Ignorance killed the cat; curiosity was framed!

[This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses schools, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.]

 

“Ignorance killed the cat;

         curiosity was framed!"

                         

                                            - Quote by C. J. Cherryh

Four years ago

Electromagnetism is the physical interaction among electric charges, magnetic moments, and the electromagnetic field. The electromagnetic field can be static, slowly changing, or form waves. Electromagnetic waves are generally known as light and obey the laws of optics.


I was scratching the back of my eleven year old head trying to decipher what Google was trying to say with that. It was something I did very often lately. Googling concepts of science to understand- from little something to absolutely nothing.


Despite that, I enjoyed the process. It was all a part of ‘preparation for school’ as I would have said back then. Schools in my country offered science as one subject till 5th grade. It branched into physics, chemistry and biology in 6th grade, which was about to start for me soon.


I fantasised about getting to use the laboratories. All those colourful chemicals in chemistry lab, the  glamorous apparatus in physics lab and the microscopes in biology lab that I couldn’t wait to have my hands on.


For obvious reasons, I was ever enthusiastic on my ride to school on the first day. When I entered the premises, I could see my fellow classmates were too.


While entering the classroom I saw a bunch of seniors looking stressed out over what seemed like a class test that was due that day.


Some of them had given up on trying to score good, some were regretting going for science and some were staring so hard at the book, as if doing so would imprint all the contents in their brain.


Weird, I thought to myself. Why would someone want to study at the exact last moment when given an entire year for the same?


The bell rang as a cue for the students to get into their respective classes.


The first period in my class was physics.


As the teacher entered, everyone greeted her in unison and without returning the greeting she asked us to note down a few points in our notebooks.


‘A few’ ended up being three pages long. At first, I refused to write anything that seemed Greek and Latin to me. I seeked clarification on topics before blindly writing about them. But each time I raised my hand to ask a question, the teacher said “later”. So I did what the other kids were doing.


The bell rang. Next teacher came, she gave notes too. I learnt too late that ‘later’ was not a thing in reality. In the second lecture of physics, I reminded the teacher of answering my doubts.


She sighed heavily and said “That’s out of syllabus”.

That’s when I felt that knot in my chest tighten with dissatisfaction.

Now

I am standing in a quiet spot next to a sixth grade classroom along with other friends of mine. We’re having our board exams going on currently and today is physics. I have by-hearted nearly the entire textbook so I guess I’m good to go, unless application based questions are asked.


Even after continuous rot-learning I feel under confident. My friends are talking about how much they regret taking science. Maybe I regret it too. Though I don’t exactly remember if it was that way from the start.


“You listening?” I am brought back to the present by a classmate who seems to have been calling out my name for a while.

“Yeah?”

“Is electromagnetism in the syllabus?” she asked, and I zoned out for a complete second. What if it is-


I rushed to the class topper and echoed the question.

“That’s out of syllabus” he said. And I felt that knot in my chest loosen as I felt nothing but relieved.

***

From then to now,

From attending lectures to know , to “attending” them for the sake of attendance.

From wanting to learn to wanting to ignore…

Somewhere, that curious child in us is suffocated, choked and at some point-


I will leave finishing that sentence up to you…