Back in the game

It's my last week at ET and I haven't felt so guiltily happy in a while. Why? Because I have learnt that I am not cut out for a mundane nine to five - something I knew back in school anyway. It took me a year and a half of mental loitering to arrive back at square one, with no greater capabilities but feeling all bright and sprightly for no clear reason.

I shouldn't be too sardonic here, the past one year was a terrific experience. I think I'm a lot more likeable now, so what if my bank balance hasn't been replenished generously in ages.

It's good to hear the clink of old pieces between my fingers and frown down at the long neglected green chessboard I bought in Sri Lanka and my sister trimmed to the right size with a sharp cutter that I was too clumsy to handle precisely. The white ones are a sickly yellow now and I can't remember what happened to the black king and why only an amputated stub of his crown remains and pokes my thumb.

More than any of that, it's good to feel my mind working. You can actually feel your mind working. If you observe yourself carefully you can feel the exact speed and depth at which you are thinking and calculating and you can narrow your eyes and block out the room and the noise from the hall and feel a heat rising up in your head, and see clearer and more than you could a minute before. Or, if you're in one of those frustratingly indisciplined moods, you can try to squeeze your mind in one direction but it slips out like the mercury I used to try to squeeze in my palm when I was a kid. And then it runs helter skelter or stops deceptively for a second, making you believe that you can now tame it before you realise that you've been dreaming and what is that silly smile on your face?

I love the adrenalin rush as much as I detest the absolutism of that life. I love the fact that I am going to be that girl, that girl who has a vast blank sheet before her but doesn't know what to write or how to walk on it without spoiling it and who is both scorned and envied because I can search for what I want without settling for less for as long as it takes me and certainly longer than you, you conformist.