Final Destination...

Well, I guess I must agree that I was trying to run away from the fact that I had completed my CET and it was kinda expected that I must be writing something. But, I don't know why, I just thought I should wait till the results are out. I know I have to write since the day of CET and all the experience till 14th June and later, and believe me folks, now that I am in mood to write, this one is gonna be a long one. (P.S. I owe this one to my juniors, who made me realize that I am not just using up cyber space by writing for nothing, no one out there, when I knew that only Gauri Tai reads this, which I wonder now if she really does these days)
(Well, I too remember Googling up names like Keyur Desai, Akruti Gunderia, Nikhil Rao, Uday Tekchandani and Parasmita Bhattacharjee and many more, tracking them on their facebook lives and wondering about their legends.)
The month of April after the HSC boards was the best part. Yes we did miss all the teaching but then, studying what you feel you are weak at and having your own revision schedules was the best part. I remember us coming from the prelims, in a taxi even though the exam center - Saraswati Vidya Mandir - was very near to our house, just so that we could check the papers and know our marks. I remember carrying the change of Rs. 16, the minimum fair, in mine and Vivek's pockets. And then all the phone calls - To Ghangurde sir, to tell him marks and expect some HMMM (his signature sound), Nadkarni sir, to argue regarding every doubtfull question, Varun, Mihir and Kasturi to know their marks and texting all the people I knew to know where we stood. Then filing up all the papers and entering our marks in the report cards we made for ourselves. Sigh, I still miss all the fun and stress... Kind of addicted to it, it seems. :) :)
Let me start from THE DAY.
12th May 2011, the day when our destinies were written. I woke up after just 6 hours sleep, as the previous night I was too happy and excited to sleep, about the day to come. Still I felt like having beaten Sleeping Beauty in the competition, though the BEAUTY factor isn't included here :P.
Yes, I was worried that I had no worries at all and I remember dancing to Mast Kalandar on my iPod while Vivek was still nibbling away Biomedical Technologies, on 11th eve. I remember Vivek getting frustrated while I sang out Kabhi Kabhi Aditi aloud and my parents wondering if all the stress had driven me nuts. Yes, it was indeed a wonderful night counting last few hours till freedom. I could imagine how India might have felt at 12 O'clock midnight on 14th August 1947, only that I had no Chacha Nehru for the long speech. I remember having a breakfast of not-so-sweet Sheera on Thursday next morning because Ghangurde sir once told us that a girl who did so scored 50 in Physics. And they say we are the SCIENCE students, hahaha. And then putting on the Tanpura and meditating by humming the swaras of silent Hansdhwani. Then getting ready, praying to God (which I doubt if I even believe in) and kissing my parents as I sat in the cool cab being driven by a woman driver. Never did I breathe so deep and never did I feel so calm and relaxed. I already had decided that I will be surely following Haresh Sir's philosphy about positivity and using Rhonda Byrne's The Secret. Jai Hind was my centre and Prabhu sir's phone call was all I needed to boost my morale even more, which did occur amazingly as we were getting down from the car. I kept telling myself that CET is easy and dumb and that I shouldn't much complicate things. I kept repeating this advice that all our professors had given us since our first class test. But fate it seems, had something of its own to play.
The bell rang and we entered the class. I tried to meditate and keep my heart beat as slow as I could so that no adrenaline would be secreted so as to make me panicky. Papers were distributed and a surge of thoughts ran through my mind. HECK! Shit, this is the last PC paper I will be ever writing, unless I decide to repeat. All those amazing moments with our beloved Ghangurde and Nadkarni sir, our idiotically funny doubts and SO MANY TESTS for THIS single one! It was a great feeling. I opened up the paper and the first question itself was something I didn't know much about. HECK, I kept my mind calm though, thinking that its just my set here that has this tough one before. Rest to be following will surely be easy. But alas, DMER this time thought of some Halloween surprise for us. Every question that followed was something which we didn't expect from CET. Not that I couldn't get those, but just that the feeling that this devil was really different than what we expected for 2 years, made me worried. I cannot remember the no. of times I blessed my parents for admitting me with GG, as every following question was his internal with all the same options!! :O Physics was done, and it wasn't as bad as I firstly thought it would be, but I had taken up 4 mins more than what I should have and my Chem devil now had larger horns. Chem was really easy, but the time factor and the thought that I only could read every question once if I wanted to complete the paper really got me dizzy and I did what I so swore to not be doing. I lost my cool. I panicked. And what followed was havoc. I remember reading 6 questions in line with nothing going in head and me just circling them so as to hurry for the next one. Time was over and my 2 questions remained. The idiotic invigilator didn't know that he was supposed to be signing the papers and came to fulfill his duty as I was scurrying around to mark the answers. Finally, as the bell rang, I kept holding tightly on to my answer sheet, following GG's tips to not to give it away unless you mark everything. But then I wondered how suddenly the invigilator could be so smart by taking away my question paper instead. Sigh, I didn't know what option to mark. This never happened in our mock tests as we were supposed to take away the question papers at home. I saw around, people moaning, screaming and some hugging their deaths quietly. I kept wondering which group I should be joining. I could see my parents disappointed faces, GG and Nadu asking me how I could not get THAT particular question and Kasturi asking me how I could miss such easy ones. I wished I could just disappear. Somehow, I could remember Aai telling me that if PC went bad, it meant I had the added responsibility of doing my best in Bio. So, I hurried to the washroom to wash my face where already few people were crying, but I decided that I won't be giving a shit about what's happening around and what happened before. I knew that if it was bad for me, it surely must have been bad for everybody. I just prayed to God that the Bio paper happens to be just out of board book and occupied my seat. But sigh, no prayers were to be accepted that day.
Bell rang, I got my Bio paper and I felt all the joy one could get by topping a prelim, after reading first 2 pages. Every question had been from board book. But then, again, the happiness wasn't meant to be lasting for long. They started asking some questions which I knew even Balaji didn't have the answers for. But somehow, I didn't feel the excruciating pain anymore again. Maybe I had become too numb to feel it, maybe I had gobbled up some extra confidence with water gulps and dry fruits, during the break, but somehow I remained strong during the entire Bio paper. Completed it on time and just wondered if I should run back down to my parents or just sit there. Quietly. I randomly packed my stuff as everybody was running around in pain and anguish. There were huge heaves and silent sobs, long sighs and sarcastic smiles. I wondered what mask I should have been wearing. I just climbed down the stairs and calmly explained my parents the situation who thought I would come down screaming in joy and all in smiles as after my final Geometry paper of SSC. And then... The worst part... DISCUSSIONS!
Firstly, I called up Ghangurde sir, to tell him that unlike what he promised us the entire year, the Bio paper was not exclusively from board book. By then he already knew of the PC case. Then calling up Vivek, who was already crying, Varun, who gave me a myocardial infarction by saying that PC was just lengthy and that he expected 97 in it, Kasturi, who wondered if she would have to repeat and then Mihir, who's phone was switched off.
Then it was a confusion so as to deciding which classes we should be going to, to draft the paper again. As we discussed how screwed we were in Bio and how we were raped in Physics I knew KEM was now just a dream. We knew we had to go to GG, because that's where we were confused the most. Again Dominoes pizzas lured us even at such time. Haha! Where we met Minit Shah, who then again made us feel that we should be jumping from the building by explaining how better KEM was, as compared to Sion. Even Pizza seemed to taste shit. With every question answered wrong, counting back the falling score was really a dagger in heart. But we somehow could finish the paper and ran to Prabhu sir's office where the Bio paper was already ready and printed. With NO CONTROVERSY this year and all answers being line pickups, the hope of getting some free marks of controversies were even shattered. And then as he told everybody's scores, I added up my P & B totals, just praying to God that I might not have made more than 4 mistakes in Chem. And then impatiently we requested Kolambikar sir to allow us to check the paper he had drafted. 183, 183!!!! That was the score I predicted! And sigh, it was a feeling I really can't explain in words. With no energy left in body to travel in a train from Parla to Dadar, we somehow got ourselves into a rickshaw and immediately started calling up friends from various places. Kolhapur, Ratnagiri, Latur, Solapur, Sangli and Kudal. Somehow the sadistic pleasure of everybody having done badly and the news of the so-called-toppers of respective places coming back home crying, calmed our nerves.
Reaching home, was like attending a funeral. With my and Vivek's parents putting up their awkward smiles trying to convince us that medical college didn't make much difference and that everybody around the state faced the same situations. Predicting the cut offs for KEM and Mumbai, I just prayed it were around 183. Plus, there was a huge confusion while marking the answers, so I just hoped that all the practice of 2 years to mark correctly paid off. Somehow I didn't enjoy my dinner in Gypsy that day. As I licked my chocolate ice cream I wondered if my 197 in last prelim was just a joke...

THIS is Rocking

CET's nearing day by day... 139 days left for it... HSC exam dates declared... Surely dead in that :P... And so much is happening in life... And since my last post I haven't at all got any time to write anything!!! Firstly Our Bio lectures are over... Last chapter of Chemistry is going on... And Physics portion is traveling at the velocity of light :D... And I AM SO LOVING MY LIFE... Might not be the most interesting life, but surely the most productive... I nowadays go out for a walk in the evening to refresh my mind... There I see many people of my age, enjoying to the fullest... I really envy them sometime... But then I think, are they going to be able to do all this 10 years down the line... Will their life be THIS simple... And then this strengthens my belief that by working harder I am creating an easier, simpler and enjoyable future for myself... In Haresh Sir's notes there's this beautiful quote-

"Future is not something to wait for, future is something to be created... Plan your future in advance as that's where you are gong to spend most of your life..."

The other day Baba told this to me,

"You get what you deserve and you deserve what you get"

Now I don't know how he came up with this, but as I think about it, it is the eternal truth of life... Haresh Sir says, we always work in two domains of life "DOING" and "GETTING"... But we forget the most important domain - "BEING"... We think 'If I do this, I'll get this... If I say this, they'll think this... If... Then..." and we remain entangled in this foolish mumbo jumbo... We forget the part that THIS itself is such a huge thing... Rather a beautiful thing!!! THIS may vary from person to person... For a student THIS might be marks on test, homeworks, assignments, crushes!!! Anything... But THIS, this time of studying, these weekly tests (mid weekly rather as we now have tests on Wednesdays too), these lectures, these homeworks... Once gone are never to come (unless of course you repeat if you didn't do all THIS properly... Hehehe ;) )
Today I had a Chem lecture and Nadkarni Sir said, "So we are now starting the lecture for the last chapter of our syllabus." I don't know why... In that fraction of a second my entire last year came up from my memories... I could remember last year's December, preparing to face new Prof.s with enthusiasm, new books, added workload and all those AMATEUR CET STUDENT emotions!!! I could remember all the first introduction lectures and what all of us said... And all THIS is about to end!!! Now surely many would not agree, but I enjoyed this journey a lot... I am COMPLETELY, COMPLETELY a different person as compared to what I was when I came to Mumbai, rather when I entered twelfth... I've become matured, understanding, street smart, a PLANNER, lot more sincere, devoted, honest and stronger to face crisis situation... Ya in twelfth you might not be on border with guns and grenades, but facing the Sunday test with MCQ homework of 250 questions to be submitted on Monday is nothing lesser... I know THIS doesn't end here... Lot more to come... Many more bullets to be faced, many more bazookas to be dodged but this PAIN!!! Its sweet addicting pain... With never before kind of shivering, chilly winter of Mumbai, its torture to wake up at 5 in the morning and bathing with cold water just so that your brain's back to life... While sipping hot ginger tea, I sometimes wonder - "Is all this really worth? After all, all I want to be is a successful and renowned doctor... How does my college, my CET marks matter anyway?" Well then I understand that even if THEY don't THIS does matter... THIS is a PROCESS (isothermal irreversible expansion and adiabetic.. HEHE :P)
THIS is where we are made... And THAT is the result... I am constantly trapped in the GETTING domain... And that's where I lose... As I'm reading a book called THE SECRET by Rhonde Bryne, I am thinking of world in a different way... It says that we emit a frequency of a thought whenever we think about something... THERE... That thought about which you are thinking RIGHT NOW is going to the universe and law of attraction works in universe... THAT thought will bring more such thoughts to you... It will make up your day, your future because as quantum physicists define, time is relative... RIGHT NOW, another version of YOU already exists in some other time frame... And its the Schrödinger's cat paradox type of event... The probability that an event occurs depends on the time when observer observes the event... (Google it to know more) If we extrapolate this concept we can see imagine that THOUGHTS are nothing but agencies which we send out into the future which pull many threads and make the situation true... My life depends on what I think... I think I can do, achieve, win and conquer... And so does my down fall!!! I keep saying this to me "Today is going to be a great day, today is going to be a great day" and it does turn out to be one!!! Sometimes even if when I don't do homework... And sometimes when I feel very demoralized the day turns out to be a nightmare... I get scolded in spite of doing all the works...

I have now really started believing... "What I can do, depends on what I think I can do"... LITERALLY!!!

Far from the point of all THIS I have taken myself to some new world... I now understand that you don't have to be worried and stressed to be determined and planned... These two are mutually exclusive sets which we often don't consider to be different... Water always APPEARS to be turbulent and gushy on top, but inside its calm and quiet... Same is with our life... We worry with about some different situations and worry is all we do about it... Baba asks me to believe in this, "Arey, main nahin kar sakta, toh aur kaun karega?" (If not me, who can?)... Its easier and simpler to face the situation rather then dying by worrying...
Now I'm not some Dalai Lama or any old banyan tree living for 500 years to say all these great words of wisdom... But whatever I have learned in this infinitesimal period of 17 years, will decide my further path...

Today, as I wonder how I will miss all my Professors, lectures, homeworks, etc. even before everything ends, I feel very sentimental... I really felt like crying when Nadkarni Sir said, "So we are now starting the lecture for the last chapter of our syllabus."
And THIS is where I am.........

My First (probable) 50!!

MAN!!!!! Today was Physics and Chemistry test and I rocked!!! MY FIRST 50 in PHYSICS... YIPPEEEE!!
Now, its not official, I checked my paper according to solution set given to us and one answer doesn't match... However, I am sure that mine is correct... I'll have to wait till Saturday lecture for result officially... But hell with it... Even if I lose a mark in marking mistake, I don't care because I KNOW THAT ON QUESTION PAPER I HAVE FULL!!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY...

But Ghangurde Sir's reaction was not anything extra-ordinary!! He just said "Good!! Good!!... BYE" And hung up!! Now come on!! Now I at least deserved some appreciation!! After all those times when he called me told me that I should get 50 this time!! But I am not upset... Because I didn't deserve it too!! Yeah... Because I didn't study as hard as I should have... In fact I didn't study at all... Because I was busy checking the reactions of people on my last post.. :'(
Neither did I solve a single MCQ book nor did I cover all the lessons... Neither did I solve Physics internals nor did I read Chemistry... And so today I was not so confident after the Chemistry paper which is my forte!! I guess in CET, the only thing which counts is not just hard work, but hard work WITH sincerity... Now I am saying this because though I didn't do any study of Physics this week, I am scoring good just because I did all my home works on time and sincerely... When you do them just for the sake of completion nothing goes into head... And I guess, reading various textbooks also helps...
But I think that this was just a fluke, and I think that to repeat this feat the next time, I'll really have to study hard... Wish me luck guys!!

A Lesson Learnt...

You know you are in 12th when the best part of your daily schedule is when you SLEEP... Yes, especially, preparing MHT-CET is really a tough thing to do... The people who have not seen me from many years or even months, won't be able to recognize me... With my eyes completely swollen, black, so much flab around my waist and my face sweating like a pig I become the FUgliest creature on earth, ON SUNDAYS...
Now, I no more curse Sundays... I have become used to them... With Bharat Bandh declared tomorrow, it is first day after summer vacations that I don't have any classes to attend... I have time, a lot of it... And so I can splurge a bit of it on writing something today...
Hushh!!! There are so many things I want to write about since my last post, but haven't got time at all... However I would like to share certain important incidents which took place these days...
Firstly, today was a very tiring day... With investment of only 1.5 hrs in the field of sleep, I somehow managed to keep myself awake for both Maths as well as Biology paper... And punished myself by making 3 marking mistakes... First of all, the matter which I was confident about and knew by heart, in the paper was very less... And on top of that I made marking mistakes in them... (In Marathi - Aadhich Ullhas Tyat Phalgun Maas. Sorry guys can't translate this in English)
Last 2 consecutive Maths tests I had not scored a 50, after a successful spell of about 8 consecutive 50s... That was the biggest shock for me... MATHS, the only subject which comes to me without any special efforts (even of homework), was not rewarding me... And I knew that it was completely fair to me, because Maths was unfair to others who worked hard for that perfect score and I got it without even a drop of sweat... And by losing those 2-3 marks I was also being unfair to Haresh Sir, who was being so lenient to me about homework and etc. He never asked me for H.W. neither did he bug me for any specific work... And so I got a lot of time which I SHOULD HAVE UTILIZED for Bio and Physics (creatively CET ORIENTED)... So if you are reading this Sir, I would like to apologize for this... So as to make up for it, yesterday for the FIRST time I studied for Maths exam...
After that, as I was about to START Biology exam preparation yesterday I got a call from Ghangurde Sir (my Physics Prof.)... This was, I suppose his 3rd call this week... The reason was that I had got miserable 43 in the combo test after a great 49 in previous test (out of 50)... Sir was very unhappy with me, that day during the lecture... He kept on pulling my ears and giving me beatings (which didn't hurt me at all)... Then he gave us a riddle about capacitors, the answers to which I had got that day itself... I called Sir, that day and told the answer but sir said that my answer was wrong and started laughing... He told me that if wasn't able to answer such a dumb question then it was a very shameful thing for me that, in spite of reading University Books (Halliday & Resnick/ Sears & Zemansky) I still sucked at foolish riddles... And this was just the spark I DID NOT require...
That call and the only thing I knew was, CAPACITANCE... I read each and every book I had, I searched every damn corner on net and called various people for the answer... Yet the answer which I got was same... So once again I called Sir to tell him that I was again getting the same answer and again Sir rubbished it... His taunting had worked such great miracles that I even dreamt of Capacitance... And hence my entire week was used up... I cannot say that I wasted it, because now my concept of Capacitance is crystal clear... And so on Friday I gave up... I took up Chemistry against my will because once again I had let down Ghangurde Sir... Yesterday, after I returned from Chem lecture I slept for about 1 hour so that I could be awake the entire night... [Vivek was down with fever and stomach ache so he went home, Panvel and I was feeling lonely, so I called up Ashutosh and Kalpesh for company... And if at all I get good marks in today's Bio test, it will be entirely because of them who kept me awake the entire night and helped me a lot with studies... Thanks guys...] The first thing I did after waking up was doing Maths... And there was my phone ringing with Ghangurde Sir's number flashing on it...
I said "hello..." and the first thing Sir asked me was about the answer to the riddle... I told Sir that after trying hard for about consecutive 5 days, I had given up because only answer which I was getting was 32 capacitors... And guess what, THAT WAS THE CORRECT ANSWER...!!! Sir started laughing on phone and told me that my answer was correct on the very first day, but he wanted to show me, how foolish I can act by giving up the study of all the other subjects just for the sake of that 1 riddle... Sir, in a really HARSH way had showed me how I had wasted the entire Bio-Maths week for Physics, how I couldn't set my priorities right, and what can be the reason for me not getting admission in KEM... In Sir's words, "God is very mean... He gives intelligence to some and the ability to do hard work to others... And if at all both these characters are seen in a same person, he usually happens to have some or other problem... Financial or something else... But God has given you a huge combination of all these things... The only thing he has not given you is brain, because of which all these qualities are useless... You don't understand WHAT to study and WHEN to study... As you don't have any planning and study according to mood swings you end up studying things which are not at all necessary for CET..."
Sir also asked me to follow Aditi Patankar, who according to him will top our batch this year... He told me that most of the toppers who were scoring more than me couldn't grasp Physics in lectures as fast as I could, but they didn't have to because they were smart enough to beat me easily on their hard work and planned efforts... He also told me that me and few of my friends had real potential to be a top scorer but only that our efforts were not properly channelized... So then he challenged me that if I topped next 5 tests he would throw an Ice-Cream party and if I didn't, only his hands would do the job...

And so, this was a huge confidence booster for me... For the first time, he seemed to be very fatherly and it was such a warm talk! Although it did consume about 1 hour on a Saturday night, I felt so energetic and determined, that it was worth it...

DAMN!!! NOW I AM GONNA SO SCREW ALL YOU TOPPERS...
I AM COMING BACK, YOU STUDY-FREAKS!!!

ITS A BRAND NEW SUJAY YOU ARE ALL GONNA SEE!!!
THE OLD SUJAY'S DEAD AND GONE!!!

DEAD AND GONE - T.I. Feat. Justin Timberlake



Oh hey, I've been travelin' on this road too long
Just tryin' to find my way back home
But the old me's dead and gone
Dead and gone
And oh hey, I've been travelin' on this road too long
Just tryin' to find my way back home
But the old me's dead and gone
Dead and gone...

I turn my head to the east, I don't see nobody by my side
I turn my head to the west, still nobody in sight
So I turn my head to the north, swallow that pill that they call pride
That old me's dead and gone but the new me will be alright
I turn my head to the east, I don't see nobody by my side
I turn my head to the west, still nobody in sight
So I turn my head to the north, swallow that pill that they call pride
That old me's dead and gone but the new me will be alright...

YO MAN!!!