Being Exchanged!

The cognition

It was, if I remember correctly, the second day when I was staying in IIT, when I went for this Inter-hostel Faccha Quiz (Those were glorious times, when facchas were treated as facchas, and not as petty, minute touch-me-not plants that will curl even if you call their name) and I met this guy, dressed up pretty formally in a shirt, with trousers et al and I found out he was going to go on something called an Exchange Program, and would be back the next sem or the next year. And it wasn't till nearly an year later that I found out what criteria govern a student's selection for the same - And it would be futile to mention, that as everything in IIT, what I heard the first time was only partially correct-if at all it was.

The relation

The true information, somehow, crept through and come January of this year, I was looking forward to applying for this much coveted, much longed for (atleast for me) title of an Exchangy. Hence, time came for filling the form for the same. And I was told, "You need to clear this, after this, its just the interview-woh tu kar lega". And then followed the exploration of my past, the process of digging deep into my memories and the pile of papers kept at my home, recollecting all that I had done in my life worth mentioning on a form with space and size restrictions, filling and refilling THE form, getting it cross-checked and cross-referenced- all just to 'clear this'. 

The anticipation

Its in verity that people say, "Everyone in IIT is lazy." So how long would a process of going through 50 forms to pick the best 25 last? 1 day? 2 days? 3 days? Well, it took 3 weeks, and they picked the best-wait for it-50!! Hence, 3 weeks the sombre pieces of paper were waiting : waiting for someone to just take a look at them-after they had been very thoughtfully filled and refilled and refilled and refilled and refilled-but it wasn't to be.

So, on the date mentioned, we 50 exchange hopefuls queued up outside the dean's office, hoping we would all be 'interviewed' and it would be done before 1 or 2 in the night. And then came the law of averages-We were provided one wish, the other-Ughhh!! Hence, by 8, when the process was finished (The one wish we had been provided), 15 of us had been interviewed (Ughhh!!) "The rest tomorrow"- They said that day, and the next day. And, all this time, there was this shadow of POLTU looming all over us. (which is a topic much beyond the scope of this article) 

The result also successfully upheld the IIT tradition-by keeping getting delayed and by succeeding to be spread around as a rumour everyday. And when it did come, there was still the element of disbelief-not because I had been selected, but because the result was indeed OUT. 

The conclusion

So, after 3 months of intense, poltu-ridden, unadulterated, red-tape governed, slow-as-a-snail drama (involving interviews, delayed interviews, even more delayed interviews and the always-in-the-pipeline-but-never-actually-showing-up result), the news came out and I was to be, well, an Exchangy, and surprisingly, and not so surprisingly, I didn't actually jump with joy. (The jump could have shown itself had it all fittingly ended with someone with a mic and drums saying  "Aaj ki taaza khabar..aaj ki taaza khabar")

(More exchange related stuff to come soon..)