Stigma of 'Somehow Seven'

Every goddamn brilliant work induces a few common feelings viz. motivation, envy, sympathy, judgement etc.

Well this piece of work will just give sympathy which I don’t want and a sense of awe for wrapping up a mistake in a glossy excuse beautifully. It’s not about me. Almost everyone thinks this way only they never put it in words. They’ll applaud and a lot many will pass a contemptuous smirk for giving a convincing reason for laziness, slothful youth and wasted genius.

Yes, my brain is rotten now; a part long since inactive and an active part working continuously thinking about a lot of things. But, for convenience I’d put up just one thought here. Obviously who will read tons of pages of shit?

I’ll keep it short not because I’ve to wake up early to make my practical file to copy aim and procedure, but because the people don’t have the time to read without any reason.

“Somehow seven” isn’t a story it’s the glory of an untold genius or it’s a justification of a lazy moron, an incapable loser – whatever you choose to believe.

So, when Somehow Seven a.k.a SS entered into the field of higher education after the formal schooling, she had a lot of expectations. While in school, the answer to all her queries used to be, wait you’d use all this in college, remember it for now. Her school life will be a story some other time.

But, right now we are talking about college. So, SS joined college. The subjects were familiar initially like Physics, Chemistry, and Maths etc. Her first day in the class wasn’t good; nothing lived up to her expectations.

Gradually she realised that here one has to study all on his/her own. “You are grown up now, too big to be taught. The old, unenthusiastic professors are here to mark your sincerity (75% compulsory attendance) and to tell you the syllabus”, told a senior.

And not to mention that at least some of the professors tried really hard to teach us something, but the incorrigible brains never understood a word – I don’t know who should take the blame.

It’s not the fault of professors obviously, because a few students really knew what to pen down during class and how to score in the exams by learning all what was taught. SS felt deceived, she felt as if their brain was some computer that could store information for some time and empty it right after the exams as whenever she went up to ask something to the top scorers, they always forgot.

She loathed no one, but she respected those students who really loved their subjects, who gave a different answer to her question – “Why do you study so much?”

Mostly people answered, “To get a good job, to score good pointers.” To her amazement, there were also some people who did this because they didn’t have anything else to do, I mean how boring, isn’t it?

Still, there were students who could write down a lot during the exams without understanding that what it actually was and most importantly that why was it needed? SS couldn’t learn this way; the rationality hardwired in her brain stopped her to do so.

She loved to write. Cramming thousands of words and readings volumes of literary work was never a “load” for her. Still she wasn’t a literary genius because she was pursuing B.Tech.

She failed to understand that why these books seemed boring to her, as if it had been written to make no sense. She was never really afraid of the thickness of the book. She felt as if whatever she read here, she won’t be able to retain it, because she couldn’t believe what was written there. Moreover she couldn’t fathom the “use” and practicality of these subjects.

It was her fault as there were people, who could learn from it, prove existing theorems and made exact copy of the circuits given in the lab sheets. She felt that it wasn’t learning it was cheating. But, the silly girl didn’t know that the process is slow. It’s not copying, it’s inspiration which would help you in your inventions tomorrow, but maybe, if only you wish to invent something, most engineers choose to take orders from big MNCs. She believed that she just wasn’t designed to be an engineer.

She compared it with sports. “You don’t read a book on ‘How to play Basket ball’ for a year, read theories, imitate moves of the top players, read history, names of the top players etc. You simply jump into the court, grab a ball and play and learn. This is how it should be”, she thought.

Oh! Silly SS didn’t know that one couldn’t play with atoms, machines and wires. They have to be read, learnt from the book, re-learnt when the need arises.

Unfortunately for SS the ‘need’ never occurred before exams.

SS, the careless girls was good at mathematics and thought that numbers weren’t important.

“How can a number on the scale of 10 rate my intelligence? I don’t care about it, to study and to answer the questions asked in the exam is my duty and I’ll try this”, she felt determined.

She tried but failed, always, because she questioned a lot. “Something as useless as chemistry, I wonder how one can score an A+. No doubt there is a lot of practical use but here it all seems to be a big sheet of data to test our memory skills. My senior in chemical engineering told that even they don’t have to use it ever, anywhere. I’d rather learn a dictionary, it’ll be used at least”, she yelled at her friend who was a chemistry genius. She said, “Grapes are sour, buddy!”

She liked mechanics, she liked FBDs (Free Body Diagrams), she could connect with it, and she could get the feel of it. And thanks to the mechanics professor, she could devote all her time to other subjects and still manage to get an A.

The results were declared; SS managed a decent 7 out of 10. But the judgement day lurked in ambush. She had to explain the three missing numbers to her parents.

“I asked my seniors and even they never use actually what was taught to us in Chemistry and Engineering Drawing is not meant for me. I was never good at drawing straight lines. Moreover, the teacher was boring and I’m not going to use it anyway, not my branch”, SS explained.

But, she felt as if her mother wasn’t listening, she thought that the words were hitting an empty vessel.

Her mother interrupted and said, “You’re just making a lot of excuses. Nothing is going to be of any use anyway. You’ll do MBA after all. But, didn’t I tell you to seek inspiration from Sharmaji’s daughter? She did MBA and during her B.Tech period, she was a 9.6. Now, don’t say that she has a photographic memory. I know that girl since school. She couldn’t even do speedy calculations as you can. Pointers are a measure of your sincerity and intelligence. Improve it! Your problem is that you are finding a lot of reason, a lot of purpose in everything. Seeking purpose in every task is vicious. You don’t seek purpose when you hang out with your friends, do you? Just work harder. Make flash cards if it helps.”

Time passed and it was now her time to prove herself in the subjects of her own stream. Whenever she failed to ‘understand’ something, she went up to her classmates for explanation, only to hear that, “Samajh nahi aaya to rat lia, tu bhi rat le (I didn’t understand so I mugged it up, you do the same).”

And hence her flashcards converted to handbooks and her frustration grew. She failed to learn because deep down she didn’t want to, she didn’t believe it. The culprit ‘Purpose’ was still counting on its last breaths. She stopped all her writing and reading only to devote more time to staring those handbooks.

She looked up at the top scorers with awe sometimes and sometimes with disgust. She really wondered if they could do something real on their own, that if most of them really had an idea of where their learning was going to be used.  And people looked down on her as a dumb and beautiful girl who would get success because of her latter skill.

She hated it. She preferred to die than just be a showpiece, however, she couldn’t.

Placement session started and there was a fight to learn a lot of algorithms, codes, theories etc to get placed as an engineer, to wait to be told by the boss to do something, to make something out of these swots.

She did get a job albeit not because of her face but because she knew who she was and how she could benefit the company. She was not an engineer but she was happy.

Yet, a question always used to trouble her that whether she really failed as an engineer? Or she failed to regurgitate the swallowed texts during the exam?

She never found an answer.

P.S – It’s purely a work of fiction and it is not meant to be generalised even if the same is the opinion of some people. It is not true everywhere and for everyone. However, if you think it is, please do let me know the reason in the comments below. Other views are also welcome.