Talk of costly misses ...

This weekend has been bliss - I have been lazing around, going for rides in cars, walking by the river side, taking a lot of snaps and cracking a truck load of poor jokes (and thankfully having a company of those who laugh for even those!). Went over to heidelberg (again!) and clicked a couple of snaps - a fascination I carry from the days of INSEAD (thanks to prashanth and chaith) - one of these days, I will make a list of things that have stuck to me since my days in INSEAD. Anyways, as with the agenda set previously .... I have yet another anecdote from my BITSian days.

Let me name my protagonist Mr.X (sounds spooky!) coz at the time of narration of this incident, X's parents weren't aware of this little truth I am going to tell you - I am not sure how far and long the story has traveled by now. Yet, for the sake of my word that's now caught cobwebs - Omerta! About Mr.X, if I ever have to make a list of 10 guys in my peer generation that I am a great fan of, he will be one of them. One of the most intelligent, responsible and poised gentlemen I have ever met. Having been in BITS, I have seen a lot of brainy chaps. But rarely have I met someone in whom the intelligence had transformed itself to a completeness of character and virtue. I haven't met a single guy who hated X - he was such an admirable amul baby!

So, our X, intelligent and focussed that he is aspired for the IITs and gave the preps his best shot. He was voted a sure-shot winner and a sizeable population in chennai expected him to join the elite bunch of engineers. The exams got over, he told everyone that he's done well but finally when the results were out, he didn't make it. X took it in his stride, applied for BITS and finally scraped in as a late entry. First year, as he was expected to - he cracked the courses out of shape (this, I realise is a very bitsian term :-). Late in the second year (which incidentally was when I came to know him), we were all sitting on a saturday evening in one of the rooms in our wing and one of us asked X how did he manage not to get into the IITs. He gave a half smile and remained silent ... "you know, I have never told this to anybody. I had indeed done all my papers well in the IIT entrance. But only after coming out of the exam hall after I finished my physics paper did I realise that I hadn't written my roll number in the answer sheet. But nothing could be done about it then". No one in the room could believe their ears. Every year probably a million students work for 2 years to get into the IITs. Here he is, equipped with all that is needed out of someone to make it and he FORGOT to write his ROLL Number. I would have died out of remorse had I done something like that when I was 17. And I would have at least cribbed about it, every second day in the 3rd month, every year! But he, He never talked about it to anyone till that very second. After that incident, I never heard him mention it even in passing to anyone. For him, probably, it was a closed chapter and life had to move on. Probably when looked at from a higher perspective, it's probably a trivial miss that makes sense later. I have to add that he went on to do respectably well in 4 years in BITS, made a job, a dream job for many in BITS, talking about Bhagavad gita for half an hour and is doing amazingly well there. One word --- Composure.