Inspired by a Tête-à-tête...

Now that the CAT results are out, and as expected I didn’t make it, I can safely publish this post; an experience 2 months old which I’ve been wanting to share.

If you look at it… it’s not actually an experience… not even an incident ...an encounter maybe… Naah you can’t even call it that… lets call it a conversation.

Anyway, one cloudy, rather gloomy Sunday morning, I awoke at the unearthly hour of 7:45 am ….to go give the Common Admission Test which I seem to have made an annual ritual…

What followed, i.e. the one hour of waiting alone amongst the throng of other candidates, the two and a half hours of sitting and marking some answers, making rather unintelligent guesses, is now irrelevant …[it wasn’t irrelevant then.. but now .. I obviously feel that way]…

Well, after the exam, as I was leaving, after cursing myself, the stupidity into which I had converted my answer sheet, I finally found a friendly face. I caught up with that friend and after generally commenting on the past 3 hrs, left the test centre on his bike.

As his route diverged from mine at one point, he dropped me there.

As I was looking for an auto rickshaw, I was feeling pretty idiotic… messing up such an easy paper [comparatively].

When I was in such a state of mind, partially aware of my surroundings, self involved in my apparent dumbness, an auto stopped next to me and the autowala [auto driver] asked where I was headed to…For a neater post, lets call him X.

I answered, mildly surprised, as already there was a girl inside the auto. X said ‘hop on’ obviously not those words exactly, but anyway I got into the cab.

Having fought with ‘n’ autowalas over their high rates at normal hours, asking obscene amounts for small distances, etc, I was immediately wary of what was going on.

I asked the girl if she was headed to the same place as I was. She answered in the negative and named a place which is about 1 km out of way of my place. She also got confused as to how X was getting 2 customers at the same time. Quite naively, she said that maybe we can share the charges. I didn’t say anything.

Obviously, X was not an angel who would be calling passengers for the good of them. He would, quite rightfully be looking out for his profit. I was quite fine with that and I knew that he’d not allow us to share the charge. As, going through the girl’s route and then going to my destination would cause an increase of a maximum of 10 bucks from the normal fare I would otherwise have paid, I was not really worried. At any time, I would have clarified with X there and then, asking him what his game was. That day, the frame of mind I was in at that time, I still can’t say whether I would have argued with X or not, if he’d asked more than what was his due.

I was in no mood to argue, feeling that, ‘let’s see what he asks for and then I’ll see’.

When the girl got off, she asked him ‘why should I pay all, she was also there..? [Not the exact words maybe, but the gist was that]. X smiled and said rather patronizingly as if teaching a lesson to a child, ‘Madam, but she did not come from as far as you did’. The girl was rather displeased but nevertheless, paid her fare and left.

X reset the meter and looked back at me and asked, ‘Madam, what is the normal fare to your place from the place you got into the auto?’ I answered rather vaguely [but truly] that a different route is usually taken which costs less than the route taken. I guess X decided to make the best of the situation and, to gain at least a little, he said ‘Ok madam, paanch rupya zyada de dena, ‘[give 5 rupees extra]’. That was just about the actual fare from that place. So I agreed without any hesitation. I was a little amazed by X’s method - take a fare while you already have a passenger and then drop passenger 1 and go to passenger 2’s destination … and so on..

As I was not in a very good mood, peaceful maybe, which is the norm after every exam, I didn’t delve too much into the issue. The place the girl had gotten off at was a little distance ahead of a famous college which was a large centre for the CAT. As we went ahead, hoards of candidates thronged the streets, heading towards a mall nearby. Following this scene was a very interesting conversation I had with X…By the way, X spoke broken Hindi, so any weird tenses, gender errors or plural mistakes - not my fault..

X: Itna saara log kahan se aa raha ha hai aaj? [From where are all these people coming today?]

Me: Aaj exam tha na Christ college mein [There was an exam at Christ college today]

X: Bas Christ college mein tha? [The exam was held only at Christ College?]

M: Nahi aur colleges mein bhi tha… [No, it was held at other colleges too…]

X: Ek hi exam? [Same exam?]

M: Haan [Yes]

X: Ek hi exam ke liye? Ek hi baar hota hai? [For the same exam? Is it held only once?]

M: Haan ek hi din poora India mein hota hai [Yes, it is held on the same day all over India]

X: Kya exam hota hai? [What exam is it?]

I was a little perplexed regarding the question, as to what I should say, what is his awareness regarding all this. He made my perplexity vanish by reducing the question to the specifics.

X: Matlab kaunsa degree? [I mean which degree?]

Maybe he thought I hadn’t understood what he was saying.

M: MBA

X: Acha, aap bhi exam deke aa rahe ho? [Ok, so you too are coming after giving the exam?]

Inwardly sighing, again reminded about my paper, I said,

M: Haan [Yes]

X: Aap kya padte hai? [What do you study?]

M: Padta nahi, abhi exam diya [I don’t study, I just gave the exam]

X: Aap kya padte hai? (He asked again maybe thinking that I hadn’t heard him the first time)

M: Padta nahi, abhi exam diya [I answered the same]

I guess it was pretty incomprehensible to him that I was giving an exam even though I was not studying in a college.

X: Nahi matlab exam dene ke liye kahan padta hai [No, I mean for the exam where do you study?]

M: abhi padta nahi hai, bas exam diya. [I don’t study now, just gave the exam]

X: Aap kitna pada hai? [How much have u studied?]

I was not sure as to how to answer, now knowing whether he was familiar with classes, degrees etc.

X: Class?

M: Graduate kar liya [I have already graduated]

X: Acha kaisa hua aapka? Paper kaisa tha? Difficult? Kya percentage aayega? 70s? [Ok so how was your exam? How was the paper? Difficult? What percentage are you expecting? 70s?]

Remembering the rather disappointing paper that I had given, I replied,

M: Abhi malum nahi hai, answers check nahi kiya [I don’t know yet, haven’t checked the answers]

X: Fir bhi, kitna correct hoga aapko lagta hai? [But still, how many will be correct according to you?]

-- A question of whose answer I too was not sure.

M: Pata nahi chalta, jab tak check nahi karti [Can’t say until I don’t check the answers]

Now he was looking to be fully interested in the whole idea. Persistently he continued,

X: Kya kya subjects hota hai exam mein? [What subjects are there in the exam?]

I was not sure as to how to explain the concept of Data Interpretation to him, so I settled for saying,

M: Maths aur English [Mathematics and English]

X: Science nahi hota? [No Science?]

M: Nahi, no science [No, no science]

X: Woh pass hoga to kaunsa college mein jayega? [If you pass the exam, which college will you go to?]

M: Malum nahi, result pe depend karta hai… [I don’t know, depends on the result]

X: Ye padne ke baad kitna aayega income? [After you study this, how much income will you get?]

M: Depend karta hai kaunse college se padta hai [Depends on which college you study from]

X: Fir bhi, kuch idea? 30 thousand se zyada? [Even then, some idea? More than 30 thousand?]

Since that was pretty much plausible, I replied in the affirmative.

M: Haan [Yes]

X: Acha. Actually main bhi soch raha hoon ki main bhi kuch exam deke padu… main saath saal pehle BCom 1^st year tak pada.. [OK. Actually, I was also thinking that I give some exam. Seven years back I had studied till B.COM 1^st year]

So that explained his persistent questions. Intrigued, and agreeably surprised, I said,

M: Acha….fir aap abhi kar lo padai [OK, so you also start studying…]

X: Haan lekin abhi concentration nahi hota… abhi correspondence course kar raha hai lekin time nahi milta. [Yes but now I am not able to concentrate. I’m doing a correspondence course now but I don’t get time.]

I felt a little guilty comparing the opportunities I got and am still getting, and he, not getting anything yet striving to get himself educated. Left with nothing to say, I said somewhat quietly,

M: Acha [Ok]

X: Abhi soch raha hai bachhon ke saath baithke main bhi pad loon… [Now I’m thinking I’ll start sitting with my kids and with them, I’ll also study]

M: Haan aap wahi karo aur pad lo. [Yes you do that and study]

He just smiled...maybe already thinking of an action plan …

I looked around, and I had reached my destination.

Somewhat subdued, I got off, paid him, and said ‘Best of luck aapke padai ke liye’. [Best of luck for your studies.]

And that was the end of it.

I don’t know why but this slight conversation had worked wonders for my slightly self pitying disastrously foul mood. No doubt I was still sad about the mess that I had made, but I also realized that there are ‘N’ people out there who worked just ‘N’ times harder than me, and who due to circumstances could not make it. For many others, if they don’t get through they don’t have anything to fall back upon [people who dropped a year just to prepare]. Leaving the MBA aspirants, there are so many people who, perhaps much smarter than me, would love to study, educate themselves, but due to constraints, financial mostly, never got the opportunity.

Guess one should always be glad about what one’s got, no matter how less, because somewhere in the world, there will definitely be somebody who has lesser.