It took eight hours of sound sleep for the reality to sink in, even peripherally. I had to buy the textbooks, I had to get serious about Pub Ad but worst of all, I had to study GS!
In the next few days, the class got divided - those who had cleared the prelims and those who hadn't. Many went to Delhi for the Mains preparation. My parents asked me if I wanted to go to Delhi too. As I was sure that the fluke wouldn't continue, I told them not to waste their money on it. Some of my friends and relatives vociferously demanded that I be exiled. My parents, who knew me very well, politely refused.
With my parents becoming extra generous with my pocket money, I started shopping for books. Jeevan sir gave me the list of books to be studied in emergency cases like mine. Pub Ad class was lagging behind the schedule, so I decided to attend Jeevan's IAS Academy for both optionals and leave GS 'to fate'. This centre, unlike the name, consists of a couple of small rooms, one of them having tin sheets on five sides, on the terrace of one of the buildings at Thampanoor. When it rained heavily, the classes would be stopped as it was difficult to hear anything as the raindrops lashed out at the tin roof. But the classes there were excellent. I had joined midway, so I had to pay only half the fee. I photocopied the notes of the earlier classes from Aparna, whom I knew from my days at the Academy. There, my closest friends were Aparna and Anupama - both of them children of a Hindu and a Christian parent each. They taught me what it meant to be truly secular and why it was so important to be secular.
My relationship with the mighty and the powerful in the hostel changed dramatically after the 'night of the result'. Only two had qualified from the hostel. Because of that, I got a single room all to myself in the ground floor.
The story of how I got it still pains me. The next day after my result, in order to finally impress the nuns, I bought some laddus I planned to give to the warden. While I was waiting outside, a girl came and congratulated me. I became a bit boastful and told her how unexpected the result was, for I had studied for only one week for the prelims. She smiled but I felt that there was pain in her eyes. Suddenly, we were both called into the office.
I gave the warden the laddus and told her I had cleared the prelims. Next, the girl talked to her. The warden told her something about God's will being different and kind of stuff - the same stuff my mother would tell me to comfort me after the CAT '08 but I wouldn't listen. I too wanted to comfort her, tell her that she would do it the next time. Suddenly the warden asked me if I wanted a single room. In confusion by now, as I had never requested for a single room but was now being offered one, I said yes. Then the warden asked the other girl to show me the room she was vacating. I felt awkward as I followed her.
Later, I came to know that it was her fourth and hence final attempt, that she was quite confident of clearing it at the time and that she was the stuff that angels are made of. And here I was, a little devil, who bunked even the compulsory evening prayers, a brat who thought life was for mere enjoyment, displacing her from a place that I thought should rightly belong to her. Yet, I took the room and moved in with my stuff before going home one final time before the mains.
Right now, that angel is working as a volunteer in the Maoist - affected areas of Orissa. Strange paths does life take human beings through.
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