Destiny struck on 2/15!!!
We forever live in the fear that life shall pass us by and that we may have no future to redeem ourselves but though time does not stall for a moment's notice our time does not start until we begin it.
I surprise myself sometimes as to how a perfectly rational man like me believes in destiny. But really I have no other explanation for so many crucial incidences in my life to put it down to plain chance. The past one yr has been tough, probably the hardest in my whole life and its no exaggeration. There has been a lot of introspection, frustration and some good measure of desperation in the last one year. I would say now in hindsight that its made me a better man but it wasn’t a peach living it.
But where does destiny come into the picture? I’ll tell you….my all India PG entrance was an exam I wrote with almost zero pressure because I had given up all hope by that time. I felt I had not prepared well enough. While I wrote it I felt more and more confident and by the time I finished I was thinking I might have just cracked it. But my confidence before and after the exam had nose-dived to such an extent that I refused to believe my gut feeling. I went on with that same pessimism and it cost me. I did well in my state exams but not well enough because there’s little margin for error in these ruthless exams. I was looking down the barrel when it happened!! All India PG results were out and I had in fact cracked it and it was not bad either. This was among a lot of things I put down to destiny.
A lot many years ago when I wrote my entrances for undergraduate degree I was gunning for an Engg. Course and I wrote the Biology paper just as a means of shading practice and used whatever little I had studied to clear my boards in bio. I did extremely well in physics chemistry and mathematics. But as my destiny would have it my peers were to perform so badly in physics that my medical rank shot up to enviable levels. Yes I did get a good rank in engineering and I could have come out of top drawer college. But as I said destiny struck and I had my choice served on a platter.
Fast forward about a year and a half,. I had passed my first year. I had started playing football full time after college and trying desperately to get into the college team. There was a lot of competition. Though I worked hard I knew it would be hard to make the grade as there were many seniors waiting. But I played my heart out on the day of final selection. I played like never before and was so proud of myself. But the captain walked up to me and said I failed to make it to the team and a senior has made it in my place. I was depressed that night but when I saw the team list next afternoon my name was on the list. Pure providence would be the only word that can describe it.
Go a couple more years ahead. I was giving my clinical knowledge assessment for my finals in otorhinolaringology(E.N.T. if you are not from my world) and we got a horrible external examiner who I would describe as a sadist. He really got the kicks asking weird questions and failing candidates when his mood got stiff. To worsen matters the internal examiner wasn’t helping matters either. And I guess I caught them at the wrong moment because starting with my number they failed six candidates in a row.I answered all their questions correctly and accurately but the examiners were hostile and prejudiced and seeing my face they had already made up their mind. They gave me 36 on 80. A fail mark because I was still 4 marks short of the 50pc pass mark. But….but….again destiny had already struck. In my internal clinical assessment the head of the dept impressed with me being in the football team had given me a 14 on 20 while most of my class got 12 on 20. Both scores added up to 50 on 100 and I cleared by the skin of my teeth. If I had failed that exam despite me answering so well and because they didn’t like my face, that really would have broken me and maybe I wouldn’t have been the same again.
At this point I remember a Saurav Ganguly interview after he retired from international cricket. The interviewer asked him which was his most favourite century? He replied that it was his “first century at Lords on debut. If I hadn’t scored that day I wouldn’t be standing in front of you today”. It so parallels what happened in my life. If destiny hadn’t struck on that entrance exam I wouldn’t have taken medical. If I hadn’t made it to the football team that day I wouldn’t have passed my 3rd year. And if I hadn’t passed 3rd year I probably wouldn’t be the same guy again.
We all tend to put life as a series of choices waiting to be made. I have no reason to suggest otherwise but its really strange that so many things in my life has just hit me at the right moments. Today the same thing has happened. I’ve cracked the most competitive exam in the world. Nearly 1.5 lakh people writing this entrance exam for just over 2000 seats with infighting over choice of speciality. What were the odds? Its not to say I put it down to luck. I’ve worked extremely hard the last one year clocking on an average 10hrs a day of study but my point is it clicked. I’m sure there are people who have studied more than me, people who were much more brilliant than me and were much better prepared than me but still did not make it. It is just that it was my destiny that I would crack it this year and others will have to wait for their holy grail.
Even so its so easy to be dissatisfied with oneself. I could point to at least ten blatant mistakes that I made in that All India pg exam. Maybe that ten extra marks would have propelled me to the top 500 bracket but it was meant to be that I ended up on rank 1358 and I have no disputes with that. That rank has decided which course my life will take from here on in. I’ll still work hard like I have always done but with the belief that life is on my side of the park. Go get em!
