University Exam of One
A tale of Embarrassment ,Self-Discovery and Hypocrisy — Part 1
“But I learned that there’s a certain character that can be built from embarrassing yourself endlessly. If you can sit happy with embarrassment, there’s not much else that can really get to ya.”
- Christian Bale
It was almost over a week , I didn't go to the office for this day.I was finally about to attend final paper for my final chance to be engineer.
I left for college around 12.30PM , exam was about to start at 2PM, but I had one more daunting task before that ,this one made sure that even back in my regular engineering days , I didn’t really attend too much of college. My college is like all beautiful things, is at odd place and hence little difficult to get to. A beautiful campus on Hill surrounded by trees and every corner with nice view of city , but I care less,(Pretty sure even Himalaya is beautiful and a view from there ), but if parking is at bottom, Then I am not going at either places !
But then I thought , wait a minute ! let me make some use of my older looking outlook now. I have seen security guard letting professor or parents cars through main gate , and once they are through main gate, car can really go till computer science department building .Awesome ! I did shout to my daughter , “Swaraa , where is my office ID card ?” — she is 11 months old, she didn't really know what I am asking her , but my wife Nirmala heard that, she found it somewhere and gave it to Swaraa , and asked her “Give it to Daddy “ , my 11 month old walked across hall in very cute baby walk , like she is on mission or something . (Great, That is not just cute but useful too!! , Now I have my own new “Cute in-house transporter for all small things” )(Ohh, come-on , you all do it(or will do it if not already ) , use your kids to do things in household that we think are extremely boring , but would be cute to see them do it. )
So I wore ID card around my neck , idea was to trick security guard in thinking its College ID, while I will sport my big glasses which make me look even older than what I am already , and then show a fake confidence that depicts attitude of “I am regular here , and you are new, so open the gate , you sucker!”
I was almost 150 meters away from gate, security guard looked at me , I kept my game face on , gave him a stare, then looked around a little , but not too much. In my head, - “there is no way I am going to climb this hill in hot afternoon” ,I am attending this paper against of my will anyway , if he don't let my car in , I am gonna consider this as a personalized sign/signal from God almighty(Like he has nothing else interesting to do!!! ) and turn my car around, watch whatever next movie available for next 3 hours ,switch off my phone so everyone else think I am in exam hall.“ (yeahh, I have done that before, we all have our weak moment)
“Just give me a reason , and I swear I will take it. “
But It turns out , my game face worked, he opened a gate and I drove through. Hmm.. well , lets see through this then as If I am anyway already in campus ,“ But First thing first, off to Anna’s Canteen which is very strategically housed just below girls hostel — next 45 minutes, Some Exotic Bird watching could relax me which is much needed for exam !! “ (Not revision , see that is the difference between you and me !! )
Look I get it , I almost spend last 5 paragraphs talking about how much I planned ahead to just get my car inside campus, Its seems very trivial thing , and I completely agree with you. Believe it or not , but this was one of the main reason why I hardly attended my engineering college.( Or At-least in retrospective I think it was :-) )
“Sometime pure laziness of not doing trivial things, could lead to more interesting and challenging tales.”
But in my case , giving Exam after around 7 years and 30KG extra weight that I have been carrying around !!
Well Hold ON ! , Story Is not Finished yet, What happened till now was nowhere close to what Happen Next ! So get ready for some more humor in Part 2 of this series, as they say “one’s tragedy , for others its comedy “
Part 2 in this series can be read here
Repost from my blog : http://shardul.wordpress.com/2014/08/17/university-exam-of-one-part-1/
Image Credit : http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevon/
