The Calm before the Storm

Green grass swaying gently in the breeze,
under a clear blue sky,
littered with cotton candy clouds,
majestic birds soaring high.

I stood amidst the rolling fields,
the winds caressing my hair.
The world around me alive and rejoicing,
blossoming in Her care.

Yet, temperamental and moody is She,
uncertain and unpredictable.
Far in the distance the sky turns dark
The lush fields turn to rubble.

Lightening crackled, as I watched.
The sound of thunder, deafening.
The wind, once a gentle breeze,
was now a hurricane beckoning.

Still I stood in my meadow,
watching the future shape and form.
Peace and serenity for the moment,
the calm before the storm.

The Storm's Coming

The sky darkened, the clouds rolling in.
A flash of lightening transformed the once blue sky to a fiery red.
He strode forth unprotected, unadorned.
While the storm brewed overhead.

The road forked before him,
representing the trials of life.
He knew not what each path represented,
save the promise of worry and strife.

The image of his goal blurred.
The destination now uncertain.
He had just a vague idea, a tenuous feeling of what he wanted
to see when he parted the final curtain.

He thought hard, his eyes scanning the landscape.
There was a choice to make.
Would he have the courage to persevere, to plow on?
Or in the face of danger, would he break?

Squaring his shoulders, his head held high,
he took a step to the right.
He could have taken the easier path,
but he had chosen to fight.

Step by step, one foot before the other,
he entered the raging sea.
And there before him, on the wings of destiny,
rose the Angel of Mercy.

A calm settled over his jumping nerves.
He closed his eyes praying with all his might.
Opening his eyes to certain death, he unsheathed his sword,
he was a warrior, a Knight.

Grade: F

The feeling of failure. Probably the most destructive feeling of all. To know that you are not good enough, to feel you can never measure up, never live up to expectation, or worse, when people just stop expecting you to accomplish anything… nothing is quite as devastating as to feel like a failure.

I had the bitter taste of this particular poison on, of all days, my 21st birthday. A good friend of mine told me once that she believes that all the happiness and sadness in your life equal out. If you feel very happy today, you will feel terrible tomorrow. I never agreed. To believe that every time you are happy, you will be sad, seems very pessimistic to me. It works the other way around as well, and might, in that sense, be comforting. But I can never live like that, unconsciously tempering my happiness because of the fear of feeling the same quantity of grief at some other time. How will anyone ever find true happiness with the shadow of equating grief over it? But this one time I was forced to re-examine my arguments.

The day before my birthday was one of the happiest of my life. Was. I still can’t say why exactly I was so happy. Maybe it was just the anticipation of celebrating a big event in my life, being surrounded by my family and friends, the lure of birthday presents… whatever it was, it was just unadulterated happiness. Happiness for no reason whatsoever, being happy just because I could be. It’s a wonderful feeling. The feeling lasted till I reached college the next day, and I heard we were getting our V semester results.

The feeling of happiness was replaced by that trembling feeling, the one you always get just before you get your report card. Still, it wasn’t a bad feeling at that point. I rushed to the office like all the others, eagerly awaiting my results in the long queue of impatient students. I’ll never forget the feeling of numbness that swept over me when I saw ‘Fail’ on my marks card.


Let me explain the examination system in my university. It is, without prejudice, the worst I have ever come across. It's a conclusion I have arrived at ever since my first semester here. It might be hard for a stranger to believe that my results don’t cloud the view of my judgment, perhaps in a way they do, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong in this instance. You can be the judge of that yourself.

Our question papers are set on an outdated syllabus. The one advantage to a student in this system is that if he makes a good study of the question papers, there is a high probability he can come up with a set number of questions that may be asked. This advantage only helps in the preparation and in deciding what portions of the syllabus need to be studied. Here the advantage ends, for though the predicted questions do come in the question paper, there is no way to predict the results.

Input always equals output. This has always been my belief. Even giving some leeway for wear and tear, if your input is a 100% then your output will atleast be 80%. This is just not the case here. Your result in no way reflects the way you have written your examination. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to give a 100% and then receive only a 50%, while people who you know are barely giving 40% end up with a much larger output!? It’s infuriating!!

Added to the equation is the system of re-evaluation. I have yet to decide whether it is a boon or a curse. To give a paper for re-evaluation was unthought-of when I was in school. But here it is just considered part of the college fee. A student pays through the nose and gives his paper for re-evaluation. Approximately 6 months later you’ll get a new marks card with marks very different from the original. In fact a person isn’t even considered to have truly failed that subject until they receive the marks from their re-evaluation. The popular rumour is that students are purposely failed so that the examiner can earn more during with the reval amounts. I find this a little far fetched, but its hard to find arguments against it. How can one not conclude that this whole process is a money laundering scheme? You first don’t get the marks you deserve, you put it for reval and hey presto new marks! Whether they are the marks you truly deserve is something that will never be answered.

And I haven’t even come to the quality of the examiners! To put in short, I now think twice before writing a sentence in my answer script, not because I’m worried it’s wrong, but because I’m worried the examiner might not comprehend my level of English. They are overworked and underpaid, I agree. But this is no excuse to play with the lives of students.

I can no longer judge my performance in any exam I write in this university. When I believe I have done well, I get abysmal results. The converse is true in this case as well. There are papers where I truly believe I don’t deserve the marks I have been given. It’s not a completely black scenario for a student. But I would far prefer getting what I deserve than getting marks that look like they have been arrived at by throwing darts at a board.

There are a million excuses, most of them valid, a million ways to rationalize a result but nothing can change a fact.


Bone chilling numbness, with a niggling sense of shame. That’s all I felt. No tears, no fear and, surprisingly, no doubt about the fact that the marks I were given were wrong. I knew I had passed that exam. I just did not know how to face the world until I could prove it to them as well.

It’s surprising how intuitive a person can be, even when everybody looks and acts the same way. They were all supportive. Everybody told me that they couldn’t believe I would fail an exam and that when I apply for reval, I’d be passed. I don’t doubt that they were actually supportive. It was then that I truly saw what wonderful friends I have. But still the impression everyone had of me had changed. I could sense it. I felt like my reputation was tarnished. They all started seeing me in a different light, not one I liked. Whether it was pity, disbelief or the fake horrified look, it all grated. I don’t know how I managed to get through that day. My friends helped immensely. They threw me the not-so-surprise party they had planned and insisted I enjoy myself. There was no reason to let wrong results ruin my birthday. This is something I’ll always be grateful to them for. I took their advice and tried to enjoy myself, to an extent I did. And I think I managed to hide the fact that I was devastated.

Telling my family was another emotional wringer. They were enraged on my behalf. There are times when I don’t realize how lucky I am to have a family and friends like these. Still the day was ruined and I felt like I was getting payback for the happiness I felt the day before.


I finished the whole reval process. Through all this time I have never doubted that I should have passed. But I was always apprehensive of the unpredictable examination system. They never gave me what I deserved before, I was worried they wouldn’t now as well. I had been advised by my professors to ask for a Challenge Reval. A challenge reval is where you are given a copy of your answer script. After ensuring that there was no totaling error, I approached one of my professors who has been supportive and who had asked me to show him my answer script. After looking at it he assured me I deserved atleast 10 marks more and then advised me on what areas I can improve upon.

I went home feeling a little better. It was much later (after I had received my reval results) that I learnt that the same professor had been passing comments to other students about how astonished he was that I had even managed to get the marks that I had. Do you see now why I despise this examination system? An examiner, my own professor, will tell me one thing and my peers another. The fact that he chose to further malign my reputation behind my back, when he pretended to uphold it to my face is something I will not forgive. I had looked up to him, thanked him for his support and help, but now I find it hard to even respect him. I have proved my worth and proved him wrong already, but this I promise myself, I will make sure he always remembers how wrong his judgment of my capabilities was.


4 months later I went to collect my reval results. I had been awarded 15 marks more. I passed comfortably. The numbness still remained. I felt no happiness at passing, just a strong sense of relief and some anger at having to go through this painful and unnecessary process. I told no one, unless asked. Their opinions had already been formed, and I felt it below my dignity to try to clear my name, when it never should have been blemished in the first place. Like fixing a broken vase, my reputation was whole again, but cracked. Another fall and the damage might be irreparable.


We were given the news yesterday to expect the results on the next day. For the first time I had nightmares. I spent the bus ride to college today trying to drown my fear by listening to Pachelbel’s Canon in D major. It wasn’t the fear of actually failing in any subject, like last time I knew I had passed all my papers. It was the fear of being failed again and of having to live through the whole incident again. It was the fear of being thought of as a failure.

Perhaps I am superficial? When I know I am not a failure, why should the opinion of others matter? But it matters. It always does. No one wants to be remembered as a failure. It’s just that feeling. I might not actually be a failure and I could prove to the world a hundred times over that I’m not, but if it’s a situation where I have to prove it, I’ll feel like a failure. When people do not expect you to succeed…… it’s impossible to describe the desolation one can feel, the desolation I feel. I was having a conversation with my family the other day. While narrating the events of my day, I happened to mention how one of my professors was telling us that a number of people had failed in one particular paper. My mother immediately presumed that I was warning them of a good likelihood that I might fail that paper. The thought had not even crossed my mind. My father jokingly asked if I was going to pass this semester and my brother launched into a dialogue of how he had never failed any exam. It hurt. I know they will always support me and be there for me. But now I also know that they doubt my capability.


The bus arrived late, as usual. I was planning on making my tardiness work in my favour. The office opens some time after our first class commences. I had hoped the office would be open and I could collect my results before the crowd comes in. But it was not to be. I spent the first hour trying to figure out if I should run and be the first one in line to get my results or wait till the crowd thins out. Being earlier in the queue would mean an end to this torture of not knowing, but it would also mean that everyone would know immediately what my results were. I’d never tried to hide my results last time. What was the point? Everyone was going to know anyway. I might as well show them I had nothing to hide. So I had held my head up high, taken their condolences and pretended I was alright. But I wasn’t sure if had the courage to see the look on their faces if I failed again. If I went later, my results would still be waiting for me, everyone would still know what they were at the end of the day (because news really travels fast! Speaking from experience here!) and I would not have to see their reaction to my results. In the end the latter idea seemed too cowardly to me. I might one day forgive myself if I was a failure, but I’ll never forgive myself if I was a coward. Not succeeding depends largely on outside factors, but my courage is something I have full control over. When the bell rang to signal the end of the class, I walked out quickly. No one seemed to be in too much of a hurry. I didn’t run, but there was no doubt that I was going to be the first one in the queue.


I got a First Class in my VI semester. Vindicated.

Loneliness Breaks the Spirit...

There are 6,658,348,452 in the world at the moment, give or take a few, and yet the word ‘lonely’ is defined in every dictionary. The reality that one man can feel alone even amidst a million is mind boggling, and yet so true that it frightens me.

And it is true. Be you a beggar on the street or a millionaire in a mansion, a man surrounded my loved ones or a man who has none, everyone has, at one point in their life, felt the crushing power of loneliness. A power so strong that it takes lives.

Early in this year I lost a friend. She took her life because a person she loved had just lost theirs. You might understand that. “She was all alone”, you’ll say, “its better not to live than to live alone”. But, here’s the thing, she wasn’t alone, not really. She had her family, her friends, she had more than most. Yet she took her life because she felt alone, leaving behind people who loved her. People who now feel as alone as she did.

It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that someone I thought I knew so well, someone I thought who would never sink into depression so deep as to take her own life, had just proved me wrong. Why? Why? She was in pain, she was upset, she had just lost a person she loved, I realized that. But she still had so many people here, waiting to help her get through it. How could she feel so alone? I just couldn’t understand it.

I realize now, in hindsight, perhaps I did not want to understand it. Because you see that loneliness, I’ve felt it too. I have the most supporting and loving family a person can have, friends I can always turn to if I need to, and yet there are times when I feel so alone it’s suffocating. Times when my family does not understand me, times when my friends forget to call me, times when there is no one who can hear my silent cry for company.

Like I said, it’s frightening. Have you ever lain in the dark looking for a reason to live? Reached a phase where everything, everything goes wrong and no one seems to notice or understand? Waited desperately for some sign that you are not invisible? I have.

I still don’t understand how she could take her life. For though I have an inkling of how she might have felt, I know, without a shadow of doubt, that, (God forbid) if I had been in her shoes I would not have taken mine. For no matter how depressed I am, no matter how dark the world seems, I know that there are people who love me, and that makes a difference, more than we can ever understand. The idea of suicide is like a hypothetical question for me. I’ve heard about it, I’ve seen evidence of it, I’ve had instances when I’ve fleetingly considered the idea of considering suicide, but committing suicide… it’s just not within my sphere of comprehension. I’ve always believed that as long as there is life, there is hope, and no one ever voluntarily gives up hoping.

Orson Welles once said, “We are born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion that we are not alone.” This quote always strikes me as so pessimistic. He seems to be saying that loneliness is the reality, everything else is just an illusion. The feeling of helplessness and crushing emptiness we feel is the reality, while the joy and happiness we feel after spending time with our friends and family is just an illusion. I find no sense of hope in his statement. Are we really alone all the time? I don’t know what your answer to the question is, but mine is most emphatically in the negative.

Sitting in my grandparents’ drawing room, surrounded by my whole family, all eating and talking. Teasing my father, as my mother and brother laugh uncontrollably. Fighting with my brother over the tv or laptop. Spanish inquisitions of my cousins’ love lives. Shopping sessions with my aunts. Being pampered by grandparents. Long, intense discussions with my friends about any and every topic under the sun. Each memory more precious than the next. Each memory reaffirming that I am not alone.

How can I say I’m alone, when I have so many people in the world? I thought She was one of the strongest people I knew, but even the strongest have their moment of weakness. She succumbed to the illusion, not the illusion Welles believes, but the illusion that we can truly be alone. It’s just that, an illusion. The actual reality is that we are never alone, the fundamental difference between solitude and loneliness.

There might come a night when everyone you hold dear seems shrouded in darkness, when you learn first hand the definition of loneliness. But the night is always followed by the day. With the rising sun, you’re once more enveloped in their bright light and all the shadows are dispelled.

Writer's Block

I don’t know what to do. I am just so confused. All my thoughts are swirling around in my head, fighting for dominance. I should sleep, but I cant. What will I think about when darkness entombs me. There is just too much to think about. Too much happening and yet not enough…

I am saturated with the old same stuff. Everyday adds a new dimension to the old pattern. Enough to satisfy my parched throat not enough to quench my thirst. By nightfall, it is all gone. Wrung dry like the linen on the cloth line.

My creative soul aches for inspiration. But my eyes see nothing new. All I can do is add texture to a completed picture. But colour? My spirit desires colours to draw me out of this black and white world.

I should perhaps read. Oh, but what? I have read it all before. I quote it in my sleep… when I get sleep. I want something new to read about. I need something new to read about. I need something upon which I can create the key. The key that will let me enter into my world of make believe. But the ideas are old and the words stale. Wherever you wish to go, I have been there before. Like a weary traveler, I roam the world. In search of new places, new lands to conquer, only to find the world is round. Finite.

Emotions like wheels are easily worn. They will take you to the highest peaks and lowest depths, time and time again. But the sites revisited, soon loose their novelty. The scenery fades, like the setting sun, bringing darkness in its wake. Still, still the wheels roll on, in search of new roads.

The journey through life is like a story told. With each new day a new chapter enfolds. But when the ink dries, and the pen can find no more words, that is when one seizes to live but continues to exist. This existence is torture to both my mind and soul. Yet, through this pain, hope still lingers. The only light through the cloud of confusion.

I await the day when the sun will rise, when the light will dispel the darkness and show me what my aching eyes have dreamed of seeing. Show me the doorway through which I can enter that world again, my world again. The world to which only I have the key.