Literature: NOT my 'Only Option' after Cancer

In a recent conversation about time travel I was told that had I not had cancer then I might have been pursuing medical or something else. It might have been a hypothetical example. It might have been a personal belief. But it is not the first time that I was said so. I went down the rank sheet post cancer. There was a time when I was among the toppers of my class and I aspired to be the highest scorer in the 10^th boards, then there was the time when the ranks didn’t bother me. In between there was cancer.

But was it merely cancer that stopped me from being the topper? People around me focused on keeping me happy and stress free. To them, fighting cancer was my biggest achievement. I was never scolded again for my poor marks. I chose then to be on the side track of the rat race that I had once aimed to win. In the road without the constant pressure to be on top, I discovered my love for reading which was always there in a passive form.  This love (or an escape) made me want to pursue English Literature. It was not a backup plan; it was not an ‘if not anywhere then here’ decision. It was the decision of a student who chose science in the first place; a decision that she dared not speak outrightly but dropped hints to her parents every now and then.

I loved Mathematics as much as I love English. I always believed once you taste the pleasure of a hundred, you can’t be satisfied with a ninety-nine. In the end, I owe my love for Mathematics to a particular teacher in my life. I was an average scorer before and after him. Apart from Maths, Science and Social studies never really caught my attention. Work hard, understand the concept, and get the marks. That was the strategy. Meanwhile, English was the subject in which my marks were consistent. I wanted to answer every question asked in the classroom. I actually prepared for the English class in advance. And yet, my decision to study Literature (after spending days and nights with my nose inside the novels of all sorts) was always met with ‘had you/she not had cancer, you/she could have been good in studies and pursued something else (something better).’

In the last four years of studying Literature, there were moments when I had just wanted to find ‘x’, because prior to the smell of old and new books ‘x’ had my heart racing. It has always been like the memory of a past lover one occasionally thinks of with a smile that says, it ended for the good.

Nobody has ever asked me, what do you study in literature? I have only received, ‘Arre literature ka kya hai, kitaabein padho aur summary likh aao, mehnat thodi karni hai.’ Initially it made me angry. But today it doesn’t bother me. One of the things that literature taught me is that, you cannot make a person listen/see when he chooses to be deaf/blind. Then they also tell me, there is no use of studying books written in the 17^th century. I wonder if they invented Science today. Where is any subject without its censored/uncensored history? Where is history itself without the fiction that many find useless?

In the end I chose what I really wanted to study. I have no one to blame, not even my cancer. I am an ardent lover of books. My day can light up with the sight of a book even before reading it. I might not be the topper in my class any more, but my passion for literature can totally burn Westeros, not just the Sept of Baelor. Sure I need money to survive in this capitalist world and it isn't easy. But if the female dinosaurs could find a way to breed in the Jurassic Park, I am pretty sure I can find a way to make a living in what I really enjoy. 

Lastly, to the ones who think I could have been in a better place if not for my cancer, I don’t think it would have made a difference. To the ones who expected me to get into an MBBS course, I am not responsible for your disappointment. To the ones who thought of me as an aspiring rat race winner, I always had have been a rebel if not a dreamer. If not for cancer, I would never have thought of being a doctor. It was a distraction, a choice made under the concentrated environment of doctors, nurses, and medicines and  their side effects.. If cancer played any role in my career then it was by taking me to the wrong path to know the right one (right and wrong being completely relative terms here).