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Beautiful Memory: Learning, Belonging and Other Musings
High School Reminiscences, part 1 of 16
Long years ago, amidst the frenzied coterie of my classmates and their dream of making it big hovering around their heads like…Killer Bees, I was finding myself trying to firm up my resolve involving my life’s upcoming career battles, post-school.
I had to first learn to become conscious of how to be painstakingly hard-working (painstakingly was the operative word) to secure something of value in life, and simultaneously be able to live through (if I have to) the inevitability of long jostling sessions of indecisiveness, dithering, and hesitancy lessons, no matter if an unlikely Stroke of Luck decides to work in my favour or not.
After a little bout of flashback of the blues and spells of gloomy nostalgia had run its course, my humble dreams readily took the cue to begin scaling upwards, little by little (somewhere between a snail and a rabbit thing), the leaning ladder of success I'll make sure to climb. A little bit of professional joy and attainment shave also managed to fill up my Grecian Urn with happiness and contentment. Failures were relegated to being stepping stones as soon as that elusive success thing was in my reach. For inculcating such positivity in my heart, I express my gratitude in deference to the eternal One smiling (or frowning) at us from above.
Were they friends? I have my doubts
First up, I think I’ve been a bit lucky to get freed from the few traces of introversion and taciturnity post senior secondary school years. Of course, it didn’t just happen one fine day and I was all-smiles in its wake, happy to shed old stuff off and move on to a brighter tomorrow. Yes, things don’t work that easily, never do.
After a little bout of flashback of the blues and spells of gloomy nostalgia had run its course, my humble dreams readily took the cue to begin scaling upwards, little by little (somewhere between a snail and a rabbit thing), the leaning ladder of success I'll make sure to climb. A little bit of professional joy and attainment shave also managed to fill up my Grecian Urn with happiness and contentment. Failures were relegated to being stepping stones as soon as that elusive success thing was in my reach. For inculcating such positivity in my heart, I express my gratitude in deference to the eternal One smiling (or frowning) at us from above.
Were they friends? I have my doubts
First up, I think I’ve been a bit lucky to get freed from the few traces of introversion and taciturnity post senior secondary school years. Of course, it didn’t just happen one fine day and I was all-smiles in its wake, happy to shed old stuff off and move on to a brighter tomorrow. Yes, things don’t work that easily, never do.
Like everybody else, I too had to work at it, mainly concentrating on the plumbing, carpentry, technical and mechanical that make all the necessary difference, all the way till thy kingdom come. Surely, good things take their own sweet time to come round until realization hits home the point that it hadn’t exactly worked the way you wanted. There’s something amiss that’s pretty hard to put a finger on. So what you do is to double back to the drawing board and start all over again, most often from scratch. I say only what I sincerely feel.
Although during those two years and after, it took me an inordinate amount of time to shake off those neurotic worries and heart-clogging tension and shrug off the let-downs, setbacks, and some imaginary drawbacks to finally get a move on. Heck, I was in college, still a teen. But thanks to my undergraduate college years, especially the first golden year, which have collectively allowed me to have new friends (and yes real and abiding friendship unlike what it was in school) and a different kind of leisurely learning experience that changed my life. The school was restricting but college made me free, I can with all my heart vouch for that.
Suffice to say that it was nothing less than providential escape that drew me out of my cocoon enforcing a feeling of a palpable sense of freedom, time, place, space, and opportunity. All these things hadn’t quite existed before and I wasn’t so much as privy to these fine things of life up until my time in college, which was one of the golden moments of my time. Maybe, it had been my fault entirely. If something goes wrong, then it’s better to blame oneself than put the blame on others. That way one can remain close to the problem and therefore the instinct to solve it.
Nonetheless, I could make out as much that it takes time for good things to come; sometimes inordinately late, sometimes fairly quickly they come. After all, they didn’t say for no reason that PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE. Of course, as a patient teenager, one should keep worrying a little, have one’s share of tension, pressure, and anxiety handled in the best way one can before reprieve comes as a breath of fresh air. However, there was no time left after passing out from school as I found myself heading into a college education that fortunately lacked no sensitivity and warmth for me to relate to with all my heart deep in its reverence. It was this sense of FREEDOM, lots and lots of it that paved the path on which I trod confidently and self-assuredly. And man was I glad about that!
Truthfully speaking, after passing out of my senior high I suspected that there was a certain sort of low-point lurking somewhere, or was it just an imaginary sense of deferment that could have been fairly common with some of us school-going students then. I can’t speak for others, but for me, the feeling of a low-point was fairly intensifying. Besides, I did have time at my express disposal to make sure that the ill-feeling is quelled. I took this momentary treat into my heart and I rejoiced in it knowing full well that I wouldn’t probably get this surplus time and opportunity to regale my life with it. While Freedom stood by me, I put my new-found energies into learning my college lessons well. I wrote the year-end exams and did science practicals and made friends with my fellow college mates. Devoid of any tension and ennui, I was living in a fairyland. College years were one of the best times of my life.
Still, there was something amiss after leaving school that I felt needed my singular attention. Friendship at school, as negligible as it was, didn’t last long. And the only good one I thought showed a little promise didn’t weather the intense opposition and so it too went the way any fledgling friendship would. The other one was of course what to do after leaving school: engineering or medicine or open a local sweet shop just around the corner and be happy. Oh, dear!
Moaning, Bemoaning Ad Nauseam
Given the task at hand, it was tough to undermine such a pesky feeling and move on as if things I thought could go wary will stop being so anymore. Rather I was thinking: all that one needs to do is holler out loud: Heck, just buzz off! And the problem just buzzes off? Takes its last breath and dies, vanishes? No way. Shouting at the problem will not make it go away and the world, as we know it, doesn’t like to be screamed at even if you are crying your heart out in despair. No agony aunt can help you if you don’t know how to be yourself and understand your limitations. Take life as it is and enjoy it as it comes. My philosophy has always been that. People couldn’t be bothered about your problems, except just yourself. They have their problems so why worry them with yours. Problem-solving is more complicated than I thought it was. Life is…a problem; deal with it. Welcome to the world of problems after problems after problems!
Gradually, I understood that the desire to do something about the difficult issues was enough to keep me on the right side of things, and why should it be so? Because being patient helped. Positivity is the key to tackle your challenges. Though courage was in short supply to look at the problem in the eye, I found myself levitating towards resolving the nagging issue of what to do after school. I said to myself: “Heck, I need to settle this before it unsettles me.” If not engineering, then what? Never been one of those who take the bull by the horns, tsk tsk not my logic, instead, I took the horns by the bull and got myself allowed into a science college with subjects of my choice. May you kindly abstain from asking as to how does one takes the horns by the bull. Well, it’s just a one-off thing and it is privileged information I can’t help but keep it hush-hush. Software engineering came a bit later.
Luckily, I had the instinct to think it through. One of the things that needed attention is how to take some practical steps so that I can go on unhindered as far as I possibly could manage in the great journey of life, earning educational degrees included. If mankind is blessed with 100 years of life (I think Gods were a little too generous to grant that kind of thing), then I could no longer just ‘sip, swirl and savour in leisure’ the wine of physical and emotional intelligence that keeps us up to speed and sustain us. I had to gulp it down all at once at least during the initial years of survival based on sound college education and all good things connected with it.
Although during those two years and after, it took me an inordinate amount of time to shake off those neurotic worries and heart-clogging tension and shrug off the let-downs, setbacks, and some imaginary drawbacks to finally get a move on. Heck, I was in college, still a teen. But thanks to my undergraduate college years, especially the first golden year, which have collectively allowed me to have new friends (and yes real and abiding friendship unlike what it was in school) and a different kind of leisurely learning experience that changed my life. The school was restricting but college made me free, I can with all my heart vouch for that.
Suffice to say that it was nothing less than providential escape that drew me out of my cocoon enforcing a feeling of a palpable sense of freedom, time, place, space, and opportunity. All these things hadn’t quite existed before and I wasn’t so much as privy to these fine things of life up until my time in college, which was one of the golden moments of my time. Maybe, it had been my fault entirely. If something goes wrong, then it’s better to blame oneself than put the blame on others. That way one can remain close to the problem and therefore the instinct to solve it.
Nonetheless, I could make out as much that it takes time for good things to come; sometimes inordinately late, sometimes fairly quickly they come. After all, they didn’t say for no reason that PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE. Of course, as a patient teenager, one should keep worrying a little, have one’s share of tension, pressure, and anxiety handled in the best way one can before reprieve comes as a breath of fresh air. However, there was no time left after passing out from school as I found myself heading into a college education that fortunately lacked no sensitivity and warmth for me to relate to with all my heart deep in its reverence. It was this sense of FREEDOM, lots and lots of it that paved the path on which I trod confidently and self-assuredly. And man was I glad about that!
Truthfully speaking, after passing out of my senior high I suspected that there was a certain sort of low-point lurking somewhere, or was it just an imaginary sense of deferment that could have been fairly common with some of us school-going students then. I can’t speak for others, but for me, the feeling of a low-point was fairly intensifying. Besides, I did have time at my express disposal to make sure that the ill-feeling is quelled. I took this momentary treat into my heart and I rejoiced in it knowing full well that I wouldn’t probably get this surplus time and opportunity to regale my life with it. While Freedom stood by me, I put my new-found energies into learning my college lessons well. I wrote the year-end exams and did science practicals and made friends with my fellow college mates. Devoid of any tension and ennui, I was living in a fairyland. College years were one of the best times of my life.
Still, there was something amiss after leaving school that I felt needed my singular attention. Friendship at school, as negligible as it was, didn’t last long. And the only good one I thought showed a little promise didn’t weather the intense opposition and so it too went the way any fledgling friendship would. The other one was of course what to do after leaving school: engineering or medicine or open a local sweet shop just around the corner and be happy. Oh, dear!
Moaning, Bemoaning Ad Nauseam
Given the task at hand, it was tough to undermine such a pesky feeling and move on as if things I thought could go wary will stop being so anymore. Rather I was thinking: all that one needs to do is holler out loud: Heck, just buzz off! And the problem just buzzes off? Takes its last breath and dies, vanishes? No way. Shouting at the problem will not make it go away and the world, as we know it, doesn’t like to be screamed at even if you are crying your heart out in despair. No agony aunt can help you if you don’t know how to be yourself and understand your limitations. Take life as it is and enjoy it as it comes. My philosophy has always been that. People couldn’t be bothered about your problems, except just yourself. They have their problems so why worry them with yours. Problem-solving is more complicated than I thought it was. Life is…a problem; deal with it. Welcome to the world of problems after problems after problems!
Gradually, I understood that the desire to do something about the difficult issues was enough to keep me on the right side of things, and why should it be so? Because being patient helped. Positivity is the key to tackle your challenges. Though courage was in short supply to look at the problem in the eye, I found myself levitating towards resolving the nagging issue of what to do after school. I said to myself: “Heck, I need to settle this before it unsettles me.” If not engineering, then what? Never been one of those who take the bull by the horns, tsk tsk not my logic, instead, I took the horns by the bull and got myself allowed into a science college with subjects of my choice. May you kindly abstain from asking as to how does one takes the horns by the bull. Well, it’s just a one-off thing and it is privileged information I can’t help but keep it hush-hush. Software engineering came a bit later.
Luckily, I had the instinct to think it through. One of the things that needed attention is how to take some practical steps so that I can go on unhindered as far as I possibly could manage in the great journey of life, earning educational degrees included. If mankind is blessed with 100 years of life (I think Gods were a little too generous to grant that kind of thing), then I could no longer just ‘sip, swirl and savour in leisure’ the wine of physical and emotional intelligence that keeps us up to speed and sustain us. I had to gulp it down all at once at least during the initial years of survival based on sound college education and all good things connected with it.
If I had turned turtle or rumoured to be out of the league of the extraordinary gentlemen, I wouldn’t have lived to tell a tale much longer than it was conceived to be. (Just joking, in case you didn’t get the hint).
Time was of the essence. In this unforgiving world, no critical hosannas or general feelings of worthiness abound that could be expected to see me through in the coming battles of adult life for a teenager like me. Maturity and aging come at a price, and Life offers no guarantee; no short-term, no long-term, that it’ll be fair with you. Men, women, and even children all have to wage constant pushing and shoving to survive with dignity and self-respect. Children need most special care, goes without saying. Often, Life will not be fair to you and yet you’ll have to live it the best you can.
What I needed to figure out first is to find a way to root out from its supposedly deep sting its old smugness, unpreparedness, and anxiety, and throw them away like useless antiquated tatter. The question was how to prepare to live a life that must, by all accounts, feel better and even sound better; the one that creates its foothold under the sun. Come Engineering or Medicine or Sweet Shop, I am going to be upright in my approach to ultimately secure something of value. That was the deal and it still is as far as I am concerned. Take it or scupper away.
Afterwards, hard realizations had begun hitting me hard like a hammer. I figured that dealing with one’s own life in the ever-changing world wasn’t going to be an easy-going affair. To a traipsing youngster like me, it was mighty hard to believe that life could be so tough living, in a world that is fast losing its patience and sense of fun. With no means of graduate and post-graduate degrees and a job afterwards, Life itself will laugh at you. That too I’d figured. It is distressing to be grateful for the way the world works and these days nothing ever pleases me, except old friendships and memories that have survived and some others that, thanks to my good karma, came back in the reckoning.
As things went by, I began offering myself up to the hammer-hits of realizations because I thought it will harden me up a bit, put out my distress, and possibly even enable me to release all sorts of negative energies that may have been there such as pressure, stress, and unrealistic expectations. To this effect, I should be able to toss them out the window – all with a fond hope that it will make enough room for a new kind of inspiration and illumined existence instead. And therefore such an undertaking should work in my favour, and why shouldn’t it. That too was part of my plan.
By god’s grace…
Come rain or shine, I only lay claim to what I think should belong to me. My things, mine alone to love and adore. Sounds like providence taking effect? You don’t say! Moreover, it was God’s grace that wove around me like a life-jacket to stay afloat in the cacophonous sea of possibilities and probabilities that Life could throw at you. But I have no idea how far inland has I come questing for a patch of enjoyable life.
What I needed to figure out first is to find a way to root out from its supposedly deep sting its old smugness, unpreparedness, and anxiety, and throw them away like useless antiquated tatter. The question was how to prepare to live a life that must, by all accounts, feel better and even sound better; the one that creates its foothold under the sun. Come Engineering or Medicine or Sweet Shop, I am going to be upright in my approach to ultimately secure something of value. That was the deal and it still is as far as I am concerned. Take it or scupper away.
Afterwards, hard realizations had begun hitting me hard like a hammer. I figured that dealing with one’s own life in the ever-changing world wasn’t going to be an easy-going affair. To a traipsing youngster like me, it was mighty hard to believe that life could be so tough living, in a world that is fast losing its patience and sense of fun. With no means of graduate and post-graduate degrees and a job afterwards, Life itself will laugh at you. That too I’d figured. It is distressing to be grateful for the way the world works and these days nothing ever pleases me, except old friendships and memories that have survived and some others that, thanks to my good karma, came back in the reckoning.
As things went by, I began offering myself up to the hammer-hits of realizations because I thought it will harden me up a bit, put out my distress, and possibly even enable me to release all sorts of negative energies that may have been there such as pressure, stress, and unrealistic expectations. To this effect, I should be able to toss them out the window – all with a fond hope that it will make enough room for a new kind of inspiration and illumined existence instead. And therefore such an undertaking should work in my favour, and why shouldn’t it. That too was part of my plan.
By god’s grace…
Come rain or shine, I only lay claim to what I think should belong to me. My things, mine alone to love and adore. Sounds like providence taking effect? You don’t say! Moreover, it was God’s grace that wove around me like a life-jacket to stay afloat in the cacophonous sea of possibilities and probabilities that Life could throw at you. But I have no idea how far inland has I come questing for a patch of enjoyable life.
If you care to sneak a look further down into my soul, you’ll know that it’s God’s merciful charity too that had worked its way through this askance-looking teenager’s destiny/ fate/ kismet. God took pity on me in expediting my steps towards finding my roots in this increasingly drier, hotter, and angrier world of, as it seems to me, a pathetic human existence.
However, His benevolent change of heart was a one-time allowance that I partook to buckle up and enjoy the ride of my life.
By Arindam Moulick
Disclaimer: This blog is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
By Arindam Moulick
Disclaimer: This blog is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.