Almost

Part 2

To circle back to where it started, I might have to introduce myself first. So, hi! I am a 22-year-old graduated dentist / UPSC aspirant who is well known for being selectively gawky, short- tempered and an OCD. The first thing you might be wondering after reading out the previous sentence is why UPSC after doing a medical degree. To be honest, I'm sick of answering that question." Ever since I was a kid ...." JOKINGGGGG!! that's how a normal person would start. To me, it was in the extant. I wasn't into the things a person of my age was into. I enjoyed knowing more things out of the book than what was printed. To me the answer to why Europeans invaded us was not just the word "trade". They needed pepper to preserve the meat which in fact was the most preferred food to keep their bodies warm in the cold prevailing conditions. That's how I grew up, sophisticated and sagacious. That's the thing I hated about schooling- the rote learning. Its been 5-6 years since my schooling ended and I; not for once have used an integral formula or an algebraic equation or knew why the battle was fought at Plassey.

So, I passed out of my school with a percentage of 93%. My core was biology and enrolling into a medical degree was my fair option. My cut off might be decent but not good enough to fetch a free seat. So, I had to make my parents to put their pennies on my education, again! It isn't a great feeling for an Indian kid to see that happen. And it is kind of remarkable how at such tender age of 17 we take on such huge responsibility to trim our parents' financial burden. I had the option of picking either MBBS, BDS OR Vet and I opted for BDS. Why not MBBS? because deep down I felt that I can't pull through something for 6 years and also, I never really was inclined towards vet; not to mention the fact that I'm not good with the animals. And by that, I matriculated myself for a 5-year study on dentistry.

Was that my passion? No, not really. So, what was my dream? I never really figured it out. I didn't know what I want or what I want myself to be in the next few years. That's another thing I resent about the education system. At an age where you don't even know what your favorite color is, it is pretty colossal to let the kid decide on what he or she wants to be. When I was 5, I wanted to be an astronaut and when I was 10, Spider man (not to forget, that's when Toby McGuire's spider-man trilogy got released). when I was 15, I wanted to be the prime minister not knowing how dirty the politics is. And when I was 17, a dentist? It's Kind of ludicrous and comical to see how my passion evolved through the years.

Now to answer the second part of my question, why UPSC? It's the dormant passion that had been enclosed over the years. Why a government job? You see, for me it's not just the job, its everything that comes from it. The knowledge, the wisdom, the power, the name and the respect; striking off every box in my "have to be list". I believe that a knowledgeable person is worth more than that of a person in power. And when I could have a co-existence of both at one place, why would I have to bequeath it? So that was all about me, as of now.

My years in college were considerably great. I got new friends, met new people, joined Instagram (which was just out of market by then), groomed well, bunked the classes, faced the wrath of the professors, was sent out of class, treated patients but more importantly, I learnt the different variants of human tendencies. Had it not for the people I came across, my view on life would still be naive.

My first year was not so great. Being a newbie, getting accustomed to the new environment made me to almost lose the will of life during that year. I became very unruly, disorderly, recalcitrant, unmanageable and ended up inviting depression. I stopped going to college and communicating with my friends. I stayed in my room and laid in the bed almost as if my soul was dead. I was not entirely alone. I had an elder brother who stayed in the other room with his very own depression. I think the disease runs in the family. Days went by and my mother was worried that I wasn't lifting my ass up to college. I really didn't want to worry you, Mom. But I just didn't feel like getting up or doing anything. The days were cruel, you would be up but not up for productivity. The only thing I continuously did was hurt myself. Cutting my wrist, hitting myself against the walls with the intention of getting it fractured and taking dozens of tablets which, I don't even know for what it was for. With the silence setting in, the nights were more brutish. Being insomniac for days, not feeling anything in your gut and voices in your head getting louder and louder every day. The worst part was I didn't even know it was depression! I thought depression was something what movies and series portray. I thought depression was something the un-affordable and the drug abused celebrities get. I thought depression was not a disease. What made me come out of it is still a mystery. My mom's worry? The added pressure from my college to move to the next year? My friend's persuasion? God? Or magic? Remember the days in our school we would've got the answer right but no bloody clue on how we arrived to it? That's how it was. The universe works in mysterious ways, one day you are moneyed and the next day you are a pauper. The more you try to seek the answer, the more you lose yourself yet again by exposing yourself to the catechism of life.

I somehow survived the year and the next, credits to my bomb ass friends who pulled off a significantly great job by getting my ass back on track. Talking about friends; this might be a good time to pull them into the story. So, I basically owe my progression to two girls – Shruthi and Meghana. Meghana is the kind of girl every parent would trade us for. Soft, polite, mannered, delicate, diffident and not very outspoken. She had this almost 3 feet long hair that she would love to flaunt but end up braiding it and not experimenting. With a face of an innocent, she could definitely pass against any conviction on her. I still remember the day I first met her; a long-haired girl, pressing her shoulders towards her body as if it was a crowded Ranganathan street, hesitant on eye contact, half curved smile and addressing me with respect. Shruthi on the other hand, was a semi of all the outwardly characteristics. Semi reluctant, semi outspoken, semi indignant. You never really know when the volcano erupts or when the water works starts with the eyes that could literally gobble you up. She has an OCD of about 1000 times the multiple of what I have. Calculatedly hasty and a helping penchant of a 1000 NGO' s combined. Never the less, it was a fair introduction of both the parties who commutated me to a better person I am today.