Four years of life in an engineering college with less than a 10% sex ratio, and with virtually no female population to dedicate roses to, what do poor souls like us do on Valentines day?
Clearly, no other option..
Feb 10th : Another normal day in engineering student life. The day for my GATE exam, one of those life-turning, career-deciding all-important situations in life. GATE (I can only guess it means graduate ability test examination or something better) is literally the gateway to higher studies (Masters) in India's premier colleges, like IISc or IITs.
So what does a core branch-loving electrical engineer student like myself, whose ambition in engineering life is to make use of his earned engineering skills to develop his country's electrical power sector do? 
Excuse me, but did anyone say "Prepare for GATE..." ? Take a look at that small book on the right, and you will know why not.
So I woke up on the 10th morning, deciding whether or not to write. It would be an adventure, the bolder part of me said. It'll be complete murder, the scaredy cat part insisted. Finally the part that won was fear of momma's scoldings..: "What are you doing when youre' supposed to be writing a career changing exam..Why did u not prepare.. 900 Rupees gone waste.. What has college done to you.. blah blah blah..". So, washed n dressed up, I got into our jeep with as much resentment as my fellow GATE-attempters Naren and AK. I recalled the previous night, when I had, inspite of my staunch decision to do nothing but nerd off for the exam, played Badminton till my bones started creaking at 11 pm. Then Computer Games (Dota, specifically) till around 3 am. Then went around asking anyone who was awake to wish me luck, cos that was the only thing I would have for the exam.
And then this strange confidence crept into my mind.. the confidence of somebody who has nothing to lose..4-1 negative marking scheme, 85 qs in 3 hours, i decided upon all gods that i was going to leave GATE to luck and attempt every single question on a guess-atleast basis.
The center was Guruvayurappan college- a very beautiful place, really
. I have put some of the pics here. It was worth coming here for a tour trip if not an exam. The scenery would provide enough timepass during the exam. Since we had nothing to do but burn an hour, we had breakfast in the canteen, then proceeded to our halls.
Three hours later : Satisfaction pours out all over me. The GATE paper looked like it was meant to be done unprepared. Any minute of preparation over it would have been a loss. I had attempted all except 2 questions in the paper, needless to say consisting of n number of guesses (n generally tends to infinity for some unexplained rule in engineering), ie 83/85 qs. The paper tested only concepts, which luckily the 'efficient' Electrical Dept had succeeded in drilling into us.
Hence that satisfaction of a guy who has gained something for nothing.
Mathematically put,
Efficiency = output/input = k/0 = infinity.
The rest of the day was celebration. going around the scenic place taking photos, finding new shortuts to get to the road and getting lost, taking photos with the largest on-campus statue in India (in Guruvayurappan college)- its that poor girl you see on the right reading a book (hopefully not Gate)in candlelight
. We reached back in time to catch the match (I was getting uncontrollably worried about it during the exam)- and as if in reply to our mood, India made wonders beating Australia by 5 wickets.
Lets hope luck still believes in second chances. Or else who cares, it was just another enjoyable day of college life...
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