5 point someone ::Living the story:: Part 2

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The start of the first round of tests was a big event for all us freshers. Everyone wanted to prove their mettle, to start off the semester on a high..... Well atleast "everyone" thought "everyone" was preparing hard! For the first time in weeks, our minds were "inhabited" by thoughts of serious preparation, otherwise dominated by THE most devilish plots. These new inhabitants, though, were still pretty much a minority, and the effect they had on our preparation is pretty much comparable to the effect our movement has on the orbit of mars (something that i fancy since we were taught newtons third law!! That we pull a planet with an equal force as that of the planet on us) getting back to the point, as the exams arrived, days flew past and we were hit by more than one debacle. The first round was closed book, ironical.... because so was preparation. Our books practically opened up only on pre-exam nights!

I always looked forward to exams while in school. It used to be the time to show those teachers who thought of me as a worthless bag of pawns and pranks, that.... things are not always learnt from books. In college this continued, but after the first round i realised that i liked exams for some other reason. It was the nights before exams that we came up with these awful ideas and pranks that would make the mahatma gandhi statue (just outside our hostel) frown and look away! Being the only ones up at around 3am, we had all of the hostel for ourselves. And we made full use of it! More than necessary i feel, thinking back. For us these nights were the most anticipated thing at that time, in an otherwise pretty dull and mundane village of pilani. The adrenaline rush they brought was incomparable!

Talking of adrenaline rush, the cultural festival of Bits-Pilani, OASIS-2k9 was due that same month (October). This too was meticulously organized in the middle of our second round of tests. This second round was open book (Our books remained closed though!). There was a hype built around this event, a week prior to it though, the aura described by our seniors was missing and prominently too. Sans the buzz and the excitement, we thought we were in for a disappointment. This, considering it was slap-bang in the middle of our second round of tests, was a double whammy (First being the results of round one!). As the date grew upon us and the shadow of a dismal show looming large, all students, clubs, departments put in extra efforts, doubled their work to get results. There was hardly time to spare even for mundane things such as a bath, as people went days together without a brush up.

To be continued.. Part 3............... :)

5 point someone ::Living the story:: Part 1

I was like just another Indian kid. Happy at getting a 90+ percentage in class 12, maintaining a clean record in school, featuring in the IIT-JEE merit list (Don't care if it was a fluke!!), and most of all, getting into a reputed college, BITS-Pilani, one that featured in the top lists of any survey!

I had it all, it felt like all those years spent among piles of books and papers finally DID amount to SOMETHING! All those assurances by my parents (i'm sure they all do it!) that it's just a little struggle now, study hard and get into a good college and you can relax after that... It all seemed true!! There was also a little voice in the back of my head, though, which kept whispering to me: "A little harder, and you could have been MUCH better off!!"... But i always put it away by asking myself, whether i would sacrifice those wonderful moments of enjoyment, fun for all those years??? No way! ke-sara-sara!I was happy with what i had achieved, and so were my parents!! (Actually overwhelmed having written me off as one who hardly ever studies and always settles for second!! :P )

So finally the moment had arrived for me to go away from home, off to fulfill my dream 200kms away. This was the first time i was to move out of the protective "shell" of my parents i'd lived in for , well, all my life!! It was difficult at first, to adapt to all the changes. First i met my room-mate (fro now on referred to as roomie), this hearty guy who at first appeared to be extremely studious and quiet! A character now i would never think of associating him with, he's anything but quiet! More on that later.He was really outgoing, so it was through him that i befriended the rest of the guys in my hostel.

By and by i met them all and we all got along pretty well. Actually too well i guess! When boys get comfortable in someones company they slowly open up and reveal their true "self"! This did not take long for us guys and pretty soon all of us were devising evil plans and pranks together.

At that time it excited me to think that this was the group i was to live with for a year, a feeling i'd soon come to realise was misplaced! As the semester kicked off, lecture halls were jam-packed, everyone would be running from one class to the other, sitting at the canteen for more than 5minutes would be frowned upon, and everyone was discussing acads! As expected, this initial spirit fizzled out in less than a week, surprisingly it lasted a month for me!! But as more and more were disillusioned by the system and methods of teaching, we (our whole wing) was still sincerely attending all classes with many even sure of scoring 10/10!

After that last bit of spirit in us also burned out, we too succumbed to that devilish monster called laziness. We would wake up every morning to see the other sleeping and so, sleep off again. It was like someone had rewired our body clock 6 hrs ahead. Afternoons were our mornings, sometimes even the sunset would be confused with sunrise!! While all this was happening, we did not realise one thing, that the classes were not running on our whims and fancies. We did realise it though, a little too late unfortunately.

Once the first round of tests began, it was a rude wake up call for all of us. Personally i never knew what was going to hit me, and when it did, i didn't know what to do! I knew what i had to do, but "how??" that was the question that i battled with all the time.

To be continued i Part 2........ :)