Phew!! The last day of my exams and the last day of the endless, infinite loop……. and the instant realization of the ephemeral joy and relief it will bring. Packing my drafter, compass, scales and pencil, I feel a heavy burden has been lifted off my shoulders (actually the bag’s still heavy). The long walk back to home will slowly and painfully release the psychogenic pain. Step by step, drop by drop.
The last month had been a constant rigmarole of exams, books, vivas, submissions and more exams. The mind had been subjected to the constant hammers and tongs of so called “engineering-last-minute-exam-preparation-shit”. There’s a process similar to digging a cemetery that a mind goes through when it’s subjected to the constant thwacking and hammering of stress. A week before exams- The mind is as blank as the ground of a cemetery. Clean, undisturbed and relaxed but it with the apprehension that it’s going to lose control. The day before exams- The news have reached to the gravediggers. Prepare your spades and start ploughing, harrowing, remove the dirt covering the ground! The mind goes into a state where it has to unearth the realms of its mind. It starts STUDYING. Terraforming has started. The days pass like seconds of a clock. The mind goes into turbo mode. Then comes the day when we actually face the rock. THE EXAM PAPER. Anxiety and trepidation become our closest pals. Look up to sky and it showers us with nervousness, look to the right and it gives us a cold stare of hysteria, to the left is Stress vs. Strain ( Literally and psychologically) and if you dare look below, we find horror and the pale obliteration. The dimensions of our minds are calculated and the grave is precisely dug.
But the process isn’t over. The grave has to be cleaned and the body is to be placed. After the paper is over, the mind doesn’t get rest at all. Time is limited and the digging process starts again. The turbo mode puts pressure in kPa or any other unit which can define pressure. There is no room for rest and unwinding. All the energy and time is focused into that digging process. And the worst part is the breaks and intervals. Just to freshen our minds, we take a break and the symphony of digging breaks. The gravediggers take a short detour of gossiping and fun and simultaneously the time shoots ahead as warp speed. To get back that harmony, more time and sweat is consumed. Hours turn to days, days turn into weeks and yet the process of mortification continues. And finally today is the day when I lay the body into the grave which was dug with such piercing monotonic methods that the mind feels blank. Like a dead man, all suited up for his last journey to oblivion, the mind gears up one last time for that final assault. With no spirit it gives its 100% breaking all the nervous pull backs and fatigued thoughts. And there the clock rings the end of time; the pangs of sudden and celestial happiness fill our minds with a new vigour. Just like the grave accepts the body into it, my mind succumbs to that unexplainable feeling of happiness with a tinge of realization. The reserves of my mind are soaked dry and it’s nearing to its breakdown. The gravediggers have laid the body into the pit and cold, soft, humid sand is encrusted on it. The mind sleeps like the body of a mortal being does in that grave. Innocent, tranquil, free and letting the pain release into thin air.
Just then it wakes up on its journey to home, that it’s born again to play one more act, one more spectacle. Wake up and get ready! Gravediggers are ready with their spades and tools. A new grave! A new cemetery!
karanvankani 