The Mother of All Lies

As an engineering student in the university of Pune, one is expected to appear for five theory papers each semester with two semesters constituting a year. After the first year the subsequent three years see you appear for an additional three practical or oral examinations each semester. So in order to progress from the preceding year to the next, one is expected to clear at least seven theory and four practical examinations and in addition, a backlog from the alternate preceding year is not allowed to be carried into the next progressive year. Thus, unless you plan on spending a whole year by going on a long vacation and effectively utilizing it on something productive like a world tour you had better take your education pretty seriously!
Me of course had to disbelieve the wise advice from my seniors and learn my lessons the hard way. Sound advice really doesn’t make it past my eardrums and for some reason I tend to treat it more in terms of sound rather than advice. Not that I regret it, I have forged some strong friendships and learnt some important lessons, which have made me a much smarter (?) and stronger (?) individual. So, after having gotten my first taste of freedom in the first year, the second year began with total abandon. A large part of the year was spent in bunking classes, playing cricket and most importantly- exploring the banks of the Khadakwasla Lake!
The year started off with all my friends suddenly deciding on leaving the hostel. It was a rather rude shock because I really did not expect them to be packing off and leaving for the lures of city life. With all the trouble we had gotten in the first year, I really could not comprehend what they intended to find away form the hostel. I mean where else would you be able to wake up five minutes before the college bell rang and still manage to reach college in time for the first lecture? (which was a rare case anyways cause at the hostel you generally got up five minutes after the college bell rang and would be lucky if you made it ten minutes before the first lecture was over...but lets not get there!) Certainly they couldn’t be thinking of leaving all the troubles and tiffs we were having with the hostel staff and especially not after we had managed to drive the rector out of the hostel to take up a more relaxing position as a faculty! It was disappointing to learn that as the days progressed, people were seriously thinking about running away. Well anyway, what could I do? After all everyone has a choice and loves to live life on their own terms.
I guess the reason they were all in a mood to take such a decision was probably that none of us could tell for sure whether or not we would progress to the second year… ah well, so be it I thought, at least they would have to wait for a couple of weeks till we got our results. (Just to clarify their stand, let me fill you in on a few details: Of the group of fifteen, six did not make it into the second year, barring two, all the others managed to scrape through by the skin of their teeth with at least two papers for backlogs.) Right, so now that you have the other side of the story let me clarify mine. The first year was more fun than a barrel full of monkeys!
Ok, ok... so I am not justified but that’s not the point here. Anyway, so began the second year. I had a lot of money in my account for the hostel fees and as the expenses for the semester. So would I be the good boy and pay the fees or could I indulge in some shopping with all the money in my hands? I got the answer soon after.
Once in a lifetime a situation turns up when you really wish that you could go back in time and change just one little incident that could have altered the outcome of some of the most pivotal moments of your life if not possibly your entire life from that moment onwards. It was an accident in my case, which I do not wish to be different for my case but for someone else’s -viz. the victim’s. I wish I could wash my conscience by saying it was not my fault but I believe it is never one persons fault. Well I wont divulge the details but I can tell you it cost me a whopping ten thousand which I paid for from the money supposed to be set aside for the hostel fees. Incredible, the way things work sometimes!
I did not inform my parents and quickly worked out my finances to conclude that I could manage my debt by curbing a little of my expenses. (Alright... many of my expenses.) I paid my fees in installments saving upto two thousand every month from an allowance of about three, which included one and a half for my mess. As you might have guessed, I did not pay my mess fees and spent about six months living like a pauper. I ate meals irregularly but ensured I ate a lot when I did afford a meal. I survived on things like pulses- the good old chana. I used to boil chana, which I had been given by mom for supplementing my diet with protein rich sprouts. Little does she know that it had been my staple diet for a good part of those first few months in the second year!
But I am not one to lie down without a fight. You can't let one incident bog you down. I had to move on, I had to study and make it through engineering with flying colours. (Yeah, those were definitely my thoughts, honest!)
Well the truth cannot be hidden though, can it? I was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. I was deeply shaken and not having enough money to muster a meal only made matters a lot more worse. I owe my survival through that period to a very special girl and her very adorable mother. If it wasn’t for the love and support from them, I could not have survived through those testing times nor have been the careless fanatic you see before you today. It took a better part of three years for me to finally forget that one incident and get a move on in life. Her mother is the best cook I have known, second perhaps only to mine. If it was not for the lunch I received from her in SH’s tiffin everyday, I would have surely lost my mind.
In that period immediately after the accident, I confined myself to a cocoon I spun around myself. My conversations were largely limited to those with S and with A and both were few and far between. SH did not like conversing with me in college and we almost exclusively spoke to each other outside college. I had to travel about 20 kilometres to talk to her and with my limited budget you can gauge for yourself how difficult and irregular that must have been. (well you are wrong if you think it was rare. I put myself on the brink of a financial disaster traversing the distance as oft as i did.) AB moved into town with his sister and meeting him too grew increasingly difficult as the days passed on.
Do you know what is worse than being physically ill? It is when you are mentally ill. Nothing compares to the turmoil you can put yourself through by just thinking about something. If you can win the battles with your insides you really have nothing to fear. I did not do anything consciously but I had drifted miles from what I used to be. I grew increasingly conscious about my actions and words and grew undoubtedly aloof. For the first time I had trouble making friends and keeping them. But for RA, I truly would have been a lost cause. For some weird reason he persisted with trying to get to know me when I found every reason to stay away. Good man.
I started living outside the hostel at a flat my friends had rented under the garb of missing them unduly. It was just an excuse to avoid being around the hostel and meeting them. I preferred staying alone than in a crowd. Strangely though, I soon discovered that in a crowd you could lose yourself and disappear. It is like being in an uninteresting lecture ('boring' sounds better than uninteresting though doesn't it? Well let's just give the teachers this little lee-way for now, shall we?) when you are present only physically and not mentally. I was living in a world totally cut off from everyone else. It is the worst thing for anyone to do- condemn yourself. If you cant fight back from such a situation life is not worth living. You have wasted a privileged opportunity by not living it to the fullest. I realize now that anyone can make a mistake and the best course of action is to get up in the morning, let bygones be bygones and make a fresh start. Life is only as beautiful as you might want it to be. There is always a reason to live with vigour no matter how bleak the situation might seem. I found mine too- GUILT!
That semester I did not care enough to study a word. I had missed most of the lectures and had no a clue as to what the subjects were about. I had a backlog from the first year and did not study seriously even for that subject knowing well that next time around, the proverbial sword would be dangling on my throat and I would have to work my socks off to get to the next year. I had given myself up to fate and had accepted failure even before it had come. The condition was so bad that I had not even bought some of my books!
Things only went downhill from there. During the math paper, my identity card did not have the principals signature at the reverse stating my class and year. No it was not just me, it was the whole college. I guess when things are not going your way, they just are not going your way. The internal invigilator came around on his rounds and saw the mistake on my card so he took it along with him and told me to meet him after the paper. Oh but that is not the end of it. The external invigilator comes around on her rounds and asks me for my card and guess what? Obviously, I don’t have it! I tell her that it lies with the internal invigilator i.e. the vice- principal and what does she tell me? She tells me to get a letter from him. I go running to search for him and finally when I catch up with him he tells me to wait near the exam control room. He returns after having announced in every class that students are supposed to have their I-cards signed from the principal indicating their roll numbers and the year they are in. I ask him for the letter and he lectures me on how I do not study and have the time to take long strolls in the evenings on the highway but not the time to get a small signature. (Yes, I know it was my fault and I would have got the signature if I alongwith the rest of the college would have been aware of such a rule.) Moreover, I had an exam in progress, which had not been stalled while all this was going on with me and of course they were not going to give me any additional time to finish the paper now were they? I was supposed to be solving complex mathematical problems and this eccentric old man was lecturing me no end. If I could only tear every strand of hair from his head. (And I would have too had he not been bald!) Thankfully, our HOD came along and rescued me from the whims of that crazy old man. Needless to say, after half an hour of his nonsense I did not feel I could solve the paper to the best of my abilities and so went to the exam hall, packed my belongings and left. Yes, I flunked.
If I was not stirred up within before, I was now and did not study a word for the next two papers. AB came along one day and he saw I had not bought the book for my next exam and instead, was calmly sleeping my head off. He rightly abused me. Thanks to his kick in my butt, I managed to scrape through that subject and the next.
The fun though did not start until the next semester. In the beginning of the semester, my HOD wanted to talk to my dad and he knew about the accident cause I had told some of my friends who in turn told him and things were really getting out of hand now. I knew that my HOD would be talking to my dad about nothing but the accident and I really would not want my father to find out from a third person. You can imagine my spate. I was petrified, of dad on one hand and of the consequences of him finding out through my teacher on the other. I could have ducked out by giving some silly excuses and avoiding the call but I really did not want to. The man had put out his neck to defend me all through the previous semester against the rest of the staff since he was the only one with the privileged information.
Finally, I mustered up the courage to call dad and tell him what had happened. A little too late cause I had already managed to pay the hostel fees by then. He was shocked to say the least and I suppose a tad disappointed at my misgivings. Most of all though, I think my parents were simply hurt by the fact that I did not have the trust to confide in them about such a massive incident. To make matters more complicated, a week later, the results were declared and I had backlogs by the dozen. There was no way I could have told my parents what had happened. They would mortify me. Moreover, I wouldn’t be able to study with moms constant cribbing over the phone and so I decided the wisest thing to do would be to conceal this little event from them. So I told them I was all clear!
Any way, they were not going to see my result until the next semester and by then I would work hard to clear my name. It almost worked until…
My dear friend AN’s sister was going to get operated for a cyst in the lower back. Poor guy had just had his own hand operated and since the two of them and their eldest sister were living by themselves in Pune, I thought I might lend a helping hand. I drove down to the hospital with my friend Ro to see if we could be of any use. After reaching the Military Hospital, we searched the premises for an hour trying to locate the operation theatre. Discouraged and bored from the vanity of our efforts, RH suggested we go back. I did not want to quit having had travelled so far so I told him to take the bike and that I would come to the flat with AN. Big mistake.
When we had shifted his sister into the ward after the surgery, me, AN and his sister left the hospital in a ric. We had to drop her off at her hostel first. On the way, thanks to the impatient nature of some people, a scooterist jumping the signal crashed into the side of our ric which was turning at the said location. It turned turtle and I was crushed under the weight of the rickshawalla, An, his sister and the damn rickshaw. I suffered a dislocated shoulder.
This time though, I called up my parents. They in turn called up my local guardians who came rushing to the hospital. Aw, my cursed stars. Not my fault if I might emphasize, again. What can I say except that I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Deeply concerned with what I was getting myself into, my folks decided a short trip to Pune was called for. I was so in trouble. Now how would I avoid showing them the marksheet?
So it happened. They arrived in Pune and were going to spend about a week. Oh ho, my goose was going to be so cooked. I took a deep breath and awaited my impending doom. By the time they arrived, my hand was out of the plaster but not quite upto full strength. (I guess it had something to to with my wise decision to skip the physiotherapy for rehabilitation, though I am not quite certain about it yet!) I guess by now even you would expect that to be a rather obvious event, would you not? How do I get myself into these muddles?
Anyway, while they were here, for the first five days they did not even mention college in the conversations that we had. I pushed my luck a bit too far though. On the fifth day, dad asked me to get the marksheet from the hostel and I said fine. They were going to leave the day after so I figured I could find some way of putting it off for just another 48 hours or so. I really could not come up with anything that appealed to me as being a good reason. That 6th evening, I got a lift from my friend AV. I had gone to his place to get a couple of games for my bro. He came up to meet my parents and was drinking water when my mother asked me if I had got my marksheet. I do not know why but for some reason I heard myself say- “AV, I left it in your file at your place!” Poor boy almost chocked on that last gulp of water.
Dad said it was alright and that we could collect it the next morning before he left for college. Now what? He of course did not have it and at this point of time nor did I. That night we went out for dinner with one of dads colleagues and so atleast one evening was going to be safe. The next morning we drove up to his bus-stop only to see that the bus was just leaving ahead of us. But no, dad is not one to give up easily. He figured the bus would stop further ahead and so we could board it at the next stop and then collect the dreaded marksheet from AV. At this point I considered telling him the whole truth but could not muster the courage and decide to wait and watch as the events unfolded. Poor guy, for my sake, (and he is a tall fellow- all of 6’2”,) crouched down in the two feet of crammed space under the seat and the others covered up by saying that he had missed the bus and was probably driving to college. Holy crap, I was getting away with it! I could not believe my luck.
Well I did slog it out that semester and managed the unthinkable by clearing 13 papers at one go! It was no mean task, trust me. For an entire month, I was in some exam or the other almost every alternate day. It was a hectic schedule and I suppose the only reason I could make through it was the fact that I did not have time to think and take stock of how busy I actually was. It was thanks to some serious counseling from RA that I made it out with my teeth still intact.
When the results were announced and I called up home, I told my mother that I had given thirteen papers in the last semester. Without hearing the rest of the news, she cut the phone. Five minutes later, dad was on the phone consoling me and telling me that dropping a year was not all bad and could be used constructively. I stopped him mid-way through his lecture and told him I had cleared them all he almost had a fit. I think that has been the most carefree roll of laughter I have ever heard from my father. I was warned never to attempt such a feat ever again. (Like I needed to be told!)
It is all in the head. I could have gone either way. Somehow I managed to pull through and I tell you, had it not been for the fact that my parents had come around and that I had lied so big, I would never have pulled through. Funny how far guilt takes you. By the way, we discovered months later that AV’s father and my father had been classmates and really good friends in college. When they finally met each other after a gap of 30 years and me and AV narrated this incident, we all had a good laugh. (AV had lost his funny bone the day he had met my parents though, and I can assure you of that!!!)