Gossip's Favourite Child

The title of this post may infer my self-centredness coupled with me being full of myself. But as much as it sounds great, I frankly hate being the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons. Hmm, what do I mean, you ask? Well, why is that people forget all the great things you have achieved in your time and instead get fixated with discussing things that, failures aside, are not even true?

Having just read WY's blog and see him reminisce (just googled its spelling) about his good ol' school days, makes me dauntingly aware of what a horrid school life, save for a few memorable excursions here and there, I had.

Any of you seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Walt Disney? My school life could be best described by putting shackles to Quasimodo and tying him up. I honestly did feel like a wingless bird, who hadn't the freedom to lobby his opinions or his rights, or simply how pitiful a teacher's classes were.

But I guess I would have forgotten or at least put them at the back of my head, these issues, whilst I was with my mates. Unfortunately, I could not.

And why?

Because I was gossip's favourite child. Every aspect of my life had to be recollected, reiterated, re-discussed, with its chronology (or even happenings, at times) being tampered with. I'd win a debate, I'd be everywhere, when I'd lose it, I'd still be everywhere. But, you know, that all would have been fine had my class stuck to me through thick and thin.

At the verge of what I describe my school-life-pinnacle, I found myself abandoned and left alone. While schools all over Riyadh gossiped about me, made up stories about me, or simply asked each whether they knew the kid who wrote a book, my class did the exact opposite. They envied me. They hated me. And worst of all, they spread their own set of rumours. Most of these I couldn't even shrug off, because their vastness had increased so many folds, it'd be impossible to go up to each believer and tell them how that was not the case.

If it weren't for people like WY, I truly would have been an isolated soul, who had fame but no friends.

I feel sad, that unlike his friends (who may not care about him anymore), mine didn't accept my strengths as my forte. They didn't enjoy the share in my accomplishments. And I, after a while, gave up trying. I realised that save for them, almost everyone in school had reached out to be friends with me.

But it wasn't the same.

Yes, I may have smuggled cigars into school for them; I may have stood by them in crimes and breaking of school regulations, resisting the urge to fess up, but in this case I found the teachers weren't my friends either, and in deciding against either of the foes, I stuck with my mates.

If I thought that'd bring me respect, I was wrong. They just took me for granted. But, I didn't care. By that time, we were nearing the end of school life, and I looked forward to my University life, which served a polar opposite to the life I was given at school. It was a life without limits. A life without boundaries. A life without shackles. Yes, in true essence, I felt free at university.

Gossip, however, stood by my side. There was gossip at university about me, and surprisingly, there is still gossip going around at school about me.

To say I feel proud that so many years on I am remembered, would be an understatement. Sorry, it would be an overstatement. There is a lot I have accomplished throughout these 19 years of my life. But for some reason, all that is seemed to be lost somewhere in the jungle of gossip. All that's left, is a story, which may have started as a rumour, but turned, through the Chinese-whisper effect, into a false eye-witness account. And at the centre of all that, I lie. Unaware, sometimes. Unconcerned, others. But it hurts, everytime.

My having photos taken with girls earned me more respect of school "friends", than did my ability to speak-out for my rights, to contest elections, to be actively involved university.

Hypocriticism, I call it. And I hate it.

However, I would like to mention a few names from class, who did make sure my school life wasn't entirely a story of a prisoner, doing time for a crime he never committed. A bit extreme, but you get what I mean, right?

Kapitan - taught me how to woo girls and play Table Tennis, one of the few sports I got good at.

Snape - the only guy who accepted me as a friend for what I was.

Ali G. - called me names that made me cringe sometimes, but probably the greatest friend of them all.

and T.Q - the one person who made school life hell as well as a great place to be, too. More about him, later perhaps.

Like I said, save for a few accounts that made school life enjoyabale, I did not like school. I did not like my teachers. I did not like the gossip that went round. I still don't like the gossip that goes round. But now there's very little I can do.

As Zo'd put it: "Stop whining! You're famous!"