National Defence Academy:Part 2

Four days of selection and screening followed.. Cant recall how many exams I wrote.. None of them were very difficult or brain storming...Majority needed quick thinking and action. Like writing a story about a displayed picture in 3 minutes, Writing a complete sentence with a displayed word in half a minute, 60 such words attempted continously..etc etc. Once I put myself in the arena, I started enjoying the schedule. Early getup and Fall Inn, regular meals, TV and TT during breaks, Mysore City roaming etc were fun, particularly when there were people from all parts of India with me. Just like wherever i went, we formed a gang pretty soon. Me,Shon, Lygin, Lygin's friend from Kollam( Sorry man, I forgot ur name), Hari, KP, Jayadevan etc...

After 2 more days of classroom activities, we moved out to the physical part of the SSB. Oops! I really din want that to happen. Even in those days, I looked very athletic and fit, but I was very poor as far as the physical standards were considered. Initially we had group tasks, where a group of 8 had to perform some physical tasks. Again a smaller group where each one leads a team of 3 to some other task. Managed to overcome all those somehow. then came the worst part. Individual task test.

10 obstacles.. each one carrying as much point as the number of the item..Hope it makes it clear, the easiest one is No:1 and the most difficult one No:10. Once you finish all of them you are allowed to repeat any of the 10 items untill yur stipulated time of 3 min run out.

The officer started calling our numbers. Guys from military schools and all were bzzy finishing the 10 items and repeating the 10th one[ A 15 foot rope to climb up and down]... Even I started with full Josh....One.....Two.....Three.... Four... Five.. Si..err... Six wasnt that easy.. tried two more time but no use. I just glanced through the rest four items. Being a realistic and practical guy, I returned to the officer. He asked me to continue since I had more than one minute left. But i called it a quit. On our way to candidate mess, guys were discussing the points they scored. Happened to know that 95 was the max scored and overall average was almost 40. Guess, how much I scored? Better Calcualte it! When i said Fifteen, everyone replied" Fifty? tahts a good score man" . Once I corrected, majority gave me a kind of a weird look. They might have thought that I am bluffing them.. ha ha....

Then came the Personal Interview... I had with me only a sports shoes and some really freak shirts... Afterall, i was not at all planning to stay there for more than a couple of days.. So, I dressed up myself in a very informal attire for the personal interview. But my friend from Kollam, was shouting at me about my dress code. He forced me to wear a full sleeves of his, and to use the REd Tape shoes of his for the interview. Poor me, never knew or cared to know all this.... Interview was my best show in the whole SSB i think... The person who interviewed me was a very senior Officer, a Lt Colonel I think.. He was very cordial and friendly.. After enquiring about my academic history so far, he asked me to say about my district<>, about my daily routine etc. Then he asked me about my views on LTTE issue in SriLanka... I took my time to pour out whatever I know abt the matter. He seemed to be happy with it. Then came the Pak issue. Again I managed a fair response. Finally he asked me if I had any questions. I asked him about the frequent MIG crashes and he patiently assured me its not just because of the defective planes, its because of the careless pilots also. And he concluded saying that " Jose, we need smart pilots like you".. WOW! I enjoyed that.. he he......[2 be contd...]

PS: Me details will remain in the military records as No:32,M-NDA 6082,No:2 AFSB, Mysore for ever and ever......