Boards Bored

Delhi is so boring in the summer. There's not much you can do. I've been quite vella trying to keep myself,e trying to join things I always wanted to but never could because I was stuck in th city of people with no cool interests Pune, so I call the Delhi Blue Pottery Trust thinking that it'll be quite a breeze because only repressed maniacs like me are into pottering around anyway and the usual Delhi junta will obviously have no patience with such a slow art, but that place has an unbelievable waiting of 6 months for weekend batch. So all of them must be working folks. That's so crazy that I started laughing and told the guy that maybe I should drop in and pay the entire fee and hopefully there'll be place in a week or so, he gave me some artistic speech of how money is not an issue because people are very serious about this anyway and so they'll call me. But if this is so popular, when I tell people about the pottery dream, they just laugh hysterically. I'm obviously in the company of extremely uncultured Punjabi people.

These days there's major renovation at my place so me and brother are sharing a room. up.I've come back after so long, it's quite weird to see his gigantic build (bad because I can't beat him to pulp anymore, a memory he doesn't recall at all now. ha ha) and how he's all grown up, keeps banging his drum sticks in the air to practice his music,listens to Sepulchra, is surgically attached to his phone, and thinks he can do IIT. Wow. Who are these new age kids?

I remember when I was his age, I was already cool because girls mature faster and all that. I was so busy thinking of that cute Bong senior in school and styling my hair and buying new clothes that I completely forgot about exams and anything serious. It didn't help that I took Commerce which I hated. But that time my mom's constant drill about study study, you'll ruin your life, all we have is education, what will you do after school irritated me enough to pick up books for an hour at max, after which I again chilled out in my head and started bouncing to Velvet Underground. And I always hated her for not seeing the point of my life, that I wanted to do much bigger things, that I didn't want my guitar and dance classes cancelled, that I can't function staring at books all day holed up in a room, and that I didn't want to live out the middle class dream of SRCC MBA and then flat by 25 at all.

Somehow I controlled my freespirit in time especially after I had no one to hang out with because simply everyone was studying for the Boards. Which was really good because you never know what a big deal Boards are in this country till you actually give them and screw them up. The day results were about to get out, everyone I knew was hopping mad, with me imagining getting stuck at some horrible college in Delhi where people won't know who Nirvana is and where I won't be able to live out my teenage dream of walking down college in tiny purple shorts, because hey that's how they do it in Sweet Valley High in California.

So miraculously, I didn't fail math and got through LSR and even though I didn't get through Stephens Eng because I didn't get that ridiculously high cut-off, which got me so pissed because no random kid from Modern or whatever could have read more books or wanted to do Eng lit more than I did, but then Indian education system is so fucking warped up that even to study Emma you have to be a nerd who topped in every subject. Though I was Scared shitless at being surrounded by girls all day but I still died in happiness at getting through the college and course I wanted, and then the college ranking made sure that mom didn't have any reason to scream or complain so I was happy that again I can read books, hang out with people of my type, smoke all day, waste time, get away from home etc etc.

Funny thing is even though I rebelled against the typical idea of education, now that I see my younger brother wasting his time all day, not studying, not taking 12th seriously at all since he's too busy planning his birthday bash and how to ask out this girl or that, I see myself turning into my mother! Nagging him to study and tell him jokingly of how he'll completely fuck up his chances in college. Bleh.How I hate being in this country sometimes. Why can't we guys just be the sort of civilization that rejoices at someone actually graduating?
But I know how depressed he's going to be when everyone around him is going to call excitedly with 90 percent and above, when relatives, aunties and everyone you haven't spoken to you in years will call you and stop you on the street to ask your marks, when parents will never let you forget how you did, how your dreams of having fun in a cool college will burst open. So I guess being in India, no matter what these bloody counselors, newspapers, school principals say about changing the education pattern and how something's got to be wrong if people are killing themselves over marks, literally too, but it's all bullshit because nothing will ever change because we'll never figure out a better way. Because these same people will step out and judge you on your marks and that will affect your job, college, everything. It sucks. But that' s life.

So I hope chota bhai kicks real ass. So that he can totally spoil himself for the next 3 years without anyone grudging him his happiness and the supreme right to waste time.