My Life, To Hell and Back, Part VI

The single room I was given isn't actually a single room in the real sense of the term. It is a big room divided into two by a partition. There is an opening to enter the room which, however, is not accessible from the main door. So, I had to pass through Roshni's room to enter mine. We could easily hear each other talking even if we couldn't see each other. And Roshni is the person who compelled me finally to start attending the evening prayers.

In our floor, we had two more such rooms - one of Nidhi, an advocate doing her LLM and Jincy, an IES aspirant. The other room was one that housed two nuns. One of the nuns and my favourite was Sister Danny, an English teacher who had come to prepare for the NET exam. She is an extraordinary human being - the stuff, as I said, the angels are made of. I didn't get to see much of the other nun as she had gone home to meet her mother who had been diagnosed of cancer. She was diagnosed in the final stage of the disease. The trials and troubles of others showed me how lucky I was. I had no problems to face, and in front of me was an opportunity that thousands aspire for, but only a few hundreds get.

However, the problem with the Mains 'opportunity' is that studying for it seems more like a backbreaking burden than a walk on a path strewn with rose petals. At least, I felt so. After 'completing' the optionals, I finally turned to GS. My strategy of learning at the time was: Read as much as you can so that you might remember something for the mains. I followed this strategy religiously. Jeevan sir asked me to get previous papers and work out the questions. After much prodding, I bought previous papers of Pub Ad but I haven't ever opened it. Not even to write my name on it. I had no time.

Ashwathi was the other person from the hostel who had cleared the prelims along with me. I finally met her when one of my classmates asked me to take a Malayalam book to her. We became good friends.

Like many other human beings, I used to eat to beat depression. Sugar intake always calmed me. I was suffering from an inferiority complex the day I had started attending the Mains class. It aggravated after the prelims result was declared. I knew I had not half the knowledge that many candidates who did not qualify had. And when I sat with them, which happened quite often, my heart would accuse me of being a fluke, a coward and a lazy bug who got lucky.

The food at the hostel thus turned out to be insufficient for me. As the exam, came nearer, I became a frequent visitor at the Spencer's in the Anna's Arcade, gorging on ice creams, chocolates, bread and butter and other unhealthy foods even as my weight began to shoot up. On top of that, mom sent me delicious fish pickle, so that even my rice consumption skyrocketed. Sometimes, I would go to the Statue hotel for fried rice and butter chicken or Arul Jyothi for Masala Dosa. A glass of orange juice and a cutlet daily became a must for me to think straight. All that was until I became friends with Nisha.

About a week before the Mains started, Nisha came to the hostel. Nisha too was taking the test with the same optionals as me. I first met her in the hostel mess. Nisha belonged to the perennially doomed group of 'socially forward but economically backward'. Luckily for her, she had got admission in Navodaya and that education and her own experience in life has made her a gem - one in a billion. Dear UPSC, if you are not taking her, you are missing out on one of the most brilliant civil servants and one of the greatest humanists ever from the country. Her words come from her life, mine are from books. Her words carry conviction, mine confusion. Yet...

To cut a long story short, talking with her made me realise that I am nothing short of a spoilt brat, that redemption is possible and that hope is the greatest gift that mankind has.

Then I took the mains, finally. Everybody in the hostel prayed for us as we took the tests. In spite of all the appeals to God, GS papers were horrible as usual. However, the subject papers showed remarkable focus on contemporary issues, which meant that you could have taken the exam with the preparation for the GS papers alone. For essay, there was really no choice as I had forgotten everything about tribals, much like the typical Indian bureaucrat. Also, I didn't know that the miserly rich Indians had suddenly become generous and started donating money to anything other than places of worship. So I had to blah-blah about India's leadership.

Finally, all the tests were over with the Sociology papers. I had written many blunders in all my papers. When I finally got out of the University College at Trivandrum, I was quite confident that I wouldn't clear.

But unexpectedly, I cleared. The interviews start on 22nd of this month. And, again, as usual, I don't know a word. Pray for me!