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As a child, when I was asked
to write an essay on “Myself”, I could fill up sheets, or atleast
lines about myself with ease. However, yesterday when I was trying to
fill my bio in a popular so called social networking site, I could
not manage a word. And I thought, maybe a couple of lines were not
enough to describle someone as dynamic, as charming, as smart, as
witty as me!
Or did I? A little more
introspection, a couple of cups of coffee later, another long ride
without the phone disturbing me I realized, perhaps my life was
drowned in the large ocean of medioricity that the most apt bio would
be “Just another guy!”. Back when I was a kid, my world was too
small to realize it. My world was amma, appa and me. My cousins were
yet to be born. I was my parent's world too. That was when I thought
I was maybe, different and even better than others. Learning to write
“A” would have made my parents so proud of me.
A couple of years later,
when I learnt to read faster than others, I wondered if I was perhaps
a little different, or even better than others! Those were the days,
when in a film I only saw the hero and the villian. Romance made no
sense to me. Comedy only understood in parts. And immediately, I
could put myself into the hero's shoes.I could see myself coming out
victorious in every battle that I fought. Only the villians changed.
When I saw cricket, I imagined myself as Sachin pounding bowlers all
over the park.When I saw Cartoons, I was Mowgli. I was the hero.
As time passes by, you
realize not everyone is a hero in life. Some of the characters just
make up a movie. The hero's brother, the villian's sidekick who goes
to fight with the hero only to land up in a fruit stall with a broken
nose, the friendly shop owner in the film, the doctor, the onlooker
on the street. It is only now I realize, I am one of these
characters. And am sure, there are many others who too play similar
roles. Infact, most people in this world play these characters. We
live for those two minutes in a three hour film when we get our
friends to the theatre to excitedly show them our role which never
altered the script of the movie. Far later, when the lights are off
and we can listen to our voice carefully, there is a slow voice
telling, You cannot rest my boy! Yes, your role does not alter the
movie and that is why you should not rest. There is always someone
else to play yours! The hero can rest.
In a college, the A graders
are the cynosure of teacher's eyes, subjects of envious glances from
peers and well respected. There is also a another group which sits in
the last row usually bunking classes and make their presence felt in
the only way that they know when they are present. While the intended
target of their paper rockets might be the lecturer, they actually
hit the girl's hearts with undiluted precision. Most of them are
also good in all matters outside classroom. But there is the
overwhelming majority like me who lay trapped somewhere in middle.
Not the best in studying. There is always this cousin who is better
than you in Math, the friend whose English speech is notches above
your writing skill, the neighbour who codes stuff for which you took
ages and the batchmate who makes you look a fool on the football
ground.
But, as I write this, I seem
to have found a new found identity for myself. I am the B grader, and
a perennial one at it. That guy with spectacles, who makes his way
into the class five minutes before it starts, understands a little,
goes to play only to concede a stupid goal, that guy whose code you
can bet never is the most efficient. That guy, who is omnipresent in
every class., I am the B grade boy. After all, for every Sachin
Tendulkar, that are nine Sanjay Bangars toiling away in a nondescript
ground somewhere in Rajkot.
