8 The Hunger strike

Only 5 days was there in between my alloted counseling day and I was out of all options to convince my family, except this last one. HUNGER STRIKE!! I decided not to eat till they agree or till the counseling date which ever happens earlier. So far in my life i never skipped more than a meal, but now i should not consume any solid food as many days as possible, and this was my last resort to execute my plan.

First day it was quite manageble. But felt little a bit uneasy to sleep that night so had lot of water to fill my stomach. Second day morning i started feeling tired, i mostly stopped using my energy and spent most of the time to distract myself by keep on drawing linga images or praying. With each hour being passed, it was becoming more and more difficult to keep up. But somehow i pushed myself not to give up, cause this is my last chance, if i miss it then i have to continue in Arts & Science degree.

I don't have anything against Arts and Science course, but mass public opinion at the time was that the Job opportunity with engineering degree was more, compared to Arts and Science courses and also we had to take up both under graduation and post graduation courses before applying for MNC jobs in arts and science ( Course duration: 6 years) , but in BE only under graduation course is enough to apply where the course duration is 4 years. Even though the fees is high in engineering if we managed to get job in MNC pay will be also high. Basically i wanted to start earning money as soon as possible. This was my moto.

There are other courses were the pay will be top notch, but either those were very very expensive or i was not aware of it at that time. Anyway i wanted to follow the side where public trend was moving.

On third day morning of hunger strike, my body started trembling, since it was a Sunday i got to stay at home, but each minute i was wavering and every cell in my body was screaming for some solid food instead of water. I was at the verge of abandoning all my resolution for the exchange of a cup of rice/ anything in the kitchen.

It was becoming tough, to resist my temptation, i stayed upstairs, as far away as possible from kitchen. Finally on third day night my father miraculously agreed to take me to counseling. Note: He only agreed to take me to counseling, but the college selection and whether or not i will be enrolled in the college stills remains a question. But for me, even this zero watts green light was like touching the Everest peak, and of all the above, i can finally EAT now. I never felt even a plain DOSA will bring me this much joy to my heart😍. After a couple of troublesome weeks, i finally got to sleep at peace that night.

Sometimes i wonder if my father didn't change his decision on third day, would i had left with any will power to extend the stike for another meal let alone another day? I dont know, but thank god it didn't go to that.

Next day he made all the plans, One of my relative aunt would be also joining us to Chennai (she was traveling for a different cause) and my father wanted to drive us, all the way, in his car( around 500 km). When i meant car, don't think much fancy, it was used to transport the iron tools locally. So it was a basic model and mostly worn out which my father bought unnecessarily by using the left out nest money 2 years back. Actually it was not fit for long distance travel at all , but since i was so desperate if he even planned to make us walk all the way from Salem to Chenni, i would have happily obliged. My aunt didnt prefer this travel plan, but its difficult to say no to my father.

He even added few stops like visiting our 'kula deivam' temple( temple for a clan diety) and a relative's home on the way.

Finally the day for travel came. Seriously If we would have took a public bus or train, by max we could have reached in 6-7 hours. But wait, that cant happen, my life is like a series of unfortunate events movie, it cant be that simple. 😎

It took us literally 24 hours to reach the destination. !!😓😓