I seem to have talent for losing. Don’t know when and how I developed the skill. Effortlessly, I can lose. Don’t even have to try.

While all my friends clamor for the first seat on the first bench, I am happy to be right behind. My height is a blessing. The teachers don’t seem to mind. Actually no one does. I am happy.

Usually when a question is fired by the teacher, it’s fielded immediately by deft hands in the front rows. Just to ensure that it doesn’t reach me, I quickly duck below. I pretend to search for some non-existent book on the floor and keep groping. It used to work sometimes. But since I am born loser, the teachers somehow observe my actions and single me out for questioning. I never have the answers. Even today, I don't.

On the playground, it's even worse. I don’t like to play. Simply because I am tired of losing. I still remember the day last year, when I was the last man standing at the crease and all hopes of victory lay on my broad shoulders. The ball came flying straight at me and I ducked. I remember the boos, the shrieks, shouts and screams. I really didn’t know that the human vocal chords could produce such atrocious sounds. I had to close my ears, bow my head and slink quietly away, while the victorious team was drumming in time to my gait.

They say that winners never quit. But I don’t quit either. If I don’t clear an exam, I sit in the same class. I never, ever quit. But yet they call me a loser. Isn’t that unfair? You just think of it. Here I am, sitting in one class and trying to practice, practice and practice till I am perfect and they call me a loser?

“ Friends, Romans and countrymen, lend me your ears.”

I am trying to mug it up now. I hate these chaps who sit and write these things. And we have to sit and mug it up. Word for word.

How simple it would have been if he just said “LISTEN!” or “HEAR”. One word. Finished. Matter ends there.

If I write it in my own words, teachers don’t like it. Poems are even worse. I have to sit and mug up whole stanzas.

“If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss"

Now, just look at this poem which I’ve been asked to study. The poet says that’s it’s ok to lose. As long as no one knows about it.

But my teacher wants everybody to know. My parents, my classmates and even worse, her own daughter. Now no chance of winning her ever. Oh, what a life!