College Woes

After scoring a little beyond my expectations (my preparation was so bad, I expected something around 60%. Mom expected me to fail miserably. I scored 82%... not bad, eh?) in my ISC exams, I was left with the momentous task finding a suitable college to get into. Of course, my one-year-old dream was to get into NUJS, the most reputed law college in Kolkata and someday, become someone like Tom Cruise in “A few good men”. It still is my dream (surprise! For those who know me well), and I want to pursue it next year. For those wondering why I’m skipping this year… well, I’m not skipping it. Being a lazy git that I am, I simply wasn’t informed enough about the timing of the test this year and… I missed it! So I decided to get into an English honours course this year, and go for NUJS in 2008.

My college hunt started comfortably enough, with the Xavier’s application being a walk in the park… to put it precisely, twenty minutes at the cyber café and payment of 175 bucks at the counter of a nearby bank. That was it! The online bit went smoothly enough when I applied for Presidency as well. The hiccup came when I went to pay the money at the college. I was greeted by a one-mile long queue that threatened to detain me till the end of the world. Well, the line moved fast enough and I succeeded in applying to Presidency, the most famous college of Eastern India.

I also planned to apply to Jadavpur University, and hoped to get into either Xavier’s, Presidency or Jadavpur (given in order of preference). But the Jadavpur application turned out to be the worst-possible experience. The strive for minute details in the application form was too annoying for anyone, and I only managed to fulfill their every childish detail barely hours from the deadline. I also needed a demand draft of 50 bucks. The funny thing was (well, life is funny), I had to pay 57 bucks to the bank for getting a demand draft worth 50 bucks.

Now, as a back-up, I also applied to Asutosh College, a well-known and historically enriching college in the heart of South Kolkata. I’m glad I applied here… because in the end…

The Presidency College had an entrance test scheduled on the 13th. Now, I’m not superstitious… and I certainly don’t believe in 13 being unlucky (In fact, I was born on July the 13th). So, when I missed the test thanks to a nasty bit of rain that flooded the city for a couple of days, I blamed it on… no one, for a change. The weird part was, many braved the torrents to reach the college and give the exam that day, among them a good friend of mine. But when I missed the JU entrance test, I had no one to blame but myself. As you might have expected, I didn’t get it in Xavier’s 1st list either (Waiting for the 2nd, but non-too-hopeful). It was probably because of the low best-of-five percentage, because I scored a cool 92 in English, the subject I wish to study.

So with all guns exhausted, I’m heading for Asutosh. I was a little depressed for a couple of days, but then I braced myself. Studying in Asutosh has its advantages. Like its proximity to the best malls and hang-out places of the city, including the likes of Forum, Nandan etc. It’s really well-connected as it has a metro station merely 100 feet away. And I plan to make good use of it.

Signing off,
Jagannath Chakravarti (Jesse)