23 years and Counting...

Life kick started with a certificate. A birth certificate...

 A carefree baby. A carefree yet curious toddler. Lot of doodling and playing. And before I know it, I assume the glorified role of the whining school boy. I am taught how to write, read and some behavioral aspects. I'm good to go. For my ability to write ABC and 123, I still remember, I was given a certificate in UKG-G. More like it was for mom and teachers who taught me all of it... Oh and I still remember the maths teacher comparing a girl's round and sweet looking handwriting with the narrow and broken one of mine. I slapped the girl later and got punished for it. :) And yeah, she's my best friend now.

Fast forward a few more years. The competition, pressure & tension started... Though I don't remember much of it now, there I was, wanting the "honour roll" certificates for good marks. I also had a load of friends obsessed about it. One night before exams, I sat by my dad's favourite music player, playing with its volume knob. I had a Hindi exam the next day. Mom came up to me and asked me what I was up to. I told her I studied some poem by-heart. Then she enquired about the second which was the last one left. I smiled at her, still playing with the volume knob and said, "No mom. That poem won't come in the exam. I've told God not to let it come" Well it did come and my total was a bit low, I missed honour roll again. :)

When I was in 5th grade, I was suddenly so motivated. My teacher loved me. I always managed only a 70% in exams till then. And 80% was silver honour roll and 90% was gold honour roll. I played less, carried more books in the bag on my shoulder, slept less, crammed my head with more. But sometimes it really got to me. The previous night of the results day I sat awake all night with a calculator and question papers thinking on how much I would get. The results day tided away. I walked home with the progress report with an 81.4%. And it was the first time I was gonna show it to dad first and not my mom. Coz when marks are less, mom will sign :)  And the day finally came when I was standing on the stage, sturdy and proud. My first honour roll!

Years passed. I was writing the board exam for 10th grade. My hands were shivering like it never had in my life. A teacher came up to me and tried to tell me it was ok. No it was not ok. This is the end of my life if I don't get a honour roll... And this time it was gonna be gold. Or else what was everyone going to think. All those who were hoping and praying for me. It's my life on the line. I don't remember anything much between the exam and the time that I walked into class one day a few months later and my friend Umar was annoucing my marks. I simply hadn't had the nerve to check it online. I had made it, my first gold honour roll.

And a few years and a disastrous 12th grade (hehe!!), I was there like a fool in an entrance coaching centre darkening bubbles for answers of questions. (1)-a, (2)-c,(3)-e and so on... And well it wasnt too good but there I was in an engineering college. 4years of notes and assignments, exams and presentations, lecture and harassment, shouting and screaming, attendance and proxies, leave's and fake medical certificates, fun and fun making and yeah, CERTIFICATES... Loads of them!

It was all over for the moment. A break...After 23 years of my life. I sat by my bed looking at all the certificates in my life. Papers that defined what I was. Papers that shaded evidence on my conduct. Papers that showed my nationality. Papers that showed where I belong, that showed how good or bad I was at a subject or how lucky I was at the exam. 23 years of my life was in those pages. These were the pages for which I,  faced all those frost nosed teachers (not all- just some of them who think we were a pile of shit in front of them), spent lots of money in colleges, tuitions, places to stay, food and  also lost most of my sleep, faced people's ego, wrath, sometimes even cried... These pages were what I lived for.

Though everything else along the years is a funny thing to think about. Friends, the good times, love and a lot of beautiful things... Its something that the final page of the file I was stashing the certificates wasn't decided. Tests were yet to come and so were certificates. Even failure was a certificate added. Along each certificate is attached a lot of memories of all the incidents before getting it. I guess the path was always more enjoyable than the destination. The destination was after all just a certificate. Be it in someone's heart or a small piece of paper neatly stashed in a file...      

Smiling... I thought... "The birth certificate... Thats where it all started..."