When I Stop Hearing the World

I’m standing with my head hanging low. I can see my black shining shoes through a mist of water. Big tear drops running down my cheeks and bouncing off my shoes. My big round glasses are completely frosted now and I can barely see. It seems as if I’ve blocked out all the noise around me and all I can hear is the light thump of tear drops bouncing off my shoes. Mrs. Chandra is going on and on about how I’m never going to be a good student.

I don’t really know what made me cry at that moment. It was nothing new to be pulled out from my reverie in the middle of the class. All 50 faces turn around together to look at me when she yells from behind her thick glasses. I look up from my notebook, dumbfounded, confused, and wondering what I did wrong this time. I was just minding my own business, lost in my thoughts. I stare in to everyone’s eyes to come to my resuce, as if begging them to say something in my defense. But there is something about this particular day, this moment that makes me pity myself. I look around me, at all those deprecating faces. Was it my not knowing the toughest chemical formulae, or was it not being as smart and bullish as Anil or Sandeep that never got me any support. I don’t know what happened at that moment, without a word of resistance, a single utterance, I stepped out from behind my desk, and walked straight towards the black board, head bent down and eyes fixated on the ground, as if that was going to save me the embarrassment and the hurl of verbal blows coming my way. I don’t know when I broke down. I was crying, silently, quietly, tears pouring down like I had never cried before.

Once again I was standing outside my classroom, back against the whitewashed wall, looking down at my now smeared shoes. The shine was gone. All I saw was the smudge left behind by the tears. There were small splotchy patches spread randomly across the small toes. The back of my palms are wet with wiping away the tears. I look up to see the wide expanse of the garrison grounds of my school. It’s lush green in this warm breezy spring of 1999. My tie blows casually across my torso with the slight breeze. I can feel the chill of the oncoming winter. My hair is ruffled now, turning it in to a mess, but I couldn’t care less. I wonder what I’m doing, why was I even born, and why on earth can’t I even be an average student. Today my self pity has consumed me completely. With every passing moment, I grow more desperate to do something drastic. I feel like running away from here. I’m sick of being scolded time and again, of being looked down upon like I was some doormat, the nerd who doesn’t know a thing. I look up at my classroom entrance. CLASS X A is painted in big block white letters on a black background. I wonder if I’ll ever have any good memories of that number….