"Show me the Financial Summary for the last quarter", said the PD in his usual German accent. Ram Lal was up for it. He had thoroughly prepared his reports and that showed in the praise he got at the end of the review. In spite of all the eulogizing, Ram was not thrilled. He had received an SMS 30 minutes back and the message was titillating his mind. The list for Admissions to IMI had been released. Ram was sure he would make the list but that tiny hint of a doubt had led to countless sleepless nights for him. He opened the website and entered his ID and waited... The wait was endless. And when it finally ended, the entire world crashed in front of him. He missed the cut by 1 mark. Heart break for him. 6 months of struggle turned futile. His throat choked and a sinking feeling set in.
"AGAIN?". The only word that blocked his thoughts that night. He remembered the day he had finally decided to start preparing for MBA entrance exams. It was August and Ram Lal had just finished with Number Systems. The only thing he could talk of was the divisibility tests and how he had made short cuts for the ever so hated numbers(13, 17, 19). If ever he stopped talking about the numbers, newly learnt words used to become the topic of scrutiny. This went on for 3 months when finally he had the exam. The exam wasn't up to his expectations but he was satisfied. Two more exams soon followed, one of which went pretty awesome.
Now all the results were out and he had cleared none of them. When such trends take surface, a guy should go through a phase of retrospection & introspection and move on. But Ram wasn't ready for this phase right now. He was devastated. He had missed all the lists by a very small margin. He kept cursing every related thing. His bad luck, the examination process, the marking schemes, the education policy in the country, the love affair between Shane Warne and Liz Hurley, absolutely nothing escaped his wrath..
New ideas popped up in his mind. Ram now wanted to be an IAS officer or XEn in state electricity board. The very brilliant idea of Going back to his hometown and opening a Coaching Center also crossed his mind. None of these actually took face though. He got busy in his present job and for once forgot about his future. This was the time when he finally lived his life to the fullest. A life changing revelation hit him. All his worries about his future, his results had made him a boring creature just passing his days. Everything had become monotonous, so robotic. He now knew what he wanted to do in his life. He could so clearly see his future now, so bright, so clear, so full of happiness.
10 years later, Ram Lal sat in his Cholla Bhatura shop in his hometown expertly counting his day's income. He was the most famous cholla wala of the place and was respected in the region like God. Every father wanted to marry his daughter to him. Life could not have been any better. He had lost all hope some years back when he dint make it to a college.. All he blabbered then was "So close Yet so far" (haath ko aaya , mooh na laga). Today, sitting in the balcony of his bungalow, he laughed thinking of those idiotic days. "What a fool Ram Lal was".
