My life, as I often tell my friends, is an open book. I have nothing to hide from anybody, nothing to feel ashamed of. I am what I am today not because I always desired to do well in academics, but because my life had been a bumpy ride, and a large bump in that terrain sent me this way. Today, I go around the streets receiving much appreciation. I am what people call a genius or an intellect in its true terms. Mr Omniscient-if you may, that’s what I am today. I am able to add to the discussion going on around me making it worth the while of the discussers to it. I receive phone calls at the middle of the night from people desperately seeking my help in some physics problem they couldn’t solve, or some chemistry mystery that the callers managed to entangle themselves in. Today, I am somebody important. I have matured. Had you asked my teachers before two years what they thought I was going to be twelve years hence; they’d probably have answered ordinary things like “teacher”, “employee” and others. Time alone changes the entire world, doesn’t it? Today, time has changed their words too. Now, the same teachers tell me to aim for NASA, or at the least some space laboratory; the same principal of my school, who didn’t know my name earlier, now recites my example to anyone and everyone who wishes excel in academics. They think that I am capable of achieving the acme of success. They think that I am different from others. But what exactly lies behind these brains, they don’t know that. I am often exaggerated by the people who describe me. They think I am brilliant. I, however, am often reluctant to agree.
Sometimes, I feel that I have become a subject of ebullient exaggeration. My teachers say what they must. Whenever they drag my name to any discussion going on about studies, they garland me with accolades. I feel embarrassed. I got labelled as the “scientist” of my school just for completing a project on Magnetic Levitation and successfully demonstrating it in the form of a Maglev train in front of a large audience on my own when I was in my 10th standard. I mean, there are people, even some in Nepal who have done much more, like building a solar powered car, or building fuel efficient engines. I know how they work, but they actually built them! I am deeply interested in science, and my syllabus of study outclasses the +2 syllabus we study here by a long shot. I have studied Vector fields, vector calculus, multiple integrations, number theory, quantum mechanics, classical electromagnetic theory, holography and what not. Gravitation and both theories of relativity are like my bread and butter, so high school physics is a piece of cake to me. I love biology. Actually, I love every subject taught at school. I hold detailed knowledge in each of these subjects. Besides these, I am also a trained computer hardware technician. We do not have any course in our school where foreign languages are taught, so I completed one outside. I have been trained in German Language and am fluent at it. Therefore, in the classes, I am always like “Mam me!” whenever the teachers ask any question. More often than often, I know the answer. So, my friends are often open mouthed when they look at how often I raise my hand. They labelled me “Ph. D”, a pet-name they say defines me completely; again I feel embarrassed at their remarks. Exaggeration again I am subjected to. They exaggerate, I think, because they haven’t met anyone like me. But I know that I shouldn’t be delighted to receive such appreciation; that there are others much better than me. I don’t want to remain the one eye blinded king in the land of the blind. A win by a rat in a race of turtles is not a race worth watching. The race is fun to behold only when the competition is stiff, isn’t it?
One special aspect about me which demarcates me from millions of others who are also exaggerated, I think, includes the things I had to face in my life that landed me in the position I am today. I always loved to compete, unlike now, however, I was not always prepared for it. I was not always the top of my class. I was mediocre student earlier on. Because of my mediocrity and my involvement in other activities besides my school work, I was often the subject of taunts in the class. The teachers often made a field day out of me. Because I was doing all other courses for extra credit and I wasn’t that excellent at my thing, I was slated often. It’s understandable when school bullies taunt you, one can live with that. But, if the teachers begin taunting you, you just lose the sight of what you want to be anymore. You just lose hope. You feel harassed and you become desperate to try and succeed. If you fail at that, then you are the in a fix about hating your teachers taunting you, hating the fact that they are your teachers or hating that you exist and you are in a school where the teachers don’t know what teaching means. You literally feel that you are the one who is the most unlucky person in the world. I was no better. I then began hanging out with people who felt the same way. After all, birds of same feather flock together.
Well, my peers at that time constituted of some of the most acrid people one could point out. I hung out and went places with them. They had some really gruesome habits, I however chose abstinence. As the result of my spending more time on hanging business and less time on studying, my grades took a steep dive. I began smoking (smoking by a minor is considered obscene in our society). I even tried opium once. The people who knew me began thinking, “Man, this dude is gone!!”. I also began thinking that I had indeed lost my path. I did get everything a wild teen would have had. All the same, I was not a modal teen that I am now. When I look back upon what I was earlier, I feel that I was a complete mess. I was a phoenix about to die. I didn’t have any hope to survive this terrible phase of my life. Just past my puberty, I was in a state of wild atrocity, and funnily, I was enjoying it.
One day, my principal caught me smoking red handed. He brought me in and then called my parents. It was a terrible sight to behold. I knew I had wronged my family members. I could feel their plight. My dad’s eyes were furious. My principal looked as if he was on the prowl to kill something. Then he announced abruptly that I was going to be rusticated. For a second there, I was dumbfounded. I hadn’t realised what the consequences to my actions ought to have been before, had I? I had just gone with the flow, the flow of my peers. I then realised something. This was not who I was. I didn’t want to be a wiener for the rest of my life. I didn’t want it to become hazed with smoke, did I? No sir, I didn’t. I didn’t want to be a school drop-out. I wanted to become something in life. I wanted to be respected in the future. I wanted to establish my identity in the society. I couldn’t let it end this way.
I begged the principal to give me another chance. I literally got down on his feet and begged him. If I was rusticated, no other school would again admit me. A desire to study had erupted within me. I wanted to become somebody, I told him. He took pity on me and granted it. I still remember him twitching his moustache telling me that it was all or nothing. If I didn’t show significant improvement in my next examination, he was going to let me go. I took this as a challenge. The fiasco I had rendered that night had somehow changed me. Study, study and study; that was all I began doing. If hard work could cause a school dropout to become a steel industrialist, how difficult would achieving the first position be? I worked day and night, studied everything I could get my hands upon. Finally, the day came when the results of my labours were expected to be out. There it was, my name glistening on the top of the merit list. I had been reborn. I was a nearly failed venture of my parents. Now, I am here at the top of everything I do. I rose to become what I am today from the ashes of my parent’s dreams. I made my life, my stature. If people call me a geek, I tell them that I am one, for I decided to become one. Now, phoenix is my favourite bird; for, it lives its life very much like I lived mine. I never was a graceful unicorn who mesmerised all those that set their eyes upon it. When phoenix grows old and then when it’s the time for it to die, its body turns ignites all of a sudden and it is reduced to ash. Then something magical happens, from the ashes arises a new bird (well, the old bird but with a newer self), as was the case with me.
Today, my life has brought me to the present platform on which I stand. I was a no body, and I became somebody because of my hard work. I now do not do things spontaneously, I do them with plan. I know where I want to see myself 10 years hence and am willing to put up as much hard work in it as I can. I have set my goals and am willing to do anything to achieve it. I have faced many hardships in life, after which I now have a clearer picture of the world. I am a different guy in my view point. I aim to be the best and for that aim for the best. I don’t anticipate my life to be a smooth ride. But, now I believe that whatever bad may come my way, I will be able to face it. I wish to inculcate this very lesson to others- life may yield its fruits, as well as its fangs to you. But the thing that should keep you going is hope. You should never lose the sight of who you are. Life may poison your existence, but it is up to you; up to your determination to succeed and your faith in yourself to do something good in life. If you don’t lose the sight of what you are trying to do, then definitely the success will be in your hands. This is the greatest lesson I have learnt in my life and I want to inculcate to others.
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