CLAT 2011: Not My Happy Ending!

"You see that?"

"Yes dad"

"Its the best Girls degree college in Lucknow, IT College"

"Great dad!" *peeps into the book again*

"Watch out! It should be somewhere here only, I saw in the e-map..should be here..." slows down the car.

"O.K. Dad..but its in sector D, should be kilometers away!"

"Umhh..keep an eye"

"Yeah! Sure dad." Muggs up again.

"There! Got it. Its here only, told you..we were in front of it all the time"

"Yeah..right! Couldn't see it because of the crowd" closes book.

And my heart skipped a beat. And the thumping fastened and became louder! Stomach sulked in, and felt butterflies. Eyes hurried through the anxious faces and I was feeling pukish! So here I was, having given class 12th boards this March; I had a varied month in hand which had hours booked for T.V, music, paintings, hours on the phone with my best-friend, falling ill, allergic eyes, attending marriage, papa coming back home, and much more; needless to mention here. Time flies, and it did. In an eye's blink; my praparatory-days vanished and, woosh! Here I was, just about to take the "only" entrance test I had applied for to judge my fate and shape the rest of my life. Well, somehow I got over amusing the great sense of humor life has, and we got out of the car. I was being given instructions by dad from taking 2 HB pencils to filling up the OMR Sheet, etc, etc. It was exact 2:00pm by then, the reporting time mentioned on the admit-card. The main gate of the college was open and we walked through the heavy crowd to the main building where the exam was suppposed to be held. It was CLOSED! Oh freak! Closed with a thousand aspirants standing for the next 45minutes under the blazing sun of May! Now, one thing I don't get is WHY do you have to schedule these competitive exams at such odd hours!?!? To see whose brain doesn't malfunction when his highness "The Sun" is at its peak? Or to test wether our pea-sized brains are well-equipped to fight global warming? And cherry on the top; You have to call the already much "tortured" students 1HOUR in advance? 

Well, the 45minutes were miserable. MISERABLE! While I was melting, I tried to concentrate on other things and stop criticizing the system and the almighty for the torture my body faced. And then did I notice that the place was full of equally-anxious, sweaty creatures. There was a group standing near us which had probably just arrived. I heard the girls discussing looks, dressing sense, nail-polish, footwear..hahh the head-to-toe analysis. Oh boy, how? How can you discuss such stuff minutes before the examination-the ultimate. But, thinking the other way round; they had much higher level of mental peace than me. Or maybe, this might have been their utmost priority(and hence, their ready-to-party look!). Well, time passed..one of my friends arrived(Woah! Girl, you too? How do these people get so much time; no, PATIENCE working on their looks before an examination..I wonder!). We talked, I introduced her to dad. She had again messed up with her admit card(Some people are born great, I tell you!). But it was nothing much; few days back she had AIEEE & she was in Mt. Abu holidaying with her family!(Greatness, told you!)

Time-the-hell passed, and we took our seats. We had to wait for 15 more minutes!(What the hell?) So I got engaged in my favourite time-pass activity-OBSERVATION. The invigilators were a lady (probably south-indian; she looked so!) and an old man who resembled the typical graduation lecturers. Question papers and OMR Sheets were distributed, formalities done. Oh no! 1, 2, 3...Oh holy cr*p! You gotta be kidding me! This ain't happening! 48 fu*king pages. I cheched the time, it was mentioned 2hrs. "Rush girl, rush!", I told myself..

It seemed as if to add up the "spice" element, they changed the pattern of the paper. Instead of the expected one-line grammar questions, here were one page & one-and-a-half page lengthy Comprehension questions ONLY! "What can be worst than this?", I thought and as if god answered me, I found the same thing in the LA Section. Questions varying from half--a-page lenggh to 2-paged questions with 2-6 out of the world principles and then 1-3 facts and I was ruined!  Dude, HAVE YOU EVER READ THIS MUCH IN JUST 2 HOURSS? My mind screamed but I had to hurry..

"Ahemm..Sir!"
"Excuse me Sir!"
Why do all the people turn and look at you so strangely when you call for the teacher? They were staring at me like I asked for their Kidney! But the old man didn't listen.
"EXCUSE ME SIR!" this time I was louder than I intended to be.
"Yes young lady.."
"Sir, this Q. No 122. It has options (b) & (d) the same, which one do I mark?"

"What..?"

"Sir its.."

"Sorry, didn't get it."

I explained once again, this time in Hindi.

"Oh! don't worry, they will decide, it must be a public problem. They will get the complaint. You leave that question."

I marked answer (b) and thanked myself for wasting 4 minutes on Q. No 122.
But the adventure had just begun..!

On a bigger note; the coming months saw making it through NUSRL and getting calls from some private colleges. Taking up BA (from the same IT College 2nd line talks about) and deciding to do self-prep for CLAT 2012 side by side.  People getting mad over me and I, I was following my heart!

[I ultimately cracked CLAT 2012 and picked NUSRL over NLUO, CNLU & NLSJAA. I am a happy NLUite now! :)]