Next day when I wake up, the sun is shining at the top of the sky. I scamper for my watch. It is 12 p.m. I get ready in a jiffy, cross the road, and enter the office. Boss is sitting with both her hands on her lap, one over other as if she is posing for a self-portrait. I sit on the sofa and apologize. She says it is all right.

The Traumafinder is already up. I look at the sleek figure. I would never have imagined, had I not seen it with my own eyes, of the things it could do. It is for my memory, what David Attenborough is for the earth’s ecosystem. Boss unclasps her hands. I know she is ready.     

The scenes move. I have not cleared any Olympiads except one. I know by instinct and by whatever I could make out, the scenes are nearing my board exam times. Those times are etched in my mind, as it is in the minds of every student of this country. They are like the one picture in your room which you can never get rid of and stay adorned in it till you die. The Boss asks the Traumafinder to go slow.

It is night and I am standing at the window looking out into the moonlit sky. My eyes move anxiously. The crickets are chirping but I do not pay attention to them. I am somewhere deep inside my mind. I could not sleep. There is a rumor that the results would come out next morning.

I go to bed and close my eyes. I keep on going back to the analysis of the answers I had written and the marks I would score in them. I had scored 91% in the preboard exams. So, my guess was that I would be somewhere close to it. Still, I could not sleep.

In an hour or two I have gone into a light sleep. I must have slept for two hours. Around 3, I hear sounds from the bedroom. My father is hitting and shouting at my mother. He is abusing her and accusing her of something. A fear runs down my spine. I know what has happened. I wait for the sun to rise.

With the first drops of sunrise, I go down my building. I take my bicycle and go to the small cyber-café located a kilometer away. It is a tin shed roof outside a ground floor house with one computer. The owner charges ten rupees for looking at your result. Students eager to know their results crowd the small room. With every result that came out there is either a sigh or a congratulatory pat saying ‘Phod diya’. When my turn comes, I provide the owner my roll number. He types it in. The results display on the screen.

I could not believe it. So, I take my bicycle and cycle for three kilometers to another cyber-café. There is little crowding here, mostly girls with their fathers. Here too the results are the same. I have scored 84%. It is the lowest marks of my school career.

I come home. Everything is silent. My father is sitting on the sofa fuming. My mother lay on the bed. I close the door of my room and lay on the floor with my eyes closed. I want to cry. I lay there alone for hours. I am cursing myself for all the answers I wrote. I am cursing myself for not waking up an hour earlier to study. I am cursing myself for spending time with friends. Boss asks the Traumafinder to stop.

‘Why was your father hitting your mother?’

‘Had come to know of my result in the night itself through a friend who had internet connection. Blamed my mother for going to the marriage of a relative with him before the board exams. Had wanted her to stay and look after me.’

‘What did he expect?’

‘Expected me to get more than 90%. Placed a bet with his cousin about it. Cousin bet that my score would be below 90%.’

‘And your score made him loose the bet.’

‘Yes. Many of my friends scored more than 90% in the exam. Was disappointed.’

‘We can see that.’

I nod my head.

‘Are you still disappointed about it?’

‘No, at peace.’

‘You should be. There is undue hype about the board exams. They put undue pressure on the students. We can see that you are blaming yourself for your scores. This is the start of your self blame. The high expectations of your father and his dependence on you to soothe his own battered ego has been a burden to you. Your inability to meet those expectations led you to blaming yourself. And since that day, till now, you blame yourself when things don’t turn out as expected. We get glimpses of that in your episode too. The self-blame you had for being unable to get The-light. The self-blame you had for being unable to fulfill the professor’s expectations. Your voices blaming you for your inabilities. They all come from the blame you put on yourself since you failed to meet the expectations set for you.’

‘What can I do?’

‘Stop it. Plain and simple. If you ask me, you scored well in your exams. And you have done well since then. Nobody in this life fulfills all their expectations. You win some, you lose some. That is how it is for everybody. Stop blaming yourself for what you don’t have and start enjoying what all you have got. This blame will only eat you up. It will demolish your confidence. It will make you a negative person. Don’t let it do that.’

‘I will try.’

‘We will end the session today. I will see you on Monday.’

In the hotel room, I take a bath. My shirt was wet with sweat, walking the short distance between the office and the hotel. After the bath, I put on the same clothes I was wearing yesterday. It was the same I had on the day before yesterday. Cleanliness has never been my forte. I could wear a cloth for weeks before cleaning it.

I browse twitter for a while. There is news of a suicide at my undergraduate Institute. A second-year student had hung himself from the ceiling. His friends had found him two days later. He had been depressed for a while because of his low grades. Many people had tweeted about undue academic pressure at the top Institutes of the country and the lack of appropriate counseling opportunities. References were made to the actor who had died by suicide few days earlier. Experts were on the panel to inform the society of the biggest killer of young people in this country, suicide.

I am reminded of a suicide when I was a student at my undergraduate Institute. It was in the hall next to mine in my third year. I had known the student, we had mutual friends. He was a thin guy with a million-dollar smile. He reminded you of Johnny Walker of the old Hindi movies, similar smile, and watery thin voice. One day we heard that he had hanged himself. He had failed in a subject and could not take the blow. The fact was that almost ninety percent of the class had failed in that subject. But that didn’t matter to him. He was from a poor family in Rajasthan. He must have been under pressure. I could not sleep for two nights when I heard the news. I told myself then that god is not fair. Instead of taking away cruel professors, he takes away innocent and beautiful students.

These thoughts get me a little anxious. So, I pick up my phone and call an undergraduate friend who is completing his PhD in the US. He tells me about his PhD in topology and some of the intricacies involved. My work looks miniscule in front of his complex problem. Unlike him, I only mention it in passing. He is consulting a psychiatrist too for the problems he is having in his PhD. I tell him a little about my experiences as well. I have called him after three years and it feels as if we had talked only yesterday. Good friends are always there inside you. We talk for a long time. When I keep the phone, I regret not calling him during my episode.

I spend the next two days of weekend in the hotel room, slumbering. There is too much to do and understand. The thought of it makes me lazy. When the voices come, I talk to them. Nobody calls. I follow twitter and Google news for a while. The suicides are still trending. I did not want to learn more of them. In the night, I write my emotions for the day. Anxiety, anger, love, frustration are the primary ones I felt. I am trying to realize the emotions I have. It is not an easy task but I know I cannot recover until I excel in it.