Somewhere between a perfect breakfast and a mid-day meal, as the sun shines, the earth spins and a clock tower in a far corner of the city reads 10:15 AM, a strangely familiar yet completely absurd alarm-tune of ‘It’s the time to disco’ goes off my phone, substantiating my worst ever fears.
It’s time to wake up.
I take my phone out from under the pillow and hit the red button to end the melancholic melody. After a good 10 minutes of staring at the ceiling for no apparent reason, followed by a great battle of the mind, I struggle out of bed, drag myself towards the main door of the house and open it. A cold gush of wind sweeps right across my face, messing up my already disheveled hair. It’s an extremely cold and cloudy day. I stretch my arms out through the door to check if it’s drizzling; it isn’t. There is something peculiar about that day. It is too cold, too cloudy and too silent. Yet, for some weird reason, I’m unfazed by all that. I feel like I’m entranced by some heavenly spirit. I somehow sense that it’s going to be a fantastic day.
After taking a deep breath of fresh, chill air, I close the main door and move towards the kitchen to make my ambrosial morning drink, coffee. Just as I place the kettle on the stove, the phone in my pocket gives a double beep, notifying me that its highness has just received a text message. Expecting a clichéd forward message ending with ‘gud mrng, hav a nic day,’ I open my inbox. Much to my surprise and bewilderment, the sender’s name reads ‘CAT – Results.’ With mouth wide open in aghast, I shift all the attention from the kettle to the phone and click on the message. The message reads ‘CAT results are out. To get your results, please visit the CAT website.’ I stuff the phone back into my pocket, look at the kettle and whisper ‘I don’t need you anymore, I’m wide awake now,’ and leave the kitchen.
I spend the next couple of minutes rushing to my room, turning on the computer, opening the browser and keying in the website. It felt like an eternity. I finally find myself sitting in front of my computer, staring at the screen that says ‘Enter register number.’ I know I’m just one step away now; just one step away from the greatest achievement of my life. Just one step away from gaining dividends for all my hard work. Just one step away from realizing a dream. I enter my register number, close my eyes, take a moment for a short prayer, open my eyes, take a deep breath and hit the enter key.
Now, I’m greeted by an elegant white screen with my name, date of birth and array of two digit numbers which would apparently determine the fate of my life. With a heavy breath and an indescribable rush of adrenaline, I browse through the page trying to find the column that says ‘overall percentile.’ The few seconds that followed were the longest of my life. When I finally found the percentile column, I saw the text ‘Overall Percentile: 97’ clearly printed in bold black. I rub my eyes and look at the column again. There it was; it was real and it had a dazzling sheen about it. I could almost sense it gleaming at me, as though it wanted to say ‘Congrats dude, you made it.’
I give a huge sigh of relief. With trembling hands, moist eyes and an uncontrollable smile, I scroll down the screen to get more details. At the very bottom of the screen, I find a small orange box with a black background and 3 lines of texts. At the top of the box is a bold black text that reads - Congratulations, you have got calls from the following IIM’s; Call letters would be dispatched shortly.
I cannot forget the contents of the orange box even if I’m subjected to a lifetime of brain-transplants. In bright red font, the 3 lines of the orange box correspondingly read – IIM Bangalore, IIM Indore and IIM Kozhikode. I look at the ceiling, look at the screen and look at the ceiling again; wipe the tears off my eyes, nod and give another huge sigh of relief. I punch the air in joy and exclaim loudly “Yes! I finally made it.”
I’m in complete bliss. Everything is turning out exactly the way I want it to. I know it’s going to be a fantastic day indeed. I want to share my happiness with my friends too. So, I pick my phone up and call a close friend. She picks the call up in just a couple of rings and says “hello.” Her voice sounds oddly distant and her tone sounds horrendously unreal. I ignore and excitedly shout “hey! What are you doing?” Taken aback by the boisterous tone, she cautiously replies “eh, having my coffee. Why do you sound so excited?”
At this exact point, like the bullet hitting the forehead, the arrow hitting the bull’s eye and the final nail hitting the coffin; an invisible force hits me square from the inside, making me realize two things,
1) I haven’t had my coffee yet; the kettle is still on the stove.
2) I don’t even know how to make coffee!
Just like that, the cold in the air fades away, the silence subsides and it doesn’t feel like a fantastic day anymore.
And at that precise moment,
Somewhere between the transitional phase of fantasy and reality, somewhere between a perfect breakfast and a mid-day meal, as the sun shines, the earth spins and a clock tower in a far corner of the city reads 10:15 AM, a strangely familiar yet completely absurd alarm-tune of ‘It’s the time to disco’ goes off my phone, substantiating my worst ever fears.
Damn! It was all a dream.
