Man Up

And I Got It !

        "Number 678.. " Mr. anchor was seeming a little frustrated after speaking continuously 600 to 678 numbers one by one.. but it was his duty to shout out loudly on that poorly working mic which was in his hands since 2 hours.

           I and my father were attending my first counselling programme held by B.J.Medical college in its campus situated in ahmedabad. I had dreamt that day many times and that was the day I had been waiting in my 3 months summer vacation when I could finally choose my future. So, as it sounds, I was more than happy when my number was spoken on mic.

          "Come father, it's my turn." I collected all my documents necessary for the admission process and went straight to the officials sitting on their comfortable chairs in front of more than 300 students. They were wearing formals so that they could be easily differentiated from our parents.

          10 students per round were permitted to go further. I had to submit all the documents including my 12th result and school leaving certificate and after then I could go upstairs when there was a room with 20 computers through which we had to select our college. I had already made my mind to choose GMERS medical college in vadodara city because of two reasons. (1) because it had minimum fees compared to other private colleges and (2) because it was the nearest from my hometown - Surat ,at a distance of 130 kilometers by train. So, there was no doubt about choosing it. And I did the same.

          That was the best moment for me after sweating for 3 hours in hot summer afternoon without air conditioning system.  I didn't realize that one of my future friends, Milind was there standing two steps ahead of me as his number was 676 .
              But this is how life works. No one knows where it is going to take us but still we have to go forward ,and sometimes a not so important moment we are ignoring now can be emerged as one of the best memories of our life.

          "So, what's now?" My father was clueless about my admission process. He was there because it was necessary for him to be there.

          "We shall check my college once." I said. "I chose it because it looked the best option but we didn't check it before. " I was very excited to see that college.

          Then we took a bus to vadodara. I had never visited vadodara before. It usually takes 1 hour on the express highway from Ahmedabad to vadodara so I had an hour long enough to imagine about campus.

         And as soon as we started that journey, my mind started to imagine the big campus, huge college building and gigantic general hospital with a ton of patients waiting in a long line for their turn. I had no clue about anything regarding my college and that was what making me more eager to reach there as soon as possible.

          "Vadodara." The bus conducter shouted as vadodara bus station came. We gathered our bags and step down. It was vadodara bus station. An old, quit dirty one compared to Surat and Ahmedabad bus stations but it had more traffic . It was looking like a historical one. All we knew was that we had to reach Gotri area.

          "Excuse me, we want to go at T.B.hospital in gotri area."
We called a rickshaw. My college is known as "T.B. Hospital" because once upon a time, there was a cabin  for checking up tuberculosis patients on the same ground where the current  college building is situated. So, people know it as T.B hospital for that reason. Though now it has a board of "GMERS medical college and general hospital" , people still know it by the former one.
 
          "Yes, 170 rupees for two people. " the rickshaw driver replied us after staring us for some time . He must knew by our behaviour that we were new in the city and that's why he asked for that whooping amount.

         "I have already checked brother . It is 2-3 kms away from this station. And nobody in this country takes 170 rs. for 3 kms." I didn't hesitated once and started checking for other rickshaw.

          For some time, we stood there to see if some hope still remained but it was a bad luck for us. After 15-20 minutes, a gentleman asked us to visit a nearby local city bus station to check if a bus was available and we had no opinions other than going there. We inquired there and hopefully found a bus to college and to our surprises, ticket was only 11 rupees each which was almost 10 times less than the rickshaw. 

          I understood how important it is to wait for some hope. As soon as the bus arrived , we found our seats and started exploring the roads of the city.

          I was the only one out of 11 boys and 29 girls of our 12th standard batch to join a MBBS college, for that, once I thought I was a very lucky person. But it all was again a hurting scene when I thought how unlucky I was to not be able to join a government college. I missed the chance by a mere 30 numbers. If I had achieved 641 merit number then I could have been in a government MBBS college with negligible fees but now as I was in a private one, my father had to pay 2,50,000 /- per year excluding hostel and mess fees.

         My father worked as a manager in diamond factory but his income was not enough to pay all of my fees . For that, he started looking for a student loan. He never told me  'no' to any of my wishes. He might had less rupees that time, but he never made us feel the same . I knew I had the best blessings of God as my parents. They were the reason I never looked back while achieving my dreams . I was overwhelmed while thinking all of these and suddenly, the bus stopped and my father woke me up !

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