21 years of age. Tall, around 5'10", wheatish complexion. Why am I telling you this? I am an engineering student and just like 50% of the other Indian engineering students, it wasn't my first passion.

For many people my age, life is pretty sweet, sunny, like the spring season. For me, it's dark and gritty. For those of you who are wondering what happened, I'd say life happened to me.

I was an above-average student and people said I had the ability to be better but I never wanted to be this intelligent book worm kinds, who knows everything about the book and nothing about life.

I always wanted to be a cricketer and was pretty good at it too. I knew I could never make it to the internationals but I knew I could earn enough to meet ends meet for my family. But as someone has very rightly said - "if you belong to the middle-class stratum, you can never run after your dreams if they aren't mainstream."

So on the advice of my parents, I took up engineering and then made it my passion.

It was all going pretty well for me. I had a girlfriend who meant the world to me though she wasn't of my religion and her parents were these staunch, robust Muslims but still, I was managing my relationship responsibly. However, one thing that I've realized is that life never fails to surprise you, it didn't fail to amaze me either.

Just months before the judgment day of my life, I lost one of the biggest supporters of my life. I lost a father figure and no one knows what happened to him except for the fact that his soul is somewhere resting in peace. I didn't give up. That's the one thing I'd been taught. I still had the love of my life with me but that's what only I believed. She didn't. She decided to betray me because I didn't look the same anymore. 

My physical appearance didn't attract her anymore. I had grown darker and she couldn't empathize with my sorrows. She was finding it difficult to understand me suddenly. 

Well, I was not even 19 and I had already lost a pillar of strength. After going through all the grief, I went for the judgment day and guess what? I had underperformed.

My whole life I was mocked, slandered but I fought for the sake of three people - my parents and the person who died. Let's call him Mr. X and once again, it all repeated. People mocked me, they looked through me. I never expressed that it affected me but deep down, it did.

I lost my self-confidence, I lost faith in the entire concept of trust and hope. But still never gave up. And trust me, I'll never give up.

That's all I have - my will power to rise from the ashes, that's the skill that sets me apart from the rest of the crowd in this world I'd say. 

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