My Mahatma Gandhi moment :-p

There are some things which you know shouldn't be done; but sometimes, maybe in the heat of the moment or due to a rush of blood to the head, you do them. Today, I'm ashamed to say, I did something like that. The venue was National High School, the protocol - IMS simcat number 3. The attitude of the test takers in my room suggested that whenever one sits for a simcat, it's one's inherent right to talk (loudly) during the examination. Probably it doesn't occur to most of the test takers that there may be some people who are really slugging it out, all by themselves, and that these kind of aliens may be sitting in the SAME room as them. Obviously, these aliens/freaks/maniacs, (whichever way you put it) who are taking the mock test quite seriously and trying hard to concentrate (now how can that be the right thing to do ?), can do with some silence. Add to that a hapless invigilator who thinks that it is more important to entertain himself by listening to his favourite numbers on his funky mobile phone than....err....invigilating (isn't that his job ??). He made no effort to cut out the continuous humming noise that was proving to be very distracting. This encouraged the people who had started talking from the very first minute of the commencement of the examination. Naturally, they showed no signs of relenting. There were people in the first bench, right under the invigilator's nose, talking, discussing, smiling, snickering, gasping and doing God-knows-what. Everything was okay with our friendly invigilator.

For two hours I tried hard to concentrate, occasionally placed my palms over my ears, told myself things like "adversities-come-tough-people-overcome-them". It was difficult, very difficult, but I was hanging on. Then it happened. For some unknown reason, the invigilator went out out of the room (probably he had more important business to attend to outside). The pandemonium that started, after his departure, lasted for a full 3 minutes. At that time I had been tending to the English section, my weak-link. For a full 3 minutes, I could do nothing but stare blankly at the blackboard. I could feel the rage building up inside me, slowly but surely. I was quite serious about taking this simcat. I had meticulously planned how I'm going to tackle this exam. All had gone haywire now, due to the irresponsible joker who had been asked to invigilate in my room. I won't blame the loquacious examinees ( for most of them, a simcat is all about getting good marks so that later they can show off to their friends - " Look! I got a 90+ percentile" which would mean that he/she is very intelligent and people should show more respect towards them. This is not the purpose of a MOCK test).

For 3 minutes, I felt like I was sitting in a packed Eden Gardens, and Ganguly was coming out to bat ( if you slightly exaggerated the noise level that prevailed in that room, it would come to that ). Then, he entered ( the joker, i mean ), wearing a beatific smile on his face. My fuse blew. I couldn't take it anymore. Purple with rage, my ears blowing out steam, my eyes almost popping out of their sockets, and wearing the most vicious expression I was capable of, I shouted, " Isn't it your duty to maintain silence in an examination hall ? Don't you think there's too much talking going on right now ? Humlog yaha mazaak karne ke liye aye hai kya ?? ". A few suppressed laughters were heard, but mostly, everyone in the room ( including me ) were stunned by this out-of-the-blue tirade . The person at the receiving end didn't reply, but thereafter he made a conscious effort to maintain some peace for the remaining 30 minutes. Maybe he'd realized his mistake or maybe he was stunned. I don't know. What I do know is that I had gone over the top. That was rude, very much so; I couldn't remember anytime in my life when I'd been worse. That was the worst of me. Shouting at other people, behaving rudely, being confrontational doesn't serve any purpose whatsoever. All it did was to leave a bad taste in my mouth. I was left feeling bad for the rest of the day. Okay, it is justified to be angry at what had transpired in that examination hall over the 2 hours. It is also justified to have a few stern words with the invigilator because clearly, he was being irresponsible. But there is a proper manner to do it, more so because I'd like to think of myself as an educated person with some manners. My idea was right, my execution was horribly wrong.
As usual, I managed to mess up the examination too, so that didn't help. My day was ruined. I had made a fool of myself.

On face value, this action of rude behaviour seems to make miserable, to various extents for different persons, the life of the person at the receiving end. The big picture, however, suggests something quite contrary to this. When you are rude to other people, you are actually being rude to YOURSELF. You are making your own life miserable. The other person has the advantage of avoiding you in the future, thus ensuring no such unwarranted brickbats from you. Or it may happen that the person doesn't come across you ever again. But how can you avoid yourself ? You cannot run away from yourself, your conscience.

Obviously, the lesson learnt : don't be rude to people. Baapu tussi great ho !! :-)