JEE result day

Today, I recall another stupid and shockingly happy day of my life.. a day I shall never forget! This was the day of result of JEE exam in year 1999. Ya ya I know it's such a beaten theme but it is an important day mann.

I was sitting in IIIT-Allahabad exam on the day and I had no hopes of clearing anything else. In the middle of it, I got so restless that I was willing to leave that exam and go check result of JEE. I remember, one was not permitted to leave exam in middle. I fought with examiner. I fought with Principal.. and who not. Finally, after half an hour of fight, I was let out. I had just my sure chance of getting into something go just to check result of a practically proven failure. This should give you an idea of how mad I was to see the result.

I reached the JEE office straight away. There was this more than 100 ppl crowd totally covering a 5ft by 3 ft board having all the JEE results. I could not cut through this dense crowd. Finally, unwillingly, I handed over my roll number to a tall uncle to check. He replied positive! I got more energy to cross check. I could not cut through. I gave it to another guy. He also replied positive. This time I had to get in. I cut through to get right in the front. Ppl kept abusing me, but it had to be done.

Finally, I did not find my roll number in the clearing list. Those two buggers had checked it wrong. I checked result 5-6 times from different positions. But it was always the same. :-( Negative. I felt defeated and came out accepting it. I was expecting it anyway.

After some half an hour of mourning, I went back to check again. Crowd was a bit thinner now. It was still not there. Then I noticed that a guy I know, who had to clear it at any cost, was also missing. It was so silly. JEE could not fail him. Now I also noticed that roll number indexing had been done row wise not columnwise as I was reading it!

Hell!!!!!!!!!!!

I checked rowwise and I was there..!! At a rank higher than I could imagine myself getting. I literally sat down. This was the first news of my life that had put me under such a shock. I sat there in legs of the crowd for some 10 minutes. I did not have anything left to get up.

People came to console me thinking that I had failed so in shock :p. Then they slowly realised the truth having checked my roll number and gave me hand. I got up with support. They even clapped for me man!!

I had no words. I could not identify a single feeling I had. They were changing so fast.

Then, when I called up home, they already knew! I felt so stupid again to not have cross checked with them before. They would never make mistake in this.
God has these funny ways of making one feel stupid even when at top of the world!!