm and peaceful. He always walked away when a argument would arise. Back then I used to think it as cowardly, now I realise it was the wise move!
This kid was great at drawing. Sketches, landscapes, portraits, still life. You name it and he can do it minutes, with every minute details carefully articulated. We always thought he would become a painter or something. We were naive back then (I wanted to be a bus driver at one point!). We never knew what an engineer was back then. We didn’t know the importance of money back then. It wasn’t a very significant part of our dreams back then (And that was probably our dreams were so simple and magical back then). His parents, like most of ours, had planned our future way back even before he had learned his first times table. They wanted him to be an engineer, a rich and successful software engineer. But he never really understood the first thing about programming nor did he ever really master handling of a computer well. But he still had to succumb to his parent’s demands. He had entered the engineering college.
As he surely was going to, he sucked at college. He never passed more than 2 out of 6 papers in a semester. And to add to it he was frightened of his father, never had the guts to look him in the eye. He never wanted to let his father know that he had failed at something. He was afraid of the outcome of it all. He worked tirelessly night and day but still he could get the darn codes inside his brain. He was never good at blindly memorising anything like the many so called scholars of his class used to. But he still studied very hard, tried to make it work anyhow.
He tried to make it work like that for two years. He had cleared only 5 of his 12 papers of his first year. Now in the fourth semester he had a total of 14 papers arrear and was sure to make it 19 plus after this examination. Still he hadn’t said anything about his arrears to his father. Each semester when he used to go back home after the examinations he used to tell his father that it went well. And after a couple of weeks used to make a duplicate result with help of some sympathetic classmates and send to his home. He tried to put off his dad’s anger as far as he could. And for the past couple of year he had managed to do just that.
He had given his roommate’s number as his own father’s number. One morning he gets a phone call from the Principal’s office that his father has been sent for by the Principal to discuss about the matters of his wards performance in past examinations. He also mentioned that they had also sent a letter to his home address which they had taken from the student’s official documents. The appointment was set for the coming weekend.
The coming weekend. That was he could think about. He had completely forgotten about the college having their home address. He was sure they would have received the letter by now and would present himself in front of the Principal the coming weekend. All of his failures and lies would now be disclosed. His father would know all about all those lies and the way he had deceived him. What he feared the most was the look of hurt that would be there on his father’s face when he knows of all this. That thought shook him to the bones.
He couldn’t eat properly. He couldn’t sleep properly. He was going crazy. Literally. The last I heard about him he was admitted to an asylum near Puri. He had started showing violent outbreaks and was beginning to have suicidal tendencies. He was being taken care of by his father and mother who had moved to Puri be closer to him. He never got any letter from the college about at any meeting with the Principal. Apparently the office clerk had entered the wrong address in the records. He only got to know about the arrears when he got to know about the first suicide attempt from one of the kid’s roommates. He occasionally cried when he was alone, blaming himself for what had happened to his son.
The kid still drew beautiful portraits and landscapes on the walls of his cell in the asylum..
And oft it hits where hope is coldest; and despair most sits.”
- William Shakespeare
I have always had a nagging feeling that I am still not doing all that I can. I am still not using the whole of my potential. It sure seems like that sometimes. People seem to expect a lot from me. And I am very much sure that people are disappointed when I don’t come through. I might have been the same if I were in their place. After they see this guy in front of him as a confident, funny and outgoing person who is smarter the average bear and not without some stuff between his ears. But mostly they just stay within that outside appearance itself and in their own irritatingly stubborn way demand excellence from you. As if you are born on this planet to do this and this alone. To shoot for the stars, be on the top of the heap and be like those uptight pompous pricks who are there already and gloat about it. I am sure there are many others out there like me. Who have at some point or other felt this immense pressure on themselves. Not being able to be who they want to be and to do what they enjoy doing!
I knew someone like that. A very good decent kid who had never done anything wrong or every wronged anybody. The kind of kid who doesn’t sit on the first benches among the toppers who have the answers for every question the teacher asks and shameless kiss their asses and are proud about. These toppers are the ones who in future take the place of these highly knowledgeable teachers as they rarely are the ones that have the guts or the talent to make it out there. My friend never sat in the last benches either. That was the place for the sleepers and mockers and the jocks of the class. The kids who are funny, naughty and rarely are very good in the marks department. These are ones that become politicians or actors or some big entrepreneur. These are the ones that do something in their life. Then there is the middle benches, that’s where our friend sat. This is the place where those kids usually sit who never were very smart but are very hard working. They never were very uptight or selfish, but were very good hearted. The followed around the smart kids but secretly were jealous of them. They stayed away from the back benchers but secretly wanted to be like them, wanted to enjoy their life a little more they were. He sat among such sad confused souls.
This kid always was the target many jokes around the class. He was from a remote village in Gujarat. He had this weird funny accent when he spoke in any language other than his mother tongue. Especially when he spoke in English he used to goof up in a lot of words and put a lot of ‘d’s and ‘t’s around the words he spoke. We made a lot of fun of him. And he never really took any of to heart. He also laughed along. I liked him for that. It takes guts to own up to your drawbacks and still be able to laugh about it. He did not have a bad bone in his body. He used to help me in math (I never too good at it!). He used stay after class to help me with it, though he never really had to. He always brought a lot of snacks when we went to the playground on weekends to play cricket. He never got pissed at anyone, never had a grudge with anybody in his life. I was always amazed how anybody could be so calm and peaceful. He always walked away when a argument would arise. Back then I used to think it as cowardly, now I realise it was the wise move!
This kid was great at drawing. Sketches, landscapes, portraits, still life. You name it and he can do it minutes, with every minute details carefully articulated. We always thought he would become a painter or something. We were naive back then (I wanted to be a bus driver at one point!). We never knew what an engineer was back then. We didn’t know the importance of money back then. It wasn’t a very significant part of our dreams back then (And that was probably our dreams were so simple and magical back then). His parents, like most of ours, had planned our future way back even before he had learned his first times table. They wanted him to be an engineer, a rich and successful software engineer. But he never really understood the first thing about programming nor did he ever really master handling of a computer well. But he still had to succumb to his parent’s demands. He had entered the engineering college.
As he surely was going to, he sucked at college. He never passed more than 2 out of 6 papers in a semester. And to add to it he was frightened of his father, never had the guts to look him in the eye. He never wanted to let his father know that he had failed at something. He was afraid of the outcome of it all. He worked tirelessly night and day but still he could get the darn codes inside his brain. He was never good at blindly memorising anything like the many so called scholars of his class used to. But he still studied very hard, tried to make it work anyhow.
He tried to make it work like that for two years. He had cleared only 5 of his 12 papers of his first year. Now in the fourth semester he had a total of 14 papers arrear and was sure to make it 19 plus after this examination. Still he hadn’t said anything about his arrears to his father. Each semester when he used to go back home after the examinations he used to tell his father that it went well. And after a couple of weeks used to make a duplicate result with help of some sympathetic classmates and send to his home. He tried to put off his dad’s anger as far as he could. And for the past couple of year he had managed to do just that.
He had given his roommate’s number as his own father’s number. One morning he gets a phone call from the Principal’s office that his father has been sent for by the Principal to discuss about the matters of his wards performance in past examinations. He also mentioned that they had also sent a letter to his home address which they had taken from the student’s official documents. The appointment was set for the coming weekend.
The coming weekend. That was he could think about. He had completely forgotten about the college having their home address. He was sure they would have received the letter by now and would present himself in front of the Principal the coming weekend. All of his failures and lies would now be disclosed. His father would know all about all those lies and the way he had deceived him. What he feared the most was the look of hurt that would be there on his father’s face when he knows of all this. That thought shook him to the bones.
He couldn’t eat properly. He couldn’t sleep properly. He was going crazy. Literally. The last I heard about him he was admitted to an asylum near Puri. He had started showing violent outbreaks and was beginning to have suicidal tendencies. He was being taken care of by his father and mother who had moved to Puri be closer to him. He never got any letter from the college about at any meeting with the Principal. Apparently the office clerk had entered the wrong address in the records. He only got to know about the arrears when he got to know about the first suicide attempt from one of the kid’s roommates. He occasionally cried when he was alone, blaming himself for what had happened to his son.
The kid still drew beautiful portraits and landscapes on the walls of his cell in the asylum..
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