Have you ever felt like there’s a cage of thoughts residing somewhere in your mind?
No, I am not talking about repressed emotions. I’m talking about different voices. Voices that represent different versions of yourself - one voice answering questions to another version of yourself in an interrogation room, followed by voices that represent a jury pool, and one guilty voice trying to break free from prison in the most pathetic fashion imaginable.
Yeah, I meant “cage of thoughts” quite literally.
For me at least, those voices represent every decision I make, both small and big. They get louder when things that are beyond my control end up happening. The racing thoughts and opinions end up in an overwhelming mess.
I would say those overwhelming feelings wash away every thought in my head for a duration of six whole months on an average. It became a regular thing, eventually. Or at least I thought so, until that day.
November 11th 2019. I can easily say it was the most confusing day of my life so far.
My morning was regular in every sense of the word. The only “addition” was the fact that I had to attempt a science “olympiad” (the reason behind why I wrote that in quotes is honestly a story for another day). They were hyped up in my previous school and were, to some extent, a measure of one’s intelligence - that is, if people even bothered to pay attention to academic prowess.
On the bus, I ignored Ms. Funny because I quarrelled with her for some reason that I don’t remember. Kindly do not judge me for that. While she is a good friend of mine, it is impossible to keep track of our squabbles.
The test was scheduled to be held around 11. Mr. Silent and I spent a fair amount of time reviewing elementary physics in each other’s company. I vividly recall us talking about the equation of the law of conservation of momentum on our way to the auditorium in a hurried tone. Humorously, I remembered vague and tiny bits of the biology I read as well.
“Wait - do you know what Phrethima Posthuma is? It sounds so much like a disease,” I said, “If it is, I’m screwed. I just remember reading the term somewhere but I don’t really know what it is.”
“Uhhh… Phrethima Posthuma? Oh, wait a second! Isn’t that the scientific name for earthworms? That’s certainly not a disease!” he says, chuckling a bit.
I laughed in admiration of my knowledge in biology.
Despite that, the exam did go pretty smoothly. Although I enjoyed the last-minute preparations, flunking it would not represent the end of the world for me.
The day culminated after a few boring periods of class. While I normally enjoy physics, I am not a big fan of the chapter “Light”, it’s too theoretical for my taste and I prefer numericals. However, that did not put a damper on my day. I was in a good mood.
Looking back, I would say that was one of the most peaceful days I spent at school. Everything was nice and light, and I didn’t feel like I had anything to worry about. Don’t get me wrong, I knew that I could find things to whine about - and I usually always do, but that day I just didn’t feel like it.
Well, I should have known I can’t catch a break.
My flamboyance and happiness continued until around 8 PM that day. Little did I know that the biggest low of my life was awaiting me.
At that time, I was going through a Panic! At The Disco phase as far as music was concerned. One of my favourite songs was titled ”Don’t Threaten Me with a Good Time”.
I streamed it on Apple Music while trying to think about a problem that I read in Mathematical Circles. As my mind strived to find a solution, I remembered that I was awaiting the results of an exam I wrote a month ago. I checked the website to see if the results were out, and they were. My anxiety began to act up as I somehow mustered up the courage to type my roll number and date of birth to check my score.
That’s when the night started heating up, and yes, it was a hell of a feeling.
My score was nowhere near what I expected. I forced myself to believe that a future filled with failure awaited me, and that being good at math was nothing more than an impossible dream for me. I forgot the fact that I came so far, and even worse, the positivity that marked the rest of the day seeped out of my feelings. Clueless about how to face the competitive world, I fell into some of my darkest days.
From the next day on, I pushed everyone away from me. I ghosted Mr. Blabbermouth on chess.com, continued to ignore Ms. Funny, and was unnecessarily irritable toward everyone else. Even when people made the slight gesture of waving at me in the hallway, I ignored them because I believed I wasn’t a human being worth even the most minimal amount of recognition. I was also unnecessarily snarky when Mr. Silent asked to borrow a pen from me (fun fact: after that, he never asked if he could borrow anything from me)
However, there was one small glimpse of light somewhere. My mother called the professor who corrected my paper and spoke to her for a lot of time. After a few lines of conversation, the professor agreed to meet me in late December.
Although my mother told me about this, I wasn’t very enthusiastic about the idea. I was embarrassed by myself, which meant I didn’t want to face a person who was so skilled at mathematics.
In class, the seats were shuffled on November 25, 2019. Normally, I would be upset by even the slightest bit of change, but this time I couldn’t care less. I stopped feeling and caring about everything and everyone that mattered before, to the point where I thought it was a crime to laugh. While I continued to spend most of my free time at school solving math problems, I felt there was a certain amount of pointlessness to it. Ironically, my favourite song at that point was “All Time Low” by Jon Bellion. Clearly, I was a sore loser.
After 1.5 dreary and long months, I finally met the professor who evaluated my paper on December 25, 2019.
I think “surprised” is an understatement to describe the first feeling that wrapped around me like a blanket the moment I saw her. She seemed to be completely the opposite of me, as she was very chatty.
Although I found her to be quite interesting, the person she addressed the most was perhaps my mother. Honestly, I could be wrong - as a relatively quieter person, I find it more comfortable to assume that nothing is being addressed to me. Even if she didn’t, I can’t find a reason to blame her - after all, she didn’t know me, and I didn’t know her either.
Maybe now I’m sane enough to understand that. I definitely was not back then. I found it somewhat odd that I was given little to no attention - I had been around fairly respectable teachers before (none as respectable as her, though) who gave me far more attention than I deserved.
I feel the necessity to include that those teachers were not from my previous school, but they were other math teachers.
As I held the books she lent me during my ride home, I contemplated how the lack of being noticed made me feel worse than before. Thankfully, that awful emotion only lasted for three whole hours.
By the time I got home and freshened up, she sent me a message with questions from a practice paper for the exam that I failed to qualify for. Given my score in the exam, I should have felt intimidated to solve it - but after meeting with her, I was determined to prove that my score did not reflect my capabilities.
Within two hours of her sending it to me, I sent her the solution to one of the geometry problems in the question paper (there were two of them, and I started with those problems since I was most comfortable with geometry).
She took a while to get back to me, and by the time school reopened, I was done with 5/6 of the questions. I contemplated about the remaining problem during all of my breaks at school, and by doing so, I found myself accidentally doing math as much as I did before the so-called failure. I spent less time wallowing over what happened.
On the evening of January 3rd, 2020, I came back from school to see that she had written a comment on one of my solutions. She claimed that it was inaccurate, giving an explanation as to why. However, I was not satisfied by the explanation she gave me, so I stood by the solution I wrote, and justified it. In a few minutes, she replied by saying that I wrote excellent solutions, and she would love to have my mail ID.
I have to admit; I smirked a bit reading that. Sure, I may have messed up an exam, but that happens to everyone: what everyone doesn’t have is a person of my professor’s intellectual standard being there to tell them that they’re on the right path.
After meeting her, I began to work even harder than I did before. My motivation was finally back, and I believed in myself again.
Just like that, I eventually stopped punching myself around for my blunder. On a personal level, my suffering friendships at school were saved as well, and I swooped up in time to stop any further deterioration. Thankfully, my close friends were understanding and explained they were simply just giving me space. On January 20, 2020, I finally broke my abstinence from continued laughter when my classmates and I headed to the library to hear a speech by Modi with muddled subtitles (one of them read “I live in a fairy fairy castle”, and there were far more amusing ones, many of which were inappropriate).
Finally, I was back to being the condescending teenager who referred to my classmates as “illiterates” for not understanding the concept of logarithms, and the person I had to thank for that was the professor.
My relationship with her only strengthens over time, and she encourages me more than anyone else ever had. When I requested her to write me a recommendation letter for the first time, she was nice enough to tell me that I deserved one more than anyone ever did. The positive words from her remind me that I must keep trucking on to make my dream of being a mathematician a reality.
Other than that, I also admire and adore all the friends who stood by me during those two months of my life, where I was at my lowest. I don’t see myself having the kind of patience they demonstrated around me with anyone.
The last two years have been characterized by many more such ups and downs, as is expected in the life of every student who does something worthwhile. My mentor acknowledged my highs and never judged me for my performance at my lowest. That’s why I see a wonderful teacher to be a person who truly understands the entire package a student is.
Despite being a person of her intellectual stature, she is far from an egotist. The last time I visited her was just before the outbreak of the coronavirus. We spent a few hours together trying to solve problems, during which she never looked down on my ideas and treated me like an equal. When she spoke of her students, it was clear that she considered never looked down on them either.
In my entire lifetime, she is the only teacher I have ever met who has truly understood me, while fitting my overly idealistic definition of what a teacher is.
That sums up the “chocolates” segment of this post. Sadly, Part 3 is dedicated to the teachers I did not end up respecting as much as some others… But even then there are a few “teachers” who are not worth mentioning since they belong in the trashcan of one’s memory.