On the last night of my travel, as I was asleep in my bedroom in Goa, I had an unusual dream. Its content was in keeping with the generic narrative that my subconscious concocted since my formative days for dealing with stress. Because of my childhood fear of Marathi and Math, two subjects at which I was never particularly adept, whenever I have the pressure of delivering an assignment, I am reacquainted with the recurring dream in which I am suddenly back in school and find myself unexpectedly having to give an exam in either subject.

It's always an event that catches me unaware. I experience palpitations, alongside a sense of dread of the consequences of my inevitable failure. I actually did flunk Math once in Std VI. I almost flunked Marathi several times. The legitimate fear of both subjects persists. In my adulthood, however, it is more representative of a symbolic fear of failure, where I am so paralysed by anxiety that I procrastinate until it is too late.