exams...!!

it's the exam week... added to the misery of the truth dawning upon us that the fun filled FC is going to be over in about 10 days, are the exams...

on the first day of the FC, in the Inauguration Session, we were given an expensive leather bag (sarkari to the last buckle) full of textbooks... on law, management, public administration and such... i put it in the lowest drawer in my desk and had forgotten all about it...until now...

since the exams were scheduled for monday, i ransacked my room and found the bag by sunday morning... i opened the book on public administration, put out my chair in the balcony and sat down to study... two pages later, the sun came out full blast and i realized, looking at the empty clothesline that it was a good day to wash some clothes... so i went and washed a few clothes... then i thought some of the washed clothes could do with some more washing... i also considered washing my roomie's clothes but i wasn't really sure how she'd take this generous act... anyway, by the time i was done, i was so tired, i needed a warm bath... so i had one... by then, it was lunch time and along with my 'family', i headed for the mess...

soon after, we had a few batchbook details to fill... it basically involves formally picking on one OT till he/she flies off the handle so that all such relevant information can be immortalized in our batch book... i had so many people fly off the handle that each one waited with evil glints in their eyes for my turn... they had their share of sadistic pleasure at pointing out my orange slippers, my incessant ability to say 'No!!', "this is Sooooo bad"... to give out free lessons on psychology and philosophy... "stop writing any blogs..." and more that i obviously am not sharing!!

with so much criticism i could barely study, so i curled off into a deep slumber and tried to forget the treacherous beasts i called friends...

come evening, i woke just in time for the last tea cup... came back and finally located the management book... i marked a few lines in pink(my current favorite pen) before realizing i couldn't possibly write my exam in pink!! so i convinced my good friend to go shopping for a few pens... we went all the way to the farthest market in Bhopal for pens that we could have as well bought well within 100m at the local shop... satisfied with this hectic preparation, i had a heavy meal and fell into another sound sleep...

today was the exam... the questions were tough... the answers, tougher... for eg: one question went like this...
Q) who is considered the real founder of the Mughal Empire??
Options) Shivaji, Alexander, Akbar, Megasthenes

Shreyas marked the answer "Shivaji"... why???
"If Shivaji hadn't lost the battle with Humayun on purpose(i didn't know match-fixing was an ancient practice), how would Akbar have succeeded the throne???" he explained...

i'm not sure what the correct answer is... but i'm praying to my Roomie's Gods (i don't really have one) so i scrape through with the minimum 50% required to pass on to my Parent Academy....

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it was easily the biggest day in FC, and one of those memorables ones that we'll discuss for a while... the day started with the UPSC Chairman D P Agarwal sharing his views for two full breakless hours... there were few nodding heads on account of the ardent disagreements and arguments that made up most of the lecture... transparency in marks... making graduation subject compulsory in mains... shortening the length of exams... the usual stuff...

the next hour was taken up by D S Mathur... we were quite skeptical of him since his previous lecture on 'BioTerrorism' had induced more than a dozen heads to roll...down in sleep... one of them being mine... i remember more than one nightmare... i thought the topic could be used unchanged in the Al-Qaeda Institute of Terrorism and Violent Activities... Dhruva looked at me like I'd finally lost it, when i suggested the idea to him... even nivedita, the escort duty officer to Mr. Mathur, was praying with a vengeance that her Guest would do better this time... the prayers were answered... the lecture was on Code of Conduct for Civil Cervantes... and it was pretty interesting.. he topped it off with his account of the Telecom Scandal which had us all up and awake... about how the Govt of India had lost 1.75 lakh crore rupees and all... i especially love the stories that get unrolled in the class... real events, real people... not through newspapers but in flesh n blood... there's something enchanting about the whole thing... maybe one day it'll wear off, but right now, i enjoy the awe these 'big shots' inspire...

in what was considered by most to be the Jackpot Escort of the whole FC, i got to be on Escort Duty for one of the biggest men in the country - A P J Abdul Kalam.... though all i did was shake hands with him and spend less than five minutes telling him about my fellow OTs, what we wanted him to talk about and other similar small talk... the added perks included a real cute IPS officer who was in charge of the whole VIP affair and another interesting MBA guy who shared my frustration in the Corporate sector.... it had been so long since i'd met anyone from outside the 'Sarkari Island' i'm now a part of...

there was a lot of photographing to do... all of us resplendent in our bandgalas (guys, i mean) and the fairer sex in beautiful sarees(that would be me)... it was a rare opportunity... only the second time in our FC(the first one being the Inauguration Function)... there'll be a lot of uploading going on today n tomorrow...

chalo, i gotta go now... friends had decided on a night drive, but the main one backed off, complaining of a stomach ache... too much pressure in the FC na... PT, lectures, Q&A sessions... all the butterflies apparently upset his delicate stomach...

nite nite!!

Diwali Greetings...

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it's been a while since i blogged and i'm reminded of my laggedness by VinC... it must mean something that even he's missing my 'buzz'es coz he's someone who'd rather not read anything that's not entirely avoidable... sometimes, not even the bus route names... seriously... or maybe it's just his way of avoiding the hours of conversations where i update him about every little thing- like the sour rasam, the missing of PTs, the little fights with the friends, mood swings, the new Coffee 'n' U we've discovered...

anyway, life's been on... and though i hate the thought of it, i cannot but help notice i've just one more month left of this blissful oblivion...  we had a recent village visit... mine was with a bunch of four other friends (not OTs) to Jhal Peepli... we were in our favorite place... anything but the lecture halls....;-)

the village was a 'Forest Village' with 100% tribal population... interesting sights of purdah'ed women, little brown kids with the frank stares, the old men(69years) who claimed to be older (96 years)... the wonderful lunch that came out of the dark kitchen where women under wraps, with lowered eyes turned out one poori after another... the sheer curiosity, attention and adulation we generated was intoxicating... i couldn't help but blame the fate for not letting us stay the nights in these wonderful surroundings... though there were times i was glad we had our occasional returns into our bland lives... especially during the nature calls... ;-)


what else? most of the OTs are back home celebrating Diwali... only a few are left behind - mostly coz our homes are too far... i'm not too unhappy... most of my bunch is stuck here and i'm planning a quiet getaway tomorrow with a friend who's been complaining i'm ignoring her for the past week or so... so maybe i'll have a few more adventures to regale you with when i'm back...

Malaria Madness...

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just a few lines to unload before i bury myself in the thick blankets to catch up on lost sleep... classes for the afternoon are cancelled... blood tests are going on... i donated my own 'one drop' to the testers... after a scream that echoed down the corridors and brought people hurtling to see who'd been 'Texas Chainsaw Massacred'... the tests were for the malaria scare that is doing the rounds... one fell sick 3 days ago... one is affected and in the hospital's CCU for the past two days... not good news... not good news at all...

the malaria's affecting not only those directly affected but the rest of the batch too... the trek group to which all the sick people belong, are now paranoid and developing psycho-somatic symptoms that they learnt by heart during their UPSC preparations as the actual symptoms of malaria... one of them is limping and though i'm quite sure that isn't a bullet point for the 5-mark malaria symptom question, i haven't the heart to tell him... i am quite paranoid too... despite the fact that i'm aware of my psycho-somatic powers, i can't control them... and i'll develop all the right symptoms in 24 hours after a clean search of the wikipedia... that explains my blood test though all we did was sleep in exhorbitantly luxurious AC Tents for our 'trek/trip/picnic/pilgrimage' to Amarkantak...

the whole batch has started functioning like an organism... the way only a crisis can induce it to... at midnight, there were a dozen guys watching out for the sick guy... though only one was allowed to stay in the hospital, three others kept watch, 'just in case'... some probably had never interacted with Dash, the chap in CCU, being prayed for by all, or most... (atheists duly excluded)

one of the other immediate effects of the malaria outbursts is the cancelled CGM Dinner... H is sad that all the songs he practiced in the long baths in his bathroom will have no audience but his own hazy reflection in the mirror... but all the team is also unanimously sad that we'll not get to wear the all-black outfits we'd planned to don for the D-day... well, one must learn to accept the harsh-realities that life throws at us! we will survive! yes, we can! mera bharat mahan! ok, now i've totally gotten carried away...

the other activity affected is our 'village visit'... we were to stay for 5-6 days in some little villages... cut off from the lectures, the PT, the dress-code, the HOPE meetings, the Committee sessions!! after the first malaria finding, it was decided that the 'visit' would be too hazardous a thing for the OTs and we were offered Rest Houses & Circuit Houses to rest ourselves in... but now that another has been admitted to the hospital, it's been decided that we'll stay right here and just visit the village from the safe havens that our hostel is... we'd be leaving after breakfast, which, with our sharpened sense of punctuality would be anywhere from 10-11... and be returning from the villages at 6pm... quite a hectic schedule if you consider the traveling... some worries have been voiced on the lunch table by the more vociferous ones...

"there's hardly any time to interact with the villagers!" is countered by
"there's hardly any activity after sun-down! hardly any night-life" retalitates a bangalorean night-life addict...

but other questions are less adeptly tackled... like

"though they might sleep at sundown, the village life starts with sun-up... 5:30am... when we're still in the non-malaria beds in the hostel!"

"who'd be in the village from 12noon to 6pm to interact with!... children too small to go to the school or ancient old men"

"we would never be accepted completely if we kept leaving every day..."

"if the villages are malaria-prone, won't the villagers also be affected... couldn't we try and educate them about the healthy ways..." one of those NGO/Social Service types..

"yeah, true... didn't we all claim in our UPSC interviews that we were only in the service to serve the downtrodden??" one of the righteous, change-the-world types...

"isn't this hypocrisy?? differentiating between the health of villagers and ourselves??? trying to save our own skins instead of being where we can actually put into practice whatever we learn in the class??" this from someone who nods off 10 mins into the class, every class, every day...

some are more realistic...

"the academy just wants to be wary... they don't want any more sick people than they can handle...."

"it is for our own safety"

"villagers' immunity will be higher than ours" the metro-breds...


arguments flash back and forth..... i listen... i collect... i retaliate... i write...

and just as i finish the piece, i realize the lessons spilling in the past 24 hours are more real than the months of classes in the modern-class-room...

Inertia Rules!!

all about Amarkantak

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it's nearly 1am and it's tempting to sleep... i have a choice of cleaning up all the odds and ends you accumulate on unpacking after a week long trek in the Amarkantak... stinking dirty socks, muddied tracks, water bottles, band-aids(unused), shampoos, soap, needle-and-thread combo, etc, etc... and all this without waking up my roomie... and in the half-light... so instead i choose to write this tortuous blog...

it was a week long trek... or atleast i think it was.. you lose your sense of time and day among a lot of other senses as you trek through jungles all day long... as i saw more sal trees than anyone ought to in one life time, i wondered if our forest officer wasn't taking us in circles just for fun... after all there's little in amarkantak... except the 'narmadaji' river, ashrams, temples in all stages(functional, decrepit, under construction) and a lot of cows... which with spectacular accuracy walk right to the middle of the road to have their thoughtful rests... our 'ambulatory van' which we earlier thought was a very-slow ambulance built to deliver 100 percent fatality because it never breached the 10kmph mark stopped every 100m to honk these cows out of the way...

it's hard to summarize such a long trek... but a few moments stand out... the first day at ashram... our room had a sunken bath but little lighting... and the food there did little to improve my appetite or energy... it wasn't an altogether bad place... if you're 70, retired, old, on a pilgrimage, want to wonder about your existence and all that... but for a bunch of excited 21 OTs rearing to jump onto a trak, it was the coldest water... we didn't realize how much we disliked it till the evening when waiting for the Commissioner and the IG we discovered the Holiday Homes... in the strongest bit of team building we shifted successfully into the luxurious new tents for the rest of the trak...

the trek ranged from hectic on the first day to picnic on the third day... there were some tough terrains to conquer... some serious scratches to treasure... we barely took our eyes off the path sometimes coz it was so steep, slippery with trampled green leaves and every step on those round stones threatened to throw you into the steep jungles below... there were a lot of dhara's... rudra ganga, shambu dhara, laxman dhara... but the best one was kapil dhara... visited three times and viewed from every direction possible - from the top, the bottom, the left and the right... from the front and best all, from behind... we bathed in the furious waters, sat in the pool, discussed geographies, approximated heights... and the other high point was a swim in the narmada... my swimming lessons finally paid off and i managed to freestyle a couple of laps... even as our team leader frowned at my 'unlady-like' behaviour as i kicked off my shoes and jumped into the green gushing waters along with the local brown boys... for the record, before any of the macho guys did... just avenging myself for the whole 'girls don't choose IPS thing'... ;-)

the evenings mostly consisted of sitting around the bonfire playing games... dumb charades, lateral thinking (do not smirk at 'thinking'... it was one of the funnest games... that is, if you are equipped with the equipment required...)... 'do you know - what' and 'zip-bang'...

we also had good times in the Dosa Point especially on the second day when we accidentally swindled the shop-keeper of 265 bucks... and had the hardest time as everybody explained everything to everybody about how everybody else was not understanding the whole thing... finally, we went back and re-adjusted the cash so that in the end, we were swindled off of 35 bucks... which like our saintly conscience-keeper Vikram said,  is somehow better than the other way round...

chalo, i have to attend some seriously boring lectures tomorrow... am keeping my fingers crossed that i'll be shuttled from the first bench finally...

ciao!!