Every goddamn brilliant work induces a few common feelings
viz. motivation, envy, sympathy, judgement etc.
Well this piece of work will just give sympathy which I
don’t want and a sense of awe for wrapping up a mistake in a glossy excuse
beautifully. It’s not about me. Almost everyone thinks this way only they never
put it in words. They’ll applaud and a lot many will pass a contemptuous smirk
for giving a convincing reason for laziness, slothful youth and wasted genius.
Yes, my brain is rotten now; a part long since inactive and
an active part working continuously thinking about a lot of things. But, for
convenience I’d put up just one thought here. Obviously who will read tons of
pages of shit?
I’ll keep it short not because I’ve to wake up early to make
my practical file to copy aim and procedure, but because the people don’t have
the time to read without any reason.
“Somehow seven” isn’t a story it’s the glory of an untold
genius or it’s a justification of a lazy moron, an incapable loser – whatever
you choose to believe.
So, when Somehow Seven a.k.a SS entered into the field of
higher education after the formal schooling, she had a lot of expectations.
While in school, the answer to all her queries used to be, wait you’d use all
this in college, remember it for now. Her school life will be a story some
other time.
But, right now we are talking about college. So, SS joined
college. The subjects were familiar initially like Physics, Chemistry, and
Maths etc. Her first day in the class wasn’t good; nothing lived up to her
expectations.
Gradually she realised that here one has to study all on
his/her own. “You are grown up now, too big to be taught. The old,
unenthusiastic professors are here to mark your sincerity (75% compulsory
attendance) and to tell you the syllabus”, told a senior.
And not to mention that at least some of the professors
tried really hard to teach us something, but the incorrigible brains never
understood a word – I don’t know who should take the blame.
It’s not the fault of professors obviously, because a few
students really knew what to pen down during class and how to score in the
exams by learning all what was taught. SS felt deceived, she felt as if their
brain was some computer that could store information for some time and empty it
right after the exams as whenever she went up to ask something to the top
scorers, they always forgot.
She loathed no one, but she respected those students who
really loved their subjects, who gave a different answer to her question – “Why
do you study so much?”
Mostly people answered, “To get a good job, to score good pointers.” To her
amazement, there were also some people who did this because they didn’t have
anything else to do, I mean how boring, isn’t it?
Still, there were students who could write down a lot during
the exams without understanding that what it actually was and most importantly
that why was it needed? SS couldn’t learn this way; the rationality hardwired
in her brain stopped her to do so.
She loved to write. Cramming thousands of words and readings
volumes of literary work was never a “load” for her. Still she wasn’t a
literary genius because she was pursuing B.Tech.
She failed to understand that why these books seemed boring
to her, as if it had been written to make no sense. She was never really afraid
of the thickness of the book. She felt as if whatever she read here, she won’t
be able to retain it, because she couldn’t believe what was written there.
Moreover she couldn’t fathom the “use” and practicality of these subjects.
It was her fault as there were people, who could learn from
it, prove existing theorems and made exact copy of the circuits given in the
lab sheets. She felt that it wasn’t learning it was cheating. But, the silly
girl didn’t know that the process is slow. It’s not copying, it’s inspiration
which would help you in your inventions tomorrow, but maybe, if only you wish
to invent something, most engineers choose to take orders from big MNCs. She
believed that she just wasn’t designed to be an engineer.
She compared it with sports. “You don’t read a book on ‘How
to play Basket ball’ for a year, read theories, imitate moves of the top
players, read history, names of the top players etc. You simply jump into the
court, grab a ball and play and learn. This is how it should be”, she thought.
Oh! Silly SS didn’t know that one couldn’t play with atoms,
machines and wires. They have to be read, learnt from the book, re-learnt when
the need arises.
Unfortunately for SS the ‘need’ never occurred before exams.
SS, the careless girls was good at mathematics and thought
that numbers weren’t important.
“How can a number on the scale of 10 rate my intelligence? I
don’t care about it, to study and to answer the questions asked in the exam is
my duty and I’ll try this”, she felt determined.
She tried but failed, always, because she questioned a lot.
“Something as useless as chemistry, I wonder how one can score an A+. No doubt
there is a lot of practical use but here it all seems to be a big sheet of data
to test our memory skills. My senior in chemical engineering told that even
they don’t have to use it ever, anywhere. I’d rather learn a dictionary, it’ll
be used at least”, she yelled at her friend who was a chemistry genius. She
said, “Grapes are sour, buddy!”
She liked mechanics, she liked FBDs (Free Body Diagrams),
she could connect with it, and she could get the feel of it. And thanks to the
mechanics professor, she could devote all her time to other subjects and still
manage to get an A.
The results were declared; SS managed a decent 7 out of 10.
But the judgement day lurked in ambush. She had to explain the three missing
numbers to her parents.
“I asked my seniors and even they never use actually what
was taught to us in Chemistry and Engineering Drawing is not meant for me. I
was never good at drawing straight lines. Moreover, the teacher was boring and
I’m not going to use it anyway, not my branch”, SS explained.
But, she felt as if her mother wasn’t listening, she thought
that the words were hitting an empty vessel.
Her mother interrupted and said, “You’re just making a lot
of excuses. Nothing is going to be of any use anyway. You’ll do MBA after all.
But, didn’t I tell you to seek inspiration from Sharmaji’s daughter? She did
MBA and during her B.Tech period, she was a 9.6. Now, don’t say that she has a
photographic memory. I know that girl since school. She couldn’t even do speedy
calculations as you can. Pointers are a measure of your sincerity and
intelligence. Improve it! Your problem is that you are finding a lot of reason,
a lot of purpose in everything. Seeking purpose in every task is vicious. You
don’t seek purpose when you hang out with your friends, do you? Just work
harder. Make flash cards if it helps.”
Time passed and it was now her time to prove herself in the
subjects of her own stream. Whenever she failed to ‘understand’ something, she
went up to her classmates for explanation, only to hear that, “Samajh nahi aaya
to rat lia, tu bhi rat le (I didn’t understand so I mugged it up, you do the same).”
And hence her flashcards converted to handbooks and her
frustration grew. She failed to learn because deep down she didn’t want to, she
didn’t believe it. The culprit ‘Purpose’ was still counting on its last
breaths. She stopped all her writing and reading only to devote more time to
staring those handbooks.
She looked up at the top scorers with awe sometimes and
sometimes with disgust. She really wondered if they could do something real on
their own, that if most of them really had an idea of where their learning was
going to be used. And people looked down
on her as a dumb and beautiful girl who would get success because of her latter
skill.
She hated it. She preferred to die than just be a showpiece,
however, she couldn’t.
Placement session started and there was a fight to learn a
lot of algorithms, codes, theories etc to get placed as an engineer, to wait to
be told by the boss to do something, to make something out of these swots.
She did get a job albeit not because of her face but because
she knew who she was and how she could benefit the company. She was not an
engineer but she was happy.
Yet, a question always used to trouble her that whether she
really failed as an engineer? Or she failed to regurgitate the swallowed texts
during the exam?
She never found an answer.
P.S – It’s purely a work of fiction and it is not meant to
be generalised even if the same is the opinion of some people. It is not true
everywhere and for everyone. However, if you think it is, please do let me know
the reason in the comments below. Other views are also welcome.
