Numbers

Aaryan Khanna

“Everything… in this country… is run on fucking numbers, perhaps. Marks are the only thing that fucking matters. You gotta get good marks and grades to do some big shit in life, ya see. That’s just how life is for us, pal.”

“Aaryan, did you tell your parents about the results?”

“Y-Yes, sir.”

“What did they say?”

“T-They were not happy with the results, sir.”

The conversation between my teacher and me hit my head. I was sitting on the study desk of my home, lighted with a faint bulb at the back of the room. The room was painted light blue—one of the shittiest colors to paint the room with, perhaps. It looked fucking depressing, ya see. The cracks on the paint, which gave way for the cement and whitewash, looked worse. At the back right corner of the room was my desk, with a table kept at the corner of the room, a laptop upon it, and my notebooks, books, and a pencil stand scattered around it. I was doing some fucking mathematical shit on my notebook, rubbing my pen hard on the paper and vigorously writing each step. I wore a light blue t-shirt with a dark blue jacket upon it, with dark black thick sweatpants meant for winters.

Then, I remembered how I replied to his question, “T-They were not happy with the results, sir.”

“T-They were not happy with the results, sir.”

“T-They were not happy with the results, sir.”

I remembered my mom’s face at that moment, frowning at me. “Why did you fail on this subject?! Do you even know how important math is?! Everything in the future needs math with it, whether you choose science stream, commerce, or arts. You need math to get into the best colleges of any good subject where you can get a decent corporate job. And, you failed in it?”

“Does that mean that… I might not be able to get a decent job in the future? Or a decent degree? Or a decent college? Or a decent salary?” I thought. “All of this shit… for nothing?”

I remembered standing in front of the class with that teacher again. That teacher wore a thick woolen brown sweater upon his white shirt, black trousers, black socks, and brown formal slippers, and spectacles. He had a half-bald head. That room was my classroom, but it was darker than how it really was, ya see. The baby pink shade had turned into half-black. The desks were filled, with everyone looking at me with a smile on their face. Suddenly, the faint chatter erupted.

My eyes widened with fright as I looked at those assholes talking shit about me. All of their faces were black, and had a creepy smile beneath them as they talked.

“Hey!” I shouted at them. But, it got lost in the sea of indistinct chatter.

The chatter then grew in voice.

It grew more the next second.

Then… it turned into laughter.

“AAHAHAHHAHSHAHA.”

“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”

“AHAHHAHAHJAJAHAHAJHAAJAHAJAHGAHA!”

“This guy is such a loser, no?!” A girl shouted in the middle of the laughter.

“No! I’m not!”

“You failed in math! What will you do in future if you can’t even do math?!”

“You’re a failure!”

“FAILURE!”

“FAAAAAILURE!”

BANG!

My eyes were staring at the notebook aimlessly. My hands had frozen. My mind was numb. I was going inside that dark shitty hole of thoughts.

“What if… What if I fail again?”

“I-I might have to give retest in the board exams. But… studying this shit all over again, and… and the humiliation…”

“And what if… I fail the retest too?”

“I… won’t get a decent job, will I?”

“How will I… survive, then? How the fuck will I get my parents and me outta this shitty place?”

I closed my eyes. “It’s… just a retest, pal. Why the fuck are ya so worried?” I asked myself in my thoughts. I then opened my eyes, looked at the open math book and notebook, and then turned backward at the small blue room with cracks on its paint. There was a bed behind me, a door to the outside of the room on the right of my figure, a wardrobe beside the bed on the right. I then turned my head to the front, and looked at the wall. “I gotta get out of this place, pal, and become rich. I gotta be the pride of my parents. I gotta do something big. But…” I covered my forehead with my right palm.

“Fuck! It’d be better if I vape before studying. I can’t fucking concentrate.”

I then stood up from my desk, turned to my right, and started to walk to the door. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. I pushed open the door and walked out on the narrow living room, with a sofa on my left and a kitchen across. The living room had no lights on, whereas the bulb threw its unexpected shine from the kitchen.

I walked toward the kitchen, and then turned to my left toward the sofa-set. As I was walking through the sofa-set, my mom asked from behind, “Where are you going now?”

“Outside.”

“Why? Have you studied enough?” My mom asked. She was cutting vegetables as she stood in the kitchen, her back facing the door from where I just came from. She wore a thick blue sweatshirt, a black sleeveless jacket, and a pink thick lower, with a brown beanie cap.

“I’ll continue when I come back.”

“You won’t.”

My mother stood beneath the shining LED bulb which illuminated the little kitchen. I, on the other side, stood with darkness all around me.

I tilted my head down. “I will, mom.”

“I gave birth to you. I know every trick of yours. All you do is procrastinate on your studies. I know that when you come back, you’ll be tired, and then it’d be time for dinner, and then it’d be time to sleep.”

I took in a deep breath, and then exhaled it out. “Mom, even I don’t wanna fail in math.”

“If you didn’t want to fail, then wouldn’t you have failed this time?” Her voice asked me back.

“Because… I didn’t study…”

“Why did you not study when you didn’t want to fail?” Her voice asked back.

I turned my head back, and then turned to the front again. “I… don’t know.”

“Start thinking about your life now. You’re not a child anymore. You need to make some big decisions now. You need to make a life of your own. I’m not saying you should stop having fun, but you have to be serious too now, or else, you’ll be stuck in a house and a surrounding like this forever. Do you wanna live here all your life?”

“N-No…”

“Then start thinking about how to get out of here. Make a goal, and start working upon it. Work hard upon it. That’s the only way you can get a better life.”

***

I was sitting at the park with the gate beside a giant tree on my left. The metallic bench where Vikram sits to run the gang was on my front, some steps away, at the center of the park. I was at the back right corner of the park at that time.

The sun had set, and it was about seven, perhaps. I had my head tilted down, with the fucking vape in my mouth, like always, ya see. My back was tilted frontward and my hands were between my thighs, my legs spread sufficiently.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

I heard some footsteps approaching me. Suddenly, someone thumped a bag on the ground and sat down beside me. For some time, all I knew about him was that he was in a white t-shirt and pants, along with white cricket shoes. His skin color was dark.

Pat! He patted on my back. I turned my head to my left, and looked at his chest. I then moved my eyes upward and looked at Sooraj’s serious face as he looked at me. “What’s up, man?”

“Just vaping, pal. Do ya want one?”

“Nah,” He said as he turned his head to the front. “So, why are you vaping now?”

I turned my head down again. I moved the vape out of my mouth, blew out a little cloud of smoke, and then said, “Ya see, I failed the math half-yearly. So I have a retest tomorrow.”

“I understand ya, man.” He turned to me. “But this education is useless in real life. Don’t worry, it doesn’t define your capabilities at all.”

I smiled a little as I moved that vape inside my mouth again. “Yeah, pal. But… But a degree… That shit is all it means in this country. Only a fucking degree gets you a job here.”

“… Yeah.”

“And I want a good job. I want to be successful in life. I want to be someone people can look upon, someone people admire, someone… someone people can love.”

He smiled and said, “I love ya, man. We all legit do.”

“I knew ya were gay,” I replied with another smile.

“Ahahaha,” He laughed a little as he patted on my back once again. He then fixed his hand on my left shoulder.

My smile soon faded. “Ya know, man, all of the nerdy guys and girls are loved… just because they get those shitty marks.”

“They’re good at memorizing, and they—”

“Whatever that is. These fucking assholes only care about marks. And… that’s what matters to get a good job and a good life, pal.”

“Hmm…” He nodded, seriously glaring frontward, ya see.

“And, they… they don’t get to face shit like I do, just… just because I get low marks. They are not humiliated, they are not seen as the bad guys, they don’t need to be scolded for every little shit they do. They live perfect lives… filled with happiness.” My eyes were filled with emotions. “And ya know what, they fucking don’t need to act like that. They are just… that. They are born with those shitty traits admired by our fucked up society. Why am I not born with such traits?! Why can’t I study and get good grades like them?! Why… Why am I a loser and they ain’t?!”

Both of us remained silent for a couple of seconds after that sentence of mine. My head was tilted down, and Sooraj was gazing at the front aimlessly, lost in his own thoughts.

Then, I broke the silence. “I… I just can’t compete with those fucking… toppers… however hard I try. I see them smiling on the top, and imagine that… they’d certainly go to a good college, get a shiny degree, get a high paying job, and then maybe fly outside the country too, and live a life of riches happily. And I… I might become a shopkeeper like my dad, fucking grinding my ass day and night… just to live a decent life.”

“… Not everyone can study, can they?” He said. His eyes were fixed at the front, aimlessly, like lost in thoughts. “It’s just like in cricket—some players are good, some bad. Some can play with ease, and some… just can’t learn to play well, however hard they try.” He turned his head down, his eyes and lips upset. “I understand how ya feel, man. Because I failed too. It was the last under-fifteen tournament of my life, and… and still now, I’m unable to do anything. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to play under-nineteen from next year or not. I… I too am a legit loser… a dickhead who fucked his own life.”

“… I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t be.” His tone cracked, and his throat was filled with a lump of emotions. “At least, ya think about all of it, while I just…”

I gulped in. I then straightened my back up and turned to my left at him. “Don’t worry, pal. Ya will fuck their asses next year.”

“It… feels like I’m in a shitty form… all my fucking life.”

I patted his back. “Let’s smoke one… together. What else can we do?”

“Yeah, right. Gimme one, man. I need it.”

“That’s why the two of us used to smoke. Unlike others who did it just for fun or addiction, vaping was our way to fucking forget all the shitty complexities of our lives. Both of us were fucking losers. Both of us were fucking failures. And when we fail, ya see, we make excuses, and that’s why we used to blame this shitty education system, when perhaps that’s just how education is fucking supposed to be. We both were living such shitty lives. And… it was about to get fucking worse, pal. Everything that had happened to me was nothing. Nothing in front of what was about to happen. Everything was fucked, but everything was gonna get fucked even more, ya see. To another fucking extent. And, that night… I’ll never forget that night. I’ll never forget those nights, because… it’s nights like these that make me feel wanted, that make me feel that… I got someone beside me… who understands me… and who will be there for me… and that… I’m not in this shit alone. I’m not the only failure of this system. There were others like me too, who were with me.”