When Heaven Meets Hell...

Okay, so its 13th May and the first day of our Independence. And somehow, its not as sweet as I dreamed 2 years ago that it would be. Days to follow were filled with all kinds of emotions. With nothing to do, except for wondering about how we worked so hard for those 3 hours which instead tuned out to be something far from our expectations, I spent 2 days just lying in bed, quietly. With a kinda debacle in MHT CET, my parents wanted me to appear for the ASSO CET which they thought would be backup if something went wrong. And I had no option but to spend 5 days till ASSO on 17th reanalyzing all the mistakes (SINS as Prabhu sir would say it) that I might have committed in the last year. However Mihir, turned out to be my savior when one day he came down for a sleepover. Reading 2nd law of thermodynamics from Sears and Zemansky and playing Counter Strike on line, somehow seemed to be sweet medicines. I started reading Harry Potter series like an addict and imagined what huge crime I had committed not having tried it before. I gave ASSO CET and ran back home to Kudal that day itself. Somehow I felt, I would find solace and happiness with my old friends who did not much care about CET! But it was not to happen...
Having returned after nearly 2 years (with 2 short trips in the period) I was really a moron to imagine that I wouldn't have to face the "CET KAISA THA?" question. Yeah I did somehow recover from all that. Exercise, football, music, internet and all my life in my room somehow made me forget that, I even had this chapter of my life. I somehow had decided that, I wouldn't just sweep this incident under the carpet. I called up Vivek, Kasturi and Mihir most of the times to discuss what might have went wrong, to get their opinions... I knew I had to learn a lot instead of just cribbing about what might have been my real first failure in life. Apparently Aai and Baba would have their own theories and mostly all our dinners were filled by POST CET TRAUMA arguments. Where they kind of interrogated me for any distractions that might have caused decreased study time or concentrations, they really surprised me with their memory by recalling most of the incidents of past 2 years. Had they given CET they surely would have topped BIO! Hahaha...
Where I was asked if I felt depressed and lonely, where my cell phone use time was being questioned, where my TV and computer timings were being analyzed, where I was asked if I dated someone during the period and where it was doubted whether I was addicted to porn (as I stayed here alone), I just felt amused rather than frustrated at their amazing flight of imagination. All this, given that I talk to Aai even about my crushes, became a daily debate. I just waited for the day to arrive when we were supposed to leave for Kashmir - The Heaven on Earth...
Sigh, I don't feel much like describing the scenic beauty of the land, you can always read about it from somewhere else. I must agree that I enjoyed the trip A LOT! The most amazing part being, the polite, honest and helpful people of Kashmir. Yeah, I would someday write about the trip but surprisingly the Kashmir snow couldn't freeze our POST CET chats. And I just badly waited for 14th June sun to dawn so as to end all the confusion and stress. I must agree that this period was more stressful than even the CET time. We returned home and the remaining vacations went on with all the gymming and football. The intensity of our discussions reducing day by day. I guess even my parents somehow came to know that CET stress was not a piece of cake to handle. I apparently broke my little finger while playing football, displacing 4 mm of the condyle of a phalanx. I was all excited about having the fracture and given the fact that the doc said that it might need a surgery... YAY!
As I kept climbing up and down the stairs of different offices to collect all the possibly required certificates, I knew that this time's result wasn't going to be much like the SSC.
Oh, I forgot to mention that our HSC result was out on 27th May while we were in Jammu, planning our trip to Vaishnodevi. I scored 530/600, that is 88.33% which was far far far better than what I expected and what I really deserved. But that didn't keep people from asking me why I wasn't a college topper anymore and why a guy scoring 96.15% in 10th couldn't even pass the 90% mark. My dad kept explaining to all the people that called him, that this year I concentrated more on CET rather than HSC, but hardly anybody knew the difference and importance. And somewhere I kept feeling that he really didn't deserve all this justification to people...
Now all this writing might seem like some moaning and complaining to the God, but I just wanted to make a note of everything that, I guess, every student like me might have experienced. My own grandpa who's himself a retired Chem paper setter was really depressed about me getting just 89. I felt like having disappointed Haresh Sir by not even being able to cross 90s where I once dreamed of 100. (given that I had scored 8 consecutive 50s in Sunday tests). I just hoped, 14th June would come fast. People around in Kudal kept asking me what score I expected and the only thing that bugged me while telling them 183, was that I still was frightened of my most dangerous enemy - marking mistakes.
And so we left Kudal and reached here on 12th June night. Amazingly Tikona, my internet provider had amazing ideas to keep me from getting the result and so we decided to go to Kasturi's house to check the result on 13th midnight, when the results were to be declared.
Somebody of Kasturi's acquaintance came to know about all the mess that had occurred. That about 17 questions from Biology were outside the book published by the board itself. It was taken for granted by us, at least our group, that the entire Bio paper hence would be from it. And so we didn't study other books of private publications. I must say, MOST OF OUR PRODUCTIVE TIME, in the entire year, was wasted in the confusion of whether to or not study other books. Doing useless Navneet and Internals based on other books. And that SOME ACQUAINTANCE of Kasturi happened to be the ex secretary of the Governor. He advised us to fight a legal fight against DMER (the institution which conducts the medicine CET) and bring a stay on admission process. So we drafted a letter to the Governor, the Chief Justice of Mumbai High Court and the Education Minister, took signatures of as many students as possible and on 13th made rounds of many places in some hope that it would in at least some or the other way benefit us. But as we went to DMER office to give them a legal notice to be ready to fight a case, they gave us a circular which according to them was sent to all colleges and stated that all the books were to be considered in the study of the exam. And thus, everything in vain...
One the 12th night, as I was lying in the bed, I remembered all my thoughts of the times when I was still studying. It was exactly one month since CET and SO many things I had already experienced. I always imagined this day to be so amazing and exciting, wondering if I could be among the top 10 in state and maybe expecting some fulls, either in Chem or Phy. Somehow all those feelings yet felt very soothing and calming. I could have many flashbacks of our amazing lectures, fundoo concept discussions with Vivek and Varun and completing the homeworks just before the day of submission, at 4 o' clock in the morning.
I remember the day when I first came to Mumbai. When we were taking admission in Ruparel, the CET results of the toppers were displayed. As we stood there ogling at those amazing marks, wondering if I could ever become a doctor, Baba (my dad) was especially impressed by a guy who score 191 in both medical and engineering CETs. He confessed to me, that though he knew it was impractical, it was his dream that he wanted to see me topping both the CETs and scoring amazingly well in HSC with some great rank in boards. And then he put his arm around my shoulder and gave me a huge smile. He told me that he was really proud to have me as his son.
As I lay staring at ceiling fan performing the circular motion, with some background scores of Vivek's snores, I just gave out a long sigh, smiled and pulled up my blanket. As a small tear drop rolled down my cheek, I wondered if Baba could still feel the same tomorrow...