I Think, Therefore I Am!

Life is weird these days. So much happening around, but I feel no happiness, no sorrow, no pain but loneliness, and this loneliness makes me uncomfortable. I am attacked by my worst fears, and the worst part is that I can't talk to anyone about all this! I don't want to be called a coward! I have heard it quite a few times and I find it really questionable as to how can someone, who is so vocal about his thoughts, feelings, and emotions, be a coward!

I don't fear of losing now. I fear of dying with the thought that I need to be someone else. I fear of having lost the chances of being someone who is charming, good looking or a tall man. Everything that I do to create space for people to come in my life, seems so less! But should I really try to make people understand how much I need them?

It might be sounding like I am asking for you to be sympathetic, but no, that's just half of what you know! I spent my most memorable days in my engineering college with friends. I remember how at the Convocation day in 2015, pictures, words, hugs, memories were shared as if it had been years that we last met. Hugs were skin-tight, soul to soul, and demanded tears to be shed. Our eyes were moist, and rain seemed to be pouring into the hearts of the students who had gathered. I remember the days when we were in college, and prayed to get a degree every other day, just to get out of the college somehow. But on the final day, Convocation seemed to be a good reason for us to re-unite, and degree collection was the last thing we wanted to do.

Old friends, new friends, friends with enmities, friends with long pasts, had all gathered together. Some friends were missed, and their absence would be in our minds for some time, I know. But the best part was: nobody cared about what happened, or what the other did during college. It was the end of all. This was probably the last time many of us were meeting.



Meeting the all grown up juniors, who treat us like celebrities, is always a different feeling; a special one. No words stitched into stories or poems can ever define that feeling. Wishing them luck for their future, with heavy heart and lot of memories, I just graduated with a degree in B.Tech (Mechanical). 

Since the last semester started, I always had an idea about how it would end. But all those who have gone through the convocation time would agree with me if I said that it’s impossible to imagine it. It’s tougher than the imagined pain: bidding goodbye to people who have been with you in your good as well as hard times.

Well, all those friends and juniors were just names and faces to me now. We did talk sometimes, wishing each other on birthdays with an awkward silence after the wishes. It wasn’t like the old days. And it couldn’t have been! It could never have been like those college days when I was a lively person. I remember how everyone wanted to spend time with me. Not because I was a supportive dumb. It was because I always managed to make them forget the pain, cheer up, and realize how beautiful life is! 4 years later, it is me, who is in need of magic. It is me, who needs something or someone that can bring ‘that’ me back to ‘this’ me.

'What do I want to be?' is the real question, and I believe no one else can answer this question better than me. It has been months that I have laughed, days that I have smiled, hours that I have slept well, and minutes that I tried to stop thinking about who I am.

My name is Ankush Srivastava, and I think, therefore I am.