BEING 17 IN INDIA RIGHT NOW

When I was young I really wanted to live like those cool almost adult teenagers who go out with friends freely without taking permission from their parents, sneak out, go on trips, do dating, and all that crazy stuff.

But I don’t think I’m alone on this guys. All of us wanted to be that kinda cool teenager, didn’t we? Instead, we found ourselves trapped between board exams, entrance tests, school, and coaching classes. Before we were even adults, life had started to resemble a 9-to-5 routine.

Like if I tell you my routine of the last two years it was wake up, go to school, come back, eat lunch fast, go to coaching/tuitions, it’s twilight and not much social life left for any such person except for those idiots/pookies we had in school/coachings.

I agree even I rather than studying sincerely in classes was laughing, eating lunches at back many a times, but that doesn’t really cancel my other days where I just cried out and almost wanted to give up, cause doing all this travel in a single day under scorching heat and loo in summers, rain in monsoon, and through freezing winds in winter all by a bicycle wasn’t really a piece of cake.

Tbh I do think that bicycle was a problem cause I was so tired by the time I went to coaching that I was just fighting myself not to sleep in class mid lecture that my father paid lakhs for. But I couldn’t really help and I regret that but I couldn’t even figure out a solution either.

So, here I stand now, I gave my boards, got my result, appeared for JEE, got my rank, and somehow ended up satisfied with neither.

The only person who was more disappointed than my dad was me because somewhere I guess I still think that, had I studied more consistently or had I given more of myself into it I could have achieved a much better rank than what I got.

Now I can’t even figure out what course I’m interested in, what I won’t regret taking up in future, what will pay me cause yeah I do have a dream life I want to live and all this chaos in job markets that’s going on because of AI taking up jobs is actually scary; somewhere between the coaching classes and the bicycle rides, the world outside was quietly changing too.

The jobs I was running this race to get, the ones my parents pointed to as the finish line, are the same ones disappearing in headlines. I have no idea yet, when it’s already June, what college I want to go to, cause whichever I dreamed of, I ain’t eligible for them. I don’t want to take a drop because the fact of drop year that I’d have to stay at home and study all over again with all those taunts and questions about the future from my parents will kill me from inside, I’m sure of that, wow atleast I’m sure of a single thing, glad.

You know, since whenever I remember, I just dreamed of two simple things: that I’ll go to a reputed university out of my hometown, and build a life and career I admire. But the fact that I just burst the first dream, cause I ain’t even getting a good college in my hometown either, jokes on me.

And that I am now thinking of a drop year which I never wanted to even think of, I mean yeah, it is my fault but it stings obviously. And now when I’m going to be 18 in a month, the cool adulthood age, I’ll be rotting in a drop year is really haunting me already. So now even the dream of being cool, almost adult at 18 bursts out too.

Maybe this is adulthood after all. Not the freedom I imagined at thirteen. Not late-night drives, college adventures, or having everything figured out. Maybe adulthood is sitting with uncertainty. Looking at dreams that didn’t work out. Accepting that the future no longer looks the way you planned it.

In a month I’ll be eighteen. I still don’t know what college I’ll join, what career I’ll pursue, or whether I’ll take a drop year. But for the first time, I’m beginning to realize that growing up was never about having answers. It’s about moving forward even when you don’t.

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