Leap of Faith

Beware! Whatever I am going to tell you know is an extremely exaggerated, dramatically extrapolated and maliciously manipulated metaphor of what really happened. Read on:

I have always loved heroes and always picturised myself as one. A brave, cool, charismatic, macho, rough and tough, don’t-you-mess-with-me “Don” kind of hero whose legacy and fame would make dames flutter their eyelids. The kind of hero who is happiest only when faced by a challenge, whose excitement knows no bounds when an adventure knocks the door, the guy whose heart-beat no threat can falter, addicted to the adrenaline rush and unaffected by any amount of the same. This guy is a figment of my imagination, this is the hero I want to be, but he is not someone you haven’t met. He is the Dark Knight, the Super-Saiyan, the Don, the Vampire Hunter, the ever-observant mystery solver, sometimes the joker and the Captain Pirate too. Smooth, Suave, Sophisticated and most important of all – Fearless!

I am him. I am the fearless, the undefeated, the never-give-up, hungry-for-more challenger, and I am faced by my biggest challenge.

The battle field was set - it was a dark maze inside a medieval castle, hundreds of doors and windows, flights of stairs that seemed to be endless, windows that showed you nothing but flashes of lightning and let in nothing but bats and splashes of rain, silence that was deafening and the dramatic aura of imminent death was literally tangible. I had not memory of how reached there and had no intention of finding that out as a much bigger question lay ahead - how do I get out?

But the showdown didn’t wait for the silence and darkness to blanket me completely – the roof above me burst open and a dagger flew straight past me, missing my ear only by the width of a hair. No! Fear cannot touch me, nothing can surprise me, nothing can weaken me, for I am him. I only smile at the face of danger. I only welcome the challenge with open arms. I am cool, level headed and instead of saying my prayers for having my life, I am pull myself together and set after the arms behind the dagger.

All the walls break down and reveal armed brawlers racing towards me. “These are not your everyday ordinary brawlers”, Anne Hathaway says. “Neither am I”, say I and pick them out one by one. Hey, don’t look at me like that, I have never been in a real fight in my entire life so if u expect me to put together an original action thriller you should also bring me a profession stunt master and a choreographer; preferably the brains behind the game-play of Prince of Persia because I am going to use the exact same moves against these villains. And for those of you unfamiliar with Prince of Persia let me make a weak attempt and describing it to you.

I kick on the pillar and throw myself at the mercenary nearest to me, knocking him off with one hand and grabbing his weapon with the other. I somersault on the floor to reach for another one’s foot with my weapon, kick a second guy on the chin making him fall over his colleague (even brawlers have dignity man!) and rising to my feet to block the slash of a fourth dude. I throw my weapon at him, smack another one on the neck to stun him, pick his armour and knock down another couple to stand triumphant in a room full of corpses. TADAAAA!!! (you can quote your favourite hero over here now. My second choice would be, “Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahi….. Namumkin Hai!”

*Gasp!* I am being choked by a giant of a man who strangles me with both hands. Now (we are very near the climax now). The villain enters the scene (I would prefer the masked man from the Dark Knight rises, but over here the villain is Mogambo from Mr. India). This master villain is probably ten times stronger than me, flanked by ten of his loyal goons, each of whom is as strong as me. And as all of them close in on me, I realize that my end has come.

“Now let us move on to the next topic – Derivatives!” The teacher announces and the entire classroom of 800 students starts to turn its pages while I stare at the man standing on the podium, behind the mike; my head filled with his voice, “Add the profits of 5 years”. His words repeat in my head again and again and every time he says that, my voice intercedes, “Why don’t we consider time value of money?” I look around and find some of my classmates sleeping, the others focusing on the teacher and some others doing some other unspeakable things.

Alright, alright… If you are still confused let me explain the metaphor. I am faced by a challenge called ‘a doubt’. But I cannot overcome that challenge because on one hand I am being choked by the fear of asking a stupid question and making a fool of myself and these 10 henchmen are closing in on me, representing my classmates who will laugh at me if I am ignored by the teacher. And there is this Mogambo, the thought of, “What will he or she think?” and these are challenges that the super-hero within me cannot overcome. He fails! Nope, it cannot happen. All the great warriors in the universe put-together cannot surpass this fear, this nervousness – the villain is too strong.

Now, in this scenario, I, the real narrator of the story, can very well let the student go ahead and swallow his doubt as it is and live with his fears and prejudices. I have no sympathies for him, let the Bloody Blundaleomite do what he wants. But! The super-hero’s defeat? Un-imaginable! That simply cannot happen. But wait, the super-hero is nothing but a shadow of the student himself. Bloody Blundaleomite now I have to twist the story such that the student over-comes his fear and asks his doubt. Only then will the super-hero have succeeded. Alright, follow me very closely as I bring success to the stories of this spectacular super-hero and this lousy duffer of a student:

Mogambo is very close to me now, his breath falls on my face – and its burns my skin. My butt is lifted from the bench as I stand up to ask my doubt, but I cannot straighten my back. I simply cannot gather the strength to raise my head and ask my doubt.

The brawler chokes me, I cannot breathe. The henchmen have their swords touching my neck, I start to bleed. The guys sitting on my bench have started asking me what I am doing. One of them even makes fun of the way my butt is raised. Some other from the front row turn around to look at me.

“Captain Planet – Give me the Power!” I cry out loud and wriggle my way out of his arms, but his hold is too strong. “Not anymore!” I shout as I grab the stinking giant by his back and throw him over my head at the other goons around me. “Stare wherever you want, you jobless hooligans!” I shout in my head and stand up with my right arm raised.

Mogambo stares me down. I stare back at him. He launches a punch at me and puts me on a fork. “Turn around and run? Or throw a punch back at him?”. The sir looks at me and says, “Don’t make any disturbance. Please be seated.” Maybe it is a stupid doubt after all. I mean, how is it possible that I am the only one who has thought of this? I must have missed out something. I will just pretend I was adjusting my pants and sit down.

Hah! Run away? This super-hero is too powerful for that. Scars are nothing but designs on my skin. I know no fear, I am least bothered about defeat. But if I am going down, I am definitely throwing one last heck of punch before I go. “Sir! Why haven’t we considered time value of money in the previous problem?” Leap of Faith. Some also call it the Leap before you think theory! I don’t care if he scolds me for making a mess, for creating confusion, for troubling the entire class or whatever. But I am not going down! Atleast in my dreams I am a super-hero. Have to do justice to that guy.

Bam! Mogambo falls flat on the ground! Sir smiles at me and responds. A few henchmen try to attack again. A few students threaten me for making sir go into another long lecture. But once again – the hero has won.

And you know what the funny part of the story is. This hero who saves the universe on a daily basis at night, doesn’t manage to fight of some simple villains during the day such as “the will power to not click the snooze button in the morning", stay up to study another one hour at night, say “Love you” to his dearest on valentines day and all that. To all the readers out there, who, I am DAMN sure, have authored this little super-hero somewhere, sometime in your life, show the world how good an author you are.

The narrator is shamelessly guilty of hypocrisy and has exercised every right bestowed upon a preacher under the “It’s easy to preach” Act.

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