shreyalogy.com

I was never the kind of student who voluntarily went to school during study leave to clear doubts.

Mostly because I had to study enough to have doubts in the first place, which I didn’t.

When I was in 10th standard, our school gave us a couple of months of study leave before the board exams. We could stay home and prepare, but if we wanted, we could also visit school to ask teachers questions or submit mock tests, you know how ICSE schools normally operate.

I’ve known a couple of girls that actually took this thing seriously. They’d go to school twice every week to submit mock tests and get feedback. I don’t think I ever got myself to complete even one tenth of a mock test. So naturally, I had no reason to be in school. No doubts, no mock tests.

But I still wanted to go because I had a far more important mission.

I wanted to travel home alone in an auto.

The thing is, my parents are weirdly strict. Throughout my life, I wasn’t allowed to do what normal people were. All my friends could travel alone in an auto, I couldn’t. It’s as ridiculous as it sounds. My parents never let me do anything, and while it stands true even today — i think I’ve unfortunately grown more tolerant towards their rules now.

Anyway, back then — I wasn’t.

So, one day my younger brother had a parent-teacher meeting. My mom was going with him for this meeting and I convinced slash forced  my mother to take me to school along with them and let me return home by myself.

It wasn’t easy. No.

So I told her I had some doubts in math, and she agreed to take me. She told me she’d wait for me after my brother’s PTM, but I was adamant. No. You won’t.

She gave me some money, just in case, and we parted our ways. She went for the parent teacher meeting and I went up to my classroom.

To make my plan look legitimate (in front of the teachers), I walked up to my classroom under the pretext of asking a teacher a question. I do remember asking her something, not sure where I pulled that “doubt” from.

It took her like 30 seconds to clear it. She probably thought I was stupid, or I was up to something else. She was right either way.

I vaguely remember standing near the corridor afterwards, secretly watching downstairs, waiting for my mother and brother to leave the school premises.

They took their own sweet time.

I, on the other hand, was waiting for my freedom.

The moment they finally left, I rushed downstairs. I walked out of the school gate feeling like I had just unlocked adulthood. Which, if you’re a kid reading this — is a horrible thing to unlock. Sell your soul to the devil if you have to but don’t grow up.

Anyway, I got into an auto and confidently told the driver where I lived.

There was just one tiny problem.

I had absolutely no idea how to get there from my school.

The distance was barely two and a half kilometres. Objectively, it wasn’t complicated.

Unfortunately, I possess an exceptional lack of directional sense. I’ve got the exact sense of direction as a headless chicken.

Halfway through the journey, I suddenly became convinced that the driver was taking the wrong route.

“Don’t take a right. Take a left.”

He listened.

We drove.

And drove.

My building was nowhere to be seen.

And if you’re wondering, yes this is where the thirteen year old me started to panic.

I had no clue where I was.

Trying to sound far calmer than I felt, I asked the driver if he knew where I lived.

He said that the locality I had mentioned was in the opposite direction.

🙂

So then, we had to take a U-turn. Crisis averted, we finally reached my building.

There was yet another… Teeny tiny problem though.

My mother had given me exactly enough money to cover the normal fare from school to home.

The extra detour—caused entirely by my misplaced confidence—added around ₹20 to the meter.

I didn’t have it.

So there I was, standing outside my own building, awkwardly requesting the auto driver not to charge me for the extra distance because I genuinely didn’t have another ₹20. Which after a very long argument, he decided to let me be.

And that’s how my first taste of freedom felt like to me.

It’s funny how our first experiences with independence are rarely smooth. They’re messy. They’re embarrassing. They involve overconfidence, poor navigation skills, and occasionally negotiating with an auto driver because your wallet and your ego are equally empty.

But despite everything, I remember reaching home feeling proud, anxious and very stupid. Because no one could ever find out about the detour. About the extra twenty rupees. About me not being old or mature enough to travel alone, like they had predicted.

Sometimes growing up isn’t about getting everything right.

Sometimes it’s just about taking one wrong turn, finding your way back, and realising that freedom feels even sweeter when you’ve earned it yourself—even if it costs someone an unforgettable ₹20.

That said, don’t grow up. Do something. Stay twelve.