Bad

Every year, I start out thinking that this is going to be the break out year. I am going to break out of the shackles of mediocrity this year. To the next level. Not just me, my family, my circle of friends. My life. Where I’d want to be. This year, at the start, promised to be just that - more than any other year. Look, I took a good step career wise. Got another ‘semi’ qualification and was ready to face the music. Job opportunities of my interest would rise now. My bro, who was looking for a career change too, was prepared and ready to make it big. And then it happened. One after another. Slowly but surely - sometimes not so slowly - things fucked up.

First all the opportunities I thought I had slowly faded. One after another. Like a slow torture. Then, my bro’s turn came. GATE. The dream for which he worked the last two years. Not just his dream, but of all of us who were with him in it. The dream which was just a few days away from materializing. The few days passed. The D day came and my bro flunked big time. He now looks forward to a life time of regrets for not doing well in the three hours that mattered most. On the bright side, he dared and took his shot. And we all compromised on some level or another to give him that shot. Fair enough. If he has to complain, it will only be to himself.

As for me, another tragedy occurred, on an intimate level. FC Barcelona flunked. In all three big tournaments. Out of contention. Losing three big matches in one week. Again, the one week that mattered most. Like the one interview that mattered most to me - which I flunked.

And no progress whatsoever. None of my few friends really improved, to say the least.

Four months in, this is the worst year of my life. Well, maybe one of the worst. Bad things did happen before. But not on such a grand fucking level. Everything that can go wrong - goes wrong. Yes, went wrong. Probably not everything, but most of it. Believe me; it could have been even bad, even as that doesn’t seem possible. But some irreversible damage did happen. Not just taking all the opportunities with it, but the spirits too.

Did I mention the cherry on the top of all this shit? My bro is getting married. He really can take some beating.

A lesson on screwing up your life

He wasn’t the best student in our class. But wasn’t bad enough to end up like he did! Our only hope now is that its not the end..

After passing 10^th grade in a not so grand B grade along with us, he chose POLY TECHNIQUE over the regular intermediate - with electronics as majors. No one said it was bad. It wasn’t. Except that it was a 3 years course. But had a benefit that the B.Tech that followed was reduced to 3 years for them. But that is still a long way! The first year in the 3 year poly technique shit, he cleared most of the subjects. Not beginners luck but enthusiasm and a small dread that was assumed from the school. Then the problems started with the following semesters. He started failing more subjects as the course grew. The problem wasn’t the complexity of the course. It was the amount of distractions he gathered around himself.

But even then he wasn’t fully into the pickle yet. He struggled with some new subjects, cleared some old ones and so it was alright till the third year. Then came a new circle of friends into his world implying that he completely lost track of whats happening for three months or so. Even that was not the end. He eventually moved away from them and had a whole 2 months or so before the final exams of the third year. And he had some seven subjects in the spare as back logs. No one knows how he spent those two months and no one cared then actually. So he wrote the finals. To be correct, he just attended them and gave a blank paper most of the times. Other times he had more important works to do than write the most important exams in his life.

He flunked the exams successfully after his tremendous efforts. The girls in the middle would be a special mention here but he’ll never agree with me there. Maybe he is right. I don’t know. But that failure was just the beginning of a series of extravaganzas.

So he failed and he convinced his family that he was gonna complete it in the next year without any doubt. He wrote the exams in September again. Sorry, he just bunked all of them because there was still another attempt left for him. He told his parents that September was the last attempt but the results would come in May or something. So he still had the March attempt.

For March, he studied a bit more sincerely, at least because we were pressurizing him to do so. So he wrote the exams and wrote fine till the day before the last exam when he bombed me with another fact. That he didn’t write any of the exams except the first one. And first one, he gave gathered enough strength to give a blank paper. I tried not to get animated. I only hoped that he was trying to make an ‘april fool’ out of me. He wasn’t.

To sum it up, In addition to the one year that he wasted after the third year, he accomplished the task of wasting yet another year. The problem is that he is still at the beginning of that year! Its like standing at the foot of a huge mountain and wondering if he would ever reach the top. In fact, whether he wasted one year or a lifetime depends how his dad reacts when he gets to know this grand news! 

And now am off to play cricket. Of course with the lead character of this story!     

And yeah..no comments  :-)