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Society's standards of the 'perfect girl' don't define her. That was all a charade. An act to impress. An act to fit in. Always seeking validation.
Who is she? Well, she herself doesn’t know anymore. Is she the same girl from 5 years go? Definitely not. Others would disagree though. They don’t know her. Who ever did?
But I do know her. I watched her grow up. I befriended her. I was there through it all. From crying her eyes out before going to pre-school to crying over her future in high school. I’ll show you the real her. She wanted to be seen. She wanted to be heard. She wanted to be acknowledged. She wanted to be loved.
Society’s standards of the ‘perfect girl’ don’t define her. That was all a charade. An act to impress. An act to fit in. Always seeking validation. I witnessed it, but sadly I couldn’t comfort her. She wouldn’t let me most of the times. I let the doubt grow inside of her.
Over the years, it started building up and she turned into this self conscious person, who nobody except me realised. Nobody could see the pain behind her smile, the insecurities behind her laugh, the anxiety behind her confidence, the bottled up emotions behind her eyes. Nobody except me could see her for who she undeniably was.
Am I to blame here? I never really understood… Wasn’t she strong enough to carry the baggage herself? Did I always have to be there to wipe the tears off her face? Did I always have to be there to calm her down when she felt overwhelmed? Why did I always have to be there to lift her up? Why couldn’t someone else do it? Why not someone from her so called friend circle? Why me?
I guess the only possible explanation would be that no one loved her more than I did. No one wanted her to be happy like I did. No one wanted to see her succeed like I did. Unfortunately, she did not know this.
She still thinks I’m her worst enemy. She still thinks that I’m the creator of all her problems. But no. In fact it’s her. She brings out the worst in me.
On days that I would feel confident, satisfied and happy, she would find ways to bring me down. Ways to get me to overthink. “Do I look pretty?” “Do I look fat?” “Will they laugh at me” “Will they like me for me?” And on and on she went.
The complains, the worries, they never ended. It started to annoy me. I felt as if I wasn’t enough for her. She began to push me away thinking that she could manage all by herself. Well no, she needs me. She’ll always need me. As I said earlier, when she goes through her darkest times, it’s not her friends or family that come to save her. It’s me.
Even though I break her, I pick up the broken pieces. Even though I make her cry, I wipe the tears off her face. Even though I’m the first one who gave her reasons to be conscious, I console her. So she should be thankful for me, even though I have definitely judged her in the past.
In conclusion, this isn’t a story. It’s the constant battle between me and her. Who’ll win? No one. Because ‘me and her’ are pretty much the same person. Answering the top most question: Who is she? She’s who she appears to be, while me…? I’m her mind.
Image source: a still from the film Monsoon Wedding
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Children should be taught to aspire to be successful, but success doesn't have to mean an IIT admission only!
Imagine studying for 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 whole years for the JEE exam only to find out that there’s only a very, very slim chance of getting into an IIT. It is a fact widely acknowledged that the IIT-JEE is one of the toughest exams not just in India but in the whole world. Apart from IITs, the NITs and IIITs of India also accept the JEE scores for admission. There are said to be a total of 23 IITs, 31 NITs and 25 IIITs across the country.
Now, let’s first get a few facts about the IITs right. First, according to the NIRF rankings of 2023, only 17 IITs rank in the top 50 engineering colleges of India and only a few (around 5) IITs are in the list of the world’s top 100 engineering colleges. Second, the dropout rate of IIT-qualifying students stands at least at 20%, with reasons being cited ranging from academic pressure and unmanageable workload to caste discrimination and high levels of competition within the IIT.
So, it’s quite clear that the journey of making it through IIT is as challenging as the journey of getting into an IIT. Third and most important of all, the acceptance rate or the odds of getting into an IIT are below 3% which is a lot lower than the acceptance rate of highly and very highly ranked US universities. Four, getting into an IIT of one’s choice doesn’t mean one will also get into a branch of one’s preference at that IIT.
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