Career Success, Relationship Failure

I treated both as uncompramisable issues and tried my absolute best at solving both problems. During those 2 months of exams, my mind was fixated on the relationship during the day and the exams during the night like I had no choice and my life depended on it. I tried meeting her at her college, asked some of our common friends to mediate, I even made a facebook app (facebook apps like farmville used to be a thing those days) to catch her attention. I even went as far as moving to Chennai for a few days where I found through a friend that she had joined TCS. To think now, all that immaturity makes me cringe.

I also remember trying many different things including resorting to watching Batman Animated Series to inspire myself to stay awake throughout the night to study. I needed that dark, sombre, serious atmosphere and a superhero figure to inspire myself throughout that period. Because I was extremely depressed and my heart really sunk thinking of my predicaments and I couldn't show this to the outside world.

And deep inside, it occured to me that it was selfish of me to want to win both the battles and that I should let go of one in order to win the other. I kept asking myself which one it was going to be but never got an answer.

Unable to carry the burden, I relied on some of my close friends for inspiration. I remember a great advice my friend Sud gave me — to do my absolute best and to not worry about the outcomes because they were not in my hands. He wanted me to simply do one thing right — to give my best. Its such a cliche but it never occured to me at the time. I remember the feeling of relief I got when that sunk in. The realisation that the only person worth judging me was me myself and not others really changed my perspective.

On Sep 1, as the results came, I miraculously passed all 18 exams with flying colours much to everybody’s surprise including mine, quashing the reputation I had built over the years with teachers, friends, partner, and even family as a failed student. I was so elated that I drove back home and met with a minor accident on the way back, almost ending up under a bus. That’s the story of how I got my Engineering degree. It was a monumental feat for my supposed standards. The news spread through college and I became somewhat of an overnight sensation.

But Min never spoke to me again. It had been about 6 months she had completely moved on. She had moved to Chennai, changed her number, blocked me, and it was evident that there was nothing more I could possibly do to revive the relationship, proving my sacrificial goat theory right. Life proved me that it is a great leveller. That relationship was the price I had to pay to succeed in the my career. And I just readily accepted it because it felt like poetic justice. The sorrow of that great loss absolutely and definitely cancelled the joy of my heroic triumph and vice versa.

To think now, the truth was I was not emotionally or economically ready for that relationship. I was not a match for her and didn't have the maturity to let go. Instead of focusing my efforts on the things I had control over, I tried desperately to cling on to and win over someone who neither was a match nor wanted to be with me which only pushed her away from me.

The period between 2010-11 were very dark. There defintely were moments when I didn’t see any way out from either predicaments. The thoughts of ending it all did cross my mind at times. I was desperately hoping for some kind of miracle which did happen on 1 Sep 2011. Today, I look back at it as a great event that happened in my life worth telling others about.