I recently came across a trailer on YouTube where a girl relives her birthday again and again, with a twist that she gets killed every time only to be resurrected in the same morning. It continues over and over again till she finds out who her masked killer is.
I couldn’t help but infer the similarities of it with my life. Not that I am killed and resurrected, but rather in a sense that my day plays out pretty much the same with a sense of déjà vu. I wake up, eat, see some movie and series, eat, sleep for a couple of hours and then go to a relative and answer a seemingly simple but daunting inquiry. “What now?” my relatives pounce all over me one after another, like a famished tigress hunting for her cubs.
Do they not have anything else to do than ask me about my life and my plans regarding the future? Had they figured out at my age where their life was headed? I’m pretty sure some are still in a dilemma regarding the course their life is taking.
“So is your bachelor’s complete?”
“It’ll be, come Mangsir”
“So, what now?”
They interrogate me under bright light. Granted, I should have an answer to this fair, small talk question. But why don’t I? Now as I try to find the answer to my question, I can’t help but look into the past for answers. If you did well in kindergartens you got promoted to a better primary school. You did well in primary you got transferred to a better, competitive lower secondary school and so on and so forth. You got good marks in compulsory and optional math; you got into computer and optional math in higher secondary.
You secured distinction, science it was. You fancied math more than you did biology, physics it was for you. You secured distinction; engineering welcomed you with open arms. You gave entrance and enrolled in the university. What you thought was a lifetime passed in a blink of an eye. You thought you still had time to figure out what to do, well think again. The future that you thought was light years ahead from now is only a few months far.
And now, finally you have a say, a voice in where to take your life. Having to make a conscious and an active decision, you can neither accredit your failures to the choices your family made on your behalf nor can you bask in the glory of success, designating yourself and your inherent capabilities.
Failure or triumph, you’ll now have to take what life throws at you in strides. What now? “Opting for a job or following the popular trend opting abroad studies’. If job, is it public or private? If abroad, IELTS, GRE or education in some Scandinavian nations. Each choice seems to open up a multitude of avenues for which I’m yet immature to make, and dive if I were too into my thoughts a small talk wouldn’t suffice, I silently think to myself. So, what do I say? “Now, we eat our dinner, beat you in cards and loot your cash.” And this ‘what now’ monster of mine will continue to torment and make me relive it till I unmask it, make a decision for myself.
‘The Now Now’, Gorillaz
Sarthak is a student at Pulchowk Engineering College, Kathmandu.
