Baji Ram

Burning Welcome 

Often times, serendipity is all that you need. What makes life special though is finding those moments and linking them with your life. 

Looking out of the dilapidated room, I could see the Ravan burning. There wasn't the slightest of remorse in the wild crowd who had loaded the poor effigy with explosives. I remembered only that the burning of the Ravan effigy signified the start of a new era, a new start, something that I was about to have. 

Funnily enough, going to the coaching institute itself assumes a certain importance. Those who don't know anything about the entire exam fiasco often assume that the coaching is a guarantee of success, that going through the gates of those hallowed institutes would bestow the person with enough mana to break through the magic barriers of the ministry, any ministry. 

 

For me it was the culmination of a year long meditation on the future. Once you DONT get into the top college of the country, it's naturally assumed that you've missed the train to a bright future or more accurately the brightest future. Then this exam becomes a jetpack to catch the leaving train and also the last hope for those who haven't had any academic success in their lives, to prove for once and all that they are intact the real deal. Grappling with these thoughts on the window of my hotel room, I let out a sigh, of how my future would be in a few years. 

BajiRam and his friend Ravi

Everyone in my hometown called it Baji Ram, so naturally when I went there the next day, I was asking people where Baji Ram was. Only when I read the board, did I realise that it was Vajiram. Inside stacked one upon other were some 5000 other asspirants, which was only the stock for the morning batch. The moment that I laid my eyes on all of those suckers trying to get the admission, I realised that despite paying the fees and doing the course, most of them wouldn't get in. 

The admission itself was smooth, you paid the money and you got in. Its like any Ivy league college, only faster. 

Now, the only thing that remained was to take a room on rent. But since there was a week for the classes to start and I thought the process couldn't be too hard, so I went back to my hotel and postponed the thing for the future. 

But as they say, when life is out to get you, it gets you, sooner or later.