An Excess-Ordinary Life
For a guy with many dreams, aspirations and ambitions, the one thing that I was fighting against was the lack of time but I think it was safe to say we all wish we had more of that. Time…as our lives and everything around us seems to be moving, seems to be like somebody played a tape-recorder, press the fast-forward button and left it that way, its all moving at such a rapid pace right? so it is only fair to us to pause..breathe..and take a moment to think about the past, the good we face, the bad we experienced but mind you when you move forward the only baggage you want to carry forward should be the good because it would be an unpleasant case otherwise.
As I sat down to think about how to brainstorm and compile everything that I wanted to talk about today, there was one moment, it was more of a revelation when I realised, if one 17 year old had so many things to talk about, so much to say imagine the kind of life experiences and stories you would get to hear from people around the world, it was really exciting to think about it.
Let me take you through mine now, so I was born in the beautiful Madurai city in Tamil Nadu and raised in magnificent Hyderabad, but my roots go back to my birth-place Madurai. Though I was raised, schooled everything in Hyderabad, my connect with my homeland Madurai is very strong. In fact, it is as strong as my love for Kothu Parotta, Kuska and Jigarthanda, if there are Tamilians here you know what I am exactly talking about, it’s deep trust me but I think I am privileged to say I believe that I am equally a Telugu abbai now as much as I am a Tamilian and this cultural integration is what calls me anywhere home and I believe this cultural integration is necessary for us to grow better.
Rolling back a couple of years, now we are getting into the topic, I am going to share with you couple of my life experiences what I went through and whatever I am living by today is because of these experiences I had, I would like share to all of you, so rolling back a couple of years, the word school..the word school resonated with an album to me, like a photo album of polaroids flashing in front of my eyes. I have very vivid memories of what school meant to me. I had very tiring moments in school like sitting in class for a long time, being attentive, completing class-works, assignments and writing exams was very taxing, sometimes I would also want to give up, but before I could think about it or realise, you know the struggle with all this, this had already become my life, so as a kid I remember I wanted to take a moment to think what I wanted to become in my life so before I proceeded forward I had made a firm decision to take up Data Analytics because I am really fond of it, that’s what I want to be, it sounds like a very very simple idea but trust me when I say this, it requires a battalion of people to execute. I need my teachers, my dearest friends and my family more than anything and when I see them I think I have been more than blessed, I feel I am blessed more than required to have them all today. School was a bundle, school was what set my foundation, the base for me is just so strong and so I can happily say that my character and my personality, anything to deal with my growth in my life I owe it to my school and I can’t thank or talk about the holistic education that I have received from my school and honestly, no money can ever buy the experiences that I had or the lessons I learnt during my school life. This one memory is so vivid in my mind where the fact that the announcement of me securing 99/100 in Grade X CBSE Board Examinations for English and emerging as the school topper in English and the person I got to know that was from was Dad. I was in Chennai International Airport waiting for my flight to Hyderabad and suddenly my phone rings and it was Dad, In fact I knew that my Grade X results were out but I hadn’t checked myself until my dad ringed me up. What do you instantly think when your dad is ringing you up to talk to you about your results? What was my performance? Did I get a good score or the other way? So till I attended the call all these thoughts were booming up like a missile striking hard at me. So I take the call and my dad says simply “Karthik, you got 99/100 in English and you’re the school topper in English” So I saw my name in the FaceBook page of my school that I have secured the highest marks in English with my photo on the post. Honestly that moment, it hit me so hard that rather than feeling accomplished or satisfied. Everything around me muted, it got really quiet and I thought that appreciation post came just at the right moment in my life when I almost took it synonyms to wanting to show my gratitude towards all the people who helped me to get to that point. My teachers, family and my friends came to my mind at that point. It was just so special and that episode ended with you know like in my mind was all my relatives and teachers and friends congratulating me and seeing them happy and joyous about me achieving something was validation to me that all that hours and days of hard work, doing what I loved doing was absolutely worth it. So that’s the end of my school saga.
I am currently pursuing my Grade 12 in Hyderabad and I hope to come out in flying colours, but then I am constantly fearing about what I am gonna do next? It feels completely brand new in our life after we finish our high school just like a danger zone as far as I am feeling that fear right now. Imagine the room gets extremely dark, there is a focus light on you, all your relatives start becoming active again, your parents are alert and worried and suddenly everyone of them looks up at you thinking “What you’re going to do?”, “What do you wanna be?”, this is what I am fearing the most, most and most in my life right now cause it’s incredibly a heavy question so all this is making me insecure and the real struggle I am facing right now is I am constantly at war with my mind, I am struggling with exaggerated thoughts, I am fighting against stress more than the physical exhaustion, I am fighting against strain, fear, doubt, over-thinking, procrastination , confusion and also extreme self-criticism. I hope there will be clear gateway to get into an excellent university and pursue what I loved to do!.
At the end I would like to say that whenever you face a problem or a flaw in your life see the beauty that’s present over the flaw because trust me I realised more than ever that we are perfect just the way we are, we don’t realise it and people don’t bend your knees to satisfy societal standards. Live your life because that’s yours and believe in yourself and through all this I realised the importance of people and the importance of interaction, I needed people. You know people are what, people are who made me get through all this time, they helped me a lot. I want to portray the shades that we all experience and we wish we experience from good to the bad and everything and I all this while, everything I was saying my life story isn’t great, my life story is not extraordinary and I didn’t do great things but the only thing I did and I’m happy about is that I could share what my life was all about at such a fantabulous platform and of course bring a smile on all your faces.
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