Teenage Analysis As I Turn 20
Part 1: School Days
I turn 20 years old tomorrow. I felt the need of some introspection. So here is me analyzing my teenage year wise:
Part 1: School Days
13:
This is an amazing age because you haven’t yet become the ‘teenager teenager’. I don’t think of years as age but as the educational std I was in then. So for me 13, is 8th std. 8th std was amazing, I would study a lot at home and then chill in school and get punished. I remember sitting outside the class more than inside. That year we got access to the ISC library, oh God, I still think about it, they were beautiful ( I mean the books…not the ISC girls…well..), I spent a lot of time there. The librarian would never allow me to issue a Sidney Sheldon book saying that it is ‘bold literature’. I have decided to never read a Sidney Sheldon book in my life. That’s my way of staying connected with the school, abiding by a restriction.
I made good friends like Aryak Naik, Dhawal Shah, Yash Verma, and Om Gupta. Om did not make it beyond 8th in Singhania School but he was a great guy to hang out with. On our Jaipur trip, he had broken the TV display as we were all throwing empty plastic bottles at Sunny Deol on screen. He threw a ‘non-empty’ bottle. Luckily no one caught us.
I remember, one day as I was doodling on the last page of my Singhania writing pad, I came up with the name of my automobile company, DOT. The full form being ‘Dude Out There’. Because…then….it did make sense. People will look at someone riding a DOT bike and say ‘ Hey! Look at that dude out there!’. Two months ago I started a media blog site and decided to name it ‘Dot Lit’ paying homage to my 8th std timepass. Lit stands for literature and Dot carries the same full form. At 13, I read a lot of books and played a lot of football. This was the last year I can label as ‘childhood’.
14:
I moved to Mulund from Thane and my entire world (outside school) changed. I started traveling by the school bus (before I used to walk to school). This new home was in a single building and not a society complex so there weren’t any friends to make. It’s funny how life works though, this became the year I met my best friends, the one’s whom I still hang out with to this day. I met this guy, he was in my class at school and the same bus as well. Oscar lived in Mulund. This was literally the dream, your friend from school living in your locality. We hit it off real quick and then rest is history. There wouldn’t be a corner of Mulund we didn’t explore on our cycles. Oscar is the most ‘aag lagi basti me, me Meri masti me’ guy I know. Always, ready to help others and genuinely nice. Whenever I would visit his place he would have something new to show, like a flute, or a wand, or a 2 wheeled skateboard. Now, this dude has a kebab grill.
I also joined the infamous Ghosh Classes. That was fun too. There I met my partner in crime, Hrithik Poojary. He was always ready for a challenge and to learn something new. This guy was as clueless about the world as I was. Girls, is something he was most curious about…and then it dawned upon me ….that I was too.
Lamya (chemistry teacher) would scold me for drawing a scar or my forehead with her red marker… multiple times….style hai babu bhaiyya. Once I congratulated her for owning two phones as it portrayed financial stability, but she got angry and called my mom, and then they both discussed, for an hour, how unlike me my elder brother was so sincere. Premchand sir was sweet. He would call me ‘adarvaa’ and that’s what other kids started calling me then. I would prefer not to say much about Hazel Ma’am… her memory haunts me to this day.
In school, I took Technical Drawing as my optional subject. All my classmates were awesome. Here, I met Adit. Adit is old and young at the same time. He is very cautious and calculated. He is the guy who keeps our group sane….and also safe. Arpan, is always pumped, and curious about stuff, always ready to talk about different things like music, books, economics etc.
Teachers like Ushavati Ma’am (our class was her first batch as a class teacher) and Lata Ma’am made learning fun. Shout out to Ushavati Ma’am, she is doing amazing in her career now. Lata Ma’am would punish me a lot, but she also knew that I’m good (kinda) at studies. She would throw me out of the class but she also didn’t want me to miss out on the maths portion, so she would let me in after some time. I remember her slamming the door on my face and then I would count backward from 20 in my head, when I reached 1 she would open the door and say ‘ camminn, eeiuless fellow, sitt on the ground’ (south Indian accent). One day as I was sitting on the ground in maths class my brother came in to give sweets to Lata Ma’am and I realized that from the corner of his eye he was searching for me in the class….but he was looking at the seats and not the ground. Then I waved at him and his expression could be summed up as laugh+let down as if saying ‘here I am working so hard getting 97.2 percent in 10th std and this guy is going to fuck up the family name’. Lata Ma’am asked me, “ So Atharva, are you going to raise the bar or lower it (from 97.2)?” Then I had very confidently replied, “ Raise it for sure!” ….well that didn’t quite happen. ( I lowered it by 4 percent)
As every boy had to have a girl that he liked, I zeroed down on one girl. She was beautiful. I never told her though, but maybe she knew, because I told every other person but her. She was not of the same religion as mine, and me being a Hindu nationalist I had to ‘let her go’. ( ….that’s the truth… I wish)
I wrote a diary in my 9th std. That’s the only diary I wrote for an entire year. I scored really less in my 1st term (3.17/5.0 GPA) and then worked my ass off the next term and got a 4.0. I got a ‘good looking boy’ award in 9K awards which was a major upliftment to my confidence ( for two days). I bought a skateboard and worked really hard to get good at it. One sunny day, I was trying to jump off the footpath and land on the road (with the skateboard). Every time I tried I would fall and get hurt somewhere. A man was watching from afar. After I had fallen 10–15 times he came towards me and said, “Itne baar girta hai, fir bhi rukta nahi Kya?” and I replied, “Uncle, ab seekhna hai toh girna toh padega na.” Later when I thought about what I had said I realized that this is the attitude I shall apply in every aspect of my life, and since then that has been the goal. This year taught me perseverance, how to draw a scar on the forehead without looking in the mirror, backward counting from 20 to 1, and ‘letting her go’. Also, I finally did that jump successfully by that evening.
15:
10th std was hyped up by parents, teachers, and siblings. I thought this is the year in which I shall achieve peak focus of my life, which to some extent I even did, but the majority of school life in 10th was pure chillax. Studying was mostly done at home. I remember one day as I was sitting outside TD class (punished) with two of my other friends (Oscar and Harsh Bane) the std co-ordinator came and saw us once, and we were doing nothing, just lost in our own thoughts. After some time, she came again and we were still lost in our own thoughts gazing at our own imaginary points in the air. Looking down on us she said, “ Look at you boys, just killing time.” and went away. After she had gone I said, “ Oscar par John Lennon bolta hai re ‘ The time you enjoyed wasting was never wasted’” and we started to laugh. When I look back now I realize that these small moments make up life. If that day I wouldn’t have gotten that punishment maybe I wouldn’t remember that day now. We don’t live by years but by memories.
Quick shout out to Aditya Nagapurkar, he was study pal, studies and Harry Potter is all we would discuss.
In this year I genuinely started to like a girl….who would also talk with me. Mind blown right, I know. The great thing was that she was also Hindu. I thought that I am in ‘love’. My belief was strengthened by Beatles songs. Sadly, her political beliefs were not the same as my Hindu nationalist political beliefs, and for that reason, I had to ‘let her go’ ( ….that’s the truth… I wish). Well, at least this experience gave me a music taste. So if that girl is reading this right now, thank you for unknowingly adding musical value to my life….also please accept my Instagram request, I am harmless.
Here are all the male friends who made 10th std an amazing experience: Nitish, Nisarg, Bane, Pranav Shirgur, Neeraj, Pranay, Yash, Pratyush, Atharva P, Divya, Chaitya. I am not naming the female friends because I don’t know whether they would be comfortable with it….(also because there weren’t any female friends).
I worked hard at studies and gave the board exams. 10th std results came out and I got 93.4%, 1.6% less than what I had expected. I was a bit sad for some time…. but then I was like ‘meh’.
This year taught me focus, a lot of Beatles lyrics, and how to ‘let her go…again’.
School life taught me that life is not sad or funny, its the background soundtrack that you play in your head, that’s sad or funny. Everything can be viewed from a tragic perspective and a comedic perspective. You just have to choose the soundtrack.
“ Obla Di Obla Da, life goes on, la la lalala life goes on….” — The Beatles
Part 2 coming soon
