WHAT A DAY!

I was in seventh grade and my voice was still maturing. As usual I got up in the morning for school, but for a good reason, I wasn't unhappy. It was the last day of school before the summer vacations, and boy, I was glad. I was glad because, the days before the summer vacations are usually more interesting and fun than the actual summer vacations! Many of my so called classmates were already headed to their holiday destinations.

I entered the bus and greeted my driver with my cracky voice. He was surprised I did so, as I never usually greet anyone, even if it is the best day of my life. So you know how much I expected from that day.

The school was almost empty, even the staff room had only a handful of teachers. We had only the first four periods that day due to some occasion, which was unknown to us. The first period was my Hindi class. The teacher, unexpectedly, gave us the freedom to do whatever we wanted. My friend had bought Ludo, so atleast there were board games to play, rather than bored games! We had very few pieces, so we decided to play one piece each, rather than four. I was green, my friend Joe was blue, another friend of mine(he doesn't want his named mentioned in my blog, but he would understand if I called him Jaggu.), was yellow and another friend, namely 'mug up' Abhishek was red! I started off well until Mr.Jaggu overtook me by luck(the game is either ways about luck). In the first game I ended up second while Jaggu ended up first. Joe was third and Abhishek was last(Don't ask me how I still remember all this!).

The second game again I was second and surprisingly, Abhishek was first! Jaggu was third followed by Joe. The third game however, I made it to the top spot. Joe followed me receiving his second place, and the third and fourth place was controversial. In the end no one got those two places. Playing all the three games well, I knew luck was on my side for the day!

The second period we continued Ludo, as the Arabic teacher was too busy correcting some books and asking some my classmates, who were jobless to go giving the corrected books to the pupils it belonged to. Me and my friends got bored of Ludo, so we packed up. Instead we started cracking silly jokes that only made the four of us laugh! The Arabic teacher tried to shut us up, but to little effect! After what kind of a person would ask students to stay quiet just before the summer vacations.

The Arabic period went by quickly, as everyone knows when your having fun, time goes by like a cheetah.  Minutes seemed like the speed of light. Well who cares as long as we were having fun! You know how we boys are! When something called as fun starts, it is hard to stop! Jaggu kept telling me that my voice had changed a lot. The idiot wouldn't shut up about it. The third period however, we found something psychotic to do! It was kiddish, but fun! It is called 'Truth or Dare'! It is quite simple. We put a pen amid our desk and rotate it. It will one hundred percent point at someone! The person who the cap of the pen is pointed to, will be in the receiving end, that is the person gets an option, whether he has to say a truth or he prefers a dare! He can only choose truth twice! On the other end that is the pen bottom end, the person gets to ask the question or gets to dare! The question or dare has to be embarrasing!

Seriously, I wouldn't want to mention anything we said or did! It was great fun, but! The game continued for a whole period and luckily the teacher was kind enough to allow the game to continue. The next period was hell! It was our English period, but our teacher had resigned from her job as she had to follow her husband to India and continue her work there, and a replacement was yet to be found. It was a Mathematics teacher who was substituting, he managed to keep us quiet!

He kept asking some questions which only two-three of my classmates succeeded in answering, there was no punishment for not answering, but the period was boring!

At last the period had got over and we got into our half-empty buses. I did nothing much in the bus. When I reached home the first thing I did was, turned on the television. I saw the first part of Iron Man again as there was no much of an option other than that. I also played the only game I had on my PSP.

Later that day, I asked my father if I could get a new game, he replied affirmative. My luck was great that day! What a day!

Hasta la Vista,
K

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN?

"I regret not taking Arts as my career. I would've benefited better.", my mother keeps telling me. She is still depressed about opting for Science in her college years rather than Arts. She is a good speaker which would make her a good TV journalist or an announcer in an airport or so. Instead she has to supervise a bunch of Junior Middle School kids due to her wrong choice. I can't say the choice is completely wrong, but she not a clue about what she was going to do after doing exceptionally well in Chemistry in her college years.

"What do you want a become when you grow up?", a mother asks her four year old boy.
"A policeman!", the kid answers instantly.
"You need to work really hard for that."
"Sure I will."

Ten years later..........

"What are you planning to do after school, young man.", the mother asks her fourteen year old son.
"I've not a clue.", he says indignantly.
"You'd better think about it."
The boy shrugs.

This is the truth of life. No one knows what they are going to do until it is too late. It is like booking tickets for an eight'O clock in the evening flight, at seven fifty nine on the same evening. What would anyone possibly expect? All three hundred tickets available? That'd be high expectations! There's also another side of the story. Adults keep asking us to be punctual about things, especially things like choosing your God forbidden career. I'm telling you the adults cannot make head and tail of punctuality either. It is just like in Lewis Carroll's story, The Hunting of the Snark,

"What's the good of Meracator's North Poles and Equators,

Tropics, Zones and Meridian Lines?" So the Bellman would cry;

and the crew would reply, "They are merely conventional signs."

The adults are just like the crew members, and we kids are the bellman. We keep asking our parents about the need of punctuality, maybe they would give us a big lecture, but their minds are just like the crew members, they just know that such a word exists in the English Dictionary. No one can make head and tail of punctuality. 

Coming back to career, according to our parents and teachers, there's no career without proper attitude, I agree, but again, just a bit! I mean what good is attitude, without knowing what you are going to do? What good is being a good Samaritan, if you do not know what you can do? No one is going to give us a job. Now-a-days, parents are so fast. They first talk about studies, then it is attitude, then about career, they never ever stick to one topic. They confuse you more than you are already, I mean I understand advice, but not bugging. I'm in ninth grade, I've not a clue, about what I'm going to do, maybe it is too late, to not know, but even if I did know, how do I know if I'm making the right choice?

Robert Frost is a great poet, and maybe he faced a lot of difficulties in life, but not everyone is Robert Frost, and neither can anyone, have so much courage as Robert Frost, to take the road that is lush green. Risk taking is a thing only a handful of people can do successfully. What good is taking risk, when it has no benefit?

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

He is really poor,

he wished the adamant butterfly hadn't gone past.

If he had not seen the fool, he would've been sure,

That his vexing boss and demanding daughter would have been his jobless cure!

                                                                                                                    -K

Then there is the butterfly effect! God alone knows whether it really exists. We always wish that when something wrong happens, that it hadn't happened. Then when we think about the butterfly effect, we suddenly change our minds. When we come to think of it, if it hadn't happened most probably, something else would have happened, something BAD! Maybe even worse, so it's good that the past was the past rather than something else. Of course there would be many parents who're in the age group where you get superstitious. They keep telling superstitious and unexplainable things just because it is written in some holy book or some astrologer has said it out. Many who believe such things. We can't change the past, but our parents will even stop us from thinking about changing it.

Many times our parents ask us to be the man or woman of our words! They also compare us to them, by saying that they're the man or woman of their words! Well, how many times have they not taken us out for ice-creams after promising to do so? A hundred times maybe!

This post is dedicated to parents who want their children to prosper! Some tips are:

1. Stop asking your children until their seventeen, about their career.

2. Stop asking them to be punctual all the time(until it is absolutely required, rather than when you feel it is absolutely required).

3. Stop talking about attitude all the time.

4. Stop asking them to be Robert Frost!

5. Stop being too superstitious.

6. Stop being a man or woman of your words!

7. Stop asking them to take the 'Road Not Taken'!

Hasta la Vista,

K