Falling Apart

What would you do if the world is falling apart in front of you, and all you can do is stare at it? You have no control over it and it all just comes as a shock to you. It's like you could see the clouds approaching and you were silently wishing the storm would go without causing any damage.  It's like you felt the pain but didn't do anything to make it hurt less. Like you listened to all the noises but plugged your earphones on, so you didn't have to hear anything. Like you could see what was coming your way but shut your eyes, closed them like a kid believing that if you couldn't see it, the devastation wouldn't happen. 

But the damage was done so much before. 

It is my story. The story of a girl living in the southernmost part of the south of New Delhi. I remember the days when my sister used to teach me astronomy in sixth standard with tiny stones and grasses in the early mornings on the roof of my house. I remember not studying the curriculum but searching for Astronomy books in the library and discussing black holes, star dusts, nebulae in the chilly nights. I was always the naughty kid. People around me say I still am. I don't know where things went wrong. I always wanted to be an astronaut, and in all the difficult times, I stayed, I held on to my ambitions like stars thinking that one day I will achieve them and these faltering disappointments would vanish.

Things do come to an end after all. After every dream, we do have to wake up. The real world isn't a fairy tale land where whatever you wish comes true. The same happened with me. I thought that I would take an undergraduate degree in any science major/clear Defense exams, get flight experience and then NASA people would select me, because of course, I am so awesome (So easy!) until one fine day in my twelfth standard, just two months before the boards I saw that National Defense Academy people don't select girls, because they menstruate and are weaklings and would ultimately become a liability (Gah! They don't understand that they were born because of the very same reason). They do take some, but once in a lot of time, as I heard. Great! I least expected it.  My sister wasn't even here with me to empathize and have my back. Nobody. Not my parents, for whom I am kind of a non-existential being. Now comes the interesting part of the fantasy. I thought I would go to Indian Air Force and they do take up women as pilots. But then, my eyes played hopscotch with me. I got myopic and the IAF don't take people having incorrect vision. Hear the glasses breaking and shattering? That was my heart and all the strength. Did the world just tag me as a pitiable 'visually disabled girl'? I don't know.

Next I know is that I was really worried about my result. I didn't study one thing all my twelfth standard and didn't prepare for entrances, no coachings and no self study. Somehow I got admitted to a government college having Electronics and Communication as my major (I left Information Technology for it, see the pattern?) and made fairly good friends. I was afraid of getting a best friend since my ex-best friend didn't really make me better or stood up for me or thought about me. With her, it was always her life, her problems, her grades and things like that. Time waste. Eventually I met with this amazing girl, my best friend, and I am so used to her company now. People who are meant to stay in your life, eventually find a way to stay.
With two semesters over and quite okay percentages, I was fairly happy with my life, learning on the way, learning from my failures, learning from experiences until the storm I didn't see coming finally started gushing from the sky. A shift in the placement pattern and people started shifting to IT. I could have shifted too, I had the required grades, but I didn't because I didn't want to work to make people click advertisements, the greatest minds would work to make people click ads, how does that sadden you? (That might look judgemental, but I have no idea what IT/CSE people actually do in their jobs, please tell me?) But who would do the research? Who will make the devices? But what if I don't get placed? I know I should be studying for that's the only thing in my hands, but you can't help it when you think, can you? That's why I am into most of the societies so I don't get time to think and am always busy. The world is indeed ruled by money because why else would people shift? My best friend is shifting too (beat that pattern of losses !) then she says she is interested in coding and that makes sense, she's good at it too. I am really happy for her, she deserves the best for herself.

But here I am, unsure of what future holds for me, in the midst of all the politics surrounding college life, separated by miles from my sister, discontentment of the major that I'm in, where every classmate hates me, where my best friend is leaving me. This path that I took seems so much lonely and difficult for me to fathom any chances of improving. I can't disappoint the few people who actually care for me. I'm lying in a pit full of dirt, wishing to rise to the top, fitting pieces of my life together in a way I never imagined they would, knowing that I have faced dark blurry times but I'm still here to rise above it all. 

I am still here.