Undergraduate /
"MY OWN CURIOUS CASE " Feedbacks on my admission essay... [13]
This is my first draft. So, errors are bound to happen. I want to know whether the concept clicks to the reader or not. Here, I tell a story through which I try to reflect myself. Feel free to comment on it. Suggestions and criticisms are welcomed. Also tell me the parts that I can dispose off. I dont want to make it long and boring.
My own curious caseAlmost eleven years back, my mom gifted me with a table-clock. With a pink and white body and arms that fluoresced at night, the clock looked perfect. Its beauty was my source of pride and its rhythmic ticking, my inspiration. Only once in a while, when the battery would be completely used up, would it bother me. We were happy together for two years till one day it stopped breathing. I bought a fresh pair of battery but still it did not come back to life. In desperation, I asked my dad to get it fixed but he replied annoyingly,
"Can't you see I am busy? Here, take mine. I will get you a new one tomorrow."
Get a new one? I was infuriated. I decided to mend it myself. Stealing my dad's tool box, I managed to open up the clock. To my dismay, inside of it was even more complicated than a human body! I started to inspect it carefully, like a cell under a microscope. Then, I tried to forcibly move its second-hand. It still did not work. I pressed the spring of the clock just to create even more trouble. Next day, I again tried different techniques. I checked the metal plates connecting the battery and moved the oscillating wheels. Nothing worked at all. Next, I borrowed my dad's table-clock and opened it up as well. I compared its inside with that of my clock. Just like a corpse alongside a living body, they looked exactly identical, except for the sound one made and the haunting silence the other possessed. Third day, in absolute despair, I took off the wheels and all the hands from their places. I then fixed them back to their positions. Without much expectation, I still connected the battery. To my surprise, I heard an abrupt sound "Tick". Then, in a perfect rhythm, the sound started to repeat "Tick, tick, tick". My clock was working!
But something weird was happening. The second-hand was moving in the opposite direction. What had I done? After five minutes, the minute-hand shifted from six to five. I thought of dismantling the whole thing again. "But what will I do if it stops working altogether?" I put on its cover and kept it gently in its precise position on my tiny table. I thought God must have had played a trick on me. In naïve revenge, I planned to trick God instead. I took my permanent marker and marked '6' in big font above '12'. Similarly, '9' of the clock became my '3' and '3' my '9'. My darling clock looked different from its peers, yet as efficient as any other of its kind in the world.
Few months before, while I was watching "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", I saw a clock in that movie which functioned exactly like mine. While that giant clock was deliberately designed to work in the reverse direction, mine was by chance. For seven years, it had served me without ever complaining. When I think of my clock, I realize that we do not just share an emotional bond, but a huge part of our identity itself. We do not give up that easily. When my clock was not working, I did not just go out and buy another one. Instead, I tried in every way to fix it. When I succeeded, it went on to live for five more years, in reverse direction, defying its very basic rule. In a way, we look quite stubborn; determined I would say. We are not the ones who perpetually freak out. No wonder why my friends and family got more worried than I when I did not enroll in any college last year.
We two share a common take on life- things may go reverse, still we move forward.
