“X”: A JOURNEY

Honestly, my itchy fingers had grown quite apprehensive when they realised that they had to come up with a write-up on “X”.

What could the topic and theme be?

And then a friend suggested to write about my encounters with X till date.

And they set out on a journey in the past to dig out the precious moments when they had encountered X.

Kindergarten taught the itchy fingers as to how to draw standing and sleeping lines and etch alphabets in the colourful ruled notebooks. But then came X, an alphabet (a consonant to be precise) that taught them diagonal lines, both forward and backward slash together in a bundle!

As my itchy fingers climbed the education ladder, so did “X”.

In second standard, it graduated from a mere alphabet to the mathematical symbol of Multiplication.

Multiplication of money and happiness is the slogan for the contemporary years, right? I can’t comment if the list is mutually exclusive or exhaustive though.

Courtesy: Google Images

And then in the coming years, “X” took another leap from being a mere symbol to an independent variable. A variable that gave us nightmares as its value had to be found out from a set of seemingly complicated equations. The equations which needed to be subsequently represented through graphs with the specific values of x highlighted using Blank pen.

The situation worsened when the formidable “X” was not alone anymore, it was joined by x₁, x₂, x₃, ……… x_n.

As the years passed by, the independent variable invaded the life of my itchy fingers with its enigma and awe inspiring air. As discussions were now held around some “Mr. X’ or “Miss X” in hushed tones lest anybody came to know about them.  The mystery deepened when the itchy fingers were introduced to “X”-Men via Cartoon Network and subsequently the movie franchisee with sequels and prequels raining here and there. And to add on to that, everyone is searching for the “X” factor in the potential candidate for a job.

I wonder if you can’t define it, then how will you know when you see it!?

Then they realised that nobody has been spared by the mystery surrounding “X” as every inexplicable phenomenon is named as X. It does not have a caste, gender, religion, nationality. I think it represents neutrality.

But wait aren’t the female chromosomes designated to be “XX”? So is there any logic behind the nomenclature or ?

Let my itchy fingers know if you are able to find a solution.

My itchy fingers used to find “X” to be innocent and sometimes sympathised with it too.

Why?

Because nobody asked X for its consent before being assigned to denote some random name, place, animal, thing till any catchy phrase came along.

However, they became all the more confused about the innocence of “X” when they saw the terrorists marking the encircled target area as “X” in the movies.

And weren’t the mistakes highlighted by big red “X” in the notebooks? Now it signifies anything that is prohibited for being illegal or dangerous.

They started to wonder if “X” was really naive, a victim of no fault of itself or just a mean, vile symbol hiding underneath the shroud of innocence.

Before you get all serious about  "X" and the underlying connotations, let me tell you that “X” acquired mushy colours as well from the hush hush secretive ones.

Written at the end of messages/ notes accompanied by o’s sometimes to be something like xoxoxoxoxoxo….

You get the drift, right?

I’m not sure though how many more fortunate and not-so fortunate encounters my itchy fingers are going to have in the years to come. But that is given for my itchy fingers have come a long way with X.

My itchy fingers would like to take your leave at this note for they have to go and explore the unknown, the “X” for now.

This is the 24th post in the series #AtoZChallenge.

This post is also for #BlogchatterA2Z ------> 'X'.