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The question always hits my mind: how should I start this one?
Because I never thought that education was also a part of politics. Teachers never taught me anything about politics, I will say. I don’t remember any advice from my teachers. What they said, I haven’t remembered anything.
I can only remember the advice of one of my teachers. She used to teach me English, and she said to me:
“Nothing is permanent in this world.”
And I understand that now.
I know that thoughts are not permanent. Emotions are not permanent. You are not permanent. Then why are you so worried about things?
When nothing is permanent, then why are you so worried? Why is God not responsible for our things if He cares about us?
That day, my head was full of thoughts.
One more thing she advised me, and that was, “Start writing today.”
She is not around, but I remember her face, as well as her red eyes, from that day.
I started writing, and I am still writing to this day. I haven’t learnt where to put punctuation marks and full stops.
But still, I write.
I have always been the one who learns things after messing things up. Like, I messed up my scores, and then I realised that scores are very important for an academic career.
I messed up my health, and I realised that health was very, very necessary for me.
And one of the most important things I learned after messing up my finances was that money is very, very, very, very important when it comes to living in this world with freedom.
I never realised how important money is until my Spotify started adding ads in between my music.
This was the moment of realisation for me that I was broke, because I couldn’t even afford our music without ads.
This sounds funny, but it’s reality.
Money. The world is running around it, and people are selling themselves for money. You can see how corruption has taken over everything.
They all know, deep down, how things are today in the world. Specifically in India, everything and every corner is affected by corruption, and people are paying a very high price for that.
But this chapter is not about corruption.
It’s about my faded memories; whether they were important or not, I don’t know. Some of them, I still carry inside me. I still carry those emotions inside me as a writer.
One thing that annoys me a lot is spelling and the way to end a sentence.
School life was full of joy, but from the start, I had to face certain challenges when it came to acceptance. From the start, I had lived in a village and studied in a village school.
After 2005, when my father got posted to Bikaner, I got a chance to study in one of the best schools in Bikaner, Army Public School, Bikaner.
I will say that during that time, in 2006, the school was very good. It had all the facilities and newly built infrastructure.
The story of getting into the school is quite fascinating too, because my father was not hoping that I would get admission to the school because of my English and my behaviour towards education. But my mother had trust in me. She said, “Go and take him and make him appear for the entrance exam.”
So, my father took me to the entrance exam, and at that point, my father was right. Because the exam was in English, and I was unable to understand English.
I was able to solve the Science and Maths questions, but not the English question paper.
I still remember one question from the exam. It was about hanging balloons, and I had to tell the tense or something. So, I was just staring at the question paper and trying to figure out the answers.
Then my examiner saw me in trouble. She came and asked, “What happened?”
I was like, “Ma’am, mujhe English nahin aati. I don’t know English.”
I don’t know what came to her. She immediately explained all the questions to me in Hindi and also guided me through the exam.
My entrance exam was done, and we came home after the exam.
My father asked me about the exam. I told him, “I don’t know. It will be visible in the result only.”
From this answer, he totally understood that I might have failed.
Even today, whenever I appear for any exam, I am never able to predict my result. If someone asks me, “How was the exam?” I just give them the answer, “It will be visible in the result.”
But most of the time, I fail.
Then comes the result day.
The result day
From the morning, my mom was really excited about the result. She woke up and told me to get ready, and told my father too. “Get ready for his result.”
My father was not that excited. He might have predicted my result, so he did not want to go to school for it.
But you know about homes. It doesn’t matter where you belong. If Mom says something or has decided something, then that thing is happening for sure.
So, my father lightened his mood, and we both caught a bus to school.
And luckily, I had passed the exam.
But I got a very bad score in English. So, the teacher who took my exam, Dhanya Ma’am, said to my father, “We can take his admission, but it will not be our responsibility if he fails the exams. His English is very poor, but he is good at Maths and Science.”
To be honest, I still struggle with English.
Not just me, but most Indian students, or should I say CBSE students, struggle with English.
Even with such bad English, I never failed any class and managed to complete my Master’s in Economics.
But anyhow, I got admission.
And I got new books, a new bag, a new pencil box, a new dress, new everything.
While we were coming back, my father was happy that I managed to get admission to a good school. Then he said one thing:
“Ab ache se padhai karna. From now onwards, study well.”
To be honest with you people, whenever my father gives me any advice, I end up totally disappointing him.
Not just that, we Indians- or maybe I don’t know about the world, but we Indians don’t have a very friendly relationship with our fathers, especially when it comes to the elder son and father.
I don’t know why we have this invisible wall that is always there from the start.
Then we reached home, and Mom was happy that she put her trust in me.
And you know how everything goes after you succeed in small things. Then we celebrated this with a cold drink and namkeen.
I think this was my first achievement when I managed to get admission to a good school, and my family was happy.
I was happy too.
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