I'm an englipiss boy in a maths physics chemistry world. Sometimes I'm proud to be different and sometimes I curse myself for not displaying conventional Indian intelligence. Why the disparity in my abilities? you might ask, and I think I have an answer.

I've always had a deeper understanding when it came to English. I had a feel of what was going on, I knew why things were happening. The language spoke to me. Words were like pictures. The word " Happy " smiles at me, the word " ugly " really does look ugly. I understood Shakespeare and Wodehouse long before my peers did. I just had a tacit understanding for the subject.

Maths, Physics, Chemistry though, I loathed. Why was something happening? What does Sin Theta and Cos Theta really mean? Why were we given complex problems in calculus and asked to integrate or differentiate? I might get an answer after a series of laborious steps but what does the end product mean? Nobody knew what it meant, nobody told me the underlying reason for carrying out the prescribed steps. I spent my final school years immensely puzzled by dv/dt and ds/dt.Also it sure didnt help that all around me people found the maths, physics and chemistry childs play. I felt incredibly stupid in front of my peers. I decided I was dumb. Only the intelligent people were good at M, P and C. Those who do well in english were the silly ones with good communication skills and no grey matter in their heads.

Slowly however, I'm beginning to change my views. I'm not really dumb, who decides the definition of dumb anyway? I've finally gotten it into my head that I dont have to be good at what others are good at. I'm not conventionally intelligent, I'm rather different and that makes me bloody proud. So what if I'm not an IIT or BITS Pilani graduate? Why do we glorify them? I think society sucks when it comes to labelling people as intelligent or dumb.