Class 12, etc

When my psychology exam got over last week, I suddenly had this euphoric feeling of how I was now a free bird who wouldn't have to study hard for a while now! That is what most class 12 students think when their board exams come to an end.

None of us realize that with the extremely fucked up system of ours, the end never comes.
So the day the final exams get over, everyone jumps around hugging every student in the vicinity. Then we all spend hours with our friends. This happiness lasts for a couple of days. That is until we realize that the board marks may not be enough to get us into a decent college and to have a backup is a good idea.

Want to watch hours and hours of television?
 Forget it. It ain't happening

That is precisely why everyone marches into coaching centres which give out brochures with pictures of their favourite students and their respective marks. That is about the time we all realize that there are still 2 more months of slogging left. Slogging to get a good rank in some entrance exam or the other. Most entrance exams are in may and june. That is about the same time everyone's board results come out and the hunt for college begins. The bottom line is that there's really no such time when we actually get to slack.

So if you guys are dreaming of a post class 12 phase of watching movies all day, having week long sleepovers with your friends or being spared of that guilty feeling that tells you to go study, forget it. Unless you have parents who can afford to pay their way in to a decent college, remember-- this class 12, etc is not easy to get rid of!

Roadside Sleepers

Today, just as I was walking home, I saw by the road, something that I am so very afraid to do myself.
I saw a man sleeping. No I am not afraid of sleeping, but the idea of sleeping in public horrifies me. What if someone mugs you or steals your money?
I looked at that man, dozing off comfortably in his plastic chair.

If you live in India, you would also be familiar with the sight of drivers sleeping in parked cars while the owners are away shopping or eating or doing whatsoever. If you aren't, just walk through a parking lot of a local market and you'll see what I mean.

Now even though I have never been on a public bus, I see them everyday. I see the crowding, and the shoving and also, the dozing off. Sleeping on DTC buses seems like a nightmare. First of all, how can one fall asleep in a place which is so stuffed, that it is possible for people to fall out of the windows!
Secondly, how do you know that the man sitting next to you will not pull out your wallet while you are happily dreaming?

Taking advantage of the situation

And thirdly, how does one wake up when their stop arrives? Is it an instinctual thing to just wake up when you get home or is the driver kind enough to wake you up and drive you back home when he notices that you are the only one who did not get off at the last stop?

All through my 14 years at school, I have never been able to fall asleep in class! Not that I used to be extremely interested in what the teachers were saying, but simply because I was afraid of what hell i would have to go through if I were caught. (And partly because I knew that my friends weren't kind enough to not take advantage of the situation.)

To all those who feel the same way, welcome to the club! And to all those who are trying to figure out why I'm fretting about sleeping in public, please tell me how you do it. 

GYMonomics

With my class 12 exams over, I decided to join the gym in the month of April. Class 12 makes you gain a lot of   extra weight, but that's okay with me. I consider it a good sign. It means you've been studying.
Although this wasn't my first time at the gym, I noticed a lot of things about the place that I had not noticed before. It seems to have it's own certain ways.

To start with, being a newbie (or a person who out of laziness hasn't been to the gym for the past 18 months)  is like being the amateur of the place. You're the only person who is seen panting and sweating on the treadmill while walking at a speed of 4 km/hr and you're definitely the person who comes in the last and leaves the soonest.
But as you become a little more regular and start blending in, certain patterns emerge.

There's always this one egoistic trainer, who will walk around the place doing absolutely nothing productive. He's like a parole officer.  He will have this proud and dignified look on his face, which by the way means nothing to any of the people there. The other trainers do all the work. One would think he's coordinating,  but there's nothing much to coordinate in a gym.

There's the popular girl, who has been coming to the gym for as long as anyone remembers. She's the one who knows all the trainers, and all the people. She is also the one who can run on the treadmill at 9 km/hr for 20 minutes.

There are also those people who I like to call the kings and queens. These are the people who do not need to lose weight from any angle. They either come to the gym to build their muscles or tone their body or mantain their already perfect weight. These are the ones who are the royalty of the gym. Not that they are treated any differently, but for them, being at the gym is more of a choice than a compulsion.

If any of you have ever been to a gym, you might have come across the inferiority complex. Whenever you're on a treadmill, walking at your own sweet pace, you tend to compare yourself to the person next to you. If the person is walking at double the speed (running occasionally) you tend to have an inferiority complex. But if it's you whose faster you tend to think "HAHA. What a loser"

And how could I forget, there are those amazing, gifted and idolized people who carry their own i pod to the gym. That's a big thing. Believe me. First of all, it is impossible to even hear yourself think with all the loud music in the gym. It's hard to even respond to a phone call. To be able to hear the music from your i pod is nothing short of a freakin miracle.
Second of all, I have never been able to keep those damned earphones inside my ears. They keep falling off. After some time, that's all you're doing. I have often found myself taking it easy while exercising just so that i can listen to my music.

But the best part is that there is a mutual understanding in the gym. Everyone is trying to lose weight or tone their body. So no matter how messed up you look, the gym is one place you can go to and not worry about your appearance. It is one place where your public image does not count. For all you know you could go in wearing the worst clothes out of your closet and no one would give a damn.