Old Yellow Pages ✓

17. moments

3rd december, monday, 2018

dear diary,

Growing up in India can be hard: being put into a school against your will, being forced to study the subjects you don't want to, and then being graded as A+ or F, just like products in a factory. Most of the people of my age will agree when I say that school sucks. When I jokingly utter this to my teachers, they tell me that I'll miss school when I actually get out of it.

There's a difference, though: of course I'll miss school. Of course I'll miss the few good things this stupid institution has offered to me. I'll miss my friends. I'll miss playing games in the class. But that's all, and that nostalgia can be alleviated by meeting up with friends. What I won't miss is 'education', a pathetic attempt at preparing students for life.

I remember I once sneaked out of my house on a September day. My brain had inexplicably gone blank after hours of staring at my physics notebook. The letters were dancing around in my brain, refusing to arrange themselves in any order and make sense.

I threw the notebook onto the ground. I tore off the xerox copy of my class 10 marksheet — the one which had only A1 grades and a perfect 10 CGPA, and which my parents had taped to my window, hoping to inspire me to do well in class 12 too — and walked out. 

I'm not allowed to travel alone  — with all those cases of harassment popping up in the newspaper every day — but that day I did. I went to a park and sat down on the green grass in the sun.

The sun of the changing seasons is soft. The warmth tickles your skin, instead of burning holes into your flesh, like in June. There is almost always a gentle breeze. I closed my eyes; the light seeped in through my lids. A red glow. Colours floating. I wondered how many moments like that I've missed, buried in my textbooks.

Now, I would love to say that I sat among dandelions in lush green grass that day. But the sad truth is that parks in Dwarka hardly have flowers. In fact, I doubt if it is okay to call them parks at all. Imagine me, sitting on a grassy patch —an island of green in a brown, bald land. Picture some garbage lying 50 metres away from me.

Why can't they teach us gardening in school? Why can't we cultivate the knowledge of cultivating land? Will I ever learn something useful in school?

I can figure out one reason why I'm not able to manage academically. I'm scared of losing my thoughts. I'm scared of making my mind completely blank and focusing only on studying. 

I have always daydreamed. There's always something going on in my mind. And I write when my brain is full.

I'm scared that if I abandon all that and focus just on studies, I will lose a part of myself that I won't be able to recover. I can't imagine myself going about my daily chores, not musing on anything. My parents say that I can do whatever I want to after this one year. But I know I can't suspend all activity till then. One year? I can already feel myself losing touch with the novel I'm writing. Artistic things can't be held back for a year and then resumed after a hiatus. They're not math problems. Not just that. I have my music. I hardly get time to practice. Will my imagination still be so fecund?  

I want to do everything NOW. I'm scared that if I wait for too long, I will lose interest in what I like. I will lose my ideas and inspiration. I'm scared that if I prioritize things over my hobbies, I will not be able to access that state of mind again. 

Will I be inspired to make covers even after class 12? I can't imagine my future. I have always been a schoolgirl, that is the only side of me I know. What will things be like later on? Will I still be inspired? 

I fret about change often. I'm afraid of it. I think about the future a lot. I don't know how the tiniest change will affect me. All I know is that one change is enough to turn lives around. That's why it's scary. Ughhhh. I don't know how to express this and I don't want to write this now, I think I should just

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