As the names get announced, the air gets tense in the classroom. Each reveal takes me closer to my own name, one I hoped would come sooner. The numbers kept falling, until all 48 but one name hadn’t been called so far, mine.

But what really brought me there? I was never supposed to be here. Not that I liked being there, I hated being 13 in a room full of 17-year-olds. I, despite my wide spectrum of interests, have never been given a chance to fully put on display how ‘cool’ I was, simply because what I knew as cool was no longer it for them.

Today, I look at him, and I find him much like a stoic. Having lived as him back in the day, I understand that it is more like a lagging system than a show of stoicism. It just so happened to be that one fine day I woke up, and I found that financial collapses are a real thing!

When my school would finally tell me that they had had enough; that education should be free, but not at their school. I suddenly had only two options in front of me. Well, I didn’t, my family did. So they’d decide that failing twice in 9th grade under the only private tutor who was willing to teach me for free would be a far better and obvious choice than staying at home with no education.

I remember the first time I walked into that room. The stairs that led to the room had a slightly raised step on the bottom. Almost symbolic to the events that would transpire later, I stumbled on that step in front of a group of people and burnt my finger on the mosquito coil on the left of the entrance.

I was early that day. As I peeked into the room, one of the students inside would point at me, bringing sir’s attention onto me. It took him by surprise that someone was actually standing outside the class, asking for permission to enter. Apparently, people stop doing it in 9th grade. I wonder what really happens in the years between that people leave behind such tradition.

Sir tells Adnan to give me a seat beside him. While moving his bag off the chair beside him, Adnan eyes me with mild annoyance. I greet him, and we don’t speak the entire class. I was scared, he was simply too big to be a classmate and too young to be a bhaiya. That day, sir taught us about the changing rate of chemical reactions. It made sense to me, but more so it didn’t include any numbers. Not having any numbers meant that I could memorise the notes that day.

During a recap session in the following class, sir looked for someone, wanting to ask what higher temperatures do to the rates of chemical reactions. I don’t know why, but I feel he was always going to ask that question to me. I stood up with my arms to my sides, and at the peak of my tone I went, ‘HIGHER TEMPERATURES MAKE PARTICLES MOVE FASTER SO THE RATE OF REACTIONS BECOMES HIGHER’.

I looked around and saw 50 faces staring at me, with a few holding back laughter, and one particular voice going, ‘Shabashhh’. The voice wasn’t sir’s, it was that of someone being particularly sarcastic.

Sir simply told me to sit down again, nodding his head all the while.

That in many ways was the start of the alienation I’d feel there. Any random laughter I’d hear would make me overthink, and anyone who even tried speaking to me would get a confused, untrusting look from me. It wasn’t until our first proper class test that my fate would change. The paper was on the entire O level syllabus, and I was still a 7th grader at heart. I’d go through as much as I could, trying to fit in as many concepts as possible. I remember people trying to cheat off me, and I pity the luck they had that evening. Because I could only answer 3 MCQs correctly. For the other 72 marks? The powers of my delusion.

A week later, as sir would announce the scores, the list would keep on going. The scores started at 75, and fell until 42 as the 48th name was being announced. I reasoned that “so be it that I’m the 49th name, but it’s nice knowing I might have scored above 30.” Oh, the delusional boy I was.

“Siyam, 3”. At that moment, I understood something so fundamental about a 9th grader’s psyche. The worse you are at your studies, the cooler you really are. Adnan shook my hand, almost congratulating me, while others cheered. I was devastated on the inside, but I was cool.

Imagine how heavy it would feel if you were the best green belt in your karate class of green belts, but fate would throw you up against black belts who would throw you back at fate again.

That’s how I felt being a 10th grader that evening. I’d come home that day, and stare at the paper. It is in moments like these that delusions really are your greatest friend. I simply couldn’t comprehend the fact that I was bad. I blamed the system, the situation, and the subject. I took that paper to my sister that night, and she solved the entire thing. I realised she knew things that I didn’t (obviously), and that knowing stoichiometry would have brought me 20 more marks at least.

All of it clicked at that moment. I wasn’t inherently bad, I just had gaps that needed filling. So I’d go the entire year, actively filling in those gaps, breaking things down into smaller and smaller parts. The next test, I’d score 33. The one after that? 46. By the end of the year, the gaps were superbly concrete. On the last test that year, I remember the smile my chemistry teacher had as he announced, “Siyam, 75”. It was particularly memorable, as I came home that day and everyone in my family hugged me.

Throughout my O and A levels, I’d carry that high, scoring A or A*s in every single subject I took. But now, it was time for a bigger challenge.

I was finally 17 now, and ironically everyone around me was 21.

But I stopped bothering years ago. I knew my destination could not be a public university, because that was not where I could envision myself. A top private university had to be it. But the costs of it were always the very core of my problems.

Regardless, I’d still walk into that admission test, absolutely determined to do my best. Entering the premises that day, I looked at that crowd of around eight thousand people and felt a cloud of doubt over my head. I calmly told myself that all I could control was my own paper, and that my paper wouldn’t change if there were 8,000, 800, or only 80 people sitting alongside me.

My test went fine, but I ran out of time. I felt quite sure that I’ll end up getting my desired subject.

The top 100 Scholarship? A matter of delusion at that point.

Five days later, I got into North South University with Economics as my major. There was a general feeling of relief as I went to campus that day to get my documents verified.

I was waiting on a chair when I saw one of the staff paste a piece of paper on the wall. I didn’t bother checking it out. A few moments later, I got up from my seat with a stiff back and walked around. As I reached that paper, I figured it was the list of Scholarship recipients. I went through that list, trying to see if I could recognise anyone. Then I did. It was me.

49th yet again.

Perhaps it was God’s own way of letting me know that from that 49 to this, I had finally made it.