Autobiography

It would be pretty demanding if you expect a flamboyant tale of adventure. Yet, I am not very dry either. As mentioned in my research journey, I was born in Kerala on April 15, 1997. My birth was quite eventful as my father was off on a hajj (Pilgrimage in Islam), and he was quite impatient and wanted peace of mind, so he asked my mom to be admitted to the hospital before he left. Further complicating the story, my birth was delayed, and the baby me just wouldn’t come out. My mother’s cousin had his wife admitted to the same hospital on the same day later that night. Of the two, she gave birth first, and thus the family members who came to meet the baby me got impatient and left after meeting her. I was born later, close to midnight. That year a tragedy befell the hajj pilgrimage area. A fire broke out, and many had succumbed to the fire. My mom was distraught, but fortunately, he was well.

My father was an expatriate in Saudi Arabia, and two years later, my mom, me, and sis moved in with him. My parents homeschooled me until I joined Yara International School in fourth grade. My mom ran a tuition center in Saudi Arabia while my father worked for a company named Al-Mohsen; now you know where I got my name from. My father knew the importance of computer literacy, and he wanted me to be good at it. As a result, he gifted me with a PC back then and installed all the educational software. He even arranged for me to work in a computer shop to learn hardware skills. Acts that forever influenced my education and instilled a notion of “knowledge is fun” within me.

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I had a friend back then who was a year older than me. She migrated from India and wanted to join a school in Riyadh. My mom taught both of us together, and finally, we took the entrance to the school together. She was supposed to join fourth grade while I third, something the young me couldn’t come to terms with. As a result, when I was attending entrance to enter school. I answered fourth to a teacher who asked me which grade I wanted to join. She handed me entrance questions for the grade, and I passed with better grades than her. My parents weren’t very convinced but let me join fourth anyways. This had a profound impact. I was the smallest one in class, and as a result, sports was a nightmare for me. I spent a good amount of my PE classes in the library reading books.

My father was particularly insistent on critical thinking and encouraged asking questions in classes. This taught me to be critical of the information that I received and reflected in how people perceived my identity for the rest of my life. I was never at the top of my class, and my parents didn’t care either though my teachers wanted me to be more competitive in the race for grades as they found me capable of it; I, on the other hand, spent time reading books I found interesting. I was not bad at studies but wasn’t the best either though I used to ace most of my math tests and was lauded for being good at it. I do not regret this one bit because marks never mattered. To this day, I enjoy the tag of being widely knowledgeable across a plethora of topics and beyond the limits of textbooks, while all those mugged-up knowledge vanished for most of my peers. I was not at odds with all my teachers. I had a few teachers I loved and who loved me back, namely, Faisal: Social sciences, and Aslam and Sreejith, my math teachers. I would particularly mention Faisal sir, as he and my father formed much of my base of social understanding.

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I have credited my father a lot more than my mother while I wrote this, whatever you call this. My mom is a loving person with whom I didn’t get along as much as I got along with my father when I was younger. Later parts of my life saw me getting closer to her while my sister drew closer to my father. I have learned a lot from her. She arguably taught me much of my interpersonal communication skills. I am admittedly inferior to her when it comes to making and keeping friends. She is a fantastic multitasker who molded me into what I am today and, yes, my sister too—having her as my playmate has subjected me to sibling effect and taught me how to treat a lady.

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After my tenth, I came back to India to join a school here. I shifted between the house of a few of my aunts before I finally stayed at a Yatheem Ghana (an orphanage run in Muslim style) as a paying guest. This phase in my life taught me empathy, what being underprivileged meant, and what difficulties in life truly meant. I have met young orphans being brought up by clerics while not having the love, care, and attention given by a parent. They were loving and very amicable people, but I have noticed that they lack what you call ambition and drive to want to succeed in life and climb the social ladder. This experience humbled me, and I often tried to find time to teach them. I am convinced that I would adopt at least one child in my life. My stay at this place was short and was only three months, but it left a profound impact on my life. I had to move out of the place when a child abuse case surfaced at this place. Though all the kids in this place lacked the attention they would get from a parent, there was a man who truly cared about them. I am not patronizing or endorsing child abuse here, but he was the only one who truly cared and wanted them to do their best in their life ahead. The man in question was disappointed at the kids’ poor performance in school despite his best efforts to educate them to bring them out of their strata, and he subjected them to paddling. This became a controversy inflated by a few people who had issues with him and paraphrasing paddling with a Malayalam word, something closely used for molestation, though it also encompasses physical abuse.

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Parallel events were happening at school and the tutoring center. I met a girl at the tutoring center whom I was infatuated with, only to find that she was my classmate. She was a studious girl and had excellent grades. I had heard that Sir Isaac Newton had a bully that inspired him to start studying to get grades. In my case, I did not want to score low and be in her bad books - Ahhh!!!! The things you do for love. I even befriended her best friends to get close to her. Before I could ask, she ended up in another relationship, but her best friend and the team became my besties ever since.

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In India, much research-oriented higher education takes place surrounding IITs, IISc, IISERs, and other institutes of national importance, and I had never even heard about it until the mid or late part of my eleventh. In contrast, kids from many other areas start their excruciating preparation from grade five. I am not a fan of such broiler chicken breeding. I had started focusing on getting grades and preparing for these exams ever since and took a drop year to achieve the same.

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The drop year was an amazing period of my life, unlike any other person I later met who took drop year. We had a wonderful time in our hostel and had an amalgamation of studies and joy. Those who watched the Dead Poets Society should know that any enjoyment you reap from a constricting environment is far more enjoyable than anything of higher scale done in an environment with freedom. After the drop year, I joined IISER Trivandrum.

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At IISER Trivandrum, I was an active student. I was part of the Mess Committee, Student Council, and Placement Cell. Other notable things that I take pride in include establishing Pragathi, the blood donation society of IISER TVM. More than any of these, I met many amazing people and made quite a lot of friends while taking my baby steps in the research field and my first bouts in the active pursuit of love and being in a relationship. My final year at the institute was horror in its own realm as the nostalgic walks with friends, and goodbye hugs were cut short when the pandemic hit, forcing us to leave immediately by February 15 of 2020.

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What followed was a disastrous time of depression, endowing the most challenging times I had faced in my life thus far. A raging pandemic forced me to shut myself within the confinement of my home. It was my worst nightmare come true for an extrovert such as myself, and I was depressed and exceptionally so. Albeit, it was also a time I took to bond with my family, whom I had been years apart ever since my tenth. I often questioned what I was doing with my life as I rafted through those tough times. Undeniably, harsh as it may be, this time had many awakening moments about priorities in life, which would have taught the reader as much as it taught me.

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I joined Rahul Roy’s group in 2022, and the journey continues.