The test

[The incidents in this story may not be completely true. Its changed slightly to make the story interesting and open to general public.]

Life is a series of tests. You usually fail most of them. But every now and then you make up your mind and decide to fight against a personal stigma. Whenever you take up a personal path of righteousness, the rest of the world puts you through various tests.

Here's what happens. You want to quit smoking (say). And you make up your mind that you're gonna quit. You stop buying them, you stop going with people who smoke, you avoid walking through smoke and do several other things to avoid the temptation.

Test 1: My friend asks me to smoke and I said "No dude, im tryin to quit". - PASSED

Test 2: My boss says "Come shishir, lets make some coffee". When he says that he means go make some coffee, it better taste good. Get me a cup and wait for me till i get out of the cubicle, and then we'll have a smoke. The good thing is he gives a cigarette every time he wants to drink coffee. So I said "no, im trying to quit". - PASSED

Test 3: Lonely day, ex-girlfriend is putting your brain on the frying pan again. The job market is sprinkling a bit of rock salt, garam masala and lemon pepper on top of it. Im walking by the gas station and I say "no, im not gonna buy it" - PASSED

It had been such a long time since I smoked. I was so happy and pleased with myself. I eventually moved to Boston where I was completely alone and free to do whatever I wanted. I had decided that I would not smoke there. I was on top of things when I was not smoking and not tempted to smoke.

But the sad thing is I got fired from my job at Boston and I had to come back. Sad, lonely and royally fucked, I packed my bags and got on the greyhound bus back to NY. The good thing is I saw this totally hot chick in the greyhound station. 'birdwatching' is an antidepressant (apparently). So I was doing it full-swing. Finally I got on the bus, found my seat and.. 'oh yeah'. that totally hot chick was sitting right beside me. So the bus leaves Boston and I start listening to songs on my Coby MP3 player. I remember, it was 'Hello Goodbye' by the Beatles.



I was listening to that... enjoying the irony. Then I see the hot-chick beside me was sketching a tree in a sketch book. I loved sketching. Half my dreams are in sketches. Kind of like the 'Brothers in arms' video by Dire Straits.



So, impressed by the hot-chick and the sketching, I started speaking to her. And what a journey that was. We talked high and low, tried solving Sudoku (I solved more than her), we shared a huge number of interests. I wanted to continue talking to her because she was such an interesting person to talk to (and totally hot). The bus then stops at this Dominos Pizza and I ask this chick. "Do you wanna get down?". She says "Oh yea, I wanna get down smoke as many cigarettes as I can before the bus starts. Wanna join me?". I was all oh yea... and then I went to the gas station next to dominos, bought a pack of cigarettes and lit one. - FAILED>

Well... im still friends with that hot-chick. Her name is Ioana (pronounced with an "io" as in YO!). But the thing is I failed my test. Actually I wouldn't mind failing the test again in the exact same way... because you need to have your fun time too! I didn't have the strength or the will to say "no thanks". This time it was the Y gene apart from my weak will power that failed me. But still... the point of my story is that you try to do something in life, you keep getting tested. Determination is super important to achieve anything.