Well, that's it then. Exams are officially over. And this is the time I've dreamed about ever since I was, what, 10? Although, back then, the mental picture was deceptively utopian: I had a vision of myself in the near future, as this slick type of character in black leather (don't ask, it was 1996) with the most fabulous body and fabulous everything else, well on her way to becoming Mrs. Rahul Dravid (again, it was 1996).
One thing's remained though. I was equally unambitious then, maybe even more so, lulled into security by comfortable test scores and easy living. All I ever wanted to be was an artist (as in, a painter), which was a notch above the previous ambition of becoming a washerwoman (I was fascinated by clothes being washed - something dreamily delicious about it). But then, hormones happened. Computers happened. I thought I'd be some kind of a computer engineer, because that's what smart people were doing all of a sudden. This was the pre-math disillusionment stage. Then of course, algebra and geometry happened, and all kinds of crazy ambitions were immediately shelved. In between, I went through a "I want to act phase". So there were a couple of banal workshops and dreary roles, my spirits not particularly helped by the fact that all the puppy fat of yore, suddenly seemed to have taken on wild dog proportions. Try and imagine a massive adoloscent girl wearing shiny yellow pants, a cherry red shirt, a pair of wings and a beak on top of her head. Yes, me. So I stumbled and stuttered through that excruciatingly long phase and ended up becoming one of those "nice quiet girls" who don't really exist, but somehow seem to have found a place for themselves in the classroom register. Of course, there were the usual indoor comforts - books, TV, food and little else . College just happened, and I'm kind of glad that it did, because it brought me back to my little girl dreams. Other than a brief, and equally ridiculous repetition of the actor phase (this time a notch lower than the aviary sect - I was a fly. A twenty year old fly, with wings and the works. Sheesh) - I felt pretty happy. I was reading, writing, travelling - and enjoying a strange, albeit limited, kind of freedom. Literature didn't teach me to become a writer, or a philosopher or a journalist or a teacher or whatever. On the contrary, I realised how little I actually know, about books, about life and most importantly, myself. It made me see myself, exactly as I was. Not a brilliant A-grade sort, and not the bleak little wallflower I had allowed myself to believe I was, either. I could be an artist, and not just the painter-actor sort. Heck, I don't even know for sure what sort. But somewhere there, I see a way. It's unaffected by your words, it's unaffected by test results, it's unaffected by the fantastic lives of other fabulous people. It isn't quite the leather-girl-potential-mrs-dravid picture. But it's somehow, more exciting. But shit, it would be good to have leather girl's body. Shame.
P.S.> There was a 'rock-chick' phase as well. The less said about it, the better.