Is it the End of the Road?

One Sunday, I was driving down to the local fish market to buy some white pomfrets. These are the only fish my daughters respect well enough to eat. The rest, they love to see in a glass tank chasing their own tails. As for me, I’m happy if some decent amount of protein goes into my younger daughter’s stomach – somehow I get the feeling that the girl has discovered a unique metabolic cycle that converts air and water into readily usable energy. My supreme power of reasoning indicates to me that she ought to have been a cactus in her last birth!

But this is not about my children. This is about the eager, wide-eyed kids I saw in front of one of the many Kendriya Vidyalayas, that happens to be on the way to the fish market. Children of all shapes and sizes alighted from buses, taxis, autorickshaws and cyclerickshaws – many still gleaning last minute tidbits from books and notebooks; tension on their fragile foreheads very visible, albeit much lesser than that on the minds of the numerous parents who had also descended on the venue.

And this, I learnt, was no ordinary exam – this was the entrance exam to the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune. Things can’t get any tougher…

Okay, the IIT JEE and the AIIMS entrance exams are arguably tougher. How would I know? I had flunked all of them…

Circa 1990

I was at the examination centre one-and-a-half hours before the actual exam. Preparations had been underway for the last year or so. It seems to be a huge amount of time dedicated just for one activity, but then the IIT JEEs are very special peaks scaled year after year by a few dedicated and brilliant aspirants. And I endeavoured to be one amongst them that year.

I had done everything right until then. I had enrolled myself in Agrawal Coaching Classes and struggled through their question banks, mock tests and contact classes. I can honestly say that I gave it my best shot. That’s what my late father used to advise – as clichéd as it sounds – Anything you do, Always give it your best shot.

That year was a tough one – juggling academic schedules in the final year at school and simultaneously finding time for the monthly tutorials that Agrawal Classes unfailingly despatched. I must admit that it was a wretched time and I was glad when D-day dawned. Isn’t it a wonderful feeling when one has a huge test coming up and there’s no time left to study – relieved that fathers and mothers are more worried about equipping their wards with nutritious breakfasts, pens, calculators, hall tickets and even the extended prayer - beseeching the Lord to shower good sense and sparkling moments of brilliance to their offsprings. A final smearing of sacred ash on the forehead would then seal the Memorandum of Understanding with the One.

“Give it your best shot!” Dad called out as I walked out the door.

Sincerity in everything I do is an old habit, ingrained since the early days of childhood. Unfortunately, sincerity can never make up for “brilliance” or “intelligence.” The IIT JEE was a washout - no amount of sincerity in my efforts before or during the exams could salvage the result. Even though I managed to put something in my answer sheets for the Chemistry and Math papers, the Physics paper was a debacle – I would have probably scored 5 out of a hundred (with two marks for neatness!).

At the end of the day, I didn’t have to discuss much with my friends to gauge my performance. It had been dismal. Period.

I remember returning on a bus, looking out through the window into a bleak future, a non IIT future. The last minute, before walking into the house, I composed my answers to Dad’s questions that would ambush me even before I slipped off my shoes.

“How was it?”

“Good, pa…”

“Did you run short of time?”

(Time? Ha! I had loads and loads of it. Isn’t it strange that 03 hours in an examination hall can seem like an eternity, especially when candidates all around are scribbling furiously and you have no idea what they are scribbling! The blankness in the mind was rivaled only by the blankness of the virgin white answer sheets…incidentally, this “blankness” is the very state of mind that powerful yogis have been in a quest for since time immemorial. It’s called Nirvana. Suffice to say, the IIT JEE gave me the unparalleled honour of experiencing Nirvana!)

“Yes, pa…it was hectic. Barely enough…”

Two lines added on to the three lines already creased on my father’s forehead. That was worrisome…

“Don’t worry, Dad! Everybody felt that there wasn’t time…”

That assuaged his feelings. If every other person went through the same ordeal as his son, it was fine with him. Funny – this logic – at a higher plane of thought, translates to “suffering is ok if it spares no one.”

“I did my best, pa…” I added and ran to the bathroom, for huge blobs of tears were welling up in my eyes. Failure is heart-wrenching on all occasions, but putting up a façade of hopefulness for others to see is even more so. That day, along with disgusting, salty traces of tears, I washed my eyes free of all dreams of entering the portals of an IIT.

Ha!…who was that wise man who said, boys don’t cry…

I couldn’t afford to dwell in sadness, self-pity and the rest of that clan that hound oneself in such moments of self-doubt. For, I had two more challenges looming ahead of me– the All India Institute of Medical Sciences Exam (AIIMS) and the Armed Forces Medical College Exam.

At this point in time, with the benefit of that wonderful tool called hindsight – I must confess that I was quite a fool to opt for Biology as an additional elective subject, thereby keeping my options open for a seat in both professional streams – medical and engineering. Talking of interests – I had none but to bag any noteworthy course at any reputed college.

It was like rowing a boat in two directions – reeking of absolute lack of focus. Any Readers Digest issue with it’s Seven Simple Steps To Money, Fame and a Healthy Sex Life will tell you that.

Once again, I dealt with the fresh challenges in my life, digging into my vast reservoir of sincerity. But like I told you, sincerity can only get you a pat on your head – but will not help you answer 120 multiple choice questions in a 90 minute test in a manner that will place you ahead of the 99.9% of the other examinees.

To cut the story short, my general routine would be to give the exams, come home, tell my Dad that I had given it my best shot and then run to the bathroom to cry my eyes out. Somehow, the future to me, seemed to be greyer than the grey walls of our bathroom. My Dad, I am sure, would have got the general import of my frequent dashes to the bathroom. But the eternal optimist that he was, he kept up a wonderfully cheerful visage – more cheerful than I could bear. It wouldn’t be a pretty sight, I reasoned, when he perused the results that would one day be published in the newspapers.

In this context I must let you know that I am quite a health freak. As a health enthusiast, I attach a lot of importance to regular physical activity – just to get the sincere (there goes that word again!) heart going. Walking is one of my favorite activities that keeps me going. There are many long walks that are so deeply etched on my mind – the one in my native place in Kerala, past the pond, temple, through fields, over hedges and finally terminating at a dam; then there’s another one – on Colaba Causeway in Bombay, watching the faces of a thousand and more people returning home after a hard day’s work. But the one walk that I shall never forget- never ever – is the walk back home after buying The Hindu at the local newspaperwallah, on the day the IIT JEE results were declared.

It was an ordinary day in scorching Chennai that made me feel very, very ordinary indeed.

I was carrying home an edition of The Hindu with the IIT JEE results on page 9. I didn’t have to check them to know my fate; that was a foregone conclusion. Out of curiosity, I scrolled through the numbers – glad that the three chaps ahead of me and the two fellows behind me had also not made it. What the hell, in God’s holy name, were they then writing so furiously? That made me smile. A smile that died before it even touched my eyes. My unsmiling eyes - they were unblinkingly fixed on the tarred road that led back home. It was a short walk – but to me those eight minutes were the longest in my life.

My Dad didn’t have to ask me anything. My eyes gave him the answer – that my best shot had not been good enough.

The good man that he was, he took the newspapers from my hand – and scrutinized painstakingly, the columns of numbers to see if the roll number on my hall-ticket had found it’s way there. Probably, he had half a hope that I had just played out an elaborate drama of despair and failure. He had no idea of my histrionic ability or lack of it, I guess.

After probably ten minutes, wherein my father had checked the papers atleast thrice, he went back to the sports page. Indian cricket, to add to the gloom in my home, wasn’t doing well too.

As I proceeded to the bathroom to preserve my stoic image (The reader may be assured that I took this ‘Boys don’t cry’ stuff quite seriously), my Dad called out.

“Listen…you gave it your best shot! That’s what matters…”

“Yes, pa…”

“And…remember…it is not the end of the road.”

“Yes, pa…” I knew for sure that my eyes were glistening with unshed tears, waiting to roll down my cheeks.

“Plus…the AIIMS and the AFMC results, maybe you’ll get something there.”

Hope. Hope. Hope.

That’s what life was all about for my father. Hope.

Hope makes life tolerable.

Hope made my Dad’s life tolerable.

Hope - my Dad’s hope - made me cry.

Tears that had been restrained hitherto, were soon curling down my gaunt cheeks and dripping onto page 9 of The Hindu.

My father put his arm around my shoulder and reassured me, “Don’t worry…It’s not the end of the road.”

My father, may his soul rest in peace, had to give me the same reassurance, again and again, after the AIIMS and the AFMC results were declared.

“Son…you gave it your best shot. That’s what counts.” And he’d quickly add, something I have heard over a hundred times, “It’s never the end of the road…”

-----

The pomfrets almost jumped out of the bag, when I screeched to a halt – braking just in time to see a pimpled teenager crossing the road. The boy was lost in his book.

“Sorry, Uncle!” he apologized and rushed away. He turned back just in time, to see me mouthing something, inaudible to his innocent ears.

He must have thought that I had cursed him for getting in my way. I wish I had spoken louder.

“Son,” I repeated under my breath, “It’s not the end of the road…”

*****

Tailpiece:- Sincerity finally got me into IIT – twice – to pursue post-graduate programs at Delhi and Bombay. Fate does deal some strange hands. Hope, if I may add, comes out trumps – every single friggin time!