Tainted Mark-sheet!!!

Tainted Mark-sheet!!!

She switched on her laptop to reply to the comments posted on her blog in response to her latest story. She was dog-tired but her heart desired to see some extolling words for herself before entering the dream world. Her eyes glittered and a cute smile draped her face while her slender fingers tapped on the keyboard, responding to comments from her admirers. She checked her emails for any further notifications from her publisher and switched off her laptop. The grandfather clock in the hall chimed twelve. She gazed at the synchronized oscillations of the pendulum for a while and stretched her arms. Her eyelids were getting heavy. Her body was willing to get comfy on the sofa itself. She saw the satin curtains of the French windows getting billowed by a sudden gust of wind. Unwillingly, she traipsed from the sofa to close the window pane.

It was a cloudy night. There was a forecast of a heavy rain by the meteorological department . She stepped out onto the balcony. The wetness of the wind engulfed her from within. Her eyes scanned the sky only to find the full moon sneaking behind thick rain-clouds. The sky bore a semblance of exhaust belched from a smokestack. She looked around. Skyscrapers scratching the clouds, green trees cloaked in an inky black hue, a fine spray of rain leaving a mark on the glass panes, bare roads bearing no sign of humanly affairs, faintly illuminated street lights incapable of casting their own shadows and an eerie silence all around. The framework was perfect to trigger the engine of her imaginations. Sleep was brought back from the brink of dream world. Her thoughts won over her fatigue. She opened her diary to pen down her thoughts.

rain_sky_scrapers

Anamika was a simple girl from a middle class background, whose heart relished inner peace over money making professions. Ever since childhood, she used to wake up before the first light of dawn gently kissed the world. Just like the sun, she never discriminated between weekdays and weekends. Books were her true companion right from the age when children endeavoured to escape reading. The smell of the new books used to titillate her intellectually. The most challenging job in her budding age was to finish all the stories prescribed in the literature syllabus before the school re-opened. She was an intelligent child. Theories of science and mathematics were at her finger tips whereas literature ran in her veins. She breathed through the lines of sonnets. Characters in the stories she read were deeply etched in her mind. She was indeed scholarly albeit tarnished by one jarring fact. Her stupendous scores in science and mathematics garnered her several plaudits but her literary scores always lagged behind. The scores she received in literature though not deplorable were not respectable either. It was the sole black mark on her illustrious academic graph. She grew up holding onto a tainted mark sheet.

Her grammar was Shakespearean but was glorious nevertheless. Anamika’s provocative thoughts and vibrant imagination gathered her plaudits in essays but never ascribed to the word limit. This often led to underwhelming scores. Every historical character influenced her but she failed to pack their influences within five lines. Unknowingly she was part of such a society where knowledge was attained just to walk the aisle of monetary gains. She was nurtured in an ambience where only an engineering degree or an MBA could fetch you a good life. Nobody bothered about her marks in literature as its significance paled when it came to attaining the tag of an “Engineer”.  The world around her certified her prudence through her mark sheets which were further glorified by Mishra uncle, her neighbour, who declared her to be a born engineer. She was tossed in the hot oven of software engineering. The diary whose pages were wreathed with her words got buried under gargantuan tomes of engineering textbooks. Her imaginations which transcended into stories over time were forced to hibernate. She crumpled the admission form the drama school where she desired to pursue a degree in theatre arts. She sailed silently on her journey to earn a handsome salary. She looked at her creations for the last time. Her salty tears moistened the engraved ink. Words got smudged but before they died they whispered, “WE WILL TAKE BIRTH AGAIN.”

Wannabes

Words took some time to wrap her mind again. Thoughts were delayed in rousing from their slumber. Still, her words, her imaginations and her pen proved their loyalty. The architectural magnificence in a metropolitan city, concealed cruelty of this competitive world, lackadaisical human commitment towards relationships, an unrelenting urge to remain at the apex, all captivated her thoughts. Besides being a senior programmer in a multinational software conglomerate, her computer screen lent her some space to pour down her thoughts again. Words did happen to her. Her monochromatic imaginations were splashed with colour again. Her pen ran on the paper with aplomb. The day her words started ruling the pages of a renowned magazine, she typed her last official letter. Her resignation.

“Writing job cannot fetch you a hefty bank balance.”

She grinned at her boss and replied, “A hefty bank balance couldn’t fetch me what I wanted.”

Anamika spread her wings. Five years later, she was a writer, blogger, a screenwriter and a much acclaimed playwright. Language was never a mere subject in the curriculum for her. It was a mode of communication. It was a mean to modulate her mind’s eye. The peripatetic clouds amidst an azure blue sky, the first ray of dawn, the dew drops kissing the blooms, the frothy tides of ocean, the hilt of mountains discovering new layers of atmosphere, the lone boat sailing in the last remnants of sunlight, the chirping of birds, those mute yet twinkling stars and each incident exploring human emotions had crafted a story in her mind. Her mind captured nature’s uncommunicativeness. She couldn’t paraphrase someone else’s story to impact the examiner. True. Today, her bourgeoning thoughts had left an indelible mark on her readers’ mind. Her mark sheets remained tainted but certainly not her thoughts.

Today she writes. Her thoughts are no more fettered by grades or marks or by anyone’s judgement. She might not have a fat paycheque getting credited at the end of each month but she could gather something what she couldn’t buy with brimming coffers. INNER PEACE AND CONTENTMENT.

 

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