My eyes flutter open and I wake up to the sound of raindrops hitting the windowpane. It’s a gloomy day and I sit up in bed, convincing myself that I’m awake enough to study a chapter of History… and then it hits me, “Wait a minute. My exams finished weeks ago.”
I now find myself at that point in a student’s life where I no longer know what to call myself — a Class X student, a la dep exam matric student, or a 16-year-old who’s basically jobless and thus, more prone to mood swings than a normal teenager is supposed to be.
Well, those usual ‘horrifying nightmares about having board exams the next day and naturally being unprepared’ still continue to haunt me at night and I know the reason for this; it’s because every other person I come across these days has the same godforsaken line to tell me — “All the best for your results mo khun”.
I know I sound ungrateful and I understand that all those ‘Uncles and Aunties’ mean well but the frequency of the thing has made me take a hateful approach towards the statement. I mean, we all know that SSLC results will not be out for a month. So “Let me live!!!”
And then, the very ‘interesting conversation’ between this Uncle or Aunty and me takes the obvious turn, where the former asks, “So, what are you doing these days?” to which I answer the ususal, “I’ve been relaxing, doing things here and there, you know,” which, almost always, places me in a very difficult position where I’m facing a person in his/her mid-thirties/forties, looking at me with raised eyebrows as though I stated that I’m leaving the city and becoming a hermit. “Aren’t you taking up computer classes? Or any other course for that matter?” asks the person, somehow utterly concerned for my future.
I shake my head, wondering why the world is suddenly so interested in Computer Science and why every single student around me seems to be going for these classes.
“So you’re doing absolutely nothing?” asks the person, now agitated and emphasising on the word ‘nothing’ so as to make me feel guilty for wasting the precious life that my parents gave me, but that this person is suddenly responsible for. Hmmm… Strange.
“Oh well, I’m reading a lot and I’m continuing my writing. I also play the piano so….” I say, trying to quickly think of all the activities that I perform on a daily basis that do not include sleeping, eating, singing Korean-Pop songs or aimless wall-staring. “So you’re actually doing nothing! Ko Khun, you can’t waste two months like this. Take up some classes, they’ll help you. Remember to enjoy too kein. I’ll go thied jhur now then mo. Bye,” responds the person who then floats away, leaving me puzzled.
And then on my way home, I find my mind preoccupied with the entire conversation I would have just had. Since when did ‘literature’ mean ‘nothing’? Since when did ‘music’ mean ‘nothing’? You can’t tell me Shakespeare and Beethoven did ‘nothing’ their entire lives! And oh, I get it, remedial classes for two months are going to offer me a whole world of knowledge, I’d become, what society calls intelligent. Well, what if I don’t want to?
I really commend people who do attend such courses. But there’s just no way that I can stop my eyelids from going against the rule of gravity when they don’t want to. I could actually consider leaving the city and become a hermit rather than challenge my sleep.
And don’t get me wrong. I do not ‘want’ to waste precious time either. It’s just that I don’t consider reading and writing a waste of time. Nor do I consider hours of piano-playing a useless activity. What I also understand is that what we students do during our vacation is our choice, which is made according to our interests. ‘Interests’ is the word to be emphasised here, I hope it’s not too difficult a word for the world.
So, two things I’ve got to say; one, fellow students (let’s just stick to that term), let us do what we want to do, shall we? Because the eventual recipients of either ‘suffering’ or ‘enjoyment’ will be us. Let us, of course, not take life too lightly, but let us also not indulge ourselves in this ever-whirling pool of competition, that the world calls the key to success. We all know it isn’t.
Two, the adult readers, I am no one to tell you what to do but let me just tell you anyway(or hours of me writing this article would actually be considered a waste!); just relax a bit, will you? As you can clearly see, we are not really concerned about results (as yet); you may wish us when the time is right. As for now, let us do what we consider worth our time- studies, music or even sleep! Please keep your defence mechanisms away too. I urge you not to start cursing me for feeding garbage to young minds because garbage is never fed to the mind, it is created. And I have faith in my contemporaries; I know they won’t waste their time.
The thing is, we all have dreams we want to achieve, so from time to time, could you please ask us what these dreams are? Could you help us believe in them, instead of explaining the fundamentals of the competitive world we live in? Could you help us build a world of goodness, instead of wasting time and energy explaining all the bad that there is on earth? Could you? I know you’re capable of doing so. The question is: Are you willing to look past competition and status and help develop skills that really matter in the youth of today? Anyway, so here I am now, sipping on juice and typing on a laptop; so, yes, Uncles and Aunties, I’ve spent almost a month doing ‘nothing’ and guess what? I plan to continue with it.
(Contributed by Athira Saji)
