Today, my class had a test.
A simple test. On everything they'd
learnt
this past year.
They prepared for this for two weeks.
Most, if not all, were ready.
And as I was looking at them,
going about the rows,
Amid the scratching and the sighing,
I knew that at one point
Life would happen to them.
I knew that at some stages
they would be as drunk as a skunk,
they'd be harassed,
laughing till they'd hurt,
they'd fall in love and have their
heart broken,
they'd yell at someone, for next to no
reason,
they'd have kids, be happy, separate,
divorce, cry and pray for themselves,
or for someone they love,
or for someone who's gone,
or about to.
I knew they'd all know their bit of
shamefulness,
their awkward moments,
their flashes of treachery, of deceit,
of contrition, absolution, desperation.
I knew that most of them would never be
ready for this,
but on the other hand no one is ever
ready for life.
Life just happens,
quicker than lightning,
bitterer than the bitterest lemon,
sweeter than the sweetest kiss,
yet Life is that most precious thing
which ever happens to us along the way.
I also knew that they'd come to love
and hate it,
to protest against its manifold proofs
of injustice,
to groan under the buffets,
but in the end I knew they'd realise
that,
as I was going about the rows,
as they were answering questions
for an ultimately stupid test,
years from now,
they'd smile and remember this bit of
their lives
as one of those engaging moments when
all things are vested with a different
shade of life
with so many layers of meanings and
interpretations
that
after the soberness, the drunkenness,
the elation,
the disappointments, the breaking and
the healing,
the mess and the bringing back to the
surface
Life would essentially be the same
for each and every one of us,
though time changes and levels,
come what may,
perspectives be grim or endearing,
life would be, all things weighed,
all paths considered,
such a mighty gift that
it'd be sheer madness to spoil such an
opportunity.
