Walking into a room usually warrants unbridled nostalgia, dread or a false sense grandeur for me. Or ‘main character energy,’ as some might call it. But this time, as fate would have it, I was lost. Where was I? Moments ago, I was lounging in my comfy little corner of the classroom I had earmarked for myself for those lazy days when there were no classes, courtesy of unprofessionally hurried completion of syllabus. But now, I stood at the gateway to an amphitheatre, one that was a twisted rendition of my high school’s grand auditorium and a classic movie theatre that I had once watched a concert screening in. Neither of those places I had been to in a long, long while. Perhaps this was nostalgia.
I took one, two unconscious steps forward in hazy curiosity. Little did I know then, my movements hence were more so subconscious than unconscious. And I was passing through the gateway between reality and a dreamscape that was a lot more real than it rightfully should be. Tell me dear reader, is it not masochistic of your ever-mysterious mind to let yourself dream of nightmares inspired by reality? Is it not sadistic? For, aren’t dreams the highest form of escapism that the Creator, may he be damned, blessed us with? Now, why does our brain yearn to overwrite that cheat code when it costs nothing to lose yourself in it? Ever. Mysterious.
A round of applause exploded in my ears as a speaker took to the stage/screen. I heard words, some victims to my absent mindedness, others because my subconscious thought them unimportant. But the words I did hear seemed to be about an…. Internship? A hackathon? A conference? I am unsure now. No, no, I am sure it was about an internship now, as the events of the next day in reality would prove. I took my place near figures, humanoid enough for me to sense that they were supposed to be the dream recreations of my friends. And others who I was not in the least in friendly terms with. But their very real counterparts had left a lasting impact in my psyche that they had earned their place in this world of my own creation meant for my torture. But why was it for torture? Don’t we love each other, brain? Is self-love a farce? I hope not.
I raised my hands. Moment one: Everyone turned towards moi, I engaged with the audience and the speaker, it went on for a whole eternity. Moment two: Snap! Everyone ignored me. I put my hands down in confusion. Ever. Mysterious.
Room two appeared soon after. Were they playing a movie in there? Room Two was behind the screen. The screen was now a huge curtain. I think one of my friends beckoned me from behind the curtain. And because dream logic was lost even to Kollywood, I made it past the array of plastic chairs, to the curtains and then past it. It was empty. Surface upon surface of boring, unimaginative concrete, made from the dry essence of my greyest of grey days. If I didn’t know better, if I didn’t know this change of scene procured by my ever-mysterious psyche was a means to an end, a means to another seamless change of scene, I never hence would have called myself creative for as long as I lived. I made it back to the auditorium, back to my friends to tell them of this odd incident, in the middle of our college. Room One was no longer Room One. It was also not Room Two. There was no Room Two. Now, I was in a classroom. But it was big enough to be the auditorium. Rows upon rows of plain, wooden benches. The semi-loud hustle of students filled the room as it brought me calm, peace and a sense of normalcy. I carried my backpack, and I say this with a note of surprise, to the last bench. And I knew somehow that it was a mentoring session for the juniors, from the seniors of our respective departments. And I faced my seniors with a confident, ‘hello’; I wasn’t one for keeping my head down. And my life as I knew it ended.
They held the faces of my worst nightmares. The faces of mean girls from fiction and reality. The faces of judgemental, old aunties and of cruel madams from movies of prostitution made crudely young. Faces of hostel wardens who besmirch the name of feminism oh-so-shamelessly. Faces of my mind’s own creation that I had not seen anywhere before but knew they were not going to be nice. Knew they would shut me down as I try to explain myself. Knew they would call me arrogant for speaking my mind. Call me a slut, intoxicated, inappropriate, wrong, unnatural, weird, not normal for defending myself. They were the worst creations of the universe’s machinations. Because their minds could not be changed. Because, try as you might, you will never escape their judgement. And because I was in a hellscape of my own creation, I can never escape their hold. I could not leave. And the first blow came.
They pulled my laptop from my hands and hid it amongst themselves. One of them pushed me into an empty seat between them. To the real me, this is silly. Fight back. Tell them off. Walk away. I could not. I couldn’t go unless they let me. No one would come to save me. Would they even know I needed saving? I mean this was the most normal of college experiences: junior-senior interaction. Why was it so cruel and scary for me?
Then, came the second blow. “Pay attention!” The words came with a sharp slap. I was horrified. We were in public. We were in a professional environment, they can’t actually get away with it, right? I looked around, everyone else’s experience was bearable if not excellent. I expected people to jump to my support. No one did. Tears came rolling down. More so in anger than anything else. I have dealt with physical abuse far worse. But I had never been this scared. I felt kidnapped. I tried to leave; they pushed me back down. I reached for my phone; they moved it out of my grasp. What kind of hell takes away your autonomy and agency? The worst kind. I knew I didn’t deserve this. Unfair, a voice echoed in my mind’s mind. But that was meaningless as another of those seniors hit me again. I was told to school my expressions into one of their likings. Move the wrong muscle, speak the wrong word, they hit me again. And all the while I learnt nothing. Unusual as it might seem, I was bored just as much I was tortured. I wasn’t burdened with stimulating work from them. Meaningless sitting was all I was exposed to. Egg shells hurt far less if I walked over them compared to the calculated silence I had to maintain so as not to tip their unstable scale of anger and wrath. If I cried, they hit me, so I pretended to enjoy the torture as they harassed me.
I would much rather die than undergo this. It was the anxiety and fear of not being able to escape their hold…. ever that broke my soul. Where were my parents? Amma? Appa? Take me away please. Please. Please. Please. I twitched. They threw my laptop to the floor. I gasped as it broke into two halves. How are they getting away with this? We live in a free, lawful country. I turned to them, finally in control of some misplaced agency. My face burned in unhidden anger and tears.
“What the hell?” I said. I do not condone bullying and I’ll be damned if I don’t stand up against it. But what if, dear reader, they broke your legs as you tried to stand? What if your knees buckled and you hit the ground before you ever had a moment’s breath of a chance to sit up? What then, wretched readers? Reading away in silence and falsified pity when blood pools beneath my legs. When you could do something about it. When, for once, you can stop lying to yourself that the metaphor is lost on you. You understand. But I do not understand why you choose to do nought, nothing, zilch about it. Empathy is not weakness, wretched readers and the pretence man of the mars. Nor is rebellion. Hear ye, and hear ye clearly: Fighting a flawed system doesn’t make you the perpetrators of chaos, it makes you the harbingers of peace to a future, that is now a little closer to utopia.
The seniors kicked me off the seat and stomped on my knees hard enough to damage it, but not enough to break it. Perhaps my soul wasn’t completely broken either. Pain flooded my eyes, my ears and every inch of sensory capabilities I had within my worn-out body. But my fear went down a notch. I was angering the powerful. I was endangering my survival. But I was bored no longer. I enjoyed whatever this was infinitely more than its passive predecessor. Maybe I can’t get away. But maybe I can. Or maybe I will die trying. Because yes: I would much rather die than undergo this. I lay on the ground, trying not to draw attention to where my hands were inching towards. My fingers closed over the hard edges of my phone as books were thrown haphazardly on top of my head. The sharp stab of a book’s edge was bearable when I gave way to the realisation that the books gave me more of a cover. I didn’t cry out in pain. Nor in joy. I pulled my hand back to myself and the books on top of me gave an obvious jostle that unsurprisingly agitated the Seniors. Because how dare I not endure their harassment in silence like the good, little slave they expected of me. My bad. It took me few scary tries to get my password working. In a world meant for my torment, I did not expect the finger print sensors to work. And they didn’t. The phone was now open. I threw the books off of me and got up. I couldn’t talk here obviously nor could I wait for the text messages to reach the recipients. “I am going to get you all something to eat.” I said, already in motion, walking on probably calcified knees. I hit the call button near my mother’s contact.
“Hey, get back here!” Followed by words that are too crude for me to repeat, some of them got off the benches to come after me. I broke into a run as the beautiful sound of ringing brought back my personality. I got a little more confident, sassier. Funnier. Can you detect the change in the narrative, dear reader? (Yes, I am not all that mad at you now, wretched reader.) My legs halted to a stop. In front of me was a huge crowd of students. I stomped my feet in frustration. The Seniors caught up with me. I got on top of the benches and started moving on that plane. I was now lost beyond the crowd and the Seniors were nowhere to be found.
The ringing ended. But the call didn’t. “Hello pappa...” came my mother’s voice. Come get me. Come get me. Come get me. Come get me. Please. Please. Please. My voice broke into sobs. Terrified, relieved sobs. The door was in front of me. Somehow. Take a breath, dear readers. Let out a sigh. Move back into the seat comfortably. It’s okay. It’s all over.

………………………………………………….

When I passed through the door, I was back in the same room. Same boring, wooden benches, the semi-loud hustle of students. Panic. It filled me. Then I saw my friend. She was from my sister department. I was no longer in my department. I went to her. She invited me into her circle of seniors in the most amicable of ways. She introduced me to them. And them to me. They were nice. They were sweet. They were ideal.
Was I to be jealous? What was the need for this scene? Was it a necessary evil to tell me there is still hope? Or was it meant to be the final nail hammering down unto my desolate and decaying coffin? Burying the last bit of incentive I had for survival? I honestly don’t know. Every. Mysterious. I will never claim to understand the machinations of my brain.
But whatever may be the reason for this scene, it was peaceful at least. It was nice.

I stood amidst skulls and bones in a stone platform, bordering a forgotten village and its body guard of a forest, ugly and taunting. No matter how horrid, I knew this part of the dreamscape would be better than the last. So, we skip past this story of sex, purity culture and misogyny.
………………………………………………………

I finally wake up. I find no comfort in reality knowing it inspired my nightmare. From one hell to another, I hop, but this time I hold tight to my agency. For, that is all I have at the end of the day. So, I will use it to my fullest capacity, even as I am punished for it. I might be angering the powerful and endangering my survival. But, at least the paralysis of passive existence would no longer bother me.
The events of the next few hours were slaps far more painful than those of my dreams. It was a rude awakening of the most important kind. I might never understand the machinations of my mind, but I was sure now my nightmare wasn’t meant for my torture. No, it was a call for help if I’ve ever seen one. I realised I had been more awake in my nightmare than while actually awake.
So, here I sit to write this. This might be an obituary in case I don’t make it past the next 2 years. This might be a euloy to those who didn’t. This might very well be my manifesto before I take matters into my own hands, before I radicalise in front of you, explaining why I am about to do what I am about to do. Or this might end up as nothing, fit only to be a leaflet in my very own version of a burn book, even worse than a journal entry that carries no real meaning.
But this will be my story. For better or for worse, I will have an audience for it.

I got up from my bench, turning off my twenty-minute alarm to take care of few assignment submissions. As I made my way through the first-year block, a man, old enough to be a senior citizen stopped me. Let’s call him ABC sir. Due to the fact that for the first time in my life I had forgotten my ID at home (which was for context, 60 Km away), he chose to comment on my clothes. It was apparently inappropriate and ‘not gentle’. Of course, it was a baggy hoodie and a full-length pant. My, how daring. “Sir, what else am I expected to wear? I find ‘gentle clothing’ too vague of an instruction.”
Be quiet! Don’t talk back, you insolent child. "But sir-."

Arrogant girl, get out of the block. If your ID’s at home, why are you here? May as well have stayed at home too. Or go back home and get it. "Sir, we are outside the city, my home is 60 Km-".

Don’t talk back. Wait outside my room. I’ll speak to you when I feel like it.

I wait there for the next half hour. Standing. No, dancing actually. To his whims. Now, imagine if this had happened on the day of an exam? It did.
Reduced to nothing but an ID lacking student I move forward with my day. Then I come face to face with a monster that questions my absence in class right as I extend my list of OD’s and medical certificates to her. She acts like I am worthless. Do I even know anything? Now, imagine if she had refused to sign my observation, without which I can’t write my End Sems? She did.
Reduced to nothing but an irregular, I move forward with my day. ‘This is unfair!’ I begin to say. But my knees buckle. Almost as if someone kneecapped me. I can’t stand. So, I limp forward with my day, onto the next nightmare.
By the time, dusk sets, I am crawling forward. But it feels backward, very dystopian-like and backward. I look around to see if someone would jump up to save me. No one does.
But you just needed to look desperate ma. You just had to beg; we would have let you go. They say. But I wasn’t one for putting my head down. I couldn’t.
………………………………..

The next day, there was a pre-internship drive. Pay close attention to this next anecdote, it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back: We were all invited to partake. But then they chucked half of us out because our grade point average didn’t meet the requirement. Let’s call this indecisive company that had earlier been more than happy with my CGPA, EngineR. EngineR had then organised their flagship hackathon CODSHE’25. We won. EngineR once again offered us the pre-internship interview opportunity. My professors continue to tell me I am an idiot with not enough CGPA, which we all know is a culminated score of how much the professor likes you, while I fan myself with the prize money of 21k. Welcome to the Indian Educational System. Where more than one student takes their life every hour. *




* https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/2-lakh-students-died-by-suicide-since-1995-at-13000-2021-toll-highest/articleshow/93891070.cms?

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