What matters is....the result !!

I had done a blunder in the first paper of upsc civil service exam, yeah yeah you can laugh on a poor software engineer who is trying his luck for a high profile government job, and that poor fellow is none other than me.  Its not that I went unprepared, I had scanned at least two books wrote on general studies, without even thinking why I wanted to know the name of an animal which was printed on a coin which was found in an ancient city called mohan jodero (not sure at all if I wrote the city name correctly). But the point here is I was preparing for this from last two months and still was not very sure that why vultures are rarely seen nowadays, yes this was one of the easiest question but with one of the toughest options given to choose from, chuck it…

Here I was, in a real congested environment, searching for a small piece of land mass to dump my bum. I had read something called population burst in India, now was able to see it live. People really need government job, at least the count of person appearing, forced me to think of it. Everyone, with hell lot of seriousness on their faces was busy staring in some or the other book. ‘I just want a place for my not so big pair of books (what did you think?)

With no other option, I placed my bag on fuel tank of a bike which was standing just in front of the gate and sat it on it like Ghostrider and opened the book which had a title of ‘how to clear aptitude test in one week’ Bad joke…I know. I had hardly read three lines, heard someone shouting so loud that I think even bats would have heard (see the impact of such intensive study) ‘hey you, the one on the bike’. I realized that he was addressing me. ‘Get the hell down from my bike’ he added in his extra decibels. I glanced at the bike, it was not a brand new, neither was it Harley Davidson, so I was unmovable, and so was he, both feared of losing their place. He kept staring; I kept reading line after line.

Finally he stood up, and then I realized he was almost six feet tall and almost two feet wide, why not joining some army and all with such a physical build? Unnecessarily blocking one seat of some poor and weak guy. But it was not time for career consultancy, it was time to get down and if possible run away from the bike. I did the first part. He saw and went back on his place, I did the same, I mean I was again on the bike…hehehe… he stood again and I was down again. Finally he lost his cool and ran towards me like a bull runs in a bullfight, by the time he reached his bike, I was far enough of his reach. Then I realize that some of the other candidates were enjoying the stint, and it was real childish on my side too, well, to be precise I felt like the same when we used to ring the doorbell of some random house and run away. Here only the difference was, I was doing that dare in front of the owner, but there was no other place for me to sit and study and I was not even stealing his fuel (so much for a rise in petrol price)

Finally somehow I managed to study standing and appeared in the examination room. Still ten minutes left for the big time and I saw the same six feet guy coming in the same room, I made weird faces so that he cannot recognize me. To hell with the new seating arrangement he just came and sat next to me. I covered my face with hands as if in real exam fever, which turned out to be real effective and he was still unaware of me.

Everyone started to fill the small circles which were going to decide the fate of many including me. ‘What is the exact time?’ he turned to me asking. I felt the drought in my mouth, gathered some of the water drops left in my throat and said, ‘I guess its bad time for me’ I could make out that if at all he was not writing this important piece of paper, he would have broke my jaws right there. I could hear the sound of teeth crushing in his mouth. But there was nothing much he could do.

I came out smiling. Heard people saying it was too lengthy and they missed many questions because of the lack of time. I wonder how he, the six feet guy, had performed. Well if you ask me? Who knew I will finish the complete paper while there was still few minutes left. And the reason for it? Oh just leave that aside, what matters is the result. Cheers!!