Story of a Life – (Blog-a-ton 6)

Posted on January 7, 2010

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This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 6; the fifth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. 

As I sit and think about my life, I can’t stop ask myself

‘What went wrong?’
A race you are taking part in not a run in the park, my mom kept reminding me. I kept telling her
‘I am not part of any race’ and chose to walk but little did I know, unwillingly and unknowingly I was part of the race. The people I had started out with were far ahead out of sight. I look around the rocks at the bottom I sit on, there seems to nobody around. A sense of loneliness engulfs me.

I can still hear mom downstairs on phone with another psychiatrist, the last two had the same thing to say
“Study harder, put in more effort”
All I told them both was
“How much harder?”

I hold my pencil and look down at my marks sheet; Pass reads one subject out of the six. I change the 8/100 to 80/100. The marks sheet does look better now.
“was I this bad always?”
The answer is a hopeless yes. I even hold a record for not having passed a single exam in high school; I was pushed to the next year with dad begging and principal sympathising. It was a miracle I passed my board exam.
“If I was so bad, then why did I agree to take up engineering?”
I just didn’t know what else to do, everyone was running after engineering I moved where the herd moved. Dad also wanted me to do engineering, he readily agreed to pay the hefty fee.
‘Life seems less complicated when you have people to blame your failures on.’

I knew what I was bad at, but just didn’t know what I was good at.
“Is that the worst curse” I often ask myself.

There is a small laugh each time I think, a laugh at myself, a laugh at the irony that I always wanted to stand apart from the crowd, wanted to do things bigger and better than all the other jokers out there.
I write with my pencil on the marks sheet
‘BIGGER N BETTER’
I smirk “I have stood apart for sure. Nobody has failed engineering as many times as I have.”

‘I am in love with the subjects, that is the reason I am studying it over and over again’ I laugh each time my relatives ask me ‘why are you failing?’
I walk away from them with a fake laugh bursting on my face and trying hard to hold back a tear ready to flow from my eye.

Out of irritation I pick up a book and throw at the fan making a squeaking sound.
Even a small flutter of the curtain irritates me now. I clench my fist, grind my teeth and punch the walls, sometimes I shout out to dark empty corners of my room. I avoid mirrors, but each time I look at my image I ask myself
‘have I lost my mind, am I still sane?’
Frustration, Irritation and Anger seem to have become my companions over the past couple of years. I now run another race; a race to get away from the trio.

I hear mom requesting dad to keep his voice low. She fears I might kill myself due to depression, but the truth is I don’t have the guts to take my life. I have tried I confess, each time I held the blade or was up on the terrace I just couldn’t take the final step. I came running back telling myself
“Not bad dude, you even failed at this. Now thats consistency.”

“Oh is that what he keeps telling you, let him die. The amount of shame he has put us through, if I were in his place I would have killed myself.” dad’s voice echos in my room.
I throw away the pencil, tear up the marks sheet and turn to my computer to get away from it all, to travel to a far away world.
A world where the Voices in my Head makes me feel better about myself.

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. 

 

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Posted in: blog-a-ton, Life, short story