I made a conscious decision to try and study in the Xth grade. Mind you, it was only because I knew people would ask me my percentage, and if I failed to tell them something I could be proud of, I knew they'd laugh at me. And they'd think that I wasted one of the most important years of my life. And so started my mission, my pact - to study, to deliver, to perform.
   People always make up lame excuses to not have studied. And the lamest, of course, is the lack of inspiration. I'll tell you something about inspiration - you don't go looking for it, it's right there in front of you. In somebody's words, in somebody's thoughts, in somebody's feelings. And I found mine in the two bastards that I call my best friends.
                                                                       ~1~
   I distinctly remember it was Mayank's birthday we were going to celebrate. Just the three of us. We'd decided to go to his place straight from school, in the van that carried him to school and back. On the way to his place, the traffic was worse than ever, and so were the asses I was with.
   Anish seemed to have spotted an auto-rickshaw that was carrying gas cylinders. "Hey dude, you know what?" he asked nobody in particular. "If you shoot one bullet into any one of those tanks, the impact will be strong enough to burn all of us in milliseconds. We'll be roasted. Instant Tandoori!" I was about to say something funny about how there wouldn't be a lot of people in the radius of a few kilometers who'll enjoy eating us, but Mayank spoke before I could.
   "Accha? You think the bullet will just penetrate the metal like that? You know what the cylinders are made up of?"
   "It'll easily go through man. It's India. There's adulteration in everything!" Anish wasn't gonna shut up either.
   "You know the bullet has to have a radius of... blah... blah.... blah blah... blah..."
And so these shitheads went ahead to waste a half an hour of my life discussing about whether a bullet of radius x cms [I don't remember the exact value. I was too bored to even care!] would be able to penetrate a gas cylinder or whatever.
   Then somehow the discussion shifted to Perpetual Motion. Mayank said something about bullets always flying and Anish said something about them being perpetually in motion or something and off went the bastards again.
   They wasted ANOTHER half an hour of my life discussing perpetual motion and whether it could be discovered.
   Mayank had the vaguest of ideas in trying to prove that it could be discovered and Anish just kept proving him wrong. I guess that's what happened. If I were drunk or stoned, I'd have remembered more. I just simply didn't care enough then. And these nincompoops made me.
                                                                        ~2~

   It was the first Maths class that I was attending after weeks. Practicing for inter-school competitions had left me with only so much time!
   Maths teacher saw me and asked me to stand up. "What is the value of tan45°?" I had an absolutely BLANK expression after she'd asked me that. Not only did I not know what 'tan' was, I had simply no idea what 45° was doing after it. "I don't know ma'am" I said. Loads of hands shot up as soon I'd said it. That's what happens when you're studying in a class full of nerds.
   The whole class went on to do some exercise off the NCERT book, as the teacher instructed. I did not know it then, but they were proving questions. And everybody seemed to be knowing what they were doing. Except me.
   Mayank was sitting right next to me. He solved the questions with undiluted zeal. I could make out from his face that he was bloody into whatever he was doing. And he knew it too. He was kind enough that day to let me copy all of it from him, and whenever the teacher asked if I understood anything, I just nodded. He put his hand up whenever the teacher asked who all were done with the question. And he solved the questions on the blackboard too.
   And I'll tell you something honestly - I was jealous. Insanely jealous.
   Not because of the fact that he could solve complex trigonometry questions. No. Even bookworms could accomplish that. It was because I could see genuine happiness in his face whenever he solved a question. It was the sense of accomplishment that I'd always wanted. And that was what I, somewhat, achieved.
                                                                       ~3~

   And now the real reason why I wrote this - Never, ever call me a nerd.
   The way people say 'nerd', it sorta makes it a derogatory term. But I'll tell you this - Nerds are worthy of respect. I'm not. They're the ones who sacrifice their fun for their future. We don't - So we think whoever doesn't isn't cool. Screw the mindsets that people have.
And oh, I almost forgot. I'm somebody who knows things that are in the syllabus. Ask me anything outside of the box and I'll fail. Therefore, I'm not even a hundredth of an actual nerd.
   Mayank Gulati and Anish Majumdar, however, tell me things that make me open my mouth and gaze at their faces. That's why they rule.
   It's a totally screwed up tale as to how I ended up screwing most of my grades in the First Term, and I'll summarize it in a word: CCE. I lost my A2 in science and english and an A1 in Maths by ONE FREAKING MARK! ONE FREAKING MARK!!!. Life sucks.
   And in case you were wondering, Mayank has a girlfriend, and he's in the Basketball school team. And Anish and I discuss about out guitar gods whenever we have the time, and he plays games like he's made them.
   And I? I have the world's biggest bastards as my best friends. :)

[Note: Anish's got a Guitar Grade 4 Exam this wednesday on the 27th! Best of luck Shithead! Distinction awaits!!]