It was eight semester. Most of the class was placed in some company or the other, and the remaining had better plans for their lives. But for a few friends who still did not know “What next?” in life, everything was fine.
Being in the final semester, we did not allow professors to take classes for us. Mrs Smitha used to conduct game shows in our class – Balaji Prasad was the co-ordinator. Crossword puzzles, guess the person, some technical puzzles, etc. It was fun.
Other professors simply asked all of us, to come forward and share our experiences during the last seven semesters. We started getting to know each other. We hadn’t mingled in the last seven semesters, it almost felt like it was the first time we got to know the guys in our class. 3.5 years we had lived with people whom we seldom knew.
These days neither the spies nor professors bothered which guy was flirting with which girl or who wasn’t wearing identity card. Anyone who was blundering against the college constitution was magnanimously forgiven. Wow!! Being in final year definitely had its own share of advantages.
During these games, we were fortunately forced to mingle with the boys. One fine March morning, Mrs. Smitha asked, “Hey the GATE results have come out. Has anyone written the exam?”
Praveen Raja, from the last row, stood up and said, “Madam, I got a 92 percentile”.
Wow!! I really thought it was a wow. I am sure if I had written, I wouldn’t have got more than 30%. I wanted to find out how he had prepared. I am not sure if I was interested to prepare for GATE. I just wanted to know how people who win, win it anyway.
I was weighing my options as to how to approach him, I could not talk to him in college, no, definitely not! I didn’t have his mobile number. Even if I had, I doubt if I had the courage to call and speak to a guy!
I could send a formal note on email!
I spent almost half an hour searching through the yahoo group contacts.. Eureka!! There it was
I sent him a mail saying I congratulated him on his score, and wanted to know how to prepare as I was planning to do so myself.
Almost instantaneously he replied, “Hi, it was nothing. I didn’t prepare at all. I simply went and wrote the test”
I was about to reply, when a notification popped up on Yahoo Messenger- I had a friend request – from Praveen Raja
I was simultaneously checking frequently for any responses from the short story competitions, none whatsoever.
All sites acknowledged my participation, few replied that they would get back; some said I was long-listed and a few said my work was short-listed. But, I won none.
May be I was really not fit for anything. Maybe I won’t be good enough to study French either. May be I was an all-round failure.
I do not have the right to choose what I want in my life, even if we choose, success is probably unattainable. May be the only thing only to free-will is death. Unfortunately, even those attempts are not always successful.