3 May 2011
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
— Albert Einstein

WOW what an impact these words make on the mind! But, why do I just connect with these words? Well, because I have been in the shoes of that poor fish, yes I HAVE.
There is a dark period in everyone’s life, when you have lost all hope, all dream and well you are practically on the borderline to losing your mind!! For me fish, the time was the 11th grade of my school time. Okay, I know school is over and I should stop about 11th there with these words ,but then it was the toughest, craziest and the most messed up year of my life! And I wasn’t even chosen by me!
Okay, so how did school become so tough? Well, anyone who has studied in India, in the CBSE system knows that the decision to choose our subjects in class 11th is HUGE! So was it for me, and out of the three subject bunch choices given to us I chose SCIENCE, well I chose it as in, yes I filled the form for it, but technically it was a decision which was far from mine ... For whatever reason I gave up humanities my first choice and took these subjects, I knew from the very first day that I hated them! I hated doing the subjects because (a) I wanted to take humanities (since I was in 8th) (b) Someone was forcing me to study science (c) I hated science. At first I thought I could do it, you like ‘I’ll do it, and show you that I am not stupid and then to hell with these subjects.’ But, one thing I know now- it just doesn’t work that way! Sure I was an above average kid till 10th grade but I don’t think that mattered much in 11th.

I remember for the first time feeling so disappointed in myself the first test I gave… I cried that day..for a long time … and for the first time on a test. But, then the whole year was like that! Somewhere in the middle of the year I thought I was really losing my mind, many a times I forgot that what I was holing was a pen or in the middle of an exam I would completely black out and start crying (well I went to the bathroom and cried, in the middle of the exam) … But mostly I found myself repeating these words in pitch darkness many time – ‘ How did you get to this Niv? You WERE a good student’ … I was LOST..everything I wanted to do was falling in front of me, hell I didn’t even know if I was ever going to do anything. But sometimes its not about you its about YOU in the WRONG PLACE.
Finally, after a year of feeling like dirt I fought, fought with whoever was stopping me from taking humanities, from whoever was pushing me (whether knowingly or unknowingly towards the edge) and I reached out and embraced humanities… And right from the first day it felt right. Yes I had a subject where I failed but I knew it was just that and nothing more…I never cried about it or cursed myself. I was happy about studying, I fell in love with Economics :p and NOW I’m hopefully going to college and am going to be an economist after that.

Looking back I say that even if I had taken the subjects myself for whatever reason I would have been miserable, but because it was forced upon me, I was more that miserable. It took me awhile to get out of the whole depressed façade and I did make many mistakes on my way back but I’m glad I chose what I believed in (even if I don’t get awesome marks I know I am happy and totally not depressed!) I know now that THIS FIST IS NOT STUPID.