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Stories!

I pulled the fraying edges of the ribbon which held my knotted plaits together as I heard my teacher say, "The universe is made of atoms". I smiled unwilling to believe the fact. What did the atoms know of life, chided a thirteen year old in me?

Science classes to the rest of my friends were interesting, with all those atoms and molecules and rays and motion, they found diverse things in their platter. They would jump at the sight of the rays passing through the prism or gasp at the bubbly solutions gurgling in the chemistry lab and there I would stand, failing to take interest in any of those. At best I appreciated things  but my interest was always in those neatly stacked story books with luscious covers which the librarian would always hand over after removing those, he worried I could leave it dog eared.

How much I longed for those hours of library class which became rarer as we jumped towards higher classes. Science textbooks became bulkier enough to eat away those library hours and what was left off at the end was our grim looking science teacher harping over the fact to concentrate on studies. He would stress the last word unnecessarily to create an impact.

How much I longed to tell him that the universe was made of stories. Stories long and short, stories of you, me , everybody. Gripping tales which stemmed out of life. Stories that changed life each moment. stories that had pulse of their own. That it was okay to prioritise stories over atoms, dreams over the weighing scale of the physics lab. That it didn't matter at all to know how an apple hit Newton, that it was perfectly okay to take interest in art and music.

The bulky textbooks once overshadowed a friend of mine who today paints magic with her makeup brush, it could never understand the pain of my dancer friend who had to undergo the dilemma when she was made to prioritise studies over dance. Her ghungrus rusted along with her dreams.

With the result fever on, I don't want another kid to suffer the wrath which a thousands did. Do what you feel like doing, be it art, music or pottery. Let your work write your own beautiful story. More power to young souls!

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