Aaloopuri

Why does school feel like prison? Perhaps because everyone is dressed in uniform inmate cloths? Need to give a headcount every hour? Don't even have the liberty to use the restroom at their own convenience?  Few of these inmates are provided with differentiating blazers for cramming propaganda infused syllabi enough to fall into an arbitrarily imposed quantitative criteria. In the setting of a supposed classroom, a tyrant exercises their arbitrary prerogative over the bodily functions of lowly miniscule creatures. Seniority justifies abnormal behaviours of hurling abuses and baseless allegations towards younger individuals. If they dare to retaliate, they are deemed a clear case of insubordination. The miniscule creature's futile effort to safeguard whatever little sense of dignity they have acquired are labelled instances of indiscipline. While some experienced players in this regard shrug it off, others are scarred for life post public humiliation.  The tyrant at this point ...

I have an image of a girl in my head, she's angelic. She's standing right in front of me. Behind her, a humble cathedral- kind of oxymoronic, the sky is clear blue which the cathedral seems to reflect. She's wearing a white shirt and something like a Victorian leather corset. She has let her hair down, caressed by the breeze. She is a spirit as free as a wild mustang. She looks like the young Kaya Scodelario. She looks at me with empty, piercing blue eyes. As though she doesn't care about me. It feels like she has my heart in her hands and she's crushing it with the empty look on her face while she's up in some deep thought. The way you feel when you listen to the Kurt Cobain version of And I Love Her. An inexplicable longing for something non existent. Even if she cares she doesn't show it, she's a rolling stone. I look at her wanting to say something, anything at all, but I'm rendered speechless.

 

  This music I once dreaded and it's glottal lyrics have gradually made their way into my heart. This wholesome dusk, spent deciphering a capricious assembly of couplets by Farida Khanum is a reminder of my latent appreciation for an elevated poetic form. 

 

I gauge the jitters in the hall, rendering all my attention to this exam for the next 3 hours, regardless of whether I cruise through it or struggle with it. Every passing minute makes my hand cramp into an undecipherable writing, switching between a fogging brain to going 7K RPM. I outpour this piling anxiety by restlessly moving my feet while being at war. Sweating in the minimal apricity falling through the window, I rest my hands once they go numb and observe how calm everything on the outside looks while I sit in this chamber of distress. Nothing seems more tempting than leaving the exam hall at the moment. For a second, I compare being at the mercy of a pouring hourglass to everything outside these four walls. As I delve on this floating thought in my head I reach a conclusion that being at the mercy of a ticking clock implies the end of distress and misery once the time is up. Likewise, all misery is at the mercy of a ticking clock, bound to fade away. If not completely, then to...