It could happen with anything you're studying, anything you're doing, even if it is out of a conscious choice based on what can bring you the most happiness, the highest fulfillment. You could have that one black smudge, the one subject, area, task, you just hate thinking of, and cannot ever compel yourself to enjoy doing. When I think of my decision to do a BA, to do it in English Literature, then my black smudge would be tomorrow's exam.
Till a few minutes ago it was paper IV - an unhealthy, vague, presumptuous pool of literatures not meant for the cauldron they've been wearily stirred into. I do not like most of it, and I certainly have had an eyebrow raised this whole year on the why, how and what of its structure. More on this later.**
But tomorrow's paper is worse. It is a wild frenzy of areas that has captured my heart and left it pitilessly gasping for more. Tomorrow's exam is a sin, because of the way all that sheer magic and restless wonder will be mutilated to serve a purpose I refuse to recognise has anything to do with my education.
What does it mean to write an answer to a question you feel you may never be able to answer fully? It's not simply about the fact that I feel I haven't read or experienced enough. It's more to do with the withering inadequacy of words. "Without contrariness is no progression", could you apply this idea to Yeats' The Second Coming and Sailing to Byzantium*? I keep madly dithering between the nervous intensity these words make me feel, and the shove to write a genuine answer that won't haunt me later as written "in partial fulfillment of her Bachelor's degree in English Literature."
My best 'answers' have been written during the mayhem called Prelims. I had no fear of being judged by our professors, I wrote what I truly believed in and got away with arguments I tonight surrender to cynicism. What if I get a uni-dimensional, tea-deprived, answer-key automaton for a checker - this previously lighthearted rant is what now has the power to stop me from being honest, from being ready to take a chance on my beliefs, from being open to perceptions and different angles of looking at things, from being creative, a little cheeky and insatiably in love with fresh ideas. What on earth am I doing then?
Answer: There seems to be no end to the hypocrisy we face in our education, and what it means to be educated.
Till a few minutes ago it was paper IV - an unhealthy, vague, presumptuous pool of literatures not meant for the cauldron they've been wearily stirred into. I do not like most of it, and I certainly have had an eyebrow raised this whole year on the why, how and what of its structure. More on this later.**
But tomorrow's paper is worse. It is a wild frenzy of areas that has captured my heart and left it pitilessly gasping for more. Tomorrow's exam is a sin, because of the way all that sheer magic and restless wonder will be mutilated to serve a purpose I refuse to recognise has anything to do with my education.
What does it mean to write an answer to a question you feel you may never be able to answer fully? It's not simply about the fact that I feel I haven't read or experienced enough. It's more to do with the withering inadequacy of words. "Without contrariness is no progression", could you apply this idea to Yeats' The Second Coming and Sailing to Byzantium*? I keep madly dithering between the nervous intensity these words make me feel, and the shove to write a genuine answer that won't haunt me later as written "in partial fulfillment of her Bachelor's degree in English Literature."
My best 'answers' have been written during the mayhem called Prelims. I had no fear of being judged by our professors, I wrote what I truly believed in and got away with arguments I tonight surrender to cynicism. What if I get a uni-dimensional, tea-deprived, answer-key automaton for a checker - this previously lighthearted rant is what now has the power to stop me from being honest, from being ready to take a chance on my beliefs, from being open to perceptions and different angles of looking at things, from being creative, a little cheeky and insatiably in love with fresh ideas. What on earth am I doing then?
Answer: There seems to be no end to the hypocrisy we face in our education, and what it means to be educated.
Bright side coming up!
ReplyDeleteAll these partially expressed (sometimes wholly -- the Yeats answer I wrote for my prelims, the Indian Writing in English answer -- also written for my prelims,but you-know-who checked it, and gave me a 7, when I know I deserved more: I didn't want anyone but V to check it coz I knew she'd understand -- and last year's Fire and the Rain answer) answers you're writing -- they will help you, if no one else. It doesn't matter who is checking it -- if you have written honestly, from your heart, and even if it is incomplete but you truly believe in what you've written, and it makes sense to you, then the world may go to hell. If it is someone like Dr. V, they will realize instantly that what they are reading is a true response to literature. If they are not, and they don't, then you still don't lose anything, because it's too late!, you have already written, you have already expressed, and those ideas are yours -- who cares if someone who is not equipped to understand them, doesn't understand them? They are going to stay with you.
I know what you felt like after today's Yeats answer, because I felt the same. But you know what? I'm glad. Because it means we have so much more to say. We only need to know how to say them. And as the years pass, we will learn and unlearn, and one day -- and I truly believe in this, if nothing else -- we will say it in a manner that satisfies ourselves, completely.
The moments I spent in writing today's Ghosh answer, and the answers I've mentioned before will be some of my most memorable moments in life. It is always great to get appreciation for something you know you deserve, from someone you admire, but even if you don't get it -- your beliefs, and your expression will stand. Just like Yeats' beliefs stood.
Ps: I love you.
Also, I think the quote is "Without contraries is no progression." Our beloved genius, Blake :)
ReplyDeleteBlake?! I thought it was by Daiches, but then the paper was set by Dr. V, so.. :) He would have written that with the "there", I should have known it wasn't him.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I posted this, I wouldn't have had a chance to see it the way you've put it. Now that it's over, it's time for other things to begin.