well well well.. today was my last eng paper for d rest of this degree...n guess wat..?? it was d best paper i had ever answered in 2 whole years!! hahaha.. i actually enjoyed answering all d questions n reading d passages... this one particular letter grabbed my attention... its realy funny....u should read it...
I spent such a long time typing this silly long letter.. so u ppl better spend as much time reading it!! it's not a request, its a threat!!! hahaha....
well, here goes...
Dear Papa,
This is an answer to your letter about my transgressions. Yes, my first rank slipped to the second rank. You advised me that I should think before studying, before answering the papers. Yes, the operating word “think” did make me muse and these are the results of those musings.
Father, we have never really been close and I can’t really say, you’ve been my friend, philosopher, guide etc. yet, I would like you to be aware of my musings. They are very important to me. You are highly educated and you provide very well for the family. But in your Departmental Store, do you apply Phytagoras Theorem or Newton’s Law of gravity? For that matter, does your doctor friend? Or lawyer brother?
Papa, my grandfather speaks of care free and beautiful childhood. Of days spent in plucking mangoes and guavas from their ‘jameen’, of picnics on the banks of the river where the men cooked mouth-watering food, of playing marbles and gilli danda. From his talk, it seems, studies were an ancillary subject: and living and experiencing, the major subject. Father, is he fibbing? Or is it Adam and Eve eating of the tree of knowledge, all over again?
Papa, my grandmother is semi-illiterate: Yet she is at peace with her pots, pans, her flowers and garden. Her Bhagvad Gita and scriptures. My mother, highly qualified, is highly strung, tense and nervy. Do you think, literacy is a harbinger of restlessness, fear, frustration? Is it Adam and Eve eating of the tree of knowledge, all over again?
Oh Papa, last week, my rose plant almost died. Some pests. I asked my Biology teacher what I should do to save it? And she was cross. She said go ask the guy who keeps the gardening things. He’ll tell you. We learn about pesticides but we do not know how to use them. Oh father, it matters not to me why the apple does not fall upwards, nor do I care what Archimedes did. What matters to me is that my rose plant remain healthy: when there’s a fuse in my house, I should know to do something about it: I should know to make a desk for myself from my carpenters tools. Instead I learn about hypotenuse, relational square roots…..
Papa, once I asked grandmother how she got to be so wise. Do you know what she said? By living and experiencing. And she laughed as though I had asked something which was so obvious. Are we living, Papa? Or is life by passing us? What I fear is that if I were to meet Newton face to face, I would fail to recognize him, so busy am I learning about him! You know just like that boy, Vinu, in that award winning film. He prattles on – The Hibiscus is red – a hundred times, but in his book, he colours it yellow. Are we missing out on the essence of life? Papa, that’s what happens in my craft and drawing class. My imagination wants to soar like a rocket to Jupiter and Mars, to transverse new worlds, new fields.
Anyway Papa, do you know where I lost that quarter mark that brought about my fall? It was a fill in the blanks, I held that I was invited to tea and my teacher was adamant that he was invited for tea. A matter of grammar, And, Papa, if he says Geaorge Bush is the President of India it will have to be so. If he says the sun rises in the west, so be it; and if he says the earth is flat, it will be, it will be, my Papa. At least on my answer papers. My first rank is at stake, you see. Still, my dearest Papa, I shall keep your advice in mind and strive not to lose any quarter marks.
As always,
Yours ever obedient son,
Rahul.
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