Tribute

What follows is my speech, delivered at the year-end farewell at school. Edited, of course. The original is too long and too boring. I wonder how everyone managed to stay awake while I delivered it.

It's pretty weird, standing up here. Three years ago I definitely wouldn't have even thought of speaking in front of so many people.

Speaking of, er, public speaking reminds me of one of my favourite quotes of all-time, courtesy Jerry Seinfeld. According to a study, the fear of public speaking is the most common in people. The second is death. Now that really doesn't make sense, does it? Because THAT means that, at a funeral, most people would be better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.

Well, I'm standing here, claiming that my talent is speaking. Truth be told, I don't think that I would have thought that I could speak if not for this school. Our school.

Wow! It feels really good to say that. Our school. It also feels quite weird for me to say that, because this is the last time I can claim a school to be mine. 

And I've made quite a lot of such claims. Vidya Mandir is, in fact, my tenth school. That's right. Ten. And the funny thing is, when I look back, I realise that I have studied in schools for all kinds of time intervals - all the way from three years to three weeks. Yeah, one school did have that honour. They had me for just three weeks. And all I have to show for that little stint is an entire shelf of notebooks they dumped on me when I joined. Seriously. There's a huge pile of pink notebooks they gave me. It's very annoying.

What's also pretty annoying is having to leave. Actually, it's more than annoying - it's heartbreaking, depressing, and makes me feel pretty awful inside. And having to do it nine times before this isn't an advantage in any way. It actually makes it worse, knowing that I've spent such a short time here.

Three years ago, I walked into this school. As always when joining a new school, I was nervous. So nervous that I walked right with my good friend into his classroom. Which was the wrong one, by the way. I sat down and, almost immediately, the bell rang and everybody left for assembly. That felt really awkward.

I'm saying this because I think a lot has changed since that day. New friends, new teachers. All of them - no, sorry - all of YOU, I want to thank. And there's not enough I can say that will, er, be enough. I did think about thanking all of you for five minutes, but I guessed that at the end of it all, you guys would thank me profusely when I walk off stage.

Unfortunately, I have a lot to regret. It's been too short a journey - almost like a visit. Three years is nowhere near enough time to get to know all of you. It's caused hasty judgments, harsh words, and a general feeling of unpleasantness. And now, to put it in more familiar words, "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

It's okay - I still haven't figured out whether it's a compliment or an insult. And if you know, shut up and let others think for themselves.

At any rate, it's confusing. And I was this confused when writing this speech. Because emotions and feelings like this are just too difficult to put on paper. And even when some words were written on the page....suffice it to say that tears smudge ink.

Anyways, the speech has been written and I'm here, taking this opportunity to speak for the last time in the school that helped me speak for the first time. If I hadn't been here, in this school, I wouldn't be here, on this stage.

I saw this is an opportunity to thank all of you. I know I've said this before, but I simply have to say it again, simply because you all mean so much to me.

I also saw this as an opportunity to share the experience of leaving school. Leaving teachers, leaving friends. I've left quite a lot of them behind, most recent of which were my sixth-grade companions. And in my mind, they remained as sixth-grade kids (except the teachers, of course), nothing more; almost like characters from a half-remembered dream.

But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that friends don't leave. And if you want to find them, you can. The best part is, it happened to me. A few days back, I joined Twitter. And those sixth-grade kids I was talking about, they were there too (although no longer sixth graders, of course). It's great to see how much they've changed, and greater still to see that they remember me.

And that created a feeling that gives me the conviction that, until we so decide it, our friends will not leave us. Nobody's going away, and we're all going to stay in touch.

Well, to be honest, I don't have a proper ending for this speech. But I think that's okay. Because I see today not as an ending, but a new beginning.

Okay, I know that that is a cliche. But let's face it, Ravi Shastri uses them all the time and he's still around, isn't he? Cliches work, I guess.

And with that, I believe I have come to the end of what, I hope, was not a cliched speech.

Thank you. Very much.

Time

Time moves. A fairly obvious statement, I know.

The thing is, sometimes it is the most obvious of things that goes unnoticed. As is mentioned in Edgar Allen Poe's short story, "The Purloined Letter", "the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably self-evident." This is, of course, an 1800-s way of saying what I said in the first line of the paragraph. The only difference is that his writing is deemed literature and immortalized for decades to come, while mine, eventually, will be termed garbage, and be dumped in the nearest trash bin.

Keeping such sombre thoughts aside, I shall now move on to even more sombre thoughts, such as the passing of time - an idea, I hope, which will help you to pass the time.

Quite a bit of time has passed. A majority of it was school-time. And that's over now.

School.

Honestly, I never expected it to end. Well, I knew it would, at some time, but I sincerely hoped it would somehow be delayed. A convenient month of, say, a dinosaur infestation in the school could've extended my tenure there by quite a while. Alas! One never finds dinosaurs exactly when one needs them. They're ancient history.

And now, so is school. Ancient history.

Going off to college tomorrow and being about to start a fresh, new adventure urges me to give a fitting tribute to the one just concluded. A tribute to what has been, undoubtedly, a terrific time.

His friend didn't know. That was the problem.

He didn't know, but that was obvious. Otherwise, he never would've asked his friend in the first place. 

But he did ask, and the friend didn't know. 

And so, out of the multitude that stood, sat, and shook around him, he singled out one person and looked him right in the eye. Me. 

Moving close to me, his face close to, but at a respectable distance from mine own, eyes still firmly fixed, he opened his mouth. And the voice, a nice voice, as one would expect to correspondingly belong to a nice man, uttered these words:

"Bitch. Bitch, stop."

One who is sitting around and minding his own business does not generally expected to be confronted by profanity. Not in any ordinary circumstances, and most definitely not from an absolute stranger, one upon whom one's eyes have never set.  

It was thus, with a mortified look upon my face, that I gazed into the eyes of this co-passenger, situated merely inches from me, and moving back and forth in tandem with the haphazard motion generally associated with the movement of any bus motoring about the streets of Madras. 

Words escaped me, for all I could think about was the peculiar (if peculiar can be adequately used to describe it) behaviour of this individual. Lost thus in deep contemplation, I had neglected to notice that the soul in front of me was waiting for a response, one which I was in no position to deliver. 

This is one instance that the kindness of human beings, ironic as it may seem, is brought out. Not by this abusive man in front of me, mind you, but by the gentleman seated to my right. 

This good Samaritan, possibly unacquainted with English, was more than acquainted with common sense, and so, very adroitly, informed the other man that he need wait for another twenty minutes at most. 

For after all, this person who was seemingly the very epitome of rudeness, had merely been inquiring as to when the beach stop would be reached.

Of Beginnings, Blogs, and Borrowing

                "Beginning" begins with "B".

                So does "blog".

                Isn't it merely fitting, then, that my first post in this blog begins with "B"?

                May-be. May-be not.

                It's not like I have a passion for the letter "B". In fact, I can think of several unpleasant things that begin with "B", most of which will probably be used, now or in the near future, to describe this blog.

                Bad.

                Boring.

                Bitter.

                Barmy.

                Blech!

                Bah!

                And it will most probably end with "Bang!", when someone shoots me for writing all this nonsense.

                But on the bright side, the letter "B" affords some positive ideas as well.

                Brilliant!

                Bravo!

                "Bahut Badiya"! (There exists within me a tiny glimmer of hope that someone, someday, will use these words to portray the qualities of this blog. The odds of this actually occurring, unfortunately, are comparable to those of Ramiz Raja actually making sense on commentary - nil point nil)

                But I digress. Welcome to The Imaginary Blog.

                I did initially plan to write a monograph on what you should expect from this blog. But some bloke stole my idea and wrote it already.

              However, as it is, in fact, my idea, I think I can use his words here as well - not copying, merely "borrowing" his words, just as he "borrowed" my idea.

                Thus, in the words of Jerome K. Jerome (the idea's mine - don't forget!),

One or two friends to whom I showed these papers in MS., having observed that they were not half bad, and some of my relations having promised to buy the book if it ever came out, I feel I have no right to longer delay its issue. But for this, as one may say, public demand, I perhaps should not have ventured to offer these mere "idle thoughts" of mine as mental food for the English-speaking peoples of the earth. What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this up for half an hour. It will be a change. (Excerpted from "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow")

                Oh, I might have neglected to mention that he wrote it 200 hundred years ago. But that doesn't mean anything, does it?