NO, I did not fail. YES, I am taking Arts.

Call it a black sheep, call it an underdog, call it The Road Not Taken: there is no escaping the fact that for the majority of people inhabiting India, taking Arts after tenth grade is distasteful, something to do when you have no option left, or when your marks (or grades, bless CBSE) are unmentionable.

Once you get used to this prejudice, though, and you learn to accept it, announcing your decision is actually quite fun. The politest reply I have ever got (excluding replies from people who actually know me) is "Don't tell me!" followed by a horrified stare. The most innocent one was, "But why?" and a look that suggested I had an answer that would solve all their doubts, that I wanted to do something out of the world. But after I shrug and say, indifferently, "I like it", they are just plain incredulous. "You like History? Alien." Except it's human History I like, in addition to languages, Economics, Political Science, Psychology and all the rest of the stuff. The very names of the subjects make me jump up and down in excitement and I can't wait to start studying.

People like friends of friends and aunties, who ask you what you intend to take for the sake of making conversation, find it either very unnerving or a closed subject when you mention Humanities. It's like the very stream is taboo.

I'm not writing this to enumerate the various career options Arts offers, or to bombard readers with examples of people who made it big "despite" taking Arts. I'm writing this simply to record my observations. There have been people, with the best of intentions, no doubt, who have tried to dissuade me. I have tried to be dissuaded, and have failed. I love Biology (the whole of biology, mind, don't go around getting narrow-minded ideas), but I love Arts more. And I don't even like Physics. I positively dislike Chemistry. And Maths, well, I don't hate it. I just don't like to practise. In other words, I'm lazy.

I don't have a well-charted career plan ahead. I am as clueless as the next man, possibly even more. But then life hardly respects your plans. All I can say in my defence is that if the world ends in 2012 (and it most likely will, if only due to global warming or an asteroid or an alien invasion), I will have studied subjects I enjoy studying.

Magic Cauldrons

If I talk about fantasy (punning's really not my thing, so you can stop saying, "Aha! I knew she wasn't Little-Miss-Innocent!) anymore, I risk being called an obsessed, repetitive keyboard-wielder who thinks she can type meaningful sentences. So I'm talking about magic. Magic cauldrons, to be precise. Containers in which you can add eye of eel, scale of dragon, liver of frog and fingernail of rat, stir it a bit, and hey! Here's Conglomeration of Success, which you can drink up at leisure and strut around town with your head held high and without a care in the world, except maybe the nagging question of which publisher you would honour with the manuscript of your autobiography.

Or maybe you could throw in hair of maggot, colony of plasmodium with a dash of decayed spring onion, shake the whole thing and gulp it down to be fully hit with the effects of Draught of Don't-Give-A-Damn. Following which you can smile at disapproving looks, dismissively nod at betrayal and ignore attempts made to make you famous as 'The Girl Who Never Stopped Crying."

However, magical cauldrons do not exist. Which is why imagination is so important. One must imagine one is drinking up Stir of Security or Potion of Peace or whatever it is that one wants. Whether you can actually feel the effects or not depends on how much you believe in your own magic (if you don't, drink Broth of Belief).

But do I much like the taste of eel-eyes? I don't know, never having tasted something so revolting, and I'd rather not try. Ditto for rat fingernails and maggot hair and all the rest of the trash. I don't even like to imagine the taste. I'd much rather stay miserable, oh yes. Alternatively, I could get the success for myself and stop caring myself. I don't need a cauldron. I have my own, and it's called people. I get this odd feeling of everything being all right with the world when I see people around me. The best part is, people don't want spring onions, decayed or otherwise. They just want you to exist...and be happy. Essence of Happiness, anyone? Put in people, lots of love and care, and smile at everyone.