”What do you Fear the most?”, the question raised in the hall.
“Education”, came an anonymous answer from the crowd.
The people present in the hall, amazed at the answer, gazed at him, their eyes looking for the identity of that anonymous person, demanding a justification for his abrupt reply.
“Why do you fear the thing because of which you find the courage to stand and speak in front of everyone today?”, the glorified eyes dared to ask the question.
” I fear education the most. I feared it the moment when I lost the vision of my mother when I was forced to go to playschool in the age where didn’t know anything apart from my mother’s love. I hate the feeling that I got while beaten by the teachers for not doing my homework and playing all day. I feared it when I had to leave my bunch of stupid friends when my section divided into two. The feeling scared me when I studied for nights and still didn’t get enough marks to get admission into a good college and study my stream. The moment when I shall find myself pushing up away from my parents, into some other city, studying into some big college to get a job and missing the taste of my mother’s food, it aches from within. The fear to go to another city and find a job and work till the dusk, scares me. I shall reluctantly work hard to get a job and lick my boss’s ass everyday and shall beg to go home and spend time with my loved ones. I fear when I shall die I would only be left with emptiness and regrets that I could have made my life a bed of roses rather than a desert with cactus. Yes, I fear education, the robotic life where you are born, forced to study and die everyday and one day, you eventually die without living. But the pain doesn’t end here because the only difference between life and pain is that life ends, pain doesn’t; it could go on forever and the same goes for the guilt of regret.”
The boy finishes off leaving the crowd stuck into a sense of reality and hating life, hating the fact that he spoke the truth. The truth that we all know but is hard to accept. The silent, fear-striken bodies started questioning their existence.
“You do not fear Education. You fear attachments. You fear time which shall pass with every second and shall not stop for you to capture those precious moments of your life, your belongings that you shall leave and find a sense of maturity within yo, the way to earn respect in your society, the way to earn money, the way to fulfil your dreams and accomplish your family goals. Gone is the world where you could do anything without money but today you need to earn those Gandhi stickers for which you need education. The feeling to adventure the world and work at new places, new people to talk with; these shall be your findings and one day you shall realise that it was one of the most wisest decision you ever made to stand apart and educate yourself.”
The professor smiled at the boy and the reply invited a round of applause from those students sitting in the auditorium. People mushed, cried and smiled. That day, the country’s future added another gem to its box.
