In a Parallel Universe, Maybe…

Featured image: Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights

The Road Not Taken (-Robert Frost)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as  far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And perhaps having the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I wanted to be a Physics major. Fact. I bungled my boards. Facter. I am a computer major. Factest.

I love being a computer major, I won’t lie. It makes me feel slightly guilty, though- this love for coding and developing- like I’ve betrayed Physics, like I’m cheating on it somehow. “So you enjoy Turbo C’s company more than mine now, huh?”, I can imagine my Halliday-Resnick-Walker say contemptuously. “I wouldn’t have been able to do you justice, mate! Put yourself in my position and you’ll get me.”, I feel like snapping back.

I still watch Brian Greene videos, marvel at Quantum Entanglement, cry every time I watch the last ten minutes of the BBC biopic on Hawking, have stimulating discussions like ‘Are we the only ones?’ and ‘Did something set off the Big Bang?’ with some of my friends and smile in reminiscence every time I remember a Ketan-Sir-special pun or quote.

Despite all that, I know I wouldn’t have made a good Physics major; I just know. But who knows, maybe the multiverse theory is true, maybe in a parallel universe, I did choose Physics over Computers. Looking at it this way comforts me immensely.

I shall be grateful for this
At some point in space-time:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I gave both of them a try,
And that thought makes all the difference.