Making of the joker -- Part II

Making of the joker -- Part II

There were a lot of topics in my engineering course. There were good topics, bad topics, irrelevant topics, insane topics & awesome topics & unfortunately awesome topics were very few. However the deal was very raw. It was to gather 30 questions, (not 300 this time!!) search for the most brilliant answers to these 30 questions & then to do what I was really good at; Cram them by Heart!!!. They wanted me to do what I had already done so many times. Amazingly convenient & deservingly absurd!!!
Choice was not easy for me. I decided not to cram anything or read to get passing score. I tried to challenge everything I read. Initially, It was like a part of me was saying to move ahead, as the topic has already been crammed. It surely looked insane to any spectator. I read a topic. It was crammed by me & I was still reading it to understand, what it was actually. Initial days of changed reading habits were turning out to be tougher than I anticipated.
After lot of hustle I started questioning the theories & getting huge amount of frustration in return. It was a 3 step process I remember

1. Read a theory
2. Challenge It!!
3. Find someone with whom you can share your thoughts

I have never done a tougher job in my life than to get Step 3 done. Gradually I was surrounded by all who were crammers one way or the other. So 5 out of 10 times I challenge a theory & can’t satisfy my challenge but I believe rest 5 times was worth & amazing.
After spending a lot of struggling time with the book, I sat in the exam. Interestingly I only studied 1 subject out of 6 this way & I didn’t get any time to study rest 5. I was scared. I used to walk into examination hall like a king, as I always knew the questions & the answers to those questions. But that time story was different. People were confident & I was scared. Then it began.

Again all of us sat in a Hall. It was a good time to make reputations & automatically it seemed like a very bad time to play the gamble I was playing. I sat there & I was very nervous. It was like I could get 99 & why I chose not to? At that moment all my challenge theories had buried & the old Joker was in front of me, staring on me & bidding bye to me. Fortunately it began. I saw the questions & it was like a puzzle. It drained me in 3 hours.I loved those 3 hours & as a result I got 75 out f 100 & people even got 95 .

Wow! Was I simply dumb or stupid. I chose 78 + 3 hours of enjoyment + 4 months of struggle instead of 95 + 3 hours of labour. People were playing with same spirit. 99 out of 100 were celebratable in college even. But this time I was not playing it. I was watching it. Trust me when you are part of it. It doesn’t look that stupid!!!! But from there It looked like one of the biggest mistakes we have made to ourselves.

I remember all of them were about to be engineers. They were supposed to take this country forward by solving immense puzzles of the world. Yet they could not saw the puzzle they were a part of. World was spinning in front of me & people were celebrating. It was unique but painful. I think it was the pain. Pain of transformation.I was pushing 10 years old joker out.It deserved to pain

Arpit