A Journey

I compare life with a journey. One cannot find direct transport to the destination sometimes. Then what we do is a break journey. During the break, the time we wait or the risk we take might seem tough increasing the journey time but still we head to our destination. Every journey takes us to a destination based on the path we choose. Here is a story of a Journey.

With the usual introductions, once there lived a boy in a hamlet long ago. He was an ordinary boy without any charisma. He was the first son in a middle class family with absolutely no ancestral property. He was pretty famous for his dashing attire and manners amongst his family. His father was a farmer and his mother used to help him in agriculture. He had 5 siblings.

His father though illiterate wanted his children to study well. He woke his children up before sunrise and made them study under oil lamp. The soot made its way clear into them than education. Still they struggled to satisfy their father as he was strict in the case of Education. The boy was sincere in his work. His level of perfection in the farm work gained appreciations of many. He had to walk 18km to sell farm products and the remuneration he got was Rs.10. He also used to work as daily labour till he completed his schooling. 

He went to the school just to satisfy his father. He was more interested in sports and games than education. He was a mediocre at school. Of all the subjects, he feared English the most as he never reached the decent score level. His teacher who knows all about him called him and asked him to memorize the first line of the first poem in the middle of the term and gave him a week's time. He could never even spell or pronounce a word correctly in his past 6 years of schooling. To memorize almost ten words at a stretch and to recite them in front his teacher before whom he had never uttered a word was going to be an Herculean Task. He tried sincerely and memorized the first line without understanding the meaning. But when he had to recite in front of his teacher, he forgot everything and received good punishment. This was his first failure.

His education was far away from the perfection levels till he wrote SSLC exams. He failed in five subjects out of six with least marks in English( 7 out of 100). Provoked with this failure, he thought of giving all the subjects again. This time he failed in all. He came back to his senses and gave all the subjects again. Devoid of hope, he gave up on education and chose agriculture, the only option left as his career. When the results came, he gave up agriculture as he was going to be in a college!

He always wanted to be a doctor. But he was too innocent and ignorant to know that there were options after secondary school. His teacher joined him in some course and he went to the college.

In his first class, the lecturer asked about students' future plans. When the boy's turn came, he confidently told that he wanted to be doctor. Entire class started laughing. The lecturer asked him why he has chosen HEC (History Economics and Commerce) if he wanted to be a doctor. The boy directly went to the principal and asked him,'Sir, I want to be a doctor and why did you put me in a course which is not meant for it'. The counter question from the principal was,' Did you look at your SSLC marks? If you take three attempts to pass tenth standard, how many attempts will you take to become a doctor?'. With this, he gave up on being a doctor.

During the early days of his Intermediate, District Collector happened to visit his college.He was amused by the way he was received and the way his teachers revered him. He wanted to achieve some such position in life.  The only thing he knew to achieve such a position was to study well. He got to know what real education was, what hard work was and what  struggle was. He learnt 600 pages of his English textbook by heart. He studied dictionary in such a manner that he knew at least 5 words on each side of every page.In Intermediate, he stood first in his district.

Until then, he studied in villages. To pursue his education he must go to the city. He knew that his parents cannot afford his higher education. His real struggle began then. With the same commitment he started his under graduation at Nizam College of Hyderabad. He took a flat there which had only one room. Being the eldest son, he also had to support his brothers' and cousins' education. All 5 of them stayed in the same single room. He purchased only those books which are absolutely necessary in second hand. For the remaining books, he visited book shops in koti, a place where all the book shops are present and studied a chapter standing in each shop. By this time, all his sisters were married. He managed 75% in his graduation.

To continue his education further, he wrote entrance test for M.A. and stood 7th in the state. He was also qualified in B.Ed which was necessary to pursue a career as teacher. Notifications for government teacher posts were usually out at a frequency of once in two years but for lecturer posts, the situation was worse. Still , he chose to become a Lecturer. He got into the university college i.e., Osmania University. Education in Osmania was free of cost including boarding and mess facilities. He could have easily chosen this and continued his education comfortably. But as he also had to support his brothers and cousins, he didn't leave the room where he lived. He had to take tuition classes along with his academics in order to meet the expenses of food and education of all his brothers and cousins staying with him. His struggle fetched him a Gold Medal in M.A. along with qualities like endurance and persistence. He also completed M.Phil in the same University.

Next phase in his life was to get a job. He waited  for 3 years working in private colleges, taking his usual tuitions and preparing for competitive exams meant for lecturers. During the meantime, he cursed himself for not taking B.Ed as the financial conditions worsened and allowed him only to eat rice with pickle. Then came the most awaited notification, a notification for Junior College Lecturer posts. There were 149 posts in his stream i.e., Economics. By then, he was fully equipped. The notes he prepared for references filled his room. He went confidently to the examination hall. There was choice in the paper. So, he carefully chose those questions with mathematical analysis thinking that they would fetch him full marks. He counted the number of questions he had to answer and the number of questions he chose. They matched exactly and he wrote the exam with utmost satisfaction. He was home when he realized that instead of the original question numbers he numbered his answers serially. His anguish knew no limits. At the age of 28, he was still jobless and there was a large family awaiting his support. No one knows when the notification would be out again!

Journey Continued

He was unemployed till he was married at the age of 29 to a government teacher. She was the eldest daughter of  a government teacher and wanted to marry a person, without giving dowry. She got a government job at the age of 18. She rejected many alliances and finally chose him. His employed wife added fuel to the fire of his aim of being a government employee.He still stayed in the same single room along with five others as his wife stayed with her parents in her hometown because of her job. When his wife paid  her first visit to his room, he wanted to change the usual menu of pickle to a delicious dinner with options. For that he had to sell the only gold ring which was a present for his marriage as it was month end.

His self respect stopped him from staying with his wife as he didn't want to be her dependent. He continued to stay in the same room for more notifications to be out and preparing at the same time. He took his first failure in the competitive exam as his main source of inspiration. He prepared sincerely with increased effort. He knew no time, no hunger while studying. Thus he gained immense command on his subject. But, he didn't know for how many years he was going to work like that without knowing when his hard work would be rewarded. As he waited long, his burdens increased and his hope faded. He was frustrated more when there was no notification even in the year he was married. And the next year he also had a daughter to manage.

There came the occasion of his daughter's cradle ceremony in his wife's hometown. There was not even a single penny left in his hands. One of his well settled sisters wanted to gift some gold to the new born baby. He asked her not to gift the baby anything and give him the money as substitute. His sister who knew everything gave Rs.800 to him. With that money, he took his brothers and sisters to his wife's hometown bearing all their bus fares along with a frock to the newborn.

He waited and waited with increased despair. He lost all his hope. He had faced the worst phase financial crisis possible and peaks of people's embarrassment during his long wait for 4 years after his first attempt. He was totally frustrated when the notification came again, this time for degree college lecturers. But there were only two posts in his stream for the whole state. His hard work knew no bounds and his frustration, at the same time knew no limits. He was supposed to give two papers on the same day with lunch break in between. He gave his first paper and decided not to judge anything. In the break, he met an old friend who was in the same situation. Both of them shared their agonies. Unable to bear anything anymore, they went to a bar. They came back to write the second paper. After he finished the second paper, he had a very good feeling that his paper went very well. But he was unable to trust his feeling because of his hang over. When he mentioned about his visit to the bar to his wife, his wife was recklessly angry and was immersed in deep sorrow. Then he realized how irresponsibly he behaved. That was it. He now had to kill his desire of being a government lecturer as he would be over aged next year for any government job!

He now concentrated on continuing his career as lecturer in private institutions. He forgot all about the exam and its results. He came to know about the results through his fellow lecturer who also gave the exam but didn't manage to get through. He was initially afraid to check the results. He prepared for the worst and then went through the result. He was startled and happy as well to find his number. The next phase was personal interviews.

He came to know that a professor from the panel of interview for his stream stayed close to his vicinity. He met the professor and asked him about the pattern of the interview. Professor just said 'Be confident about whatever you are and whatever you know' and asked him to leave. He went to the interview. He knew all the answers of the questions asked by the panel. He was asked to demonstrate a topic. He demonstrated it with ease. He would demonstrate any topic with ease as teaching has become his passion by then. But he was surprised to find the professor, he met silent during the whole interview. Next day he met the same professor and enquired about his performance. The professor just said ,' I don't know where you stand in written exam. But, you stand first in the interviews'. He didn't remember how he thanked the professor. He didn't remember how he reached home. For the first time in the life, he felt like floating in the air. When the final results came, obviously he stood first in the state. Out of two posts, he grabbed one. His long interim break of 7 years finally came to an end!

Now, he coaches students for M.A. entrance exam every year and the top rankers would be undoubtedly his students. He was selected as one of authors for Telugu Academy textbooks for intermediate which were published in the year 2010. He now earns more than twice the earnings of his wife. He is revered by all his students as their favourite professor. He now stands as a respectable personality in the society. He is an all time learner. He never forgot the principles that placed him in his present position- sincerity, punctuality and hard work. He describes any journey as an appropriate combination of objective, vision and mission.

Success and failure are two imposters in life. A most strenuous journey is destined to yield the sweetest possible results.

He is my father and inspiration begins at home! :-)