Dubai Diaries: A confession long overdue

Let me begin with a confession. Hope this will help you cleanse your sins as well. I have been carrying this burden in my heart for way too long. On my darkest days when the mind plunges to the deepest depths of despair, this has reared its ugly head and mocked me with its gummy grin. On days when I don’t feel good about myself, this little secret would hold a mirror and show me the worst about myself. This has been going on for more than 25 years. This has to stop. And the only way for me is to confess, in print, for the world to read and not judge.

Ok. I think I have mustered enough courage. Wait! Is there a little voice in my head that is asking me to pause? Let me listen. No. In fact, it is telling me… urging me to go for it. This is my chance. Why am I punching randomly at my keyboard? Let me get to the fact ramrod straight. But a quick reminder to my readers before I bare it all. To err is human, to forgive divine. Okay, no, I am finally ready.

I cheated on an exam in college. I CHEATED on a mock history exam in my final year undergrad. For my mates who are reading it: Yes, I yielded to pressure and cheated. We had decided to collectively cheat because none of us were prepared and did not want to disappoint our history professor.

We still had time for the board exams, and we thought we would ace in the finals. But what could horribly go wrong did go wrong. In between manoeuvring the concealed textbook on my lap and taking surreptitious glances while pretending to be studiously pouring ink into the answer sheets, I got caught. I got told off in front of the whole class that I should be ashamed of what I did, especially because I was the college chairperson and was designated to lead by example.

I still remember with horror how a deafening silence swallowed the literature classroom as my head sagged in shame. The defeat of the invincible Spanish Armada by Sir Francis Drake, which I was meticulously copying from the hidden textbook to my answer sheet, paled in comparison to my trouncing at the hands of my beloved teacher. My partners in crime (there were quite a few) took their hands off the cookie jar in the nick of time. They cleaned up the mess and abruptly got to the task of regurgitating the little something they knew about Anglo-Saxon history.

Like the commander of a vanquished army, I sat there in pain and utter shame. My biggest fear was my mom, who was also my English professor in the same college, discovering my academic transgression. One of the senior-most faculties in the English department, she certainly would get crushed by the ignominy her daughter brought upon her.

Luckily, all my other teachers, her beloved colleagues and friends, decided that mom deserves the bliss of ignorance. So, she remains that way till date. For all these years, I did not have the courage to tell her. I thought she would not speak to me for a month. So, finally here is my confession, mom. I am not proud of what I did. That is not who I am. Now I stand the risk of my mom giving me the silent treatment for doing it in the first place and not telling her for this long. That is trouble.