I had laughed then...

Back in school days, my Amma would act as if our exams were end of the world. If she would see us standing or sitting idle, hell would be bought on us. We would read and read and read. She was persistent about us studying well. She would always tell that she wanted us to be independent and self reliant. Same was the case with my dad. But he was different in handling it. He did always mention how important being educated was. How important logical thinking and decision making was. We were bought up saying ethics & principles were far more important than money. What others think don't matter as much as what you think about yourself.

Back then Papa always repeated that what we are seeing now is not life. Real life begins after you step out of home and college, and real exam begins there. How well you perform there is all that matters, not all these exams. And we were like huh!! like really? Papa stop kidding. You have no idea what a hell it is , how much we have to study and slog. Nothing can be more difficult than this. If we can handle this stress, all other stress of life will be like a cake walk.

Really. To read and understand things that simply did not make any sense; the Geographies* the Physics the Chemistries* the Histories* the Maths and the list goes on. It is kind of a big deal. We always felt life of the grown ups was so easy. They dint have to worry about exams, about the "out of syllabus" questions, the competitions between classmates, the homeworks and so on. They dint have to wake up 6 days a week and go to school. I and my sister could simply not agree with Dad that life after school/college would be more difficult than what we were going through then.

Honestly, now when I look back; I can trade anything to get those school/college days back. Papa was right. The exams of life are so tricky that there are always atleast 95% of the questions out of the syllabus; the least that you expect; and you learn it afterwards adding to your what all call "experience".

I had laughed then, but walking the path of life, stumbling over pebbles or sometimes stone or sometimes rock, falling, getting hurt, cursing, crying, then getting up, dusting off and continuing to walk; I learnt that he was right. Life teaches what books don't. And everyone has a different experience, a different taste of life.

Today as I was driving back from office, I laughed again, thinking how innocent and stupid we were to laugh and argue with Papa then.

-Sarita
Dated - 7th September 2016

*(out of dictionary incorrect plural form usage was intended)

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