KEYS TO MY HEART

This Sunday, I had to write the UPSC civil services prelims exam. Most people usually take it rather seriously, spending an year or more mugging for it. But unfortunately, I had to write it because of the pressure from my parents and so I hadnt taken it as seriously as most people would have. Even though, I consider myself well informed when it comes to current affairs, I never take the trouble of remembering all the names of the people involved or go into details of everything. I didn’t even prepare a day before the exam or knew the exact pattern of the exam. But I was going to write it nevertheless because my mother insisted on it.

First and foremost thing that should be taken care of when you are intending to write a government conducted exam in India is – To find the examination center before hand. If you intend to search for it an hour before the exam, believe me, you are in one hell of a trouble. The center, somehow, seems to be always on the other side of the town from where you live. I don’t know if this is intentional but how hard is to just put the candidates from one area in a school close to them. Instead, I had to search for 2hrs for the school I’m supposed to write my exam. By the time I reached that place, there were just 10 minutes for the exam to start and I was supposed to report atleast 30 minutes before the exam. As if that was not enough, to my horror, I realised that there were no shops around to buy a pencil and an eraser. It was only getting worse from bad.

After getting into the classroom, I had meekly admitted to the invigilator that I had only brought a pen and no pencil. Someone in the classroom was generous enough to lend me their pencil and I was off to begin my “Optional Subject” – Civil Engineering. After looking at the paper, I felt really ashamed of being a Civil Engineer, as I was not able to answer the first half of the question paper. I drew a complete blank. It was only after I reached the Environmental Engg, that I was able to put my borrowed pencil onto the answer sheet. With structures and geotech to follow, I was doing quite good and I realized that I had completed the whole paper in 45 minutes time. Well, I didn’t want to stay any longer than that and I had requested the invigilator to allow me to leave since there was nothing “more” I could answer. But he insisted that I was not supposed to go out till 1130am until the exam is finished. Since I had to sit there anyway, I thought I’d finish the paper and I started trying to answer the first 60 questions. I had stopped giving any thought to the negative marking and marked everything I could answer without thinking whether the answer was right or wrong. Even after all that, I had a good 30 minutes to kill. Its only during these times, you realize how long 1800 seconds is.. I started counting the seconds believing that it would make the time go faster but it didn’t help. I had, for the first time, noticed how neatly the seconds dial in my watch is engraved.

And finally the final bell was rung and I ran out of the room in a hurry to collect my bag and get some water to drink. After getting my bag, the first thing I did was to give a missed call to Archana, so she would call me back and entertain me while I waited for my next exam scheduled at 230pm. It is somewhat ritualistic for us, as I would always call her before my exam to buy some luck and after the exam to tell her that she didnt send me enough luck . Anyway, this time, archana was so fully asleep that several rings to her cell phone bore no response. I was pissed, not only was the exam a disaster, even archana was too fast a sleep to console/entertain me. I called my home instead and told them it was a disaster and that I would write the next exam too since I travelled quite far and didnt want to go back doing only half the job.

It was probably the hottest day in Chennai. The heat was absorbing and tiresome. I was dizzy and had to sit on grass as the benches were too hot under the mid-day sun. Thankfully, I ran into an acquaintance. Finally, someone to pass the time and endure the heat. We chatted up and agreed that we both did badly in our respective sections and that they were too tough. We both found shelter in a small hotel and drank Pepsi to soothe our thirsty throats. We discussed how it was a good time for the cola companies to prosper. Pesticides or not, people would rather drink them rather than bear the heat. After wasting enough time talking movies and nonsense completely irrelevant in that context, we had walked back to our examination center to give the “General Studies” exam.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to see some probability related questions. Finally, something I could do. And most of the questions were something to my knowledge. I have to say that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. When I came back home and checked the answers, there were several correct answers. It was a small consolation for the all the trouble I had been put through. My bike’s odometer read 70kms when I finally got back home. That was probably the longest trip my bike ever had to endure. (This is also probably the longest post you will have to endure on this blog ). My back has completely gone numb from the long drive(signs of old age already). I will definitely have to take a week’s rest to nurture it back to good health .

P.S: Check out the “About Us” page. It has some really nice doodles by archana. I will also try to upload the doodle I drew while I was killing time in the exam.

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