Slowly a feeling of indifference is growing in me. And I am not enjoying it. I know that i have a responsibility towards my family, towards my country and to myself by fulfilling the other wishes. But slowly and steadily something deep inside me tells me, "what the heck".
May be I am tired and may be I am stressed. Does it happen to you all? At one point of time you just want to leave all that you have and be free. Alone with yourself.
Long back I wanted to become an ideal son. I knew my parents want me to be the first boy in the class. I fought for it. I tried and studied hard. Sometimes I succeeded and sometimes I could not. But then a sense of who the hell cares came into me. I slowed down. I forgot my targets and i wanted to enjoy. Started reading all those wonderful novels which were there in my bookshelf during study hours. Started Sharat Chandra when i was in class V. and gradually my marks graduated downwards. It’s funny how I reacted to it though. In the year 1991, I got admitted in to Siliguri Boys High School. It was a huge school with a huge bunch of kids accumulating in the campus from all over the city. It was the best school for the middle class Bengali speaking people. Although everyone actually agreed that the study standards are really low in that school but the results of higher secondary and secondary are really good. Also the class I belonged to, having one’s kid reading in Siliguri Boys was a status symbol at that time. My parents wanted me to read there too. As my elder sis was already in Siliguri girls the onus was on me to “go get it Boy!!”
I tried hard as usual. And I was in.
So there I was with 300 other kids of the town there sitting in a filthy room with a tin roof, without any ceiling fan sweating like hell. I realized life in here is not gonna be easy. I prepared myself for the intellectual battle that awaited there. Then came the first exam. And the result also followed. I was eighth among the 300 and obviously it was a bad result. I scored 50% marks in Bengali which is below my standards. Now I never knew who actually set those standards for me and neither do I wanted to know but I knew that was awfully wrong to get so low marks. My father went to the school asked for a review or a scrutiny or anything for that matter. Finally it was revealed that I actually scored much more than those meager marks. And I finished second. I stopped crying(all these times I was crying because I could not make the mark I could not make my parents happy).
I can tell you that’s called Bengali middle class life story. That’s how all of us belonging to this typical class grow up. Half in fear of not making others wishes come true, half in fear of not finding others wishes same as our own wishes.
The followed a frenzied saga of high and lows. One exam I reached top the next one I was down to the ground. Probably the exam I would reach the top (not quite the top though I never became first in that school) the effort I would put in for that would do a negative effect on me and the next one would pull me down drastically. My mom found out this trend very soon. She became relaxed in a way. She used to tell me this time results are going to be bad just don’t run away from school I am not gonna hurt you when you come back. Things will be fine.
They are great people - my parents. They always wanted me to do great. I was a kind of apple of their eyes to sudden stardom. A fame that is not-so-easily touchable by ordinary people like they were. But they never pushed me. They never gave up on me although I could never really fulfil their hopes of becoming first boy of the class.
I suffered miserably in secondary. I was down with the result. I didn’t cry as I was a grown up by that time. But my mom understood what was going on in me. One summer afternoon when I was standing on our terrace and looking blindly at the sunny and abandoned streets of Siliguri she came and told me,”good that you didn’t do well this time may be the next time you would..remember the rule of alternate success!!” I started laughing and that was one moment in my life when I understood what role parents play in your life in your success.
I did fairly well in my HS. My name came into the front page of the local newspaper. And I called my mom with the news from a telephone booth that although this time also I could not fulfill their dream and could not become first in the school, still my result was fairly well and I am the 8th in the district.
She was crying. All she wanted is this bit. A fame, a glory for her son. When in her all “have not” life she can really forget all the poverty and all the mediocrity that scathe our lives. We have come one step further. We are no longer ordinary.
I really never did well after that. Never could be anyone worth a mention anywhere. And my mom since then has been deprived of that heavenly smile that I cherished for so many years that came after that.
Now that I wanted to write about something else and have come to something else I have suddenly realized that after all I am not so much indifferent to everything. Let my love forget me, let my life forget me. There are still two people on another side of the earth who still cares and waits in silence for the days of glory for me. They are my ma and baba.
