Timing of the class was 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., so like a sincere aspirant I reached class at 7:45, only to find more than half a class filled. But let me describe what kind of class I'm talking about, this wasn't your regular college class comprising of 60 students, this looked like a massive paid seminar where Tony Robins was going to talk, I'm talking about a humongous hall which would have sized around over 100 feet in length with around 500 blue plastic chairs with hinge planks to turn it on your lap on which you can keep your notebook. After around 12th row I got the first empty seat. Each row had 20 seats divided by a single passage in middle. I chose to sit on the outer edge of left side near the passage because I knew it would be hell lot of a work to get out of the inner seats just in case I needed to pee in this 6 hour long class.
Everybody was busy going through some spiral bonded notebook, I thought it might be some study material that I didn't get. Later on I understood that it was the kind of notebooks that made easy students write on, they were all busy revising their notes from last class. I had already missed 12 classes of strength of Materials but was so confident upon my self preparation of GATE 2016 that I thought I could have missed 10 more and I will be fine. So with no care in the world I looked at these rookies busy going through their notes. As time passed more and more students joined the class and by 8, class had a strength of around 400. Class was air conditioned which could make you feel winter in summer and had multiple sound boxes on the wall for obvious reason that faculty's voice cannot be strong enough to cover this huge class, so mic had to be used.
See, in this world there are fat dudes, then there are fat dudes with extraordinarily huge ass. Fat dudes generally are very jolly kinda guys, this is their natural reflex from childhood as their survival instinct, so that they make a girl laugh and maybe get laid but then there are fat grumpy guys who don't even smile and are angry all the time, which makes it impossible that any girl would fuck him, which in turn makes them even more grumpy and it's a downward shit spiral. but why is Ashish all of a sudden talking about fat dudes and their sex life? A Grumpy fat dude with extraordinarily huge ass entered in our class with a microphone hooked to his left ear, well there was no doubt that this was our S.O.M. faculty, he got on stage and looked like he ate a full deer for breakfast. He looked angry, maybe because he had crores in his bank but still had to wake up early in the morning, reach at class by 8 and see our dumb faces of 22 to 25 year old unemployed engineers in a class with 390 horny guys and 10 committed girls by guys who already got into PSUs a year ago, held by the leash of their cell phones. He said "Good morning" in a south-Indian accent, while we were in middle of responding back with lame good mornings of our own, he turned towards the white board giving zero fucks in total but giving us a better view of his extraordinarily huge ass, he wrote "Principal stresses".
After six hours going through Strength of Materials, everyone was dying to get out of the hall. Now 400 people had to get out through a 7ft by 4ft door, definitely not an example of laminar flow. I was new so I took my merry time to pack my bag, when I was ready to go, I saw a long que already waiting for me. It was 4pm and there was only one thing going in my head, that I've to go back to my room and study because I was seeing the competition through my own eyes and that 7ft*4ft door is not much different than this GATE exam, people who take their time aren't treated with mercy. I walked out and all of a sudden I see everyone is just roaming around. If this is what you guys rushed out of the class for everyone hanging out and discussing some deep philosophies of how to crack this exam, I've nothing to worry about but I reminded myself that you cannot look at majority Ashish, because this exam is cracked by minority,not the majority and what you see in front of your eyes is the majority. So I walked in hurry, using my long legs to save some time. On my way I saw a girl starring at me, she was looking at me as if she was screaming, “what the fuck is wrong with you?”, she was around 5’5” tall, skinny, had curly hairs. With her, there was another girl with specs, definitely looked like the smarter one out of the two, same height but little wider. I had an eye contact with her but walked away, not a big deal. I opened my phone and there's 50 fucking messages on my girlfriend Dibya on my phone. She's pissed that I didn't reply, I'm just glad that phone was in silent mode. Now here's the story with her in short, she was my senior but because of me being smart with CAD softwares, we did few projects together and few of those project was......how to put it.... not so educational. Now when I got into final year, she got into TCS, Mumbai. She wanted me to get a job in Mumbai too but due to an outstanding array of job rejections in my campus placement, I didn't get that opportunity. In my final semester I did an internship from TATA Cummins, where again my CAD and engineering skills were much appreciated, did a bit of research work there, published a research paper, they got super impressed. One of the contract CAD designers at that time just got a permanent job after 2 years of hustle which created an open spot at their design center at Pune so they offered me that spot. Now because I thought I'm in love and since Dibya tells me everything, I should too. I told her that I got this opportunity and I'm gonna politely decline and go to Delhi instead. Unfortunately she did not like my decision, and since then we were arguing on a regular basis.
Back at the room, it was dark, my new roommate Abhishek was about to leave for his classes as his was in second half. "Bro, what happened to electricity?" I asked to the guy next door, he was walking around in boxers, shirtless with a notebook in his hands, "Yeah there's a power cut" he replied, "So for how long is it gone generally?"...."Around an hour....it's pretty often here". God damn, if only sitting down and studying was the only problem. It was 2 pm after lunch time but my room was dark as night as it did not have even a single window, So I got into national attire of Delhi coaching boys, Boxers and tank top, climbed up stairs towards terrace thinking I can revise my notes there but the heat there, I can still feel it, it was impossible to stay on terrace in mid day, so I sat down on staircase where light was sufficient enough to read and started revising my class notes.
Just an everyday life of coaching students, we leave our home, pay 10k every month to these PGs for rooms worth less than 2k at anywhere else in this country, we pay 70k more to these coaching institutes, but for some ungodly reason all these people will act like they are doing us a favor. When in reality, they are just utilizing someones limitations, utilizing the scarcity of jobs and abundance of young graduates who will settle only with a government job, for whom getting a government job is the ultimate victory of life, for them people who have done it already are idols, without actually knowing what these jobs really offers, but I don't blame them.... past 22 and unemployed is the worst situation you can have, it basically means you are at the bottom of the food chain, I don't blame them for being desperate for having a source of income, where I do blame them is that even in their wildest dreams they have not even remotely imagined that there just might be some other source of income too. And as for the PG owners, who are making Crores just because their great grand father bought a piece of land and 100 years later education became the biggest thing and now an institute has opened luckily at your door step, you might wanna be more grateful to your fortune and more humble to the students who come at your place believing they are going through their journey. My point being, BUY A FUCKING INVERTER YOU CHEAP FUCKS, what the hell are you going to do with those crores in your bank account? Secure the lives of your next two generations? well good, making sure your next two generations are wealthy is the most certain way to assure that your 3rd generation is fucked.
Anyways, I returned downstairs after 2 hours when the generator of nearby building stopped. I had completed revising whatever was taught today in class, underlined the juice of it so that my revision becomes easier and faster and now It was time to solve the workbook and Previous year questions. But I was exhausted because of studying continuously on staircase as 1) I was sweating continuously 2)Tension of how to deal with this high level competition 3) Irritated power was out for more than an hour 4) Has still not called Dibya back and I'm sure by now she would have gone ape shit and blasted my phone by her missed calls 5) My butt hurts as sitting on concrete does that if you're skinny. Well most of my problems were solved with the return of electricity but now the most pressing issue has to be addressed, I had to call Dibya. I avoided calling her so long as talking to her was exhausting and I knew I will not be able to focus on my studies if I talk to her before, so I decided it would be easier if I just lie that I returned from my classes late.
