Midnight Thesis

At some point, dreaming felt reckless. Planning felt manageable.

Hello. I’m back.

I know it’s been a while — college has a way of swallowing time whole. But today, I want to talk about dreams.

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam said, “Dream, dream, dream.”

I say that the people who dream are the luckiest of all…

I envy children who say things like, “I’m going to be an astronaut,” or “I’ll build a fighter jet,” or the worst, “I’m going to be Iron Man.” At some point, dreams stopped sounding ambitious and started sounding irresponsible. When did dreaming start to feel so far-fetched?

When we were younger, nothing felt impossible. Fairies, witches, genies — they all existed as easily as gravity. Now they’ve been reduced to escapism, to delusion. We don’t dream anymore. And even when we think we do, it’s a fantasy, not a dream.

Dreams are risky.

What if they fail? What if they don’t work out?

Once, dreaming was enough. Now even dreams need a safety net. They need backup plans, acceptable outcomes, and exit strategies — just enough hope to keep going, but not enough to hurt if it collapses.

IIT was called my dream.

But was it?

Maybe it was my parents’ dream. Maybe my teachers’. For me, it was a plan — segmented, timed, optimised. A plan that didn’t always execute the way it was supposed to, but a plan nonetheless. Because dreams are unstable. They shimmer like mirages. Or maybe that’s just what we call them when we’re too afraid to want them honestly.

We’ve forgotten how to dream. Now, the only “dreams” we have are fantasies, the ones we see with our eyes open, and delusion, the ones we give up on after scrolling Instagram for an hour. Dreams were supposed to be propulsion — the thing that kept you restless until you reached them. Now they’re reduced to strange films our brains play during REM sleep.

Dreams demand obsession, passion, attention, and pleasure.

Obsession to keep you fixated.

Passion to keep you moving.

Attention to keep you sharp.

Pleasure to keep you from quitting.

But where is the space for that now?

Dreams need time. They need risk. And in a world where 17-year-olds are already worrying about supporting themselves a decade from now, who has either? Stability becomes the priority at 17 — and life quietly loses the race. Living loses the race.

So we plan instead.

We plan our dreams. Then we plan around those plans. And somewhere along the way, living slips to second place — or last. For some of us, it doesn’t even make the list. The only comfort we give ourselves is the promise that one day we’ll have time to live, to feel, to do more than just exist.

But somewhere, deep down, I know the truth.

That day doesn’t come.

The world never becomes safe enough for dreams.

If I want to dream again, I won’t need time — I’ll need courage.

So to those who can still dream freely: I envy you more than anything.

And to those who understood every word of this — I’m sorry for your loss.

But the time will never come.

The silent breakdowns nobody talks about.

Okay. So where do we begin? Let’s begin with me.

I’m 17, living in India — which automatically makes this account authentic, whether anyone likes it or not.

Life here feels like a blur of highs and lows, twisted tighter than rollercoaster rails. I’m currently in college, and I think the entire world might agree with me on this: college couples are insufferable. Every time I see one, my brain asks a very sincere question — why? Why willingly sign up for drama that lasts a few months and ends exactly how everyone knows it will?

And yet.

There’s a smaller, quieter part of me — the part that wants to be held and healed — that trembles with jealousy. With envy. With want.

Relationships have seeped into every corner of Indian adolescence now. From 12-year-olds to 30-year-olds, everyone wants a partner. The 30-year-olds — fair enough. But the 12-year-olds? Please. Put the chits down and pick the textbooks back up.

And I get the appeal. I really do. As a broken-but-healing, academically traumatised Indian girl, I want a boyfriend too. Someone with strong arms — arms that could hold me together when I feel like I’m coming apart.

But I don’t see it happening anytime soon. Not necessarily because I can’t get one — though that fear exists — but because hyper-independence is a strange curse. You want to rely on someone, but you don’t allow yourself to. You want to be kissed, but you hesitate — do I really want to give that to someone? You want to be held, but you wonder: will those arms support me? And if they can… will they?

Let’s not sink entirely into existential dread. I was talking about being 17 — not my non-existent love life. Forgive me.

Because being 17 is also fun. You get this strange, newly unlocked freedom — and absolutely no idea what to do with it. You learn that freedom isn’t butterflies and cupcakes. It’s more like: Do I actually have money for this? Why do I need to wash my clothes again — I just did that three days ago? And occasionally: Yes, we can have a midnight party! Unless you’re tired. In which case, sleep wins.

Being 17 in India feels like existing halfway between a child and an old grandmother. You’re excited about a trampoline park — but you also hope your back survives it. You’re dopamine-fuelled, confused, restless, exhausted — a walking paradox. You want to go out, but… do we have to? You want to make friends, but talking to new people is oddly draining. You want to have fun, but wow — why does my back hurt?

It’s a messy in-between. You’re still deeply attached to your parents, and living without them feels hard — but you’re learning to try. You’re learning how to keep secrets from them, even though part of you wants to spill everything to your mother like she’s your personal gossip partner. I know this transition happens earlier in the West. For me, it’s happening now.

You learn that emotional independence isn’t glamorous. That financial independence is intimidating. That growing up is far messier than anyone prepared you for.

You realise the so-called “golden years” aren’t polished gold — they’re murky, unrefined. Still valuable. Just not as shiny. You learn that Instagram isn’t really a fun place — it’s either a way to shut your brain off completely or overload it all at once. You become aware of the world’s problems, and then the even bigger ones waiting ahead. You learn to admire the future — and fear it — simultaneously.

Honestly, I think I’ve run out of words.

The feeling of being 17 isn’t easy to define. But this is my attempt.

In this frantic, breathless world of academics, I want to shine the spotlight not on China, America, Germany, or Japan. No. Today, it’s India’s turn — the land of Bollywood, chaotic festivals, and a thali big enough to humble the gods.

And yet, the greatest marvel of this country isn’t its monuments. It’s its children — specifically the 11th and 12th graders training for the most brutal academic war on Earth.

Everyone knows JEE Advanced is difficult. But most people don’t understand how difficult.

Imagine a 6-hour exam split into two 3-hour battles, with a 2-hour limbo in between. Imagine a paper with no fixed format — no guarantee of difficulty, question count, or even total marks. Now add an obscene syllabus spanning 70+ chapters:

all of Chemistry (Simple mole concept to Thermodynamics to Equilibria, Simple organic compunds to Aldehyde and Ketones to Amines, Biomolecules and Polymers and all of the periodic table obviously, you can't forget about the chapters on s-block, Hydrogen, p-block, and d and f blocks),

all of Physics (From Mechanics to Rotational to Fluid Dynamics to Thermodynamic to Electromagnetics to Optics ending with Modern Physics) and...

all of Mathematics (from Algebra to Trigonometry to Co-ordinate Geometry to Combinatorics to Number Theory to 3D Vectors and Geometry).

You walk in knowing everything — and also knowing you still don’t know enough.

Let me give you the numbers.

15 lakh students take JEE Mains. 10% qualify for Advanced. Out of those, around 10,000 get top-tier IITs.

Break that down: For a general student, the effective success rate is 0.6%.

For Computer Science and relative branches at a top IIT? Cut that in half — 0.3%.(Approximately, it's probably less than that)

Stanford, MIT, Cambridge? People talk big until they see what an Indian 17-year-old is competing against. I’d pay good money to watch an MIT engineer attempt JEE Advanced relatively, not with marks — with ranking. Let’s see how they fare among our little war machines.

Yes, war machines. That’s what these kids are turned into.

They wake up at 4 or 5 a.m., attend 8 hours of school, 4 hours of coaching, then go home to study more. No phones — maybe a Nokia brick if they’re lucky. No festivals. No weddings. No life.

People work 9–5; these kids work 5–9, in the world outside, a lot of homework left too, you know.

For two years straight.

And after surviving this academic torture chamber, the world still expects them to be “well-rounded.” Good at sports. Good at communication. Good at life.

What a joke.

The ones who actually enter IIT spend their first semester repairing themselves — fixing communication skills, learning sports, trying to adjust to a course load that would make normal people collapse. They’re exhausted, fried, traumatized — and somehow expected to be grateful.

And don’t get me started on those dreamy high-school coming-of-age stories. The prom nights. The baseball games. Teens saving their town while also getting internships with Tony Stark and MIT acceptance letters.

Sometimes I wonder how wildly I would’ve flourished in the US. How easy everything would have felt.

But luck isn't always on our side, is it?

People say, “It’s a rat race.” They tell Indian kids to step out of it.

Step out to where, exactly?

In a country where there are a million cricket enthusiasts in every state, but only 11 play in the World Cup? Where a child supporting their family cannot risk pursuing a dream?

At least IIT offers a 0.6% hope. NEET offers 0.09% for AIIMS.

And we still talk about Harvard and Johns Hopkins as if they’re in the same universe as our reality.

So this is my rant for the week. If you made it this far — thank you.