It’s a chilling winter afternoon and the mere thought of taking bath with cold water makes my spine numb. However I try to convince myself that it is the test of my will power and endurance. Of course deodorants make the hygiene factor out of question!! So here I go with confident strides towards my bathroom and I am there just beneath the shower. I haven’t turned the shower on and my will power has already become shaky giving me goose bumps. I take a deep breath and go for the kill, and turn the shower on. But my reflex wins over the stream of chilled water and I succeed in clinging to the corner making only my feet being electrified. ‘Loser’. It was my inner self’s voice. Suddenly I feel a rush of adrenaline and there I go right in the center facing those water bullets right on my face. Big deal or no deal once it’s done my steps back to my room is no less magnificent then the triumphant stride of an emperor. This episode might appear silly and trivial but I see my life an extrapolation of the same. Being an engineer studying for exams has always been a “one night stand”. And there exist my personal version of Murphy’s Law “Soporificity is directly proportional to the exam portion”. So the dreadful tussle is to sleep as soon as it starts overpowering or to prolong it. Most of the times I concede and procrastinate for the early hour study which eventually never materialize. This is not the end. There is one perennial tussle which bullies me every now and then. It is my weakness of finding it hard to say ‘No’. There are moments when I am prepared to say ‘No’ but when it’s almost there I falter.

Life is all about Lights, Camera and Action, but no retakes. Once your internal kick fails to take you off the hook, it’s gone forever. It has happened umpteen numbers of times before. The professor asks a question, I start thinking about the answer and then starts the internal tussle of answering or not. The tussle ends in the virtual clinching of my fist and the holy conscience whispering to myself “I knew that”. Though the reality is even if I would have answered something foolish it wouldn’t have changed my life. Sometimes the situation demands to act at the spur of the moment and in case you waver and stand perplexed, you lose it. Quiet often the prudence lies in squeezing the gap between the thought of taking a leap and actually going for it. You prepare day and night for an interview keeping yourselves in all the possible situations of being cornered. When the actual interview comes you are bombarded with questions you had never imagined. It’s only the spontaneity and your ability to churn the creative juices out of yourselves which can make you to still crack it. Preparedness can make you win the battle if things shape the way you imagined but the moment something unprecedented happens it’s the inner fire ignited by the heat of the moment which sails you through. My sessions of soul searching always ends with “would have”, “could have” and “should have”. I also know that it would be utopian to imagine a life without those three “have”. Nevertheless I keep trying!!