Social Anxiety: Day 2

I woke up and didn’t take a bath. All I was focused on was the career counselling that I had to lead. I had the draft ready and had assigned most of the roles in the team. I didn’t even have breakfast properly because it was sweets again. I was already half unconscious but believed in my past experiences where I forget hunger when I get in the flow. I had to make sure everything went as per the plan.
“May I join you guys?” Anjali interrupted while I was still stressing out.
“Ok. Wherever you fit in,” I affirmed.
Now it starts…
Aditi and I were sent to schools and tuitions to gather as many students as possible. We first visited a primary school.
“Hello everyone, what do you want to become in the future?” I started the session, having nothing else to say.
“I want to become police,” a kid said.
“Oooh, if you become police, who will become the thief?” Aditi added.
I suddenly realised something was not right here—their age. The kids were max in 5th class.
I interrupted the session and came out with Aditi and gave the feedback to her—not to say, “We are here to fix your future,” because it would hurt the teachers around.
Anyway, we moved to different primary schools, not finding suitable students who could digest the career counselling. The primary reason behind this: all the schools, except one, were primary. We had to reach that one school with classes up to 8th. Amid the collection of children for 5th–8th class scholarship tests, I had a light conversation with Aditi.
“By the way, who is the coordinator of your Team Gwalior?” I asked.
“I am,” she said.
What the fu** I thought. All along, the one I was treating like a kid was a leader.
“What happened?” she said, looking at my face.
“Nothing, I thought Anjali is the coordinator.”
“She is the ex-coordinator,” she said.
“Anyway, I was also Team Delhi’s coordinator for a while,” I tried normalising.
After teaching BODMAS to primary kids at a school, we finally reached the venue. The venue where Anshika had already started the career counselling. It was a signal that our plans were already not going as planned. Then came Rishika, Anjali, and a bunch of other volunteers who thought they were helping by interrupting. They thought we had no plans. Anshika had the introduction part, which she was carrying out for the last 1 hour. She couldn’t stop because of her extrovert nature. Then it was my turn, and I made the same mistake of over-explaining. The common feedback, which we all couldn’t follow, was to use Hindi words. Lastly, it was time for the RIASEC test, which was also mistakenly printed in English. Huh… I translated it quickly in a loud voice for the introverted teenagers sitting there in the classroom. It was already too late, and the RIASEC papers were collected, which were supposed to be carried along.
flashback: The RIASEC Test
I was rarely given any career guidance, but thanks to FEA, I got a chance. I was invited to FEA’s head office, Vasant Vihar, and it was not the only time I visited there but also the first time I went somewhere alone. Standing at Madhu Vihar’s bus stand, I called PK and Lalit to accompany me, but their sleep was more important than helping an introvert. So, I went there and reached late. I might be mixing some stories, but anyway. There was a short career counselling session where they distributed a paper called the RIASEC test. It stands for Realistic, Investigative, etc., which helps you find your domain based on what you do every day. At the end, you sum up some scores and get an interest code. Mine was related to research and engineering, matching the dreams I already had. At that time, it felt like I had never taken wrong decisions.
back to day-2
The plans didn’t execute as per the plan. And this time, Reena’s friend wasn’t there to console… all I had was silence to heal me.
“Doesn’t it feel so nice here, out of all the noise that they are making?” I asked.
“Yep,” Surbhi replied.
10 minutes later, it was time to be loaded onto a tractor. I was feeling very low but saw the high energy on everyone’s faces, so I joined in, being an ambivert. I didn’t know the further plans, or maybe I ignored them…
“Take things accordingly, as you are not going to come back today,” Raghav declared in the morning. I was a little worried about the tablet that I carried but didn’t use at all.
Soon, we reached another temple. Wasn’t there a rule that we wouldn’t talk about religion or politics? Hmm, we weren’t talking at least. But hey, it happened again… my casual slippers were gone. I observed that my casual slippers were not just casual for me but for everyone, as they disappeared several times a day.
Anyway, it seemed religion was a serious concern there, so I acted like a theist. I closed my eyes, but it wasn’t the same as the time when I truly wished for something and it never got fulfilled. Huh… aroma. Hmm, let’s move on.
I entered the main area where everyone was making a dish called…
“It’s called daal baati!” someone said.
“Ok, so there is daal inside?” I tried reasoning.
“Noo! There is no daal.”
“But it’s like litti chokha, right?”
It was a fun conversation going on while preparing the material for baati. Baati with tiny beetle-like bugs in it as a special ingredient. That’s why Aditi asked—
“Sir, are you vegetarian or non-vegetarian?”
“I am vegetarian. Why did you ask?”
“Because there are bugs in the flour.”
After a little argument with others, somebody asked, “Except Aditi, is there anyone not interested in eating the dish?”
I raised my hand
Later, I was craving to eat the daal baati with others and had no reason to deny when Anshika—I mean the taller one—kept asking me to sit down and have the feast. Then, I saw rice and declared I would eat daal rice instead of daal baati. After having the meal, I went a little out of the crowd for a 5-minute break in peace. I lay down on a wooden cot.
“Do you hear that sound of the bird? See, I have an app that can recognise the bird by its sound,” Ashish said.
Ok, the 5 minutes never passed as expected.
Finally, I had the feast after a whole day’s fast, and it was time to go back home. I was thinking about it while talking to Isha, then we all stopped midway.
“Get ready, gather the villagers. We are going to perform here!” Raghav declared.
Wtf! What kind of surprise is that? Can even my reflex mode handle this much? Idk.
Surbhi and I quickly went to gather the villagers around, where we met an old man. He continuously asked what the nukkad natak was about. We couldn’t convince him without saying that it was about menstrual hygiene. We kept it as a surprise.
Finally, we had a peaceful walk through the crops. Although our Gen Z volunteers were having fun with loud music, I was hoping it would shut down. Stop buzzing around and watch the dawn. I had only a few people to talk to, so I kept watching the horizon. It seemed unexciting until…
“Let’s have a race till that 2nd pole,” Likhit said.
“Ok. Let’s do it.” I escaped amid the ongoing gossip about Reena’s friend with Surbhi. She always tried to cheer me up with—
“Have you watched that meme?” she says.
me trying to guess… in a millisecond
“You haven’t watched, have you?” she concludes.
me accepting my fate that I love memes but I am not so humorous. The fact was I had deleted Instagram and she was a fan of it.
“I only use Instagram and ChatGPT,” she once said.
In the race with Likhit, I ran so fast that I won, despite him asking me to fake his win, but I lost my NGO’s identity card. Uff… I tried searching a bit, then the tractor came. It was time to load again.
“I saw your ID card while we passed,” the village girl said, whom I had shared the worry with.
“Leave it, I still have the T-shirt,” I said.
Later, we stopped, and I was feeling very thirsty. This time, even Aditi couldn’t arrange water. Finally, I found nothing but Likhit’s bottle filled with chia seeds. It was the last hope but also the worst decision. As soon as I drank it, it felt like severe nausea. I tried to vomit it out, but I couldn’t. I am feeling nausea just by remembering it.
That’s it, now let’s go home. Raghav’s home. While walking on the way, we started distributing pads. To normalise it, I shared a tagline with Surbhi, whom I was paired with. The line: “Kapda hatao, pad lagao.” I know it’s not funny. I shared it with Surbhi, and she shared it with everyone. Nobody laughed. Of course, I didn’t say this tagline to any women there.
We reached the peak of the village—I mean the geographical peak, where Raghav lives. We had biscuits as snacks.
“It would be better with tea,” I said, while everyone glared at me. I noticed Raghav was standing beside me and also noticed how respectful he is among them. We went on the roof, where everyone was looking at the sky, talking to each other or to Raghav’s family. All except me. I felt empty and left out.
~sometimes, it feels like grief to think that this happiness is transient. Overthinking?
We came back, finally back home.
Even though my brain was not braining, I saw everyone still talking to each other, and I had the only time in a long while, so I tried again.
“You know, I have a story about Jyoti,” I said.
We were having dinner. Aditi, sitting beside me, insisted I continue. So I continued.
“I gave an earring to her. Later, we chatted, and I got to know that she is committed. The earring was already gone, but thankfully it was not mine.” It was Bilal’s—one of the guys who tried planning this love story.
It was about 1 AM again, but most of us were still awake. I tried helping with checking the scholarship tests and preparing the award stuff to be given later. I was about to sleep, then thought what Aditi would be doing out in the courtyard. It was already too cold there. Let’s see if I can help.
I saw… people drawing on chart papers. Or I should say, finished and well-decorated posters for their individual stalls for the last day of Gramsutr. Until that time, just a few minutes back, I didn’t even know that I had been assigned a stall too for career counselling.
“And we had to create posters for the stalls?” I spoke out loud.
“Yes, didn’t anyone tell you?” Surbhi said.
“Nope, but anyway. Let’s do it,” I said, giving a not-giving-up vibe.
“Ok, then I am here to help,” she supported.
For a while, I struggled to think of ideas—ideas to create something more unique than beautiful because I knew I am bad at design. Guys around kept complimenting and demotivating me, especially the one who said,
“Ravi sir has social anxiety,” while laughing.
I didn’t respond to her. I was confused about the words she spoke. Electricity got cut off. Suddenly, I found the idea. Instead of drawing freehand, I used a scale to give sharp edges to the letters. Surbhi lit the chart with her mobile torch and kept lighting me up, trying to be funny. I added the line “you can become,” then a list of career options all over the empty area. Not a good design, but we did it. It was already 3 AM.
“Thank you, Surbhi,” I said.
“For what, sir? I didn’t help you.”
“For not sleeping along with me.”
I came back to sleep, and suddenly somebody shouted not to make noise. They were playing a ghost story-telling game, too focused on creating the surroundings suitable to listen to the story than actually listening to it. I came near Ashish and said, “How can they say not to make noise by shouting themselves?” Ashish didn’t reply because he was sleeping.
Later, a girl named Vishakha came shouting—
“Either you guys go to sleep or I will beat you with slippers,” and I felt relief after that.
It was 3:30 AM, and we had to wake up again at 6 AM as declared by Raghav. Still, I couldn’t sleep that early, lost in thought about someone who said I have social anxiety.
…to be continued.

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