What-Ever

For a change, I am not concerned too much about the quality of what I am going to write. This isn't a garbed declaration of the quality of the previous posts, but an admittance of my mere quest for it previously. For now, though, I'd just let my heart speak without intrusions of the structural, aesthetic, or the hypocritical type from my neural circuitry.

Not that being concerned would have changed anything.

It is said that scarcity makes a man grow. But of course, this is only a piece of romanticised fiction, one that fascinates the mind, and also leaves it corrupted. If at all there is anything that grows during scarcity, it is scarcity itself.

People are mad, only a little less than I. They ring me up, ask me my result. A long nurtured love with numbers makes them call out for percentile-percentile right away. The next thing they say is a loud, enthusiastic, but for me a very hitting cry of Congrats or wow! It is truly a mixed-feeling, only too mixed, only too cluttered. Anyway, then I say something and the next thing they say is variable, though mainly it is something like an even louder 'Whaaat!' from those who've been watching a lot of Indian television Reality shows, while those who had restricted themselves to Simi Gerewal talk-shows on TV respond with a mannered, quieter, baritone Awwwww. Anyway, awe and shock, separated by a damned sentence; it saves me the cost of going to amusement parks to experience roller-coaster rides. I get them by the dozen every hour.

I did not get any IIM calls. At 99.70 of something called a percentile, I know not one more person among the thousands whose profiles I madly turned all through the last night, who met the same eventual fate as I, at this score. As far as sectionals go, one of the three wasn't all that fabulous for me, but it was still much better than many who finally raked in calls. Yes, I know, I am talking like a bad loser, but I realise there is only so much grace I can show at this time as a pornstar who is diagnosed with breast cancer minutes after she checks in a hospital for silicone implants that she hoped would have made her rule the world's compact disks.

Perhaps, it was only fair. I guess it was only fair that someone whose deeper longing, much deeper than the longing to ace a management entrance, is to demystify for himself the enigma of the Absurd, met with a full-blown, in-your-face absurdity hitting his head. However, the important word here is not 'Fair' or 'the Absurd', it is unfortunately 'Perhaps'.

Of course, it is not all bad, it never is. Almost at the nadir of my faith in the world, I discovered how terribly good some people thought of me. Major disappointments are palliative in the sense that they homogenise other auxiliary setbacks within themselves, making them indistinct, and making you inert to them. At the same time, they ensure that any faint good thing that happens shines out distinctly and you immediately recognise its being. So when I get terse replies, or worse, am left unanswered, it is easier accepting that it is how it was meant to be, and remain nonchalant, on the inside as well as on the outside. On the outside, I had always remained a stoic, but even the furore inside has now been replaced by a fading, near-mute, deathbed wistfulness. Put simply, it can be said that I have been humbled. And I still say scarcity doesn't make you grow. Being humbled is not growing. It was better earlier.

As a cockroach lying on its back, as a curious teenager being made to sit through back to back episodes of Vishnu-Puraan, as an audioning vocalist with a sore throat, as a nun in a stripclub, as a Nobel-prize awardee resisting a call of nature at the time of his speech, as a copywriter being corrected for wrong grammar by his maid, as Osama in Ayodhya - and as all of them put together, I am currently an amalgamation of varied emotions, all of them disconcerting, well almost. Among the four hundred and thirty six feelings that I feel now, the only one that qualifies as a silver lining is the pride at the stupendous success of Abhineet. It is no surprise, for it was always going to happen, unless all the IIMs decided to not conduct admissions at all this year. Of course they are conducting admissions, so of course Abhineet is there, right on the top. I particularly love people who don't make a big fuss of their brilliance, who aren't immersed narcissists. But then narcissists are never immersed, they only mistake drowning for immersion. I am amazed how Abhineet, after being what he is, comes off as just another guy, while being everything but that. Seeing his name printed with praise on the front page of a national daily today, I had a firm feeling it is only a beginning of a story that'll be long, admired, and deserved.

I also feel guilty for having subdued his celebrations, his enthusiasm. Among other things, maybe he would have wanted to write a jubilant post on his blog, the kind of victory-speeches that I am only too fond of, but cancelled it owing to the bad taste he must have thought it would leave in my mouth. That's how your head works, I know, yaar. But to set the record straight, I am looking forward to your masterpost as much as Shakti Kapoor looks desperately forward to new, struggling damsels asking for his patronization for them in bollywood. Even more than that, so please! And I cherish your email-of-compassion yesterday just about as much as I would have cherished the calls, and it goes without saying that it'll remain in my inbox forever. Also, All the best!

Unless Mamta Bannerjee taught you humour, you'd know that parts of the post were funny. Maybe the post was, but I am not. Perhaps 'this' explains the anomaly; a great blogger, see his/her blog I'd say.